Various and Sundry: Now Everything But Photography

So let’s get this straight:

Album sales hit a new record low last week, when less than 5,000,000 albums were sold. It’s only the second time that’s happened since SoundScan started tracking music sales in 1991. The other time it happened was, of course, earlier this year.

But don’t worry! The RIAA and the radio industry have your back! They have solutions! This is not a problem.

First, they want Congress to mandate that FM radio tuners are put into all mobile devices. Because, you know, Congress has nothing better to do. This, they assume, will broaden their audience, who will happily pass up all the pre-recorded music on their mobile device — which the RIAA will shortly be suing them for, as we all know it’s mostly pirated — to listen to ads on the local radio stations with bad transmission signals.

By the way, this isn’t something they’re trying to sneak through Congress. It’s not like this is couched in anti-terrorism wording or anything. It’s a naked, shameless, desperate appeal for government intervention in the free market.

While they’re at it, they’re demanding that net neutrality (or the lack thereof) includes anti-piracy measures. No, one has absolutely nothing to do with the other, but has there ever been a hot topic the RIAA hasn’t attempted to press for its own advantage? Wait, this one gets better. They’re pairing up anti-piracy efforts with child pornography. That’s right: The RIAA wants any net neutrality legislation to be sure to include exceptions for piracy and child porn. because, you know, they’re of equal measures.

If it wasn’t so painfully tacky, it would almost be funny.

The RIAA will be needing a fundraiser for all this lobbying. If I were you, I’d be expecting a knock on the door from one of their lawyers. You need to be sued for file sharing. (You have an MP3 paying device, right? They think that’s filled with pirated materials.) Doesn’t matter if you did it or not. They can always extort money from you just to get them to go away.

The only hitch is that the lawyers usually make more. Earlier this year it was reported that the RIAA lawyers made $16,000,000 suing music lovers to recoup $391,000 for “lost sales” from piracy.

I don’t listen to much music anymore, to be honest. I’m past the age of 30, so my tastes have solidified. My music days are behind me. I listen to podcasts, or iTunes or Amazon MP3 Store-purchased songs on my iPhone or computer when I need some background music. The RIAA can do whatever they want and it won’t affect me directly.

But, darn, they’re fun to watch trip over their own shoes.

I wasn’t able to get a photo credential to the show, but I didn’t really try, either. My efforts were limited to a desperate Hail Mary attempt on Twitter the night before. Surprisingly, a Wiggles publicist responded, letting me know that the Wiggles shows are camera friendly, so it wouldn’t be a problem. Oh, and Anthony seems to have shaved his head on tour and we haven’t seen that back in Australia yet, so if you get a pic of that, could you pass it over?

I love Twitter.

Not that I didn’t believe her, but we all know the hassles of concert security these days. Looking on IZODCenter.com, the home page for the concert venue, I saw that cameras which were “small” and “nonprofessional” were allowed in. Technically, Canon doesn’t think my camera is professional-level, nor is any of my glass of the white variety of “L” lens. (I am not eligible for Canon Professional Services on any level, so I proudly claim amateur status here.)

I hedged my bets and attached my tiny 50mm lens to the front of my camera, took off the battery grip to make it smaller, and slung it around my neck to get through the front gates. I couldn’t look like more of a point-and-shoot father that way.

The funny thing is, the concert had NO security. Maybe they didn’t want to waste time searching all those diaper bags coming through the door. (I hid my telephoto zoom lens at the bottom of the diaper bag.) Maybe they figure it’s a small kids’ concert, so who’d want to bother?

I’m not sure whether to be grateful for this, or scared, to tell you the truth.

But I was able to attach my long lens, sit back in my seat, and take pics through the whole concert without anyone looking at me twice. At one point, I think Anthony was pointing at me, but I can’t prove that. Odds are better there was a kid with a sign sitting behind me that I didn’t know about.

And, yes, Anthony’s head was shaved clean. At separate points in the concert, Captain Feathersword punctuated the point, referring to Anthony as Daddy Warbucks and Jean-Luc Picard.

Tomorrow: Equipment concerns

The Wiggles ride in on their Big Red Car

Do not watch their television show.
 
It’s that simple.  From the conversations I’ve had with people who don’t like the Wiggles, the one thing I notice about them is that they had to sit through endless loops of the TV series, which is a cheap green screen affair that’s soul-crushing to adults.  Kids eat it up, but adults want to grind their teeth.
 
Here’s the trick: Ignore the TV show and buy the two concert movies.  Just enjoy them for the music and the theatrics of the live stage.
 
Yeah, that’s right: The Wiggles are a Live Band, not an Album Band.
 
Coming soon: Lots of photography lessons learned from photographing a Wiggles concert.

Wiggles Big Big Show Concert DVD

 

I have to give the music industry credit. They continuously find new ways to make themselves look like jerks. That has to be tough to do on a weekly deadline, yet they manage.

Good job, ASCAP!

ASCAP is demanding a licensing fee from a venue that has the video game Guitar Hero for people to play.

I love music concerts. Don’t go to them, don’t particularly like going to them but there’s nothing better than a well-produced concert DVD or television special.

Now, iTunes has joined up with Live Nation to offer a bunch of them, either audio or video.  The thought of going through the Apple TV to download and watch a random concert is kinda cool.  I just hope they have an artist or two in there that I’m interested in.

Speaking of live music, O.A.R.’s next release is “Rain or Shine,” due out in January, with a two disc concert album.  You can buy a special limited edition version of it, too, with a ton of extra goodies for about three times the price, too.

A series of concerts from 2007 working towards their “Accelerate” album is now coming to CD.

Quoting Rolling Stone:

“. . . the highlights from the five shows will be featured on the upcoming double-disc set Live at the Olympia, due out October 27th.

“In addition to the 39 tracks from the show, a deluxe version of Olympia will feature concert and backstage footage from French director Vincent Moon.”

Sounds good to me!

Weezer announced on MySpace a couple weeks back that their seventh studio album is due out October 27th.

There you go — proof that someone out there is still using MySpace.

Also, proof that comments on major blogs and social sites are just doomed:  “Hope this one’s actually good…”  Wow, THERE’S a fan for you, Weezer.

No, not the band — the store in Wayne, NJ that the band took its name from.  It might be closing.

Or it might not.  They closed for the day. Nobody knows what’s going on.  Sad.  That place is a local legend.

What’s going on north of the border in music land?

First, INXS dumps J.D. Fortune, the winner of “Rock Star: INXS.”  JD has returned to his homeland, broke and homeless.  Turns out, he developed a wee cocaine habit while on the road.  You don’t want to do that with a band like INXS, after the troubles their last front man had with the white powdery stuff.

More sadly, Barenaked Ladies’ co-lead singer, Steven Page, has left the group. They say it’s a mutual decision and that he wants to pursue solo projects and acting.  C’mon, that’s like a politicians retiring to “spend more time with family” just before the indictments are handed down or the hidden documents suddenly appear on the front page of the Washington Post.

BNL is set to record and release an album without Page this year, with a tour planned for the end of the year.  It’ll be weird hearing certain songs sung by Ed Roberts, but I imagine they’ll give it a try.

Someone please go check on Bryan Adams.  I’m worried for him.

If you view only one YouTube video today, let it be “All Music Is The Same Four Chords.”

I’m guessing many of those songs are from British music, and not that I’m completely out of touch.  But it is riveting to hear how many memorable songs use the same chord progression.

Who doesn’t love the movie orchestration of John Williams?  Isn’t it time someone composed an ode to him?  Say that person did four part a capella harmony by himself using Williams’ tunes with “Star Wars”-related lyrics.  God bless YouTube.  (I can’t get “Kiss a wookie” out of my head now.)

If that’s not good enough for you, perhaps 64 part a capella for “Thriller?”

Or four part Super Mario 2 a capella?

Maybe the MacGyver theme song a capella? It’s pretty awful, though the kazoo almost saves it.

How about three part Tetris music?  It builds kinda slowly, really kicking in with the third guy.

• MTVMusic is an on-line repository for thousands (?) of music videos.  This is all the proof you need that all forgotten art forms will eventually find new life on the web. I’m thoroughly hooked on reliving the 80s right now.

• Whoa: The Christian Science Monitor is dropping its print edition. Ironically, this story is brought to you by “The New York Times,” a dead tree newspaper in deep financial trouble.

• Video from London. Turn of the century London. Most impressive.

• How about a Mac utility to play FLAC files in iTunes?  I like that idea.

• Wii Fit has outsold Grand Theft Auto IV!

• Now it can be told: How a Jeopardy! game board is written. (Current up to about a decade ago. ;-)

Tim McGraw Apologizes to Fans for Third Greatest Hits Album

Country singer Tim McGraw apologized to his fans for his latest greatest hits CD, criticizing his label for not releasing a record with new material, People magazine reported Tuesday.“I am saddened and disappointed that my label chose to put out another hits album instead of new music,� People quoted McGraw as saying.

Even the artists don’t like the recording industry.

Sorry for the last minute warning, but O.A.R. returns to Conan O’Brien’s show tonight (Wednesday, 14 Oct), where I first saw them back in 2003.

The latest issue of Wired Magazine has a nice interview with Weird Al Yankovic in it.  It covers a lot of old ground for Al Fans, but there is a near attempt to touch on the problems Weird Al has in the current music market. It’s twofold: First, music is much more fractured than it used to be.  In the 80s, you had MTV and a Top 40 chart.  Today, you have 40 Top 40 charts.  No single lasts the entire summer in the #1 spot.  How can you parody a song that everyone likes, when no single song reaches everyone anymore?

Second, the YouTube Generation can make their own parodies by slapping some random words that rhyme together and uploading them to YouTube, MySpace, etc. overnight.  Not that it’s entirely legal, but it happens.  And anyone who ever looked at Napster in its hey day and any BitTorrent stream since then knows that Weird Al is credited with all of them by people with clearly tin ears.

The solution to both problems is simple: use the internet.  Target niches.  Release as you write.

Sure enough, that’s what Weird Al is doing.  He’s announced that he’ll being selling songs off his website as he writes them, rather than waiting to put together and entire album.  Smart move, though the purist in me misses the sensory overload and excitement of 12 fresh songs on a CD.  Times have changed.  I’ll deal.

The first song comes out this Tuesday, and will be an iTunes exclusive for two weeks.  Sold! More hints from Al in the link above.