I remember first hearing about Beck (Hansen) while I was at school loitering around the campus computer nerd club. You know that song, “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.” That struck me as really awkward, assuming Beck was literally some kind of mental case and was just briefly making it big as a pitiful target for ridicule. I’m not saying I could make that assessment from a position of critical authority, spending my days holed up in the basement of a science building. I felt a little ashamed hearing him on the radio, thinking it was a catchy, sarcastic joke. After the novelty and the juvenile laughs I thought for sure that would be the last we would hear from him. Though not long after, the surreal blossoming of his talent and personality dispelled any notion that he had been putting on an imbecile act. He was creeping up on us a genius free spirit. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: January 2013
Physical Copy? No Thanks.
Evidently as a direct result of my story about waiting countless agonizing days after purchasing a physical CD from Amazon before I could first listen to the contents, Amazon made good by enacting AutoRip. When I checked in on my Cloud Player I found an extra 20 records I had bought in my entire history with Amazon.com, and that includes a few I had forgotten about. That’s a really nice gesture and it may save me a step or two in the future in getting the tracks synced to my iPod. From what I have read the MP3s are 256 kbps, which is far above average. However, I’m still feeling inclined to write a letter directly to Amazon to plead for some kind of option to get albums in lossless (FLAC) format, along a pdf of the full cover art and liner notes. There’s a lot of personality and even hidden surprises tucked within the clever scribbles and cryptic notes of the little album booklet. I’d pay if they would just hold onto the physical disc so I don’t have to keep it here in a junk pile, unopened.
Tattoos Versus Sinister Accounting
How can I send a meaningful message back out to a band to show how much I appreciate what they’ve done? How can both the content providers and myself get a fair deal? There’s so much talk and blame about online piracy where record companies and artists are directly losing revenue while the consumers have clunky access to the content. I’ve been talking a bit about an Annie Lennox record lately, and it serves well to contemplate what I can do to vote with my wallet without feeling like I just paid into a legion of corporate intermediaries that are not the artist. When I bought a copy of “Diva” at Walmart for $5 plus tax I can’t imagine that even 1 cent made it back to England. I honestly would feel the same if I had bought a $5 or even $10 digital download from Amazon or iTunes, or a $15 CD from my local fye or Best Buy retailer. Nevermind if I had bought it used. I assume that the revenue of even a fully priced, legitimate retail record will dry out like the Colorado River trickling into Mexico. Continue reading
A Trickle Back To The Source
I talked up “Diva” so much last time that a sense of proper decency came over me. I should be an honest man, show a genuine commitment, and put down some money for the cause. Even though it is far beyond its shelf life I wanted to put in my own small affirmation that the record today is worth some merit and holds value to me. I thought I’d just go out and buy a copy of the album, but it raised the question of how do I convey that value back to Annie Lennox, or any other artist, without just paving a row of intermediary fees that falls short of my intentions? Continue reading
Happierness That Might Have Been
Now that I’ve got such a great setup for hearing music closer to the way the recording engineers originally intended, I’m hearing a lot more of the intricate artistic and technical expression. Not only can I boggle at the discovery of, “Oh, there’s a bass player on this record,” but now I can marvel at, “Intriguing choice to accent the rhythm with castinettes!” I’ve really been drawn into one record lately since it so well-produced and engineered (Stephen Lipson is involved), and it’s something that has been around a long time already. Annie Lennox came out big in the early 80’s, cool and intimidating with short, orange hair and slapping a riding crop. It turns out she was always really nice and a phenomenal soul singer, and not a dominatrix robot. I liked the Eurythmics a lot in the 80’s, but I guess I wasn’t ready until this last weekend to try Annie’s solo “Diva” from 1992. I just listened through a few times – now I’m deeply impacted and hooked. Continue reading