Apparently, the rate increase on streaming Internet radio has had the effect that Pandora head, Tim Westergren warned us about last year. Read the update here.

Pandora’s business model, even when you factor in its iPhone app, apparently isn’t able to generate enough revenue.

Hopefully, a Pyrrhic victory for the RIAA.

Now this is good news. The RIAA is finally losing.

The 12 song CD from There Is No Sin in My Body is a hair away from completion and pressing. I’ll see if I can stop having fun for a bit. Focus, man, focus.

With the passing of Arab Strap, it’s good to see that Frightened Rabbit is willing to step in and take on the role as the arbiter of well-written Scottish rock.

I could retire from music today if I’d written Poke, from the newest CD, Midnight Organ Fight.

the way that we
end up revolves around
mistakes and our miscues.

we sit in stiff chairs
and watch what we’ve
lost.

If you’re buying an overpriced CD it had better be frigging good.

Stacks of plastic discs pumped with the same watered down crap are apparently not a big draw this Christmas. Note the hilarious comments from Carl Mello of regional retailer, Newbury Comics…

Bleak Friday begins holiday season for music retailers | Entertainment | Music | Reuters

If you want a reason to avoid buying music from the Opus X set, read this. Jesus. I feel ill.

Universal’s CEO Once Called iPod Users Thieves. Now He’s Giving Songs Away.

This shouldn’t be shocking. We’re used to companies that are fronted by troglodytes. Problem is, his army isn’t making circuit boards. They supposedly creating art.

YouTube - Aesop Rock - Coffee feat. John Darnielle

After reading a number of conflicting views on the new Nine Inch Nails release Year Zero, I set out to try and care about what Trent had done.

If you’re interested, it’s a concept CD that focuses on the subject of the “world as we’ve fucked it up” and what it might beget in 15 years. It’s a critique on the Bush-led America that is overly dramatic, but sadly not pure fiction. It’s not Blade Runner without the robots but more like Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America sans Charles Lindbergh.

The marketing and multimedia tie-ins were ambitious. The sad result being that Interscope and I’m sure Mr. Reznor felt an enormous pressure to positions a listener-challenging product as a cult item for a fickle audience. This is an issue that as daunted prog rock bands and major labels for the last thirty-odd years.

With NIN, though, the music itself has always been theatrical. What’s ended up happening is that avid fans have bought on as usual and radio has pulled what it can for singles. And of the larger idea — movies, websites, print? I don’t think fans outside the NIN core audience are noticing and when the dollar signs fade, the projects will too.

I’ve always been a System of a Down admirer. Despite my disdain for all things major-label, there are some acts who do it right. SOAD has always had the earnest and deserved reputation as putting the rewards of their success behind their heartfelt beliefs.

Thus, it wasn’t a surprise that frontman Serj Tankian’s first solo album would be one of my few Warner Bros purchases this year. What was a surprise that I would actually cry whilst watching a music video. Yes, a fucking music video.