/dev/random

Reason.com: BBC Radio 1’s decision to remove the word “faggot” from the classic Christmas song Fairytale of New York angered their listeners until they finally reversed their decision.
It may have been done with the most progressive of intentions, but BBC Radio 1’s decision to censor a lyric from Kirsty MacColl and Shane McGowan’s Christmas standard [...]

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Via Slashdot:
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “In an Arizona case against a defendant who has no legal representation, Atlantic v. Howell, the RIAA is now arguing — contrary to its lawyers’ statements to the United States Supreme Court in 2005 MGM v. Grokster — that the defendant’s ripping of personal MP3 copies onto his computer is a [...]

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With the Grammy nominations announced today, I decided to post my list of the top albums for the year, which is quite different.

Neon Bible, Arcade Fire I’m completely hooked on this album. The songs stick in your head with irresistible hooks. They make great use of unusual instruments like a hurdy-gurdy and church organ.

[...]

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On November 28, 2007, the Oakland Park City Commission unanimously voted to name the city’s new downtown park after Jaco Pastorius, The World’s Greatest Bass Player. Jaco’s hometown celebrates its most famous artist with a tremendous honor: a living memorial with a focus on the arts. The 2 1/2 year grassroots effort has come to [...]

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Via Mashable!:

It seems that if you’re a band, and you can get your song in an Apple iPod commercial, you can expect a surprising amount of success.
The most striking example of this is when Nick Haley, an 18-year old university student in England, made an amateur commercial for the iPod Touch. He paired his [...]

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A new album by Youssou N’dour is always a special event. I got his latest, “Rokku Mi Rokka” a few days ago and I’ve been listening to it continuously. I just posted a review at WorldBeatPlanet.

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Via nancies.org: Weeks of rumors broke into the press today with the New York Times reporting that Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” will be distributed by ATO Records. The band made waves recently by selling the release online on a name-your-price basis, rather than surrendering ownership or distribution to a label. Dave Matthews and Coran Capshaw’s [...]

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I hadn’t heard Arcade Fire until I saw this item at MetaFilter. I always like big eclectic bands featuring an accordion & violin, so of course I fell for them right away. I bought Funeral & Neon Bible from eMusic and I’ve been listening them for the last few days.

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When I checked my email this morning, the first thing I read was the sad news that South African reggae singer Lucky Dube was murdered in an attempted carjacking.

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When I checked my email first thing this morning, I got my download link for In Rainbows. The download was very quick, so it looks like they were prepared for the heavy traffic.
It grabbed me right away with the track “15 Steps”. The album is a lot more upbeat than Radiohead’s other albums. I’ve listened [...]

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A few days ago I pre-ordered Radiohead’s new album, “In Rainbows”. I paid £4.25 (about $8.60). Today I got the following email:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING IN RAINBOWS. THIS IS AN UPDATE.
YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT TOMORROW MORNING (UK TIME). THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.
HERE IS SOME INFORMATION [...]

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Sony believes that fair use, as it has been understood for several decades, doesn’t exist.
jennifer Pariser, Sony’s head of litigation, says:
When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. Making a copy of a purchased song is just a nice way of saying ’steals [...]

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MetaFilter reports that The very great Joe Zawinul has passed at 75 Accordionist, proud Austrian, composer of Mercy, Mercy, In a Silent Way, and Birdland, associate of Miles, McLaughlin, Cannonball, Hancock, and Shorter, arguably the father of world music, Zawinul has left the building.
I really loved Weather Report. During my teenage years I listened to [...]

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Via MetaFilter: Hilly Kristal has died at age 75. First the club, now the man.

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I found this Topknot, M.I.A. and Cornershop remix at Boing Boing and I’m hooked. I don’t know where it came from originally, but I’d love to hear more like that.

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Elvis wasn’t the only musician who died on August 16th. On this day in 1997, one of the world’s greatest singers, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan died in the prime of his career. That was the same month Fela Kuti died, making it one of the saddest months in world music.
Nusrate Fateh Ali Khan sung a [...]

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Benn loxo du taccu reports that Bialu Makiese, better known as Madilu System, a member of Franco’s TPOK Jazz since 1980, died suddenly on Aug. 11 in Kinshasa from complications of diabetes. He was 57 years old.

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Pixelspread posted this story about how the indie label Victory Labels abused their artists and employees.
Almost all of Victory Records major alternative bands including Hawthorne Heights, Atreyu, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, and Hatebreed, left them due to disputes. The head of Victory Records, Tony Brummel, is a bully who treats his employees, the label’s artists, [...]

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I’ve added a few new features to My2unz and to my iTunes module.

I’ve enabled Events and allow members to create events.
I’ve enabled the favorites module, which lets members add a track, artist, album, or playlist to their favorites, which appears in their profile.
Track detail view now shows the members who own that [...]

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My new iTunes playlist sharing site, my2unz.com is up. Registration is by invitation only - contact me for an invitation.
I wrote one custom Drupal module that imports an iTunes playlist or library exported as XML and handles specialized nodes for playlists & tracks. The rest of it is mostly standard Drupal modules. I plan to [...]

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