A sad day for internet radio. WOXY, an internet station run by Future Sounds (which notably went from terrestrial to online-only), was forced to shut down live broadcasts today. While they could come back to life, it doesn’t sound super-promising based on the message left here. *sigh* If only they were charmed, like Pandora. source
music Warner Music Group wants a
piece of EMI’s recorded output,
which includes such archive artists
as the Beatles and such current
artists as Coldplay.
lyrics KKR, a private equity group,
would much prefer the half of EMI’s
songs which are worth more in
royalties, the publishing arm. EMI is
broke, by the way. source
1. It’s big, it’s messy, and it’s not really about the Civil War. But man, is it a lot of fun. “Four Score and Seven,” an eight minute track off Titus Andronicus‘ excellent second album, “The Monitor,” has a lot of everything, but doesn’t feel like a dirge. That says a lot.
2. It’s pretty awesome to see Lou Reed used this well this late in his career. This Gorillaz tune, “Some Kind of Nature,” is one of the Velvet Underground singer’s best performances – guest or otherwise – in years. It’s a credit to Damon Albarn that he fits in so well.
3. Man, we missed Ted Leo. Leo isn’t at the height of his “Ballad of the Sin Eater” powers, but he feels a lot closer to that point on “Even Heroes Have to Die” than he has in a while.
4. And now for something different. We stumbled upon German pianist Nils Frahm earlier this week, and while his neo-classical solo piano improvisations aren’t exactly the kind of thing that will burn up the charts, they’re always interesting.
5. Both James Mercer and Danger Mouse sounded like they were in dire need of a side project, and Broken Bells has proven to be the exact tone both were looking for. “The Mall & Misery” has a little of everything in modest servings – pretty pensive synths, calming strings, a little slide guitar, a little more surf guitar, and a few riffs that cut through the middle like a New Order song. It’s full of ideas, but none that scream at you.
“We do not want to stay at 100 million (users) or 120 million. We want to grow to 200 million or 300 million.” MySpace, which has had a bit of a rough year, with management shakeups all over the place and a significant decline in influence, plans to relaunch its site to focus on media and music. The goal? To recover some of the audience that it lost. They want to be the first social networking site that regains its popularity. Our take: Don’t call it a comeback, because it’s not happening. source
It is with great sadness that we share the news that our dear friend and family member, Mark Linkous, took his own life today. We are thankful for his time with us and will hold him forever in our hearts. May his journey be peaceful, happy and free. There’s a heaven and there’s a star for you.
A statement from Mark Linkous’ family • Regarding the death of the alt-rock icon, whose atmospheric folk floated around the more interesting edges of pop music for fifteen years. Sparklehorse wasn’t exactly happy music – Linkous actually had a near-death experience (overdose, coma, surgery, nearly-lost limbs, heart attack, the whole bit) at the beginning of his career that informed the rest of it. Among the many projects he was involved in (besides Sparklehorse): A collaboration with Danger Mouse just last year called “Dark Night of the Soul” and the production credit on a Daniel Johnston album. A terrible, sad loss for music. source
