To be honest I’ve not brought anything by Prince since the release of his greatest hits package – The Hits/The B-sides. When he released his last album Planet Earth as free giveaway in the Mail on Sunday – I assumed it to be an album of outtakes and the like – and to be honest nothing on earth would persuade me to buy the Mail on Sunday – I wouldn’t wipe my arse with it – so I ignored the whole thing.
Now however in an interview in the Daily Mirror we learn he’s to release his new album as a free giveaway on Saturday.
“You must come and listen to the album,” he says. “I hope you like it. It’s great that it will be free to readers of your newspaper. I really believe in finding new ways to distribute my music.”
He explains that he decided the album will be released in CD format only in the Mirror. There’ll be no downloads anywhere in the world because of his ongoing battles against internet abuses.
Unlike most other rock stars, he has banned YouTube and iTunes from using any of his music and has even closed down his own official website.
He says: “The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.
“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.
“They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.” Peter Willis, The Mirror.
So if you want the latest Prince album you’ll have to purchase Saturday’s Mirror – which isn’t as bad as the rest at least it supported Labour at the general election and not the Con-Dems like the rest – oh and I’ve completely forgotten the intervening Lotusflow3r – but maybe that’s an indication of Prince’s relevance these days – he made great music once but doesn’t now.
Everyone can create music is iNudge’s strapline – I wouldn’t got that far but it’s certainly a bit of harmless fun – just be careful of how much time you spend on your creations.
If you use Spotify then you should check out Grooveshark and if you don’t use Spotify then forget Spotify and go straight to Grooveshark. Groove shark has more music and less advertising than Spotify and if you wish to pay it’s cheaper.
How it works is simple anyone can upload a file to Grooveshark – once the file is uploaded anyone can listen – there’s a few repeats but Grooveshark has a more comprehensive catalogue than Spotify. Unlike Spotify though it costs $3 a month for the desktop version for when you don’t have the internet,
mflow is a music streaming website with a difference – all the music comes recommended – you sign up and select other users to follow there’s comedian and sometime BBC Radio 6 presenter Phill Jupitus – or at least some one impersonating him for instance – you can also set up your own stream (or flow as mflow likes to name them) and for every person you persuade to download the track you get 20% of the purchase price – which is around 15p a time. You can surf for songs but unless they’re directly recommended you can only hear 30 seconds. The whole thing’s in beta at the moment so it’s not really taken off – however it seems like somewhere to go once the BBC closes Radio 6.
When you buy a CD from websites such as Amazon, HMV, Play and most other online retailer ever wondered why they’re often shipped from the Channel Islands? The answer is so you can avoid paying the VAT – which goes someway to explaining why the few high street retailers of CDs just can’t compete with the Internet – online stores have the advantage of scale and the need for far fewer staff without being handed a 17.5% advantage. The Guardian reports
VAT-free CDs exploded at the end of last year, driving one in three purchases by British music-lovers on to the web. The surge in sales casts doubt over Treasury claims to be tackling the tax dodge, already thought to be costing the exchequer £110m a year and rising. Simon Bowers.
Much as I’ve appreciated purchasing CD’s cheaply it’s about time the Treasury put a stop to this loop hole – although the declining sales of CD’s will probably put paid to all but a few CD shops long before the treasury get’s its act together.
I’ve never got on with The Magnetic Fields album 69 Love Songs – it seems you’re either obsessed or agnostic – and a group of obsessed comic-artists, illustrators and writers are busy illustrating every one of the 69 songs at How Fucking Romantic – the results are more enjoyable than the actual album.
With record – sorry CD – shops disappearing from our high streets faster than a snow flake in June – with the demise of mainstream stores such as Virgin, Zavvi, Fopp and MVC we are left with just HMV which if my local store is anything to go by is now a film and game shop with music relegated to a few racks at the back – it’s now become almost impossible to indulge in the simple pleasure of browsing through racks and racks of CD’s.
Help is at hand with the website Indie Record Shop which provides a store locator allowing you to find your nearest independent shop – it’s not perfect – anybody know of a decent shop in Birmingham? That said the site has only just launched and anything that aims to help stores survive has got to be a good thing – there’s even a record store survival guide.
I like lists and so I thought in common with the press I’d list my top 10 of 2009
Still I wonder how much one can tell from such a list when I’ve still not listened to many CD’s of 2009 which got me thinking what would my list of 2008 look like now.
Also in the press there’s been a few CD’s of the decade so here’s my list for the Noughties.
Which leaves me wondering what the 90s look like.
This would be interesting to compare with my view 10 years ago – except I didn’t do one 10 years ago. And if your wondering why the Amazon dates don’t correspond with the year that’s because Amazon’s dates are the release date for that version of the CD not the original release date.
Music files are generally stored on computers as MP3 files. These files are compressed to reduce storage requirements. The bit rate of these files, which might be from 192kbs up to 320kbs and possibly even 640kbs will determines the size of the file and quality of the sound – the lower the rate the smaller the file and conversely the higher the bit rate the better the sound quality. Additionally there’s something called FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) which doesn’t compromise on sound however, FLAC isn’t as widely supported – and there are others such as Apple Lossless. Anyway I diverge from my point – or at least Trusted Reviews which came to the following conclusion
For most listening purposes, with most equipment and most ears, 320kbps MP3 is perfectly good enough. Sure, use FLAC for archiving purposes – it makes sense to have a lossless master of your CD on a server, NAS or PC in the house – but if you’re clogging up a portable player with FLACs or Apple Lossless files, then either a) you have superior ears, a headphone amplifier and seriously high-end headphones or b) you’re lacking in common sense.
Many of us simply couldn’t tell the difference between 192kbps and FLAC. There are caveats. A wider selection of music in our test might have thrown up more differences, and some ears and some headphones might reveal more obvious distinctions. That said, there’s no reason why you should turn your nose up at 192kbps or 256kbps files if you’re just looking for something to listen to in the car or on the daily commute. You’ll get more tracks on your player, and the sound quality will probably be good enough. Stuart Andrews, Trusted Reviews.
Personally I suspect that’s true for most of us when at home – how many of us have a perfectly positioned stereo in a perfect acoustic room – pretty well none of us – we sit to close to one speaker or the other, there’s a sofa in the way of one, or we sit too close or even too far away… You get the picture – there’s a lot of snobbery about music but I wouldn’t pay too much attention.
You guessed it building a wall U2 played at an event organised by MTV.
The organisers of the event, the music network MTV, erected a two-metre high “sight barrier” to exclude those without one of 10,000 free tickets from catching a glimpse of the band. The irony was not lost on fans, some of whom said they would boycott the event in protest.
The 10,000 tickets for the 20-minute free concert at the Brandenburg Gate were snapped up within three hours of being made available on the internet last month. The organisers said the barrier – a metal fence draped in a white tarpaulin cover – was necessary to protect local businesses from the sheer numbers of fans expected to crowd the space around the Brandenburg Gate.
MTV was not available for comment. U2′s publicist, RMP, also refused to comment. Kate Connolly, The Guardian.
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