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Intelligent Sonic Environments
I have recently fantasized about clubs (or “concert” halls) as intelligent spaces, whereby the DJ/musician/sound artist would be even less a producer, and even more of a conduit or channel through which the sound and the crowd’s collective identity would move: the club would sense the size and mood of the crowd, would even measure […]
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RIAA tactics revealed
From BBC NEWS: The music industry’s methods of tracking down suspected music pirates have been revealed for the first time. Using digital fingerprints, or “hashes”, investigators say they can tell if an MP3 file was downloaded from an unauthorised service. The industry also tracks “metadata” tags, which provide hidden clues about how files were created. […]
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Dyke to open up BBC archive
I’ll leave the puns about the title alone and just send hurrahs to the BBC for this. The BBC has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation’s programme archives, that is, digitally – the service, the BBC Creative Archive will be available to everyone not trying to turn a dollar […]
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iTunes iSbogus
Again, sonic proliferation as strategy from “below”: check out the radically snazzy Down Hill Battle’s (as in, the RIAA is fighting an uphill one!) stylish manifesto: iTunes iSbogus An excerpt from the warcry: Steve Jobs says the Music Store is “revolutionizing music.” What an impoverished imagination he has. An expensive jukebox and a long-playing walkman […]
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Open content and value creation
First Monday has an article by Magnus Cedergren that is related to the stuff about sonic proliferation I have been writing about lately. The abstract of his paper Open content and value creation says: “The borderline between production and consumption of media content is not so clear as it used to be. For example on […]
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It’s official: blogs have genre boundaries too
I know I am a little late with this one, but it links up with recent (actually, probably more forthcoming) posts about genre containment – that is, to define is to exclude, to place in a relation of difference from some other alternative. And as anyone who has ever had to write an entry in […]
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Subcultures and Sonic Proliferation, Part 2 (A Work in Progress)
A Sonic Landscape of Epidemic Proportions To start, some almost laughably obvious but nevertheless fundamental points about the impact of digital media on music consumption (and production): firstly, there is an enormous amount of digital music “out there” (here?) on the internet. Secondly, this music agglomerates, migrates, and proliferates in an apparently chaotic manner, at […]
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Subcultures and Sonic Proliferation, Part 1
Sebastian Chan, who is the editor of the snappy electronic music mag Cyclic Defrost and runs the Youth – Sound – Space forum emailed me today in response to last week’s blog entry Gatekeeping the Fruity Loops Revolution. Quite a vigorous email discussion ensued, which needs editing but I’ll post now as background to my […]
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Cardboard Resistance: Deconstructed Rock and the Politics of Authenticity
CTHEORY.NET > Cardboard Resistance: Deconstructed Rock and the Politics of Authenticity by Phillip Vannini
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Napster Bits
My prize for cleverest marketing strategy of the year so far: Napster hints at re-entry with an unfolding series of shockwave animations, in which Napster is anthropomorphized as a funky, peace-loving little dude who is all about the music. Baddies of course=suits, money, the RIAA. Jump in now at episode 4.