Reaction

The cool days are here and speculation has started about when the leaves will start to change. This year could be really good; we have had warm weather with enough moisture. It seems like the most spectacular color shows have followed this sort of Indian summer.

No gig tonight (long story). Instead I will be in the studio working on some vocals for these eleven new songs I’ve been working on. Yep, we are still trying to make records here in the Ozarks. Yeah, I know I’ve been a bit reactionary in my comments about the music industry lately. Here’s the deal; I would keep recording this stuff even if nobody is ever going to hear it. I love making records and I’m very fortunate to know talented people with real recording experience, who by the luck of the draw, live in this area. If you have a chance to work with people like that, you’d better do it while you can.

Speaking of music biz stuff, Bank of America has issued a memo entitled, “For $120 Million, She’s All Yours”, to investors on the heels of Madonna’s announcement to leave Warner Brothers. WB, acting like a high school kid on MySpace, has forwarded the memo around the industry and press. From the memo according to Variety…

There is “headline risk associated with a Madonna defection. However, the bigger risk would be to overpay for an artist that does not seem to be generating the revenue to support the contract being discussed.”

Beside the fact that Madonna will turn 60 years old in the last year of the proposed deal, it is “fantastic” for her but does not “make economic sense” for WMG.

“Her loss will not meaningfully impact Warner’s near-term sales.”

Ouch! Busting on Madonna because she will be turning 60. Pop music sucks in that respect. I mean, could you imagine a bank ever publicly saying something like that about Sara Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald? They may be right about the loss of Madonna not having an impact on near term sales. WB’s stock is worth about 33 percent of what is was a year ago.

There is also some controversy surrounding the Radiohead release. From MTV….

First and foremost, all of Radiohead’s previous albums were already available as MP3s encoded at 320 kilobits per second — the highest-possible compression rate in the format (though still not nearing the quality of a compact disc) — and most file-sharers scoff at anything less than 192 kbps. (MP3 files encoded with a lower bit rate will generally play back at a lower quality — something not readily apparent on tiny iPod earbuds but obvious enough on high-end home stereos.)

Second, most took issue with when Radiohead chose to announce that In Rainbows would be available at 160 kbps — after the majority of their fans had already paid for the download. To be fair, however, the band did give potential customers the power of choosing how much they wanted to pay to download the album. It could be had for as little as the transaction fee of 45 pence, or roughly 92 cents. There was also an option on the Web site to cancel orders; though, given the timing of the bit-rate announcement, fans had less than 24 hours to do so.

It seems to me that releasing a lower quality version of a record, even for “free”, is a cheesy way to go about things. Of course, Radiohead let the consumers pay what they thought was proper. I hear reports that the average person downloading the album elected to pay $10.00.
Is Radiohead hoping to get the same fans to bite again when they officially release the physical CD?

I don’t think that there is any way you can look at this and say it is not slimy, even if you are only going to listen to music is with a low quality audio device (MP3 player or cell phone).

And, if I’m reactionary, what about all of the major acts that have said they will follow Radiohead’s lead on this one. Is Radiohead just screwing with the music industry?

Finally, from Breitbart, some news about the future pertaining to matters of the heart.

The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.

David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners,” that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.

Levy & Apos’s conclusion was based on about 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction.

The thesis examines human attitudes toward affection, love and sexuality and concluded that the findings are just as applicable to human interaction with robots of the future as they are to the relationships between humans of today.

O.K., I’ll fess up here; I always kind of had a thing for Rosie on “The Jetsons”. The little maid outfit, the sassy attitude and, I’m guessing that I’m not the only one. But, why buy the cow when you can get the semiconductors for free? Even with a cyborg things could get rocky on down the line, you know. People change. Robots change. And who wants to go through all of that uncomfortable pre-nup stuff? Besides, a marriage is just a piece of paper. Let’s just live together, mmkay?

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