Music

I just registered the domain shareyourmusic.com. Right now it redirects to worldbeatplanet, but I’m planning a new site for it.

A great piece by Aaron Swartz:

Stealing is wrong. But downloading isn’t stealing. If I shoplift an album from my local record store, no one else can buy it. But when I download a song, no one loses it and another person gets it. There’s no ethical problem.

Music companies blame a fifteen percent drop in sales since 2000 on downloading. But over the same period, there was a recession, a price hike, a 25% cut in new releases, and a lack of popular new artists. Factoring all that in, maybe downloading increases sales. And 90% of the catalog of the major labels isn’t for sale anymore. The Internet is the only way to hear this music.

I’ve been in a very foul mood for days, since I ran into someone I dislike at a neighbor’s party Saturday night.

As usual, I keep iTunes playing a random playlist at all times. A little while ago, this cover of Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer Mak’er” by Eek-A-Mouse came up. It made me smile. His brand of reggae is very weird, but it always makes me smile.

Here’s a cute interactive greeting courtesy of Calabash Music.

I discovered that the version of Aicha from Adam’s blog is by a group called Outlandish and it’s a big hit in Europe, as was Khaled’s original.

Thanks to DailyTunes, I discovered that one album by The Pogues, “Streams of Whiskey”, is now available in iTMS. This is one album I don’t own, and the Pogues themselves don’t want you to buy it:

This album has been released without the permission, and contrary to the wishes of the band. It is a not great quality recording from a Swiss festival in 1991, recorded from a radio broadcast and previously available as a bootleg.

There will be an official live album released later in the year recorded (properly!) over the last two nights of the recent Brixton shows.

Thanks to Adam for linking to this one.

Khaled’s song ‘aisha’ sung in English by some kid

More about Khaled here. This is the second time Rai music is reaching a mainstream audience. The first time was when Sting recorded “Desert Rose” with Cheb Mami.

I still haven’t seen the webcast or MTV’s broadcast of the 46664 concert. It sounds like it was awesome – I’m going to try to watch it this weekend & I plan to buy the DVD when it’s available. Among the performers were some of my favorites: Peter Gabriel & Johnny Clegg (above), Bono, Queen, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Youssou N’dour, and Baaba Maal.

Here‘s a review of the concert.