Annals of Monadic Deadlock

Recent developments in the Ergonosphere

that might interest you.

* Amazon mp3 store
* Radiohead pay your own price digital release

Radiohead "In Rainbow" analysis

What's their true agenda? Is this a positive or negative development in the egonosophere? If every artist handles distribution of their material, won't we end up with a million separate sites, all incompatible?

There's value in having a standardized interface for commerce--it reduces transaction costs (and in classical economics, reducing transactions costs is nearly always a good thing.) It would be like having every band run their own storefront, instead of just going to Tower Records and looking on the right shelf. (And being able to purchase albums by more than one band at a time!)

A Blessing and a Curse this Tuesday

With Drive-By Truckers' new album, A Blessing and a Curse, coming out this Tuesday, reviews are starting to filter. This one, form Paste Magazine, is a positive one, but not a rave. The reviewer seems hung up on the "southern thing":                                

But it’s true that when DBT wraps its songs around a familiar Southern theme, its work jumps from being good, solid rock ’n’ roll to being great American music as deep as a country well and ancient as an old-time Appalachian love song or murder ballad. Blessing is merely good, solid rock.

                                 Basically putting DBT in a no-win position-if they write about the south they get pigeon-holed as a regional band, but if they try to break out of that ghetto, they get criticized for straying from what makes them special-or at least easily categorizable to a music critic.
                               
                                                                 

                               

                                    

                                       
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  A Blessing And A Curse

  I've been listening to A Blessing and a Curse a lot (because I pre-ordered from Amazon I got to listen to a preview stream of the album which I then ripped using Audio HIjack) and enjoying it more and more. It is very different-my half-brother, possibly an even bigger DBT fan than I am, doesn't like it at all. It seems like an album more about small statements then one big one, and about consolidating artistic advances rather than making new ones. After three big concept albums in a row (Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day and The Dirty South) that seems like a good call. Musically, after the arena rock theatrics of the southern trilogy, ABAAC seems to harken back to DBT's punk rock roots, especially early Replacements. The stuff Patterson Hood was listening to when it his classmates were cranking Skynrd in the parking lot.

                                             

                                         
                                    

                               

                               

                               
                                If you want to hear A Blessing and a Curse now, a cool QuickTime app                                  is available that streams the entire album, along with artwork and verbiage for each song.
                               
                               

                                           

Best of James Bond

Inspired by hearing the theme from Goldfinger sung by Shirley Bassey on KFOG Ten at Ten, I made a playlist of the best James Bond theme songs.

Best of James Bond
	Track	Time	Artist	Album
1	The James Bond Theme from "Dr. No"	02:55	John Barry	The Film Music of John Barry
2	Goldfinger	02:50	Shirley Bassey	Shirley Bassey: Greatest Hits
3	Thunderball (From The Film "Thunderball")	02:53	Tom Jones	20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Tom Jones
4	You Only Live Twice	02:58	Nancy Sinatra	Nancy In London (Remastered)
5	Diamonds Are Forever	02:40	Shirley Bassey	Shirley Bassey: Greatest Hits
6	Nobody Does It Better	03:42	Carly Simon	Carly Simon: Clouds in My Coffee 1965-1995
7	Moonraker	03:12	Shirley Bassey	Shirley Bassey: Greatest Hits
8	For Your Eyes Only	03:04	Sheena Easten	For Your Eyes Only Soundtrack
9	James Bond Theme Techno Remix by Moby	03:24	Moby	The World Is Not Enough Soundtrack
10	James Bond Theme	04:01	Paul Oakenfold	Die Another Day Soundtrack

Busted into your digital locker and smashed your glasses

If you pre-order Drive-By Truckers new album A Blessing and A Curse from Amazon.com, they now give you streaming access to the entire album through your "Amazon Digital Locker." Which is better than nothing, but is still pretty silly. If the album is done, why not just release it, instead of forcing your most dedicated fans to listen to it through some retarded Amazon.com ui, and worse, having to use Windows Media Player. Utterly wack. Fortunately I own Audio Hijack and am now using that to rip the audio so I can listen to the audio into the tool of my choice, not the record label's.