If you haven’t noticed how superb music has been this year then you haven’t listened to a lot of it.

Things started off well, with Mars Volta releasing Bedlam in Goliath to high acclaim. It doesn’t top their 2005 opus France the Mute but…Well…France the Mute is the best musical work in history, so we can forgive them that. Goliath contains their typical proggish glory, but constitutes a development insofar as they demonstrate their ability to write a song that lasts less than ten minutes. Indeed, the results are so good that they got nominated for a Grammy:

Dan le Sac versus Scroobius Pip released the hip-hop album of the decade, Angles:

But that wasn’t enough to get them onto the X Factor:

An interesting development in this years music is the total disintegration of the division between dance and rock. Always a flimsy one it has now dissolved entirely, as the following videos should demonstrate:

Dance bands playing rock? Rock bands playing dance? Nobody can tell, nobody important still thinks it matters.

Another remarkable phenomenon is the sheer weight of fantastic albums released. All of the videos above come from strong albums, with large amounts of great songs instead of the tiresome strong single/filler set-up. Especially worthy of mention here are Late Of The Pier, who with Fantasy Black Channel made one of the most playful and exploratory albums I’ve heard in a long time. It also manages to stage a sonic approximation of an orgasm:

Foals put out quite magnificently, with Antidotes a well crafted, inter-connected piece of tightness which didn’t disappoint despite the (in hindsight not so) absurd expectations built up around it:

Speaking of which, Portishead. How were they supposed to impress after having been away for that long? By released an album like Third.

An even greater surprise than Portishead finally putting out was Mr. Trent Reznor going from “That guy that takes a decade to perfect one drum loop” to “Prolific” in the space of a year. How? Releasing five albums.

Admittedly much of this could have been a consequence of Ghosts not exactly being what the majority of his fanbase wanted (although I for one adore the ambient, abstract moments on Downward Spiral, see them as the highlight and wish that there had been more) but frankly…He’s releasing this stuff for free now. We are in no position to complain.

Slipknot didn’t release their best album by a long shot, but ooh, new masks:

The Kills, however, did:

And then of course there’s Crystal Castles, the band that add further evidence to the theory that Canada must be the origin of the best new band every year, without fail (see also: Arcade Fire, DFA 1979, etc…)

If you haven’t already, try The Ruby Kid. He’s fascinating; combining intelligent lyrics with a radical attitude both to reality and rap. Out goes the macho obsession of much mainstream hip-hop, and in come repeated references to the Coleridge, gender and the relationship between the proletariat and the means of production in Marxist theory. With quite some style:

For all those claiming hip-hop’s pussy is where their cock is,
You’ve got a misogynistic Oedipal complex,
You’re raping your mother,
Just stop it.

I like this, I do…

Pirate’s Bay are releasing a single. If there was anything to make the music industry feel like it has been fully supplanted instead of merely usurped it was this. I am unsure as to whether there is more to follow, but if they can find more artists of this quality to participate and have the will (and I see no reason why either should be lacking) then I don’t see why not.

Download the song here. Or at least watch it:

Surprisingly good fun, no?

It seems that the music industry has finally struck upon a solution that could save it. I wrote previously that it was becoming increasingly difficult (and soon would become next to impossible) to sell information but I had imagined that the alternative would be people taking to paying instead for an experience. This would take the form of live music, which is not something that can be downloaded fully in MP3 format, a hypothesis hardly debunked for me by the glorious experience I had at Reading last weekend and would have found impossible to recreate using even the most powerful of domestic sonic equipment.

However this suggestion is something else entirely: rather than paying to encounter the musician and witness them recreate songs you encountered in file format for free you will instead fund the existence of those files being brought about. Not the approach which I had anticipated, but one which seems likely to succeed to me. I had previously considered the similarities between the previous system of artistic patronage that funded the great masters and the situation which a recording artist who’s produce could be claimed for free would find themselves in. But this seems a direct descendant, although accessible to almost any: no doubt musicians who appealed to poorer internet denizens could still ensure that their records were produced, so long as their allure was wide enough. In this fashion the “support” shown by fans is not simply emotional but also financial. Those artists who are capable of obtaining a fanbase (or at least interest) will be the one’s who obtain success, thus meaning that the music industry will be willing to take greater risks.

The use of priority tickets suggests that my emphasis on the importance of live performance was not entirely void and it is unlikely that the limited editions obtainable by investors/fans shall be notable for anything save rarity in a format that will prove impossible to upload.

As such I find the conduct of the company behind this far more pleasing than that of the government, which has backed away from windfall taxes.
Predictable as this should have been from a New Labour government it remains a great pity. The profit made by private companies has been simply phenomenal, yet this has been accompanied (and assisted) by substantial increases in the cost of utilities, crippling many poorer families. To tax their vast wealth and return the portion of it taken to those who suffered in order to produce it, forced to feed the cartel that supply their basic need of shelter, is entirely apt.

If this is deemed a “Raid” being “Legalised” then so be it. The impoverished were raided too and this retribution will bring about their salvation.

Time for another musical interlude, as I need to go and write Sunday’s post. So, we’ll begin with a little gloom:

Before moving onto what’s undisputedly the sound of an electronic orgy:

And finally:

And with that, good night. Normal service will resume on my part tomorrow.

I feel lazy at present. So, this post will act as a musical interlude. We open with the dark:

And move onto the slightly strange and fantastical:

And finally, an entirely superior remix of an otherwise cancerously irritating piece:

A proper bassline makes everything alright, you see.

Apparently:

The Tories had their own meeting between Obama and David Cameron, at which the senator was overheard congratulating Cameron on ‘all your success’. The two spent 20 minutes chatting about juggling fatherhood and politics and discussing Afghanistan and the economy. Cameron gave him a box of CDs including albums by the Smiths, Radiohead and Lily Allen.

This man’s sinister genius knows no bounds. Obama will listen to our powerful music output and have Cameron to thank for this exposure. Labour members, despair.

As Douglas mentioned them I can’t resist posting moar:

It truly is remarkable that this sprawling mess of influences is possible, as well as entirely pleasing.

That memo I mentioned yesterday turns out to be even worse than suspected. To summarise; it gives the BPI the ability to monitor the internet activity of suspected filesharers. The BPI then passes their details onto ISPs, who first send threatening letters, before slowing and then cutting off internet connections.

That’s a scheme flawed on many levels. The BPI’s powers to monitor internet users and share their details forms an outright assault on their liberties; it’s in effect allowing a private organisation to police behaviour. Their solution, meanwhile, is simply draconian. The move targets suspects rather than the definitely guilty - sound familiar? It then seeks to disconnect them, and anyone else in the same household. That you might have fallen victim to malware or someone else in the house might have done the sharing doesn’t matter. You’re on the same ISP - so they assume you did it.

Nor will any of this actually work. Record companies seem completely blind to the motivation behind filesharing; its ease and speed. It’s the difference between pressing a button and a half-hour bus journey to the nearest music shop and back. That filesharing, much like borrowing a CD, allows consumers to sample entirely new realms of music before splashing out on several albums also gets ignored. Record companies claim filesharing eats into their profits - but it seems unlikely they’d sell as much as they did without this interaction between consumers.

Of course, this blinkered approach to filesharing could well be selective. As Billy Bragg points out, the internet benefits two main ends of the music industry; producers and consumers. Artists can connect directly to listeners through social networking and online stores - and cut out the middle-men of record companies. They’ll retain some power through the offer of improved marketing and better recording facilities, but the internet challenges their grip on the music industry as never before.

Take three examples, from the top and bottom of the scale in terms of size. At its largest extent, bands such as Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have bypassed those middle-men entirely, putting their music online and allowing downloaders to set the value. At the other end, and smashing the myth that the internet only benefits wealthy groups like Radiohead who’ve already made it, come whole genres which developed on and through the internet. Dubstep began in Croydonian basements and spread across the world through the power of filesharing, to the extent that one of its most inspired disciples hails from Japan. It’s only since that electronic rise that solid CDs have begun to appear on shop-shelves and the music made its way into meatspace.

So, when record companies attack filesharing as it is, it’s with a mind to maintaining their corporate power. That certainly looks to be the motive behind the rather measly carrot offered to consumers under the Memo; legal filesharing through passworded monopolies owned by the companies. They keep their cut, and artists and consumers get the same raw deal as before. And the internet loses its most powerful edge of being open to anyone with a connection. Hardly a move, then, born out of the concern for artists Undertones corporate frontman Feargal Sharkey so frequently whines.

This memo serves one purpose; to retain the iron grip of recording companies on the music industry. It fails to exploit the internet at its best, and so fails artists and fans. Do we really want that?