To put it mildly, it’s been an absolute joy writing for True/Slant. I had no idea what to expect when I applied to write for the site last October with only a few writing clips under my belt. I received an e-mail from Coates Bateman less than 12 hours later, and, soon enough, I was off and running.

The thinking is innovation is the key to succeeding in journalism, and no doubt True/Slant brought that in force. Yet, this site did more than innovate: It cultivated a community. And that’s a testament to the True/Slant team’s fantastic work. This site was created with the believe of fostering a great range of voices, new and old.

I fit into the former category – probably as new to the field as they come – and I felt the kind of support one would expect was reserved for veterans of the industry. I felt it with the constant communication I had with Coates, Andrea Spiegel, Michael Roston and the rest of the folks at T/S headquarters, an experience that made me feel that I was an integral part of site. I felt it with the fantastic comments left by T/S reader and writers: Whether the words were critical or congratulatory, I relished the opportunity to create a communal forum and appreciated each and every response. I felt it with the communicative nature of the site, with a slew of fantastic writers giving their own spin on the news of the day and opening their lives up to one another.

Needless to say, I’ll miss writing for this site. And I’m hardly the only one. I’ve been lucky to have the wonderful opportunity to write for True/Slant: It felt like I purchased the winning lottery the day I joined the site, it felt like that with every post I wrote and it feels that way now.

As this version of True/Slant ends August 1, I’ll continue to keep my writing about music, culture and just about anything that catches my interest. Check out my personal site – leorgalil.com – for updates on my journalism work, follow me on Twitter (@imleor) and feel free to send me an e-mail (leorgalil at gmail dot com) if you want to say hello.

But – for now – goodbye. Thank you for reading.

Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife

Germany’s Love Parade, an annual dance music festival, was the scene of a terrible tragedy this weekend [via the L.A. Times]:

At least 19 people reportedly died at the Love Parade, a well-known dance event in the German city of Duisburg, and more than 340 were said to be injured as the apparent closure of a gate resulted in a suffocating crush of people. Duisburg Mayor Adolf Sauerland was quoted in German press as saying the Love Parade was “one of the biggest tragedies the city has ever experienced,” and festival organizers announced Sunday that the event would be  discontinued permanently.

Yes, the incident is, to put it mildly, horrible. But how the aftermath is handled must be done carefully. The Economist’s coverage of the event displays a dangerous pitfall in the reaction to the deaths, yet one that’s understandable throughout:

IT IS going to take some time to sort out just what happened at this year’s “Love Parade” and who is to blame.

That statement, specifically “who is to blame,” seems to reside in many of the emotions one would expect to encounter after a tragedy like this. And I fear that in such a state of emotions, the scenario to permanently shut down these kinds of events will move from “an option” to the popularly-supported option, aka “the option.” There’s no doubt that, in the search for “someone to blame” or “those responsible,” part of the focus will eventually focus on the music itself. Individuals will come out of the woodwork to speak out against live music, in this case techno and trance specifically, and others will join in the conversation. It’s already happened in L.A., where the city government established a “rave task force” after a grim death at a music festival this summer [via the L.A. Times]:

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to establish a task force to examine and “enhance rave safety” after last month’s Electric Daisy Carnival led to more than 100 hospitalizations. A 15-year-old girl died last week of a suspected drug overdose after attending the two-day dance event at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum and adjoining Exposition Park, which drew between 80,000 and 100,000 people per day.

While it’s great to see county boards showing they care by creating tasks forces after a tragic event, it’s often painful knowing that, sometimes, these events could have been prevented because of better oversight prior to the event. Take the E2 Nightclub tragedy in 2003, where 21 people died in a stampede at the Chicago nightclub. A report on the stampede [see article sidebar] revealed a number of license violations, ranging from liquor license issues to capacity violations, that were reported months prior to the tragic event. With better communication between the various government branches, those 21 individuals may not have had to die.

While improved government oversight is key, there must be checks and balances. There’s something insidious in a rave task force because it focuses far too much on a specific genre of music, as if outcasting it simply by name rather than by, say, security issues across the board. There appears to be a new movement to place an overwhelming amount of pressure – economically and bureaucratically – on those who host the events, and not at all in a constructive manner.

There’s Chicago’s promoter’s ordinance, which calls for untold fees placed upon mid-sized and small venues. So, rather than a renewed focus on, say, targeting venues with a history of safety issues (such as E2), the legislation merely targets any and all venues. It’s an ordinance that reeks of faux-responsibility, while having the potential to do irreparable damage to the city’s independent music community which lives in the small venues, practically driving underground music, well, underground. Though the ordinance is tabled, it could come back for a vote at any time. All the while a businessman by the name of Kevin Killerman, who has a history of liquor license violations and a handful of bars in his command, has near-exclusive control over alcohol sales at Lollapalooza. Legislation should be made to prevent the irresponsible from handling such massive live events, instead of hindering an entire city’s cultural experience.

The same thing has been in the works in Philadelphia. That bill provides the police department with near-complete control over the entire city’s live music. Again, the potential to kill off many small live music venues due to an overly-bureaucratic paperwork system, mostly because of a fracas at a large concert. And again, a misdirection of focus on those responsible. I fear the same may happen in L.A., in Germany, and elsewhere in the world.

It’s valid when The Economist wisely ponders the question of how long it will take to find those responsible. Yet, the recent-past has shown that responsibility is an ambiguous word. It’s an ambiguous word when the former owners of E2 were sentenced to two years in prison, and the decision was made nearly seven years after the tragedy. It’s an ambiguous word when headline-grabbing legislation is created to defer obligations to public safety to those who have protected crowds from danger day after week after month after year. It’s an ambiguous word when the issue at hand gets distorted by a fear of a foreign sound, be it techno or something else. Here’s hoping that, no matter what happens, those who would go to great extremes to see live music don’t end up suffering.

With his latest e-mail, Urie proudly writes how the response “has been remarkable – nearly 14,000 messages to Congress have already been sent!”

Yes, almost 14,000 messages! That’s right, less than 14,000 people took the enormous amount of time needed to fill out an online form.

That’s a lot of messages. Here’s how to put it into a greater perspective:

-It’s nearly 4.98 times the number of physical copies that The Melvins’s The Bride Screamed Murder sold in its first week, enough for that band to crack the Billboard 200! (2,809 copies)

-It’s nearly 4.39 times the number of people who tweeted about The Huffington Post’s brief about the cover of Katy Perry’s new album in less than seven hours! (3,189 tweets)

-It’s nearly 7.5 percent of the number of people who like Animal Collective on Facebook! (186,650 likes)

-It’s nearly 1.2 percent of the number of visits to the Hype Machine in May 2010! (1,162,556 visits according to compete.com)

-It’s nearly .0056 percent of the number of views Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” has gotten on YouTube! (249,115,097 plays)

You get the picture. Urie’s stand on the issue aside, the man should certainly be concerned that, despite the number of people who filled out an online form to support him, there are millions and millions of music lovers, fans and consumers who, for one reason or another, aren’t getting behind him.

You can read Urie’s email below:

Dear LEOR ,

The response to the industry’s campaign on music piracy last month (below) has been remarkable – nearly 14,000 messages to Congress have already been sent!  The feedback and interest among our community has been overwhelming.   Together, I am confident Congress will hear our call — but we need to be louder still.

If you have not yet sent an e-mail to Congress via this link, please do.  It only takes a moment and will make a difference.

If you have already sent an e-mail to your members of Congress – thank you.  Please consider making an even bigger impact by asking your friends, family and colleagues to join us.  You can easily forward the e-mail by clicking here.

I’ll be in touch in the weeks ahead to update you on Congressional activity and other opportunities to get involved in protecting and defending the industry and art form that we all love.  In the meantime, be sure to join our Facebook community on www.musicrightsnow.org for news and information of interest.

Sincerely,
Jim Urie
Learn More at www.musicrightsnow.org

Image via Wikipedia

For the past four years, Baltimore’s Whartscape presented pop music on the edge of the avant-garde: Any hot band worth talking about now and several years from now seemed to play Whartscape at some point. As the festival hits its fifth year, it will also meet its untimely demise, as Dan Deacon told The Baltimore Sun [via Impose]:

“I don’t think it can get any larger,” Deacon said. “We do it for the love of arranging the festival, and I still love doing it, but I don’t want it to become an institution — something that just happens. I’d like to try something new next year and branch out.” …

There’s a bittersweet tinge to Deacon’s statement. Obviously, the man is proud to see his accomplishments grow in the way they have. But it must be weary, and anyone as intelligent as Deacon must be aware of the Icarus principle of pop: What shoots for the sun must come down. Hard. The Baltimore scene found some well-deserved limelight during the later part of the past decade, largely thanks to Dan Deacon.

Yet, unlike many other American towns that get eaten up by the music press for one reason or another, there was always something special about Baltimore that made it seem distinct from previous entrances in pop music geography. There was never a “Baltimore sound” in the way that one could equate grunge with Seattle, post-hardcore with D.C., Motown with Detroit, etc. In Baltimore, Deacon could make his odd mish-mash of glitchy, spazzy electronica alongside the likes of post-punk trio Double Dagger and the ambient anti-folk of Beach House, and it all seemed to work, and it continues to work.

Eventually, the music press packed up and found the next hot item in indie music, and the scene in Baltimore has continued to progress. And though Deacon’s announcement of the end of Whartscape is certainly well thought out – institutionalizing and traditionalizing an event can sometimes hurt creativity – it’s slightly painful to see the event end. I’ve watched it from afar, and felt the thrill of Whartscape through some great coverage by Impose and a number of other websites and blogs.

Perhaps it’s all for the best: If Deacon fears the festival would fall into an uncreative, rote tradition, then more power to him for mixing things up before it reaches such a level. And here’s hoping the future of Baltimore’s independent arts scene will continue to grow organically, limelight or not.

The Pitchfork Music Festival, created by the popular music website of the same name, on the other hand, provided one of the most pleasant massive live-music experiences imaginable. The fifth-annual festival (sixth if you count the Pitchfork-curated Intonation Festival in ‘05) filled Union Park with three days of eclectic music. Lineup aside, the atmosphere fused everything that makes a festival like Pitchfork an enjoyable, unique experience. Absent were the massive banners advertising brand “x” and “y,” with only a handful of booths displaying their brand name in spare parts of the park. The slaughterhouse feel that pervades many Live Nation-branded festivals and parks was missing too: The price of food was low, the cost of water was lower (and continued to drop with the heat) and those who worked the festival treated attendees with, well, a proper sense of camaraderie. As the staff made an effort to pass free bottles of water to those in need and brought a Greyhound onto the park grounds for anyone seeking air conditioning, the sense of compassion amongst attendees was high thanks to a shared love of the music being played.

The music itself was another story. If anyone was skeptical of Pitchfork’s diversity of musical taste, one glance at the festival’s two main stages would have changed their mind quickly. With a schedule that sandwiched a performance by the toned-down, orchestral indie stylings of St. Vincent between sets by spazzy, hard-and-heavy noise duo Lightening Bolt and the electro-dance crew known as Major Lazer, it’s hard to argue against the festival having featured varied genres of music.

It made for a festival that was exciting, exhausting and hard to predict. Like any mass gathering of musicians, there are a few bum notes. Panda Bear proved an utter bore, divorcing whatever tunefulness and individuality he brought to his medium of electronic-drone and churning out a fairly uninteresting and excruciatingly long set. Similarly, Girls sucked what little life was in their stylistically-pedicured fuzz-rock out of their performance and left it elsewhere. Hampered by audio glitches, Sleigh Bells grasped for something – anything – to help them make noise and stand out against the brazenly loud pre-recorded instrumental track that threatened to swallow the duo whole. Liars’s post-punk noise freakouts seemed to evaporate into thin air before the emotional complexity of the tunes registered with the crowd.

Fortunately, a lot of these little glitches were few and far between. Throughout the three-day festival lay many solid sets, surprises and genuinely fantastic musical voices. Robyn and Delorean brought some excellent dance tunes that simmered in the heat, while LCD Soundsystem made some emotionally-taught freak-out funk live on through the night. Alienation sounded great, as Titus Andronicus churned out fist-pumping, Americana-soaked crust punk for all to enjoy, while WHY? tackled the issue with a distinctly American hybridization of hip-hop, indie, electronica and some curveball experimentation tossed in. Beach House succeeded where many atmospheric bands would have failed, tossing out finely-focused, dreamy anti-folk tunes, while the equally aurally-focused group CAVE churned out a handful of lean, mean krautrock-inspired, classic rock-inflected jams. Big Boi cranked out old OutKast material and solo songs like there was no tomorrow.

The list goes on, quite literally, and it’s hard to squeeze in every last band. Sure, not every band arrived with the same eye-grabbing status that Sunday night headliner Pavement brought with it (the band put on a perfectly imperfect performance, which, depending on who you talk to, is either good or bad), but many acts had some great moments. However, the real kicker may not have been in the complex guitar noodling on stage C at a specific time, but that everything seemed to come together so well in the span of three days: The bands, the fans and the atmosphere blended together in one great, euphoric event. A magic kingdom indeed.

Delorean – “Real Love”:

Image via Wikipedia

B.I.G. news in the hip-hop world: 50 Cent has a beef with someone. So, he took to Twitter to protest the latest, gravest event hurting the hip-hop community with a petition. Diddy’s exploitation of the Notorious B.I.G. [via Rap Radar/The Daily Swarm]:

Enough is enough, Biggie’s name should never have become Diddy’s Black Card. Just check out his latest video “The Ghost of Christopher Wallace” http://www.bit.ly/jay-diddy Let Diddy know to let B.I.G. rest in peace. When was the last time Diddy really was “biggin up his brother,” not biggin up his bank?

In the words of one Rap Radar commenter, “50 must have a new album coming out…”

Yes, 50’s “twitition” is either a desperate ploy for attention, or a sign that he’s been hiding under a rock for quite some time… which would again imply why he’s trying his best to get people to listen to him.

There’s no question Diddy’s nabbed a fair share of his fame using Biggie’s name. But that’s been happening since Diddy dropped his first record under the name “Puff Daddy” back in ‘97. Names have changed, but his love, infatuation and constant use of B.I.G. for his own benefit has largely stayed the same.

Society has, by and large, continued on with this fact in tact. But now we can rest safe because 50 Cent is on the case. I hope 50 will continue to create important, world-changing petitions that point out the obvious and most likely will result in nothing. A little more than 24 hours later, 1,129 people have signed the petition. If you’ve got a few seconds to whittle away, check out the petition here.

Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife

Free the Music is a guide to new albums, EPs and songs that are available for free online. Today’s drop is: Childish Gambino – Culdesac.

Donald Glover lives a charmed life. At 26, he’s been a YouTube sensation with Derrick Comedy, wrote for the critically-acclaimed comedy “30 Rock,” and stars in another hit NBC comedy, “Community.”

Then there’s his hip-hop side-project, Childish Gambino. Glover showed promise on his first mixtape, I’m Just A Rapper, juggling odd, multi-syllabic rhymes while matching his flow to popular indie tunes. I’m Just A Rapper 2 felt like a re-run you’ve seen too many times: The rhymes sounded slathered together on short notice, the choice of instrumentals less-focused.

Now, Glover’s released his “official” release, Culdesac. Though the high quality piano introduction on “Difference” should inform a defiant and all together vibrant album, it doesn’t. In fact, the overwhelmingly overproduced nature of the album’s first two tracks sound gaudy and out of place, and highlight Glover’s oft-off beat rhyme schemes.

With I’m Just A Rapper, Glover leaned on a handful of stereotypical rap crutches (money, women, power), but created a unique lyrical narrative different than the over-the-top gangsterisms that pervades many overplayed hip-hop tropes. Yet, with Culdesac, Glover sounds stuck on repeat even when the beats below his vocals have a fresh-out-of-the-studio sheen.

On Culdesac, Glover leans harder on hip-hop thematic crutches, and uses them as a gateway to inform listeners of his charmed life. Yes, it’s important to talk about what you know. But with Culdesac, listeners could play a drinking game called “Tina Fey,” wherein you drink every time Fey’s name is mentioned. Chances are you’ll be drunk halfway through the album. Glover spends a lot of the album talking about how great he is, but it comes off as more insecure than truthful.

It’s not all bad. “Do Ya Like” has a fantastic electro-rap flow with one brilliant sample-based hook. And Glover even gets to deliver his best line of the record: “NBC is not the only thing I’m coming on tonight.” Yes, it’s juvenile, and Glover is up front about it in the song, but it’s a rare spot of lyrical brilliance in an underwhelming album. When things align, Glover seems to have all the talent in the world. But, for better or worse, Culdesac is merely a document that shows just how fallible an ambitious, creative person can be.

You can download Culdesac for free here.

Image via Wikipedia

Popular indie music site Pitchfork announced it will launch Altered Zones, a sister site dedicated to DIY sounds so obscure not even those on staff at Pitchfork have heard of some of the bands or dreamt up cool new tags for the zany new tunes. Pitchfork has some lofty goals for the site, which will premier online July 7:

Uniting an international team of bloggers whose individual sites have proven among the most consistently rewarding outposts for unique and leftfield music, this new site will highlight the most notable and adventurous new artists, serving as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground.

Though I don’t doubt the positive intentions behind Pitchfork’s Altered Zones, and though the idea is certainly novel, I can’t imagine anything more detrimental to the idea of the blogosphere than Altered Zones.

One of the many rewarding aspects of music blogging is the conversation that occurs among countless bloggers delving into little niches. It’s created a gorgeous kaleidoscope of perspectives on everything from American pop to Angolan hip-hop, and it’s fostered a dialogue wherein individuals are both experts on a specific sounds and newbies eager to learn about other genres.

Pitchfork, by and large, has stayed out of this conversation. The site will give credit where credit is due, linking to blogs that find the latest radio rip of a new LCD Soundsystem song or ones that post a new Animal Collective video from a European performance. But, the buck stops when it comes to the critical analysis of music. They are the authority on all things music, so why would a reader want another opinion? That authoritative voice is even a part of their editorial voice:

Launched in 1996, Pitchfork is the essential guide to independent music and beyond, and is widely regarded as the music world’s primary tastemaker.

Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, it was easy to find practically any independent blog “at war” with Pitchfork. The site is, to many, the exemplar of “the man.” And they certainly act the part. Though music is, and always has been, an individual choice, many blogs (and music writers for that matter) drew lines in the sand with specific bands.

The blogs boosted bands like Cold War Kids and Sound Team to heights previously unimagined by some dude with a domain name and love for music, and Pitchfork decimated those bands with a couple swift negative reviews. Yes, taste is in the eye of the beholder, but it wasn’t beyond some skeptical individuals to ponder the question of whether or not Pitchfork handed down these negative reviews as if to show the burgeoning blogs who’s in control.

It’s with Altered Zones that Pitchfork appears to be hijacking the conversation occurring on the music blogosphere. Pitchfork’s attitude of absolute authority in deeming certain sounds as credible has been extended to the still-unwieldy world of the blogs, and somehow the folks at Pitchfork believe they can trade some popular web space for a real, authentic blog voice with 14 popular blogging sites.

Thank goodness, the benevolent Pitchfork has arrived to pull some of our blogging brethren from the depths of this cruel CSS-fueled community! Right?

Wrong. Though I don’t doubt Pitchfork’s attempts to get the best coverage of the ever-growing music world, their ideal to provide a closed forum with their 14 favorite blogs on tap is hardly any improvement over what they are currently engaged in.

A better choice could have been a universal forum, where bloggers can submit content that a select few editors could sift through and find the best content. Even though some system like that would merely continue to validate Pitchfork’s supremacy in the modern musical conversation, it’s certainly more appealing than Pitchfork’s ill-minded presentation of the blogosphere. There are hundreds of thousands of music blogs covering valid musical content: To say only 14 blogs, no matter how popular and well-conceived they are, is an absolute fallacy.

Then again, this could be a good thing for music. Not in terms of the music being covered by Altered Zones, although I’m sure there will be artists with great voices that receive some well-deserved exposure on the site. It could be a good thing for the evolution of alternative and independent music not being covered by Altered Zones.

The history of alternative music has been one of an underground culture ignored by the critical elite, allowed to fester and grow in the corners of basements and find audiences in zines. Those zines are now the countless blogs waiting to be discovered, those basements are filled by bands simply not covered by Pitchfork’s all-knowing hand. And 14 hand-picked blogs can’t be expected to cover everything, especially when Pitchfork’s editorial voice has made an effort to ignore certain aspects of modern music.

Sure, if I want the latest Wavves sound-alike or a Wu-Tang Clan solo project, I’ll go to Gorilla vs. Bear. But, if I want a spec of info on current world electronic and hip-hop, I’ll go to wayne&wax. If I want anything metal-related, I’ll see what former Pitchfork-writer Brandon Stosuy is up to. Experimental and noise? Anti-Gravity Bunny. Emo? Certainly not Pitchfork, or any of the Altered Zones-related blogs for that matter. And I’ll take Algernon Cadwallader over Real Estate any day of the week.

So, what’s the fear? Well, Pitchfork does have pull. And the idea that they can claim to present the only reputable voices on the blogosphere is less dangerous for bloggers than music listeners. Technology has made instant gratification not only easy to achieve, but a desired goal. By aggregating a select number of blogs into a single site and using their significant pull in the music world, Pitchfork’s Altered Zones could cut music listeners’ web browsing down to size. With everything supposedly worth listening to available on a single site, why would you want to even think of exploring elsewhere? Sure, online searches are easy, but visiting a single site is even easier.

Although many blogs won’t get the Pitchfork seal-of-approval, I’ve got my fingers crossed that they will carry on without a second thought. Music bloggers have dedicated weeks, months and years to their beloved sites. Pitchfork’s sudden “validation” of a “lucky” few sites shouldn’t change things. Frankly, it shouldn’t even matter.

Bad Books Are Bad, and Bad Food Is Bad. But Bad Movies Are Not Always Bad

What’s missing from the title? Music. Specifically bad music.

Perhaps Stephenson left bad music out of the conversation for a reason. Because there’s something intrinsically attractive about bad music that, like bad films, is certainly interesting.

Take brokeNCYDE, a crunkcore/scrunk group that’s almost critically reviled and became the butt-end of an Internet joke when their video for “Freaxxx” hit the web in late ‘08. Yet, they have loads of fans, which no doubt fueled a lot of the angry words hurled at the band.

When so many individuals are bent on calling brokeNCYDE purveyors of “bad music,” I’ve got to wonder if anyone enjoys them simply because of their perceived negative qualities. Does the amalgamation of screamo, crunk beats and autotune sound so terrible it becomes kind of enjoyable? Or is there just something intrinsically peculiar about a band that goes to the extreme when trying to find a new voice, no matter how bad it sounds.

I was fascinated with brokeNCYDE the minute I discovered them. Apparently, so was Damian Abraham, frontman for a critically-beloved Canadian hardcore act known as Fucked Up. Exclaim! TV featured an interview Abraham conducted with brokeNCYDE, and though the folks at Exclaim! seem happy to wallow in the irony of these two disparate musical worlds colliding, I’ve got to give Abraham credit for discussing brokeNCYDE in terms most music outlets would never dare to think about. DIY and brokeNCYDE? Perish the thought!

Well, Abraham hardly let the thought go to waste with his intro to the interview, but the actual interview is a bit, well, light. The guys in brokeNCYDE seem so stuck on the same subjects (ie, we just want to create something new, haters hate, etc.), they don’t really get away from the same ole’ same ole’. Though the band members casually complain about being lumped into categories, there’s not much they do to take the conversation about their group in a new direction.

It’s something I encountered when I did a piece for the Boston Phoenix about brokeNCYDE and the whole scrunk scene that took over last year’s Warped Tour. I spent the days leading up to my interview with brokeNCYDE’s Mikl thinking and re-thinking of questions to ask the singer/rapper, but the answers I got were run-of-the-mill. I wasn’t expecting bombshells, but I was hoping for an ounce of difference, a little bit of perspective from these kids that people apparently don’t understand. All I heard on my end of the phone was much of the same, “we don’t care about haters” discussion.

Still, I got some quotes for the article, quotes I hoped would shine some new light on a story I felt wasn’t getting the proper coverage a musical “phenomenon” usually receives in the press. I thought I got it down to the button, and I still do feel like my piece covered the attitudes being brought to that scene within the Warped Tour universe.

But, I was struck again by brokeNCYDE yet again today. Abraham’s interview made me revisit the sound everyone was so hot to dismiss, and, even with its insanely bad qualities, there is still something irresistible to it all. And, to me, it has a lot of the enjoyable qualities of a bad film. There’s just something so appealing about a bunch of kids who want to try something absurd, and give it their all. Christopher Weingarten put it best in an interview with Eye Weekly last year:

What the worst records you’ve had to endure?
Well, obviously the Brokencyde record… I hate to dog on those guys because it’s kind of an internet meme to make fun of Brokencyde. And if someone pitched the idea of southern bounce beats plus screamo, I would totally say that sounds like a great idea.

The idea is great, and even in their “failure” of execution, I can hear some ghost of botched genius hanging out in the background. Despite the horrid sounds, it’s certainly different. And the sincerity, much like the sincerity of the directors of good-bad movies like Troll 2 or The Room, is all there, loud and clear. It’s hard to hear through the obnoxious screaming and insipid lyrics, but the guys in brokeNCYDE really believe what they are saying. I certainly find a line like “Get crunk, get crazy/All fucked up/Make me wanna punch babies” poorly perceived at best, but I really believe that, for the members of brokeNCYDE, there’s something fantastic about getting drunk to the point of wanting to harm an infant.

It’s not a sentiment, or sound, I could ever agree with, but I may finally give brokeNCYDE props for really giving it their all.

If that’s not enough of a blaring sign of impending doom, Urie’s e-mail cements things quite nicely:

Dear LEOR ,

I’ve received hundreds of e-mails enthusiastically reacting to my “call to action” at the National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention last month.  The music business is facing huge challenges from piracy and theft. Never before in American history has an entire industry been so decimated by illegal behavior.  Yet the government has not responded in a meaningful way to help us address this crisis.  My call to action is for all of us to become more aggressive in lobbying our government, more outspoken in drawing attention to the problems caused by piracy and more actively engaged.  We cannot win this fight alone.

Governments outside the U.S. are legislating, regulating and playing a prominent role in discussions with ISPs (Internet Service Providers).  Sales have dramatically improved in these countries.  How is it that the U.S. – with the most successful music community in the world – is not keeping up with places like South Korea, France, the UK and New Zealand?

As I said in my speech, I hope that the industry can negotiate a voluntary deal with the ISPs. We need our government representatives to encourage this.  But whether or not we reach a deal with the ISPs, our government needs to know that we’ve got a piracy problem and we need real solutions.  To accomplish this, our government needs to hear from all of us, so they know that their constituents are out here.  Join me in calling on our elected officials to fight piracy.  Please help by forwarding this email to your colleagues, friends– everyone who loves music.  And consider enlisting your entire company to help in this fight.  Then by clicking on the link below a message will be sent to your representatives in Washington.  Help us launch a viral campaign to cut off access to the online sites that are used to steal our music, our property and our jobs.  It only takes a second but it can make a tremendous impact.

Click HERE.

Please help us by forwarding this link.

Sincerely,
Jim Urie

So, despite every detail of how the old methods of music distribution should be abandoned and that we should celebrate innovation within the world of music publishing, the CEO of UMGD is defiantly pressing his industry further towards doom with destructive policies.

An industry kept afloat by consumers should listen to consumers instead of punishing those who have already felt spurned by the industry. Urie began his email saying he received “hundreds of e-mails enthusiastically reacting to my ‘call to action.’” Unfortunately for Urie, the music industry was never reliant upon hundreds of music listeners and consumers. There are millions of people who listen to music, and with every illegal download comes another person who can’t get behind an industry stuck in the past.

Music Rights Now is a misnomer: What Urie and his associates are asking is, if anything, a violation of individual rights. The notion that ISPs should somehow be forced to provide consumer information to an industry is laughable. The idea that members of the government should be dragged into the picture is more tragic than anything. It’s as if the music industry has realized it’s obsolescence and is asking the government to bail them out.

Whether or not people downloading music is illegal or not is an aside in this conversation, partly because Urie and co. aren’t even paying attention to the conversation at hand: That being, music lovers are plain fed up with the way the industry works. And this Luddite action is a sign that the industry is flailing in the water without ever having tried to grab a hold of a raft that didn’t look like the old, cash-cow of a boat.

Perhaps an American industry has never been decimated by illegal behavior quite like the music industry. But, other industries have died off due to innovation, new technologies and a general change in cultural attitudes. I can’t imagine being forced to ride a horse and buggy everywhere because the horse coach industry deemed steam-powered trains a bad thing because it was negatively affecting them. So why should we all have to suffer because of one industry’s inability to adapt?