Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Black Is Black

New York Daily News and EMI Music Offer
Free Exclusive Music Downloads to Readers

The New York Daily News, New York's most read newspaper, and EMI Music, the world’s leading independent music company, have announced an agreement to offer Daily News readers free music downloads from EMI's music catalog. The deal will give Daily News readers the opportunity to download three free songs of their choice from a selection of over 120,000 top tracks...
http://poynter.org/forum/view_post.asp?id=13085

"Maybe not a big deal to file-traders, but in the world of major labels, it’s significant. Instead of saying no, instead of locking the music up, suddenly EMI is looking for a way to give back, to engage consumers in music, to hook them, TO GROW THEIR BUSINESS. If this is evidence of the changes Guy Hands has wrought and is wringing, I greatly approve. Instead of saying Prince giving away his CD with the newspaper is killing the industry, EMI is now seeing the wisdom in new marketing ideas. It’s a start." - Bob Lefsetz - http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

And so the new "evolution" of the record business has been made manifest at EMI under new boss Guy Hands and his private equity stakeholders who are now willing and desperate enough it seems, to embrace a future that's already arrived. It's worth noting for the "if you can't beat 'em, join em" turning point it represents for a dying business monopoly that for more than a decade has failed to accept that its vastly outdated model was seriously in need of being overhauled, if not abandoned altogether. A kinder, gentler approach of relational trust with music consumers is therefore now being tested. As Bob Lefsetz says, it's a start.

And about time. It may, however, be too little too late.

Black Is Black...they want their business back...

It's grey it's grey...since you went away...oh oh...

What can they do...cause ah ah ah ah ah...they're feelin' blue




The Biz is feeling blue for sure and no doubt troubled by the fortunes they've seen slip from their greedy grasp into the Limewire night. But the business is finally waking up to the fact that re-establishing its relevancy and viability in today's new technologically advanced world while hoping to win back lost customers begins and ends with being attendant to real music firstly, and to music consumers priorities, not just to the myopic greed that has been the hallmark of the industry for decades.

So they're hurtin' in the record biz these days, but so what...?

As Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos might say..."Hey...you've got your troubles...I got mine pal ok" But you'd better let Paulie know if The Fortunes ever come back...he'll want his juice.




Meanwhile, the conversation in music has changed dramatically this past year. This past 12 months alone we've seen incredible shrinkage in the primacy of powerful corporate brand entertainment media across the spectrum. The real dynamism is 100% on the side of creative artists whose futures will depend on circumventing legacy structures for bolder, uncharted pathways.

As the ongoing effects of radical multi-media hybridization transforms culture, great music will nevertheless thrive as timeless important questions must always be asked, such as... "Hey, Carrie Ann, what's your game now, can anybody play?




If all else fails, and diehard music business beancounters eventually revert back to their default positions of fear and loathing while frantically awaiting their checks to come in the mail, they can always try writing and performing their own songs. In fact, I think a song about a postman bringing their checks and all those love letters from music fans is a cool idea so whadda ya say boys...grab your pens & WAIT...wait a minute…Mr. Postman.



Youtube video clips: Los Bravos [Black Is Black]...The Fortunes [You've Got Your Troubles]...The Hollies [Carrie Ann]...and montage of The Beatles [Please, Mr. Postman]

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Into The Mystery

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
- Albert Einstein

To know what man can BE is to know that God IS.

You needn't waste your time trying to prove whether God exists.

Man -- yourself -- is the evidence you seek.

You only need to discover the Real Man behind the mask.

Happy the man who identifies firstly with his spiritual substance who thus always remains faithful to himself for he is no longer a distorted mask unaware of his true scope, as is the man enclosed only in accidentality.

To be in touch with the mystery is to be in tune with Truth.

God's name is Mercy. That's where the Great Mystery begins.



"The mind of modern man is a curious mixture of decayed Calvinism and diluted Buddhism; and he expresses his philosophy without knowing that he holds it. Catholics say what it is natural for us to say; but we know what we are saying; therefore it is assumed that we are saying it for effect. He says what it is natural for him to say; but he does not know what he is saying, still less why he is saying it. He is just as partisan; just as much depending on one doctrinal system as distinct from another. But he’s taken it for granted so often that he’s forgotten what it is.

So his literature does not seem to him partisan, even when it is.

But our literature seems to him propagandist, even when it isn't."

- G. K. Chesterton

More indepth illuminations and insights surrounding the mystery can be discovered at my favorite daily blog site One Cosmos - Wandering, Wondering and Blundering Into The Mystery.

Full credit here today to Gagdad Bob for his brilliant insights, immutable Raccoon Logic, and cosmic supernova revelations which inform most of the thrust of today's "mystery" musings.

And now, I hear another Bob a-knockin'...think I'll let him in...

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Time Of The Season

It's the time of the season when the love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy
And let me try with pleasured hands

To take you and the sun to promised lands
To show you every one
It's the time of the season for loving

What's your name? Who's your daddy?
Is he rich like me? Has he taken any time?

Time to show you what you need to live...



Father McKenzie…
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear...
No one comes near...

Look at him working...
Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there....
What does he care...?


All the lonely people...where do they all come from?
All the lonely people...where do they all belong?



Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around…leaves are brown

And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside it’s bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around…leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes my friend
Thats an easy thing to say but if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again
Look around…the grass is high
The fields are ripe…its the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme…drinking my vodka and lime

But look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around, leaves are brown…
Theres a patch of snow on the ground...




Ave Maria
Gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Maria, gratia plena
Ave ave dominus
Dominus tecum
In mulieribus
Et benedictus
Et benedictus
Fructus ventris
Ventris tui Jésus
Ave Maria
Ave Maria
Sancta Maria
Maria mater Dei
Maria mater Dei
Ora ora pronobis
Peccatoribus
Nunc et nunc et in hora
Nunc et in hora mortis
Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae
In hora mortis nostrae
Ave Maria



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