Wednesday, August 21, 2002

PERMALINK

Paint it Black Interesting link found on Tenorman.Net: EMUSIC OFFERS TWO NEW FRANK BLACK ALBUMS IN MP3 -- Former Pixies Leader was the First Artist to Partner with Pioneer Downloadable Music Service. (This page is from the new Blogcritics project, which looks like it's off to a great start.) Now, here's the thing -- I subscribe to EMusic's service. I also just bought those two CDs at Amoeba here in Berkeley. Now, theoretically, I should be upset, right? I just paid about $28 for music that I could have downloaded, legally, as part of an online service I already pay for. But guess what? I'm not upset. I'd have bought these CDs anyway. I'm a Frank Black fan, I buy all his CDs, and that's that. The point here is simple: Some music you want to own. Other music you just want to try out, sample, see whether you want to own it. The problem with the current music industry position is that they don't provide us with enough options for trying stuff out, on our own terms. comment [] 12:31:08 PM | permalink

Salon Blog watch Andrew Bayer has some interesting thoughts about blogs in response to Steven Levy's Newsweek piece: Since most blogs aren't anonmyous, the ideal that you can be totally honest and open runs into the inevitable wall when people start to criticize their own companies. In the utopian scenario, even the CEOs become bloggers, everyone's in the same boat, and the blog-space becomes an open forum for companies to work out their problems. Today, though, there are very few companies that are willing to do so in full public view. And the legal issues for public companies become pretty gnarly. Kat Donohue has a passel of uses for a pashmina shawl. Toby's Political Diary imagines the scene at Dubya's ranch as news of the Iraqi embassy takeover in Berlin gets a little garbled in transmission. Recently on Ken Schellenberg's book blog: Reviews of a Miles Davis reader and "The Secret Life of Bees." comment [] 12:26:23 PM | permalink