This is MP3Monster's blog. The blog covers music, technology, photography and anything else Monster considers worthy of blogging about.Educational videos
Posted by monster in Technology
A number of Universities, particularly from the US are starting to video record lectures and posting them on YouTube. The problem is that YouTube is also the home for a lot of personal material with a limited potential viewer-ship, resulting in trying to find some interesting and educational material can be crowded out by a lot of videos of little or no interest. However I came across Ted Talks. The site has a great library of videos talking about a wide spread of subjects from Music Video development through to Open Source Economics and onto String Theory. Each video is accompanied by a brief bio of the presenter, and the videos can be downloaded for example David Pogue (New York Times Tech Columnist) on the Internet Music Wars at the other end of the spectrum is a presentation by the architect Frank Gehry on his work.
Overall a fascinating site and worth having a browse through.
Jeff Skoll talking about his production company trying to make films with a view to produce films that get people to stop and think about issues such as the environment.
Ansel Adams’s Yosemite
Posted by monster in Photography
The New York Times have created a lovely article on one of my favourite photographers - Ansel Adams. The NY Times have a some on Ansel’s famous Yosemite images, with a map showing the locations and some audio explaining the significance of the picture. To see the site go here. Therei is also an article on the New York Times site here.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have been to Yosemite, and you can see some of my photographic efforts here.
Other interesting links:
Record labels kill of startup trying to help legally license music for blogs
Posted by monster in Music
It appears that the major record labels have managed to effectively kill off a new start up Sonific who tried to create a business around properly licensing music for podcasting & blogging sites thus creating a more controlled environment revenue rather than the currently Wild West situation that predominates outside of the top tier of blogs not to mention revenue for the record labels. According to Sonific they have wound things up because of the licensing situation with the record labels. Tragic that the record industry again appears to have architected a situation where they may potentially earn some revenue and at least slow the amount of unlicensed music flying around has failed.
Sonific announcement here.
Coldplay give away 1st single from next album
Posted by monster in Music
According to Coldplay ….
We’re very pleased to announce that Coldplay’s new single, ‘Violet Hill’, will be available as a free download exclusively from Coldplay.com for one week starting tomorrow, Tuesday April 29th, at 12.15pm UK time. This is a full week ahead of the single’s conventional paid-for digital release, on Tuesday May 6th.
Ed Harcourt goes to America
Posted by monster in Music
All Music are reporting that after Ed Harcourt being dropped by EMI recently has been signed to the US label Dovecote Records with the right to distribute Ed’s last album The Beautiful Lie (a fine one at that). The sad thing is that like many other small American indie labels I’m sure that Ed will start to do well and will continue winning ‘hearts and minds’ with his work, with us UK fans probably having to wait a lot longer for the material.
Why DRM is so evil …
Posted by monster in Music
One of the problems of DRM has really come home to roost for MSN Music users. According to Digital Music News, Microsoft have informed users in writing that music purchased through MSN Music will not be transferable after August 31st 2008 to other devices or machines. This means that MSN Music users must continue to keep their existing equipment (and working) to not lose their investment. So if after August you experience a catastrophic failure of your computer then game over, your investment is lost.
My personal view is that given you have paid for the right to have a copy of the music to play that Microsoft in this situation should carry the cost of transferring MSN Music users to their Zune infrastructure which is replacing it, or allow people to re-download the music in a DRM free format.
new news on Massive Attack’s next album
Posted by monster in Music
Horace Andy who has provided vocals for a number of Massive Attack albums has been talking with the NME about song lyrics he has been provided with to record for the new album. The article (here) also suggests that they maybe on the road later in the year as well.
1 Giant Leap are back
Posted by monster in Music
1 Giant Leap are returning with new material. Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto who started out working with Faithless. The new project called What About Me? follows the same basic approach as their debut, of travelling around sampling music and interviews from around the world and weaving them together to tell musical stories. What About Me? has again resulted in an audio visual offering. Those in the UK will be fortunate enough to see at least some of this feast over the next couple of months as from April 23rd Channel 4 will be showing seven chapters spread over 7 weeks.
I’ve not yet seen release dates for the anticipated album and DVD.
The first piece picks up where the first album left off with Maxi Jazz and Michael Stipe.
Links:
Word Magazine talking about Kill Your Friends
Posted by monster in Books, Music
I’ve been trying to catch up with my podcast listening, and today this included Mark Ellen and Rob Fitzpatrick talk to John Niven about the mad world of the A&R on their weekly Word podcast (main Word Weekly Podcast page). Niven has written a novel called “Kill Your Friends” inspired by his real experiences of the record industry and A&R. The podcast is very interesting thirty minutes of listening (click here to listen or download) as the trio discuss both the book and the realities of the A&R industry. Mark & Rob clearly rate the book, but the discussion about the book has intriguing enough that I shall be getting the book.
Chasing the template for another No. 1 hit
Posted by monster in Music
Helienne Lindvall as song writer has written on the Guardian music blog an interesting, if a little dispiriting article (here) about how she gets emails asking her to write and pitch songs in a particular style modelled on specific hits and artists (e.g. “Estelle’s American Boy and Duffy’s Mercy, with an Amy Winehouse flavour to it.”). The situation is comically tragic to hear A&R working in such a manner, and as Helienne says its not surprising that EMI have suggested sacking (or shooting) their A&R department.
Matthew Ryan vs Silver state - Review
Posted by monster in Music Reviews
Matthew Ryan’s latest album - Matthew Ryan vs The Silver State or MRVSS has finally reached my ears, and boy has it been worth the wait. It is very much deserving of the good reviews. Matthew Ryan has been a songwriter of note for some time writing about subjects that can by deeply touching such as The Complete Family where his brother has been sentenced to 30 years in jail on the last album (From a Late Night High Rise) and the heart felt Hummingbird about wanting to be good enough for the woman you love. In this department, I might even be so blasphemous as to suggest he may even be on a par with Bruce Springsteen; he can certainly match for other lauded new generation songwriters such as Ryan Adams.
Musically Ryan’s voice has a slightly timbered and rough edge to it. This is combined with a musical style which for MRVSS has a live feel (we can only hope he tours the UK to here these songs live) although other albums (particularly Strays Don’t Sleep have had a more study polished feel). With the live edge to it the grittier songs such as Drunk and Disappointed bring to mind the likes Paul Westerberg or perhaps Jesse Malin and the quieter songs such as Hummingbird hinting at Tom McRae or Springsteen on Nebraska and The Ghost Of Tom Joad.
Useful links:
George Foreman’s MP3-Ready Grill Brings Together Fat Beats, Lean Meats
Posted by monster in Music, Technology
Now you can BBQ the MP3Monster way, that or someone has been eating too many mad cow burgers. This BBQ is fitted with an iPod docking station. For more info checkout the Idolator Gift Guide or checkout details at Target.
del.icio.us tags: mp3, ipod, grill, BBQ, Idolator, gadget
Free Music Encourages Sales, Says Last.fm
Posted by monster in Music
The story from Last.fm about how they’ve found that providing free music has helped stimulate sales (Free Music Encourages Sales)is certainly doing the rounds reaching the inkies as well as numerous music blogs.
Although the article relates to making tracks free on Last.fm and linking them to affiliated paid download sites. I’m sure the clear evidence here is going to be used by to add weight to the claims that P2P sharing doesn’t do as much to hurt sales as the major record labels would like everyone to believe.
Wherefore art thou Mark Hollis?
Posted by monster in Music
The Guardian online have written a good piece about what has happened to Talk Talk and their main man Mark Hollis. The article can be found here. A worth while ready as some of the battles between Hollis and his record labels have had long and important impacts on other artists contracts.
Camping Monster way
Posted by monster in General
Camping the Monster way - folding chair fitted with water resistant speakers, amplifier in a pouch at the back of the chair, cup holders the lot. Maplins for £15 (~$30).
File sharing ‘may be good’, says EMI executive
Posted by monster in Music
According to the Guardian online Glen Merrill the recently hired executive (formerly with Google) to help move EMI into the digital age has acknowledged that research into file sharing is not the evil thing the industry has been saying that it is. Merrill suggests that part of the problem is that P2P users are buying music but through channels that they can’t or aren’t currently measuring. Merrill also stands up against the RIAA strategy of suing its customers. The full article can be found at - File sharing ‘may be good’, says EMI executive - The Guardian.
From a personal perspective, the assumption that a download equates to a lost sale is flawed. When release patterns between different parts of the world are staggered people (particularly enthusiastic fans) may well download the album for the part of the world where an album has been released and then purchase it locally once the album becomes available. A situation that is of the industry’s own making as evidenced by the fuss over CD-Wow’s CD sourcing which means it is legally only allowed to source CDs from within Europe.
The worrying thing is that others within EMI seem not to have a good handle on the record business, and as a result artists are leaving or looking to leave EMI like a sinking ship. Meaning that EMIs profits will slip and the easy scape goat new digital sales strategies destroying an forward progress in the record industry’s mentality to P2P and online music. Call me a doom monger, but the record industry does have a history of going for the easy blame.
MySpace joins the competition for selling DRM free music
Posted by monster in Music
MySpace has joined the online selling of DRM free music having announced it has signed three of the majors (Sony BMG, Universal and Warners) so far. This is a natural step given that MySpace managed establish itself as a natural place for musicians and groups to establish a web presence (particularly for smaller artists). However as Read Write Web point out it is surprising that there is no mention of signing agreements with the labels and organisations which probably attract more traffic to MySpace (after all the major artists can and do have their own significant web presence).
It will be interesting to see if MySpace and other social networking sites as they start to sell MP3s make any impression on iTunes currently dominant position.
real-life jBPM proof of concept using SeeWhy
Posted by monster in Work
Jorrem Barrez’s blog has a brilliant demo (video and slides) of a proof of concept that presents JBoss jBPM (JBoss’ Business Process Management tool) and SeeWhy being used to provide a BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) capability for jBPM (Small steps with big feet » Blog Archive » Some real-life jBPM action: PoC jBPM Orchestration). Jorrem appears to have worked version 3.2 of SeeWhy and taken advantage of the jBPM Integration Guide. Its pleasing to see that they thought it was well documented, the good news is that his proof of concept will come together even more easily with some of the forthcoming features.
del.icio.us tags: SeeWhy, jBPM, JBOss World, BI, BAM, PoC, demo
Event Processing (CEP) - overview from EBizQ
Posted by monster in Work
The Enterprise Business IT blog/online journal have posted a number of articles and webinars looking at Complex Event Processing (CEP), Event Driven Architecture and related areas, the links are :
- What is Event Processing?:Blogs and Resources
- What is Event Processing?: Event-Driven Architecture
- What is Event Processing?: Related Technologies
- What is Event Processing?: Trends and Commentary
The EBizQ pages link to material by influential thinkers/analysts in the area such as Roy Schultze (Gartner) and one of IBM’s Lead Architect’s Opher Etzion. If you’re looking for a basic handle on Event Processing particularly within the context of more mainstream business i.e. SOA (Service Orientated Architecture), BPM (Business Process Management), BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) issues then these links make a good starting point although although the this certainly doesn’t tell the whole story as it doesn’t address the super high volume players such as Streambase and the likes of my employer SeeWhy where we provide Event Driven BI (Business Intelligence) which has a natural affinity to BAM. However EBizQ does touch upon Event Driven BI here.
NB - I’m expressing my personal views rather than those of SeeWhy here.
Stereogum Presents…
Posted by monster in Music
Stereogum have coordinated several free tribute albums to major artists by compiling covers of significant albums such as REM’s Automatic For the People. Now Stereogum have pulled together a tribute to Bjork’s post called Enjoyed: A Tribute to Björk’s Post (go here for more information). Post included the hits ‘”IT’s Oh So Quiet” and “Hyperballard”.
