Category Archives: Culture

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Rehabilitating piracy?

Digital piracy has been pinpointed as the number one enemy of new music by the industry themselves, now a new report challenges that view.

A new study argues that the music industry’s death by piracy is highly exaggerated.

The report made by researchers at the London School of Economics Department of Media and Communications(LSE) found that the industry is innovating to adapt to the modern digital market. As a whole, the study found, the music industry has not lost revenue due to piracy.

The findings of the study also challenges the demands from big music production companies for more punitive measures against individual violation of copyright.

 

Screengrab from the short film "Piracy. It's a crime." From the campaign with the same name. The now iconic clip, featuring on millions of DVDs, tells the viewer that illegally downloading files is a crime, comparable to physical crimes like stealing a car. Photo: Elias Bizannes

“Piracy. It’s a crime” the famous campaign first launched in 2005. The camapign futured a video later added as a unskippable segment in the opening sequences of millions of DVDs world wide. Photo: Elias Bizannes

Sustainable?

Sales of physical CDs has declined rapidly since the early 2000s, forcing the industry to look for new ways of bring in cash. Sales to mobile phones and legal downloads have compensated for some of the loss, but concerts and live shows have been the key to continued profits.

The LSE report has caused some controversy in the music world. The campaigning website Artists For An Ethical and Sustainable Internet reported that Radiohead Producer Nigel Godrich responded with criticism of what he called the LSE short-sighted misunderstanding about artists revenue. Mr Godrich said that “T-shirts and Tickets are nothing to do with copyright and creation, which is the supposed subject of this document.”

He went on criticising the report, saying that he hoped government sees how ridiculous the document seems for people who make records.

Heritage acts

According to the Music Industry Blog, income from concerts are not saving the music industry. The blog argues that live revenues are over reported and that although the average ticket price has increased by 34% in the last 10 years, only a portion of that finds it’s way back to the artists and managers.

The blog also claims that the live scene is dominated by older stars, saying 60% of the 20 top grossing US live acts are aged 60 or over. It says emerging acts are left little oxygen by the massive focus on so called “heritage acts” like the Rolling Stones and Bon Jovi.

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The Last Walk of Lou Reed

Musical peioneer Lou Reed, who became famous for his originality and diversity, recently passed away

Tributes to the late Lou Reed(1942 – 2013) have been paid by musicians from all over the world.

Lou Reed who died at the age of 71 is widely credited as one of the most influential rock musicians the past 50 years.

He started out in 1960s with his band Velvet Underground in New York.

 

Musical peioneer Lou Reed, who became famous for his originality and diversity, recently passed away

Musical pioneer Lou Red died recently

Their music was ahead of their time, but failed to achieve a major commercial breakthrough.

Reed and the Velvet Underground mixed American and British styles with art into their own avant garde performance.

The pioneering music created by Reed with his band and on his many solo ventures challenged both his own fans and the music industry establishment.

In 1970 he split from the Velvet and moved to Britain where he recorded his first solo album.

His next album Transformer, produced by David Bowie, propelled him from the cult scene into rock hall of fame with songs like “Walk on the wild side” and “Satellite of Love”.

One of his most quoted statements is: “One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”

Although their music failed to reach a mass audience it inspired many of their fans to start bands on their own.

Bands like REM and U2 list Velvet Underground as one of their most important sources of inspiration.

David Bowie has described Reed as his all-time hero.

Tributes from musicians quickly appeared on social media like Facebook and Twitter. David Bowie said “He was my master” and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth wrote: “So sorry to hear of Lou Reed’s passing this is a huge shock!”

In 2007 Reed told the BBC that he had never been a businessman and therefore never cared much about the music industry.

 

Cover of the Transformer album, released in 1972. Lou Reed's second album.

Cover of the Transformer album, released in 1972.

He also said that he never cared for what critiques and pundits had to say about his music.

Nevertheless, his work was instrumental in shaping many of today’s top artists and bands. His legacy lives on, even if he doesn’t give damn.

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Beatles: Twist and shout these facts out

The four that became the greatest rock act to come out of Liverpool.
John
Paul
George
Ringo

Beatles Posing for the Fans

Four of the most recognisable names in the music world, they became the dreams of fan girls and musicians across the world instantly and incorporated all times of popular music of the time to become the focus of “Beatlemania”.

See what you didn’t know about the beatles:

1. The song “Michelle” was inspired by Paul’s favorite technique for picking up girls at parties. McCartney once shared in an interview that he and Harrison, self-described “working-class boys,” often felt at odds at the boho-chic parties they went to as teens with Lennon (who was older and attending art college). To hold his own, McCartney developed a habit of dressing in black, sitting in a corner with his guitar, and singing in made-up French to see if he could draw over any of the Juliette Greco-type women. It never worked, but one day Lennon suggested that McCartney make “that French thing” into a song. Il faut souffrir pour être belle, man.

2. Genius often comes out of nowhere, and the melody for the famous melancholy string setting that is Vladimir Putin’s favourite Beatles song apparently just popped into Paul McCartney’s head when he woke up one morning. Until he could find words for it, the McCartney walked around the house humming “scrambled eggs…baby, I love scrambled eggs” so that he wouldn’t forget the tune.

3. In the 1964 Bond thriller ‘Goldfinger’, Connery purrs, of drinking Dom Perignon at the wrong temperature, “It’s simply not done…like listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.” Young fans reportedly booed the line in theatres, but the actor himself has no real animosity toward the Beatles. Connery even collaborated with George Martin in 1988 for the Beatles producer’s In My Life album.

4. “Traffic wardens,” as they were called in London of the 1960s, were less common and less reviled in Britain than across the pond, and it took an American friend of McCartney’s commenting on the “meter maids” to inspire the immortal rhyme of the Sgt. Pepper’s track. The woman herself, however, never got her fine. Parking attendant Meta Davis claims to have written a ticket for a car outside of the Abbey Road Studios in 1967 when Paul sauntered out and pulled it off the windshield. “He looked at it and read my signature … He said ‘Oh, is your name really Meta? … That would be a good name for a song. Would you mind if I use it?’ And that was that. Off he went.”

5. Wikipedia talk pages were ablaze late last year over a small but persistent question: are they The Beatles or the Beatles? Lower-case faction members point to handwritten letters by Lennon which feature a small t in the band’s title, while proponents of the capital T cite grammatical rules over trademarks and the logo atop the Beatles’ official website. Squabbling on the online forum started in 2004, and recently resulted in several editors being banned from commenting. Lower-case advocate Gabriel Fadden complained of being “cyber-stalked” in the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the rumpus. The two surviving musicians, McCartney and Starr, have refrained from throwing an oar or a drumstick in, but if you’re interested, the talk page is still open and ripe for grammatical speculation.

Give their Website a go.

Here are my Top Ten Tracks
1.Let it Be
2.A Day in the Life
3.Strawberry Fields Forever
4.Happiness of a Warm Gun
5.Eleanor Rigby
6.Baby You’re a Rich Man
7.Revolution
8.Hey Jude
9.Come Together
10.Day Tripper

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Music of the struggle

Nelson Mandela, the first Black President, died last week aged 95.

The recent passing of Nelson Mandela, the man who embodied the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, has triggered a landslide of tributes paid from people across the world.

 

Here at Cruxx Music, we will pay tribute by remembering some “Liberation Music”, that fueled the resistance against apartheid, both in South Africa and across the globe. Our top five list is at the bottom of the article.

Song and music connected all age groups and across divides of education and wealth,

 

Former rebel, anti-apartheid campaigner and president of South Africa, passed away on December 5th, 95 years old.

Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013) Photo: Georges DeKeerle, Getty Images, April 16, 1990

After Britain gained full control over South Africa following the South African wars (1879 – 1915), a series of laws where enacted to segregate different racial groups, for example requiring documentation proving authorization to live in white areas.The 1913 Native Land Act restricted the amount of land Africans could own to 7% of the national total. Apartheid was abolished and Nelson Mandela elected the country’s first non-white president in 1994.

Nelson Mandela was chosen to be the centerpiece of what would become a highly successful anti-apartheid campaign. He was picked among the prisoners of Robben Island to personify the struggle of all people oppressed in South Africa. Despite the fact that he sat in jail for decades and was therefore not seen in public, he became an world famous icon. When Jarry Drammers wrote the song Free Nelson Mandela thirty years ago, he was just one of many imprisoned ANC leaders. On his release in 1990, he had become a global icon, despite only a handful of people knowing what he actually looked like.

 

The movement against apartheid in South Africa expanded from South Africa itself into a international movement. The campaign influencing popular culture, but was also influenced by it. I Just Want to Break Fee by Queen, became a favorite song among activists in South Africa in the 1980s.

 

Video: Musicians discuss the importance of music in the anti-apartheid struggle.

 

TOP FIVE ANTI-APARTHEID SONGS:

The Specials. Free Nelson Mandela(1984)

Sonny Okouon – Fire in Soweto

Johnny Clegg – Asimbonanga (1987)

Stevie Wonder- It’s Wrong (1985)

 

Miriam Makeba – Ndodemnyama

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Walk the Line with Johnny Cash

Many would say that The king holds the title for Rockabilly smooth man. But there is a contender in the form of Johnny Cash, Tennessee blues God and drug addled 50’s heart throb. Living in the shadow of the great Elvis, Cash created new blues sound and a massive fan gathering where ever he went.

Johnny Cash Recording in Tennesee

Smoking and drinking was a big part of Cash’s life

So what separates him from Presley?

1. Cash and his bandmates were constantly stirring up trouble in the hotels they frequented while touring. In the late 1950’s, Cash and his band bought 500 baby chickens and let 100 loose on each floor of the hotel they were staying at. Another time, Cash and Co. flushed cherry bombs down a toilet, destroying the plumbing system. Cash also stabbed a reproduction of the Mona Lisa that was hanging in a hotel because it didn’t quite reach his standards.

2. Cash once broke his toes trying to kick the bars out of a jail cell. The incident happened during one of Cash’s seven arrests, and occurred at a jail in Starkville, Missouri, after Cash was incarcerated for trespassing. The leather clad bad boy spent quite a few nights in prison across the years.

3. Cash was allegedly the first person ever to be sued by the U.S. for igniting a forest fire. Cash would often take his camper, Jesse James, out to the desert for methamphetamine binges. One time, the camper had an oil leak that caused the Los Padres National Wildlife Refuge to catch fire. The blaze killed almost every endangered condor in the refuge, to which Cash replied, “I don’t give a damn about your yellow buzzards.”

4. When Cash felt his record label was ignoring him in 1984, he intentionally recorded a terrible album. The title of the album was ‘Chicken in Black,’ and the lead song was about Cash having his brain transplanted with that of a chicken.

5. Cash never did a performance where he wasn’t wearing black. Cash started wearing all-black suits as a good luck charm, because he wore a black T-shirt and jeans to his first live gig. He once told Larry King, “I’ve never done a concert in anything but black. You walk into my clothes closet. It’s dark in there.”

Here is the Man in Blacks official website.

Here are my Top Ten for Johnny Cash
1.Cocaine Blues
2.Ring of Fire
3.Walk the line
4.Jackson
5.It Ain’t me Babe
6.Home of the Blues
7.Folsom Prison Blues
8.Cry Cry Cry
9.You’re my Baby
10.Get Rhythm