Rolling Who? What about 131901319013190's opinion of the Spencer Pratt song?

The Inquisitr recently featured a YouTube video of Spencer Pratt's song "I'm a Celebrity." Now ordinarily, when a song is released, one used to have to wait for Rolling Stone or MAXIMUMROCKNROLL or Trouser Press or Spin Magazine or someone to weigh in on the song and pontificate about it. (You knew that the radio deejays would not give an honest assessment.)

But for Spencer Pratt, I'm not waiting for or Robert Hilburn or whoever to make an official pronouncement on the merits or demerits of this extremely important song. Instead, I turn to noted reviewer 131901319013190.



Now, 131901319013190 (I'll call him 131 for short) was able to get his opinion out there quickly, link it to another YouTube video, and get it positioned in such a way that I could immeidately hear what 131 had to say about the immense talents of Spencer Pratt.

Now, YouTube is not the only place where people can review songs. I have to mention that last.fm has already collected several reviews of the song, a couple of which are even positive.

[5:00 - NEXT PARAGRAPH CORRECTED.]

And, for better or worse, these reviews can be posted by anybody, which means that ANYTHING could be reviewed. I should know:

MY REVIEW OF ROAD ARRAY:
by breadcrust

The Whimperor's tune are made on a cheap casio with trash can lids clanging for rythm. I thought this music was a joke at first like spinal tap but no,
this loon is serious.

Of course, then there are some accuracy issues:

God, but that voice would peel paint!

That particular CD was entirely instrumental. Whoops...

Now there is certainly still room for the professional reviewer, and I hope that all of the Hilburns don't fade away because of the 131s and breadcrusts of the world. But it's good to know that we have alternatives, and that current technology allows these alternatives to be aggregated or dis-aggregated as we see fit, so that we can find reviews that make sense to us.

Now if you'll pardon me, I have to take my trash can to the trash can tuner...

Revisiting the UK Performing Rights Society (PRS) - YouTube tussle

Brownie points by Ashley Dryden used under a Creative Commons License

In the past, I've briefly mentioned the fee dispute between the United Kingdom's Performing Rights Society and YouTube (March 10 2009 post) and I've also mentioned the huge amounts that YouTube pays to UK songwriters under the existing contract (April 22 2009 post). You may recall that the Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up," which was played tens of millions of times on YouTube, resulted in less than £50 of revenue.

Well, I've lost track of the PRS-YouTube dispute, but Steven Hodson has provided an update to Duncan Riley's March 9 post:

...that groveling sound you hear is the PRS sweet talking YouTube to come back after PRS halved its royalties. Mind you it is no wonder that PRS wants the video giant back as YouTube contributed 40 percent of PRS members’ plays during one point last year.

Surfing from the Inquisitr, I ended up at two Paid Content posts. The first is dated May 26:

Good news for cash-strapped online music services. Royalty collector PRS For Music has bowed to websites’ pleas for smaller charges, more than halving its on-demand streaming music rate from £0.0022 to £0.00085 per track, effective July 1 and lasting for three years.

OK, let's do the math. Let's say that you have a video that pays £0.00085 per track. Furthermore, let's say that it becomes a viral sensation and is played...oh...30 million times, attracting all sorts of attention for the video website in addition to the 30 million visits and resulting ad revenue. Under the PRS proposal, the video service will be...um...GOUGED to the tune (heh) of...£25,500.

So why did Pete Waterman only get £11? I'm not sure. I don't know what the PRS royalty rate was at the time, and I don't know how much of a cut Waterman's publishing company took before paying him his portion of the royalties.

The second Paid Content post, dated June 1, simply notes that negotiations are ongoing.

Ozzy isn't only fighting in World of Warcraft

Perhaps you've seen the commercial in which Ozzy Osbourne is contesting his "Prince of Darkness" claim against an animated character from World of Warcraft. Well, Ozzy isn't only fighting in second life, but also in first life. In this case, he is fighting against Tony Iommi:

With his former Sabbath band mates Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler touring and recording with Ronnie James Dio (Osbourne's replacement in Black Sabbath when he left the band in 1980) as Heaven and Hell, Ozzy Osbourne is suing Iommi over the rights to the Sabbath moniker....

In a suit filed in the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office, Osbourne's lawyers allege that the guitarist for the heavy metal giants has claimed sole ownership over the Black Sabbath name, one of the most valuable and revered in metal music. Osbourne, who states in the suit his "Signature lead vocals" led to the band's "extraordinary success," citing a dive in their popularity during his 1980 - 1996 separation from the group, is seeking 50 percent ownership of the moniker.

More changes in the music industry - follow the money

This blog has devoted a bit of coverage to various issues in the music industry, and in my Google Reader I've discovered a few new items in this regard.

The first item, from the New York Times' Eric Pfanner, notes how the music industry is looking to nightclubs as a new source of revenue. The article starts by looking at fees paid for playing songs in Australia:

To pump music out to their dance floors, Australian clubs used to have to pay record companies and artists a nominal 7 Australian cents in royalties per guest, per night. Under a recent copyright settlement, that rate has risen to 50 cents per customer, and it is set to jump to 1.05 dollars, or 84 U.S. cents, in a few years.

The theory, as expressed in the article, is that customers are paying A$10-$15 cover charges and A$5 drink charges, so why shouldn't the music industry get a cut of the revenue, since they're providing the entertainment?

And more than Australian nightclubs are affected. U.S. radio stations currently pay songwriters when their songs are played over the air, but U.S. Representative John Conyers and others are pushing a bill that states that record companies and artists should also get payment from the radio stations. (The reverse of payola, as it were.)

Steven Hodson of the Inquisitr also examines this issue, but takes a look at the other side of it:

Of course [Michael] Huppe [of SoundExchange, a collector of royalties] doesn’t acknowledge the incredible amount of free advertising that artists, and record companies, get because of all the free airplay they get.

However, if the revenue stream from selling recordings is drying up, then what good is free advertising?

Isn't That Special? (June edition)

Well, it's good to see that the Jerry Dammers-less Specials have managed to stay out of controversy. Not. Got this gem from Terry Hall:

"Thanks very much for Cantona."

He said this at a show in Leeds, referring to a player that was sold to Manchester United in 1992 - a transfer move that later made the Independent's list of the 10 best transfer shocks.

The crowd at the Specials show was not appreciative.

As for Dammers, he was interviewed on May 22 in advance on his May 30 gig at a "Love Music Hate Racism" show. But he's not living in the past:

"You always have to find new ways of saying things and new artists to say them.

Simply repeating the old slogans makes it sound like something from a bygone era, and it's not."

Empoprise-MU News - 31 May 2009

Empoprise-MU News

The news letter for Empoprise-MU - An Empoprises vertical information service for music news.

Welcome to Empoprise-MU News

You knew this was going to happen. I started a "newsletter" for my Empoprise-BI blog, so I'm rolling the idea out elsewhere. I anticipate that this will come out weekly and discuss various items related to my Empoprise-MU music blog. You can come to http://empoprise-mu.blogspot.com/ to read it, or you can read it via an RSS feed or email (go to the blog and subscribe via RSS or email by going to the appropriate item in the upper left corner of the blog).

Behind the Scenes

This is pretty much a "behind the scenes" issue. Not only do I write about music, but at times I make music - after a fashion (I describe my music as "synthetica"; others describe it less charitably). In fact, my "Ontario Emperor" online pseudonym (and its predecessor pseudonym, "Theo Tres Thr3") was originally used for the MIDIs that I posted online. I then used the mp3.com service for a while, until that was reformulated into something else. I still play around with making music occasionally, and recently uploaded six very short music files to last.fm. (And yes, the "Before the Beta" song WAS named after the FriendFeed beta.)

Special Features

People who have read me for the last year or so know that I'm a big fan of last.fm - in fact, I created the lastfmfeeds group on FriendFeed - but I also use Pandora at times, primarily when I have networking problems (the dreaded 403 errors) that prevent me from accessing last.fm at times. For those of you who live in the United States, my Pandora profile is here.

But if you're on FriendFeed, I strongly encourage you to join the last.fm group. And if you'd like your last.fm song stream to be included as part of the group feed, please email your last.fm name to the Gmail account entitled "empoprises" and I'll fix you up.

Upcoming

I do have a really...um...special article cued up for Monday. And another one about Ozzy and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. After that, we'll see what happens.

Uh oh. Adam Lambert just became a target of the Claymates

Once I read this piece in the Inquisitr, I knew that all hell was about to break loose.

Adam Lambert has finally responded to the catty comments made by former fellow gay American Idol runner Clay Aiken.

“I don’t know Clay,” Lambert told Access Hollywood. “I’m glad he’s getting headlines now though, because he wasn’t before. If he wants to ride my coattails about it, good for him.”

More here.

Now I've blogged about Clay Aiken before, and have discovered that even now, years after American Idol, Aiken has a ton of devoted fans. Perhaps they're not showing up at the tops of the charts, but there is a lot of money to be made by legacy acts. (Why do you think that groups from the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, and 1950s continue to tour decades later?)

I submit this to you - if a brief period in late July 2007, I wrote about a ton of topics, including Iraq, the 2008 presidential election, Somalia, the Balkans, other international hotspots, the murder of Daniel Pearl, the entertainment industry, the news industry (not that there's necessarily a difference between the two), reminiscent looks at 1950s culture, baseball and steroids, football and dog fighting, animal rights, badgers, and native American poverty and funding sources. But the item that really drew traffic to my mrontemp blog during that period was a brief mention of a Clay Aiken casino appearance in a travel post.

So, to meet the needs of my readers, I wrote an entire post about Aiken's then-forthcoming appearance at Pala Casino. I wrote this under my then-current Ontario Emperor pseudonym, which resulted in some slightly misdirected praise in the comments:

Congratulations! I think you will be the first Canadian reporter/blogger, that managed to write a whole page about Clay, without maligning him, or insulting him, or questioning his sexuality.

Every single Canadian writer has been extremely offensive, and I wouldn't have came here to read this, if I wasn't sitting here listening to a Clay Aiken cellcert, and didn't pay attention to the website addy.

Praise for "the Canadian reporter" was echoed in a subsequent comment by "sweetclay."

Ignore their confusion about my location - my "Ontario Emperor" pseudonym confused nearly everyone outside of southern California - but note the passion exhibited by these writers, true fans of Clay.

That's when I discovered the world of the Claymates. In fact, in that late July 2007 period, I joked that Clay Aiken could even resurrect John McCain's then-stalled campaign. Little did I know that McCain would be able to secure the Republican nomination without Aiken's assistance.

But that was 2007. This is 2009. And it appears that Adam Lambert is building up a following that is as devoted to him as the Claymates are devoted to Aiken. And USA Today has even printed a name for them - Glamberts. And listya has compared the two:

Glamberts is the new Claymates. maybe worse than Claymates

Sabrina Brody predicted what would happen next:

The Claymates and Glamberts could have been united, but no, it will be war from here, like a modern epic.

And it should be noted that Aiken has clarified his original statement.

I am sure that some were upset by my choice of words describing my opinion of a performance I heard from Adam Lambert. I hope no one actually believed that blood truly poured forth from my ears when I heard him. I obviously meant it as a colorful statement to imply that I did not enjoy what I heard.

Good that's cleared up.

Truthfully, what Aiken really meant to emphasize in his response was that it shouldn't matter to Lambert that one particular person (Aiken) disliked one particular performance ("Ring of Fire"). I'm sure that Aiken wouldn't be upset at all if all of the Claymates loved Lambert's "Ring of Fire" performance; it just wasn't Aiken's cup of tea.

It's very difficult to compare the Claymates and the Glamberts at this stage, primarily because Lambert's Idol run just finished. While most of the comments that I've seen have favored the new guy, I'm not quite sure what's going on in the members-only Claymate boards.

La casa del sole, and related songs

I was noodling around on YouTube one evening, trying to find "interesting" versions of the old song "House of the Rising Sun," when I ran across this one.



This version of the song came out in 1965, and was obviously influenced by the Animals' version, although they do some nice things with harmony vocals.

"They" are sometimes referred to as Los Marcellos Ferial, and other times as I Marcellos Ferial. As well as I can piece it together from the Italian Wikipedia page on the band, Los Marcellos Ferial was created by a record company to cash in on the Italians' love of Latin American/Caribbean music. To do this, the record company kinda sorta OBSCURED the fact that the band was actually Italian...but their success continued even after their identities were exposed.

Now obviously Los Marcellos Ferial, or Eric Burdon, or Bob Dylan, or Dolly Parton, or Buck Norris weren't the only people to ever cover the song. As a matter of fact, I first learned "House of the Rising Sun" from my dad. And although he doesn't appear in the Second Hand Songs list of people who have performed the song, just about everyone else has.

The Rising Sun Blues written by traditional
The Rising Sun Blues by Clarence Tom Ashley (1932)
Rounder's Luck by The Callahan Brothers (1934)
The Rising Sun Blues by Georgia Turner (1937)
House of the Rising Sun by Libby Holman (1942)
In New Orleans by Leadbelly (1944)
House of the Rising Sun by Joshua White (1944)
House of the Rising Sun by Nina Simone (1962)
House of the Rising Sun by Bob Dylan (March 19, 1962)
House of the Rising Son by The Supremes (1964)
Le pénitencier by Johnny Hallyday (1964)
+ Les portes du penitencier by Jam [1] (2006)
House of the Rising Sun by The Animals (September 1964)
The House of the Rising Sun by Marianne Faithfull (October 23, 1964)
La casa del sole by I Marcellos Ferial (1965)
+ La casa del sole by Pooh (January 30, 2008)
House of the Rising Sun by The Brothers Four (1965)
House of the Rising Sun by The Barbarians (1965)
House of the Rising Sun by Herbie Mann (1967)
House of the Rising Sun by Trudy Pitts (1967)
Rising Sun by Catherine McKinnon (1968)
House of the Rising Sun by N. Maeda - J. Inagaki and The All Stars (September 10, 1968)
House of the Rising Sun by Tim Hardin (1969)
House of the Rising Sun by Nat Stuckey (April 1969)
The House of the Rising Sun by Frijid Pink (1970)
House of the Rising Sun by The Chambers Brothers (1970)
House of the Rising Sun by Mike Auldridge (1970)
House of the Rising Sun by Conway Twitty (January 12, 1970)
The House of the Rising Sun by Santa Esmeralda (1977)
House of the Rising Sun by Alan Price (1980)
The House of the Rising Sun by Dolly Parton (November 1980)
House of the Rising Sun by The Bobby Fuller Four (1984)
House of the Rising Sun by Adolescents (1987)
The House of the Dirty Scums by The Dirty Scums (1987)
La casa del sol naciente by Alejandra Guzmán (1989)
House of the Rising Sun by Tracy Chapman (November 27, 1990)
House of the Rising Sun by Theodis Ealey (1993)
House of the Rising Sun by Don McMinn (1994)
House of the Rising Sun by Sinéad O'Connor (1994)
House of the Rising Sun by Peter, Paul and Mary (November 4, 1995)
House of the Rising Sun by Bachman-Turner Overdrive (1996)
House of The Rising Sun by The Walkabouts (1996)
House of the Rising Sun by Sentenced (1998)
House of the Rising Sun by Eric Burdon Brian Auger Band (June 30, 1998)
House of the Rising Sun by Don Angle (1999)
House of the Rising Sun by EverEve (1999)
House of the Rising Sun by 386 DX (2000)
House of the Rising Sun by Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Tony Rice (April 25, 2000)
House of the Rising Sun by Sarah Brooks with Joe Beck (2002)
House of the Rising Sun by Noel Freidline Quintet (February 19, 2002)
House of the Rising Sun by Muse (October 14, 2002)
The House of the Rising Sun by Helmut Lotti (2003)
House of the Rising Sun by Jet Jet Six (February 24, 2003)
House of the Rising Sun by Rock Nalle & The Yankees (2004)
House of the Risin' Sun by Antoine Rocks (June 28, 2005)
House of the Rising Sun by Russell Watson - The Voice (November 17, 2008)
The House of the Rising Sun by Roman (March 2, 2009)
House of the Rising Sun by The Almanac Singers

To be continued...

A glimmer of good news - Broadway has record grosses

Tickets by Alexis O'Toole (Whatsername?) used under a Creative Commons License

We hear about all sorts of industries that are undergoing pain, but this is good news:

Broadway musicals and plays had total gross receipts of about $943.3 million during the 2008-9 theater season, a slight increase from the previous season and a record for total grosses, according to data released this week by the Broadway League, the trade association of theater owners and producers.

One could claim that Broadway is gross in more ways than one, recently relying on movies such as "Hairspray" and "Young Frankenstein" for source material. But plays are always sourced from somewhere - why not movies?

Dave Gahan has "low-grade" tumor removed

Dave Gahan, Depeche Mode by Omid Tavallai used under a Creative Commons License

PopEater links to an item on Depeche Mode's "News" page:

05.28.2009

Depeche Mode are pleased to announce they will restart their interrupted Tour Of The Universe in Leipzig, Germany on June 8th. On May 12th, lead singer Dave Gahan suffered a severe bout of gastroenteritis, leading to his hospitalization and the cancellation of the Athens concert. While in hospital, further medical tests revealed a low-grade malignant tumour in Dave's bladder, which has since been successfully removed. At doctors' orders Dave Gahan must take a break until June 8th, to ensure that he makes a full recovery. The Leipzig show on June 8th will be the first concert following Dave's recovery.

Dave Gahan sincerely thanks his fans for their support, understanding and patience. Depeche Mode deeply regret any problems or inconveniences the cancellations and postponements may have caused.

Gahan - and, for that matter, Gore and Fletcher - have all had eventful episodes during their music career, but it sounds like this interruption is a relatively minor one.

Pandora's (mobile) box

me: opening a box by freeparking used under a Creative Commons License

Not too long ago, Pandora was begging its users for legislative support that it needed to survive. Today, BusinessWeek is talking about Pandora's mobile advertising. The two are not mutually exclusive. BusinessWeek:

Since Pandora launched a mobile edition two years ago, it has signed up 6 million people (total users for mobile and Web versions is 27 million). That has prompted the likes of Best Buy (BBY), Dockers, Target (TGT), and Nike (NKE) to buy ads on Pandora and experiment with what remains a cheap advertising medium—one most companies have yet to figure out. "We've reached a tipping point," says Domino's (DPZ) Pizza advertising executive Rob Weisberg. "Marketers, especially consumer brands, have to take mobile seriously now. You have to be where your customer works, lives, and plays."

This is academic to me, since neither Pandora nor last.fm work on my older phone. On Tuesday I was ruminating on the need to develop applications that work in confined user interfaces. I guess there's one more criterion - will an advertisement fit in the UI?

The Beastie Boys are older than Jimmy Fallon

Stereogum links to this YouTube video of a Beastie Boys performance on Jimmy Fallon's talk show.



It's an odd situation when the band is older than the host. For the record, Fallon was born in 1974; the Beastie Boys released their first EP in 1982.

Perhaps some things do last forever

Any of us who have been on the Internet for many, many years realize that we've often uploaded so many things to the Tubes that we've forgotten half of them. (Remember train simulation fan Robert Scoble?)

So I was surprised to see this May 2009 blog post:

Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Music Links

My favorite music sites

Including Ragtime, Dixieland, Blues, Bluegrass, Christian, Classical, Country, Folk, Jazz, Zydeco, Sheet Music, Pianos, Midi, Midi Powered Sites, CD/CDROM Mastering, Radio & Broadcast, Production, Audio Stores, Software, Hardware, E-zines & Publications, Musicians, Community Bands, Record Labels, and Other cool sites.

And what was buried in the MIDI listings? My old Tripod page.

Incidentally, I need to update the "MP3" portion of the page to include Brevity Is.

In defense of Wal-Mart's insistence upon "clean" albums

If you don't know Steven Hodson, he is not shy in expressing his opinions. He recently wrote something in the Inquisitr regarding Wal-Mart's refusal to stock Green Day's latest album:

The retail behemoth known worldwide as Wal-Mart is also known for [its] habit of trying to force its own morality upon the manufacturers of things it sells. This is most predominately showcased when it comes to music that is available at the retail chain.

Hodson then notes that Wal-Mart refused to stock Green Day's "21st Century Breakdown" because the band and its label refused to supply a "clean" version of the CD.

The title of the post? "Wal-Mart censorship - no Green Day for you."

But is this truly censorship? Although there are a variety of definitions of the term, many of them agree that censorship is imposed by a governmental body. Even in Arkansas, Wal-Mart does not wield governmental power.

Now this can rightly be considered a "refusal to stock" or "refusal to sell" or whatever. And Wal-Mart certainly refuses to sell items. For example:

I've recently bought ammo from Walmart in NC, GA, SC and FL while traveling between NC and FL. I'm a snowbird and my home state is NC. The clerk this time looked at my license, made a phone call, made me wait, then refused to sell me a value pack of. 223. I asked to see a manager. Assistant Manager Luis informed me it is Walmart's policy not to sell ammo to anyone with an out of state license. I asked him if that meant every hunter who goes on a hunting trip out state will not be able to buy at their destination. He said that is correct.

And The Arthritis Store refuses to sell coral calcium:

Since coral calcium is one of he hottest products on the market for the treatment of arthritis you would think that a site that is called the Arthritis Store would sell it. So why don't we sell coral calcium. It is simple we care too much for our customers. We do not sell products just because we can make money from them. We can offer coral calcium for one fifth of what it sells for on the info-mercials. But the simple truth is it is a scam.

Although in that case, government...um...censorship also got involved:

Every American will never forget 9-11. That day changed all of our lives. However, for Bob Barefoot, his day of infamy was 6-10. On June 10, 2003, the Federal Trade Commission, FTC, filed a preliminarily injunction against Bob Barefoot, Kevin Trudeau and others. That action against Bob Barefoot virtually destroyed him economically and did serious damage to his reputation Although the complaint contained only accusations with the accused is supposedly being innocent until the courts rule otherwise, in reality any FTC target is deemed guilty until he can prove himself innocent, a feat that usually requires millions of dollars. The claims made against Barefoot by the FTC were unfounded. Outside of a court of law they would be considered defamatory. However, employees of the FTC are protected by the government despite their guilt. In other words the FTC is allowed to bypass the American system of justice. This of course was never the intent of Congress which gave the FTC these sweeping powers, as it is totally un-American.

The FTC alleged that Barefoot had made "unsubstantiated" medical claims concerning coral calcium in the infomercial in which Kevin Trudeau and I appeared.

Heck, Bob Barefoot makes Steven Hodson sound like a shy type.

Which reminds me...I seem to have strayed from my original topic. Any music store may choose to sell or not sell any CD as it sees fit, for any reason. Wal-Mart doesn't like dirty words (at least in its music). Elitist indie stores don't like Bryan Adams. And HMV doesn't like fascism, as Workers' Liberty notes:

Anti-fascists in Leeds acted to stop the fascist British People's Party (BPP) holding their much publicised demonstration against black music on 18 October. The BPP had called the demo to protest that HMV refuse to stock CDs by fascist groups such as Screwdriver, while selling 'violent' rap music by Ice Cube and others.

Will Billie Joe Armstrong go march in the streets of Leeds and demand that HMV stock albums such as Hail Victory?

Somehow I doubt it.

It's important to have a second job - Justin Timberlake, sports video narrator

2009 NBA All-Star Game Wallpaper (Kobe-LeBron) by Mike (RMTip21) used under a Creative Commons License

Justin Timberlake isn't doing too bad in the music industry these days, but fame is fleeting. So Justin is moonlighting as an NBA documentary narrator, according to PopEater. PopEater also linked to a video clip.



Dream Season: 23 & 24 tracks two guys name James and Bryant.

Talking about organs (the musical kind)

Playing the Organ by Chany Crystal (chany14) used under a Creative Commons License

Cati Porter blogged about Virginia Haisten:

My good friend Virginia Haisten — aka Gincy, aka the mother of my sons’ good friends that we’ve known practically since birth, aka Jacob’s piano teacher — is being interviewed about her “organ expertise” on KUCR as I write this.

I missed the interview on KUCR, but Haisten clearly seems to be an authority on the subject. She's edited at least one book on the topic.

Failure is an option - Idol non-winner strikes it big

The theory behind "American Idol" and similar shows is that you will select a stable of talented singers (or dancers, or rockstar love interests, or whatever) and winnow the stable down to one, who will be considered the best of the best and receive fame and fortune.

But sometimes the so-called "losers" end up doing quite well, thank you very much. I'm not completely familiar with later editions of "American Idol," but PopEater is, as is shown in this interview with American Idol loser Michael Johns:

What was going through your head when you were kicked off 'Idol' last year? "It was weird because I didn't know what to think until the next morning. It was unanimous across the board with people saying, 'You were robbed.' It made me feel really good. A lot of people were saying, 'You'll be fine. We can't wait to hear your record.' Seeing that, I was like, 'Wow, maybe I do have a chance after 'Idol.'"

But he had to work for it:

"A lot of people think that once you're on the show, everything comes flooding in, and you can sit around waiting for your phone to ring for a record deal. But it doesn't happen like that. That is the pitfall of 'Idol.' You have to hustle. I was really lucky that I had a career before [the show], so all those doors were still open for me."

More here.

How frequently should musicians release albums?

For musical artists that began their careers in the 1960s or 1970s or early 1980s, the usual routine was to release one or two albums a year for several years. This required a ton of work, which meant that either the albums consisted of a bunch of fluff, or the artists ended up getting burned out. For example, after several years of this treadmill routine, Elton John suffered a drug overdose, and subsequently cut his schedule down to a single album a year.

And it wasn't just Elton John that cut back. In many cases, what would eventually happen is that the artists would reach a level of success that allowed them to take more time off between albums. Thus you have bands like the Rolling Stones or Depeche Mode that only release albums every few years, assuming that the Rolling Stones even release albums any more.

So the grueling album release schedule isn't seen much any more. But, as the Guardian notes, there are still some artists who don't spend several years between albums:

In June, the Mars Volta are to release a new album, Octahedron. If you include 2005's live album Scabdates, this will be their sixth LP in as many years – pretty productive compared with most bands. But it's nothing compared with band member Omar Rodiguez-Lopez's side projects. In the last 12 months he appears to have released a whopping seven solo or collaborative albums. I say "appears" because at this rate it's hard to keep count....

And I don't even know where to begin with Sun Ra, a man whose output is so dauntingly prestigious (90+ albums, plus hundreds of singles) that I've been pretty much scared off. Any recommendations as to where to start are welcome. And I might give Slim Whitman's 50 albums of yodelling a miss too, if you don't mind.

And that's just a few of the artists from present and past that were named. Go here to see the rest.

Now I don't know most of the artists named, but I have a good feel for Slim Whitman and Elvis Presley, and both of them continued to put out good music throughout their careers. Perhaps there's a difference in style between "Mystery Train" and "Burning Love," but both songs are good in their own way.

But there are other variables present. Even if an artist wants to release massive amounts of material, the record company might not fund it. Or perhaps the indie artist is too busy doing things like working at a job to put everything down for posterity.

But the mega-releasers are interesting, as long as they don't drive themselves crazy with all the output.

I got it figured out - the cities in "Cities"

London Business district by Mark Drewe (mdrewe), available via a Creative Commons License

When I woke up this morning, I had a mad desire to hear the Talking Heads song "Cities," so I grabbed my "Fear of Music" CD on the way to work and listened to it several times over.

There's a ton that could be said about it musically - the disco feel, the anticipation of "Remain in Light," the anticipation (in the third verse) of "True Stories" - but I'll confine myself to the question that's been puzzling me for decades - how many cities are mentioned in "Cities"?

Of course, we can start with the super-secret third verse. If you've heard the album version of the song, you know that David Byrne sings about London and Birmingham, but then there's this little country-like instrumental break before he wraps up and sings about Memphis. But if you've read the album lyrics, or if you've heard a version other than the album version, then you've been exposed to an unsung verse:

DOWN EL PASO WAY THINGS GET PRETTY SPREAD OUT
PEOPLE GOT NO IDEA WHERE IN THE WORLD THEY ARE
THEY GO UP NORTH AND COME BACK SOUTH
STILL GOT NO IDEA WHERE IN THE WORLD THEY ARE

Note the third line above, and compare it to a few other unusual lines from the song:

THINK OF LONDON, A SMALL CITY

And, in reference to Memphis:

HOME OF ELVIS AND THE ANCIENT GREEKS

If you haven't figured it out by now, "Cities" is about more than three (or four) cities. When I first heard the song I was unaware of any "El Paso" outside of Texas, but I did know about the Londons in England and Ontario (see Mark Drewe's picture above), the Birminghams in England and Alabama, and the Memphises in Tennessee (as featured in Empoprise-NTN) and Egypt. (And, for the record, there are El Pasos in the north, including cities with that name in Illinois and Wisconsin.)

Ian Gittins doesn't delve into this multi-city confusion, instead wondering at the absurdity of it all (see pages 54-55). And as far as I can tell Byrne or the Heads have never talked about it. But even if they're just wild mistakes in the lyrics, it's still enjoyable speculation.

P.S. Yes, the phrase "Byrne or the Heads" was intentional, if you're familiar with the band the Heads.

Lionel Richie and the younger set

As the late George Burns could attest, if you live long enough most of the people around you will be younger than you. This is especially true in the music business, where many artists have fairly short popularity lifespans.

Ex-Commodore Lionel Richie is still going strong with help from people much younger than himself (and his core audience), as the New York Times notes.

On the lightly Caribbean-flavored title track ["Just You"] — produced by Akon and now on the Hot Adult Contemporary chart — he sings, “I’m here to take that stress from you.” Then he offers to cook a meal, make the bed and spirit you by sailboat to the Bahamas, where he’ll make good on the promise of a massage....

Mr. Richie doesn’t sound out of his element singing on tracks provided by contemporary R&B hit makers, complete with up-to-the-minute production....

“Just Go” features five songs apiece by Stargate and another bankable team, Christopher Stewart, known as Tricky, and Terius Nash, known as The-Dream. Mr. Richie has inspired both camps, and maybe sparked some competition: Stargate writes a song called “Forever,” and the other duo comes up with “Forever and a Day.”

More here.