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- New music: where's the best place to listen online?
MySpace's visitor numbers have halved in the last six months, says Tech Crunch. So if you're not going there to listen to new music, where are you going?
An article in Tech Crunch this week says that MySpace's visitors have halved in the last six months. That seems like a very dramatic figure, but I can't really say I'm surprised. As a site for social networking its function has been totally usurped by the likes of Facebook and Twitter, and its role in the world of music seems to have completely stagnated since about 2005, when Rupert Murdoch shelled out $580m to buy the once forward-thinking site.
MySpace's musical content seems to have grown increasingly clunky and slow to load over the last few years. Having heard a fair bit about Missy Elliot protegee Sharaya recently, I decided to listen to her music on MySpace. Her profile is so crammed with boring PR shots, lists of influences and, erm, a Nietzsche quote that the actual music player is buried half way down the page. In the wrong browser, it doesn't even show up. In the end, I just headed to YouTube. This experience is not confined to those wanting to listen to Sharaya (though she may want to consider toning the page down a bit). It feels all too familiar on MySpace.
When I put the figures published by Tech Crunch to MySpace, their spokesperson made the point that individual artist pages are not under the company's creative control. It therefore attempts to tread the fine line between allowing total artist freedom and making the site user-friendly. He was also keen to point out that the site had launched a playlist function in December 2009 and had success with streaming live concerts by the likes of the Dead Weather and Hot Chip. Chris Moser, the managing director of MySpace UK, responded with an ambiguous allusion to changes in the site in the near future: "MySpace is dedicated to providing artists with a place where they can creatively engage with their fans without intermediaries. We are working on the next evolution of MySpace which will be unveiled later in the year."
But the problem is that superior sites for listening to new music, such as Spotify and SoundCloud, have emerged over the last few years. In terms of service, Bandcamp.com seems like MySpace's clearest rival in the music stakes. The first thing you're offered on the homepage is a friendly Apple-style tutorial on how to use the site and what it can offer you both as a listener and an artist. Instantly, its manoeuvrability and visual clarity put MySpace's design to shame.
Playlists and album previews are great, but MySpace lacks any musical authority. This week you'll be greeted by a link to the new MIA album, next to an "intimate chat" with Emma Bunton, a woman who hasn't put a record out in three years.
Another personal favourite is Boomkat, a sort of digital cratedigging site for independent music whose recommendations for largely unheard-of acts are nearly always spot on. In fact, it was mention of the site from guardian.co.uk/music readers a while ago that turned me on to Boomkat in the first place. So now seems like a good time to ask: where do you go for music online? And which sites do you think offer the best service?
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Переслать - Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers soundtrack is a load of rubbish
Stained with 'fluids' and adorned with a doodled penis, is this the most unappealing limited-edition release ever?
If you've had half an ear cocked to the ins and outs of the music industry recently, you will be aware that the once popular business of selling music as a physical product is going through something of a rough patch. Even as music buyers shun bricks-and-mortar shops for the convenience of the download store, artists are cottoning on that the concept of "limited edition" still has some cachet. Trent Reznor was a pioneer in turning this perceived scarcity into serious cash, releasing free MP3s of Nine Inch Nails' 2008 collection Ghosts I-IV , but charging an eye-watering $300 for an "ultra-deluxe limited edition" featuring four LPs, exclusive prints, and a quick scribble of Trent's special pen.
The official soundtrack to Harmony Korine's new film, Trash Humpers, is being released in a similar ultra-limited edition run, although whether it will prove quite as attractive to collectors is rather less clear. If you don't know Trash Humpers, it's Korine's fictional documentary about a subculture of lurking perverts in Nashville, Tennessee who get their kicks from, well, humping trash. Presented in wobbly VHS clarity, Korine has said he wanted the film to feel like something you "found in a dumpster", and the soundtrack itself takes this principle to logical – maybe illogical – extremes.
It is rubbish. Literally; a 7in record packaged in a brown paper bag, decorated with pen drawings of what schoolboys might once have known as a "bus-stop willy", and featuring one-of-a-kind daubings of fluids that may or may not include ketchup, blood and excrement. And the music is just as palatable, a handful of brief song-sketches, lullabies and field recordings, among them a bluesy number called You Girls Juss Suck Large Fat Penis, and a bizarre song in which a man with a high voice sings of wiping "somebody's gumbo from my eyes".
Will Korine's fans put aside squeamishness to snap these records up, or might they yet find their way to a more conventional landfill? Those worried about the hygiene implications may be relieved to see that the sleeves themselves were created in a Pollock-style splattering exercise rather than pulled from an actual bin, and the fluids involved may not be authentic ("It's pretty easy to fake the look of dried blood," notes the press release, adding, a little ominously, "shit, on the other hand ... that's a different matter"). Even so, it's worth noting that Korine is not the first to realise the exclusive value of bodily by-products. Occult-inspired industrialists Coil were not averse to releasing records stained with blood, while more recently, Lady Gaga issued a limited-edition run of The Fame Monster that included locks of her own hair. That'll look nice in a few years' time.
Korine's films are, essentially, naive attempts at finding beauty within ugliness. Unpalatable or not, it's hard not to admire the lengths that he's gone to in developing Trash Humpers' singular aesthetic. Although if you intend to add it to a cherished record collection, you might want to use a plastic sleeve.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Danger Mouse on Mark Linkous and Dark Night of the Soul
Let the man behind The Grey Album talk (and play) you through Dark Night of the Soul, the record he made with David Lynch and the late Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse
I first met Mark Linkous after I released The Grey Album in 2004. His manager played him my album and told him that I was a Sparklehorse fan, so he took an interest. We began working on Dark Night of the Soul in 2005. It became obvious that both Mark and I wanted to write songs that were melodically out of our range, or at least just not within the realms of what we could bring as performers, so we thought about who would be right for each song. The first one we worked on together was Just War, which Gruff Rhys performs, because Mark didn't think his own singing could do it justice.
I like that the album starts with Revenge, it's a really dark, grand song. It's a good example of how working with different people can be unpredictable. We had a cool idea for what we wanted the song to be, something more humble and laidback, and when Wayne (Coyne, of the Flaming Lips) came on board he took it somewhere bigger and darker than we had imagined. It's a good introduction to the album; there's a heaviness about the whole thing, but at the same time the melodies are really pretty.Working with Mark wasn't always easy. To be honest, it's difficult for me to talk about. We're both producers with completely different styles – this album was a much longer process than I'm used to, but for him it was much shorter. I think we both knew that making a record we were happy with would be difficult, but no matter how hard it was we were always friends who could just hang out with each other. And the outcome was absolutely worth it.
David Lynch's input was largely visual, but he joked about singing on the record and we decided to take him up on it. I'd seen him singing on his last film, Inland Empire, and he has a good voice, so we got him to sing Stars Eyes (I Can't Catch It) and the last song, Dark Night of the Soul.
Danger Mouse was speaking to Rosie Swash. Dark Night of the Soul is released on Monday 12 July
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Justin Bieber: what if he did tour North Korea?
A viral campaign has proposed sending Justin Bieber on a tour of North Korea. But what can he expect in a country with just one nightclub? And will he return in one piece?
Now that web democracy has spoken and the internet's viral masses have chosen to send Justin Bieber to North Korea, perhaps some of us are putting our feet up thinking the hard work is done. The irritating pop whippet will soon be performing his melancholy ballads in prisoners' garb on a rock-chipping line, to an audience made up of the North Korean World Cup goalie and whoever has recently displeased Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.
Well, don't get carried away because if Bieber did make it to North Korea, the reality wouldn't be quite as exciting. As a recent visitor to the country, I learned that one of the ways the hermit kingdom maintains its isolationist policies at a cultural level is by the sophisticated manipulation of its international visitors. To the outside world, North Korea appears to welcome the odd western influence, such as when they invited the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to perform in Pyongyang in 2008. While we might be tempted to read such an occasion as a positive cultural exchange, it's more likely the event was spun 180 degrees for North Koreans, who – if they heard about it at all – would have been told something more along the lines that America sent the musical convoy to pacify the Big Bad Leader Kim with their meagre tributes.
I remember reading a similar spin tactic in the Pyongyang Times on a flight into the capital last year, on the day after Bill Clinton's reconnaissance trip to free the two imprisoned US journalists caught trespassing at the border. The Korean press made no mention of the real purpose of Clinton's visit, only reporting that he bowed deeply to General Kim and offered lots of kind and supportive words from (a presumably quivering) Barack Obama. This was the English edition – I understand the Korean-language version takes a much less diplomatic tone.
If Bieber did get a visa to tour the country, his options would be limited. He could team up with a South Korean pop band in the hope relations stabilise enough that Pyongyang throws another inter-Korean pop concert (like this one – look at the groans of displeasure on the confused cadres' faces) attended by a thoroughly vetted audience of regime-friendly elites. Or, if he wanted to take a more grassroots approach, he could arrange a showcase tour of Pyongyang's club scene. It might not be too gruelling – it consists of just one club, the Taedong Diplo, which is also the only club in North Korea. On my visit there, I enjoyed the 1970s decor and the fact that the club only had one CD – Trance Hits 1993. If a local A&R did show up they'd probably snap Bieber up in an instant, just to give them an alternative to hearing DJ Sammy's Heaven every night. The millions they'd sign him for in local currency probably still wouldn't buy a plane ticket out of the place – so perhaps a new life for Justin Bieber in North Korea could become a reality after all.
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