Polaris Music Prize

There is a music prize in canada called the Polaris Prize. Which is similar in content to that of the Mercury Prize that is in the UK, as well as a similar one in the US.

It celebrates the best album of the year created by a Canadian band. There is a short list of 10 albums which are then voted on by a panel of judges and a winner is announced. The ceremony was last night.

This year Hey Rosetta!, Joel Plaskett, Metric were all nominated among some other bands who've been nominated other years.

A hardcore punk band won last night, they are called Fucked Up. Their album is a wonderful piece of work and it should be celebrated for what it is. That is an album wonderfully crafted which blurs the lines between rock and punk, while still keeping the fundamental aspects of both genres in place.

The news broke, to myself, this morning on the CBC website. The CBC is a federally funded organization which blankets the whole country in unbiased and fairly accurate news and information.  I spent the rest of the morning reading the scathing reviews that people would post on the news article telling everyone how much they hated the band. A good 75% of the posts openly admitted to not having heard their music before, but still put in their two cents on how the sound of the band matched that of the sound of their album. Its ridiculous to think that someone can be so opinated about something they know nothing about.

Getting back to the album, I have listened to the album and it honestly took me a couple of plays to get into the groove of the sound. It is one of their better and cohesive works that they've released in the past 7 or 8 years and quite frankly they deserve the recognition in their own country.

Their album "Chemistry of Common Life" is routinely found in the top 20 of most critics. It rates higher than all of the other albums that were also short listed.  I can't comment on most of the other performers on the list as I have not heard most of their work but I'm still shocked and in disbelief that someone could be so ignorant to base an opinion on nothing other than a name.

I guess the band is right, its all "Fucked Up".

What would happen if...

Music: Silverchair - Young Modern

Canada or the United States adopted the same concept that the Isle of Man is proposing for their citizens. As some background the Isle is in the English Channel halfway between England and Ireland, its self-governing, has its own taxes, flag, anthem, etc.

The government there has been in negotiations with the big 5 (or 4) record labels to see if they can work something out. Their goal is to charge their 80,000 residents a blanket tax every year in exchange... for unlimited downloading. 

Thats right, they want to legalize file-sharing sites for music in the country with a blanket tax. Now before you start thinking, remember that in Canada there has been a tax/surcharge on every single piece of blank media on the market. This includes blank VHS tapes, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, and even some MP3 players. This money then goes to the record labels as payment for people who tape things off the radio and television (since thats piracy or something).

What if the USA adopted this policy?

Think about it for a minute. There is about 300 million people in the country. (I'm estimating) If the government charged everyone $2 in a "internet tax", the government would be able to give the record companies $600 MILLION dollars a year to help offset the cost of what they're "losing" for not thinking proactively and getting stuck in old technology (re: American automakers). Think of the trouble this would save.

What if I don't download songs? So. The RIAA has successfully sued people who don't own computers so that doesn't matter.

What happens if more people start downloading music? The RIAA needs a swift kick in the ass to get on the band wagon that people want to own the music they buy and not just rent it.

What about the artists, do they get any money? No. The artists make on average a nickle or dime on every $20 CD sold. Most multiplatinum sellers don't care, they make their money from touring and merchandise. (Kid Rock did an interview in Canada in the 90s and they asked him about downloading, his response (summarized): "I'm rich, why should I care?")

I personally think it would be a great idea. I'd willingly pay for that.

Now if only the government would step in and tell the cable company to stop charging me $90 just so I can watch 16 HD channels...

Sources: here, here, here, and everywhere

More on the island here.

Its The New Year

Music: Korn - Twist

I figure I would start the new year off by getting back to this again. I like writing, I like sharing opinions on the world and my current surroundings, the problem is finding the time to actually put things to the keyboard. I should develope some sort or mechanism where I can blog from my mind.

I'm sure I could find a few takers. :)

Lets start with the obvious, what are some of my "resolutions"?

• Stop smoking. Done. (I don't smoke.)
• Cut pop and sugar out of my life. (Well after the tub of gummy "things" is finished at work.)
• Start paying down debt. (To coincide with this: cancel credit cards)
• Save for a home.
• Start paying back student loan.

There, thats some of the goals that I have for this coming year. They're mostly simple things, and more importantly: things that I know I can accomplish. I always found it funny that people would reach for the sky when I was younger, people would tell me what they wanted to do and it would be these obscure things that they knew they couldn't finish.

Why do people do that to themselves?

I'm not really sure what my favourite resolution that I've heard over the years is. I'd have to think of that one for a while.

*****

A fellow blogger (here) went through the top songs on their iPod, I thought it was such a great idea that I would do the same thing. Turns out my musical taste is so varied that my top song has a play count of TWENTY. What the heck!? I've listened to 27,000 songs over the past 2 years (I use a site called Last.fm to track my music habits).

I need to be a little more obscessed with songs. (The list is slightly different than that appears in my iTunes, if I have a song twice in iTunes I have two counters, last.fm will track it once).

Regardless, here is the top 10.

1 Rammstein – Sehnsucht 20
2 Funkstörung – Untitled 18
2 Elysian Fields – Lady in the Lake 18
2 Arcade Fire – No Cars Go 18
5 Primus – John the Fisherman 17
5 Kerli – Walking on Air 17
7 Blur – The Universal 15
8 Buckethead – Untitled 1 14
9 Buckethead – Untitled 4 13
9 Die Krupps – To the Hilt 13
9 Lily Allen – Smile 13
9 Elysian Fields – Off or Out 13

I'm very surprised that the Kaiser Chiefs song "Never Miss a Beat" isn't on this list, but its only got a count of 11. Maybe next time. ;)

Here is the counter from Itunes:

13 - My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult - Dimentia 66 (Grayarea's Loaded on Lincoln Mix)
11 - Unter Null - Desire
11 - Butt Trumpet - I'm Ugly and I don't know Why
11 - Get Set Go - Suicide
11 - Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss a Beat
11 - Kerli - Walking on Air
11 - KiEw - Gabriel
11 - KMFDM - These Boots Are Made for Walkin
11 - Nine Inch Nails - My Violent Heart
11 - Tegan & Sara - Time Running

Musicology

I've been on a strange music kick lately, ranging from distorted electronic beats to independent cabaret rock. Here are my two vices of the last month:

Abby Travis - artist from LA who does a great set of Lounge Rock with a piano. She's actually playing base for the Bangles at the moment while still producing her own albums in her free time.

Holy Fuck (home) - an electronic band from Toronto, with some members from close to my home town. They will probably never gain mainstream attention because people aren't allowed to say "Holy Fuck" on live television. Though, MuchMusic (the MTV equivalent in Canada, though 1,000 times better) recently started playing their music in the middle of the day.

Two completely different sets of music, yet I've been binging on everything that I can find. Its times like this when I had atleast one ounce of musical talent so that I could do 1/8th of what other people do.

Go check them out and leave me your opinion.

*jealous*

Contact

Music: Ministry - Supernaut (not the cool Reznor version)

I totally forgot to mention this the other day (like last week when it happened).

While I was in Brunei in April I had the opportunity to order some CDs from a very well deserving artist in LA (Abby Travis). I had heard her work a number of years ago and had recently discovered a few of her songs while prowling around the Internet.

To make a long story short. I ordered all of her cds (3) and awaited their shipment. About a month had passed and I was beginning to wonder what had happened to them along the way as I had gotten notification from the payment company that the order had shipped before May.

To my surprise last week I had gotten an email about it. Initially I thought it was from an assistant, or the payment company. NO. It wasn't.

I had actually gotten an email about the order from Abby herself. How cool is that? Turns out that the address had been marked incorrectly and returned to her. So she was putting it back in the mail. So cool.

Have I mentioned that I'm a loser?

This is why I prefer to buy music directly from the artist, I know that they get all of the money and you get cool stuff.

The last order I had made (from KMFDM) I had actually ordered early enough to get an autographed copy of the CD. Every band member had signed the booklet. How often do you see that now? Did I pay extra for the autograph? Nope. And the price included a t-shirt.

Guess what I bought....

music: Slick Idiot - Let it Rain (Remixed by B-Audio)

So, today, I have officially ordered cool shit online. No, I didn't order any of the cool geeky stuff I posted back in December. I bought music, actually, offically bought music.

I read today that Nine Inch Nails recently (Saturday) released a new set of albums of instrumental music online, they made the first one available via thePirateBay to download for free. Whats the catch? There are 36 songs in total, which can be bought all together for a total of $5 from their website. I'm waiting for my confirmation email now so that I can download the tracks tonight.

I think this is how music should be made and distrubuted. Who buys CDs anymore? Really the only point to them is to have the artwork and lyrics, which are typically all available online anyways.

Go, buy the album, download album, let the record companies know that we can actually function without them.

I wanna f*ck Matt Damon too....

This is just great.

Of all the stupid...

This is going to be my last post before the holiday season, I'm pretty sure. (And my last post from my current job.)

The point:

Everytime a band from back home, Slowcoaster, come to town I never know about it. Turns out that they played in a bar downtown two weekends ago. I need to start stalking them so I can finally catch one of their live shows. To make matters worse, they're playing a New Years eve party at a bar back home, which of course, I'm going to be back in Fredericton attending a New Years celebration that doesn't feature Slowcoaster performing. I'm a little peeved about that.

But on the upside. Here's a clip of them performing in PEI last year.