Hard News: Ten Times Warmer
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Doesn't giving it away signify that you couldn't actually sell many copies? It may be a smart move but only for someone that no longer has the market power they once had.
I was walking through campus last week, and two attractive young women offered me a can of coke. And then gave cans to another hundred or so people who were wandering past. Sadly, they weren't there just for me.
Didn't stop me buying some more coke this week. And coke isn't exactly demonstrating any inability in the marketplace.
I suspect Radiohead would however be spewing that Prince got in first. He got three times as much publicity out of it than they will.
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Doesn't giving it away signify that you couldn't actually sell many copies? It may be a smart move but only for someone that no longer has the market power they once had. Is everyone really talking about Radiohead's giveaway - yes I know I am but only about the concept rather than as a fan 'gee whiz this is great'.
Radiohead sell large quantities..they're one of those acts that sit above any rational market forces..their fanbase are fanatical and obsessive. I don't think this is about a collapsing market, it's about knowing they can do this and using their muscle to maximum advantage. I wonder how many hits their domain had today, compared with ten days ago. This is about the currency of the brand.
But I'm sure if he could have sold his latest he would have (though I did read he got money for each one given away as they counted as sales).
He got paid a huge wack by the Mirror for this, far more than he probably got for in royalties for UK sales of an album since the late 80s; he got his album into over a million homes; on the back of this, and all the other scams (giving his last album away in the US with a concert ticket so that it charted at number one, before the rules changed to prevent that) he's one of the highest grossing live acts in the world, and the UK giveaway just happened to coincide with the UK sellout tour and massive coverage and intense (bankable) airplay.
Something is up with his back catalogue too..Warners have deleted it all...I think it's all reverted to the purple one.
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Yes I am excited RATM are coming. Thanks for the link RB!
Although in an email to my mate I lamented the fact that there is no mention for a solo gig in NZ. They have still never played solo in NZ despite strong album sales here.
I have a poster in my parents garage of a gig they were going to play but cancelled when they were here last time for the BDO.
They are a funny group. A lot of folk don't like them because the political side of things, but hell, as somebody once sang "at least I'm f%&ken trying, what the f%&k have you done?!". Others just don't get off on the beat, while others cringe a bit at the crowds jumping around.
I on the other hand have much respect for the lads.
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Iran...dangerous fruit loop # 1, John Bolton, is talking pre-emptive war again:
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Quite a range of opinions on the BDO lineup at The Herald's Your Views. I can't quite understand why some people seem to be so angry ...
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Ah, that's a good lookin line-up...and not a teeth-gnashingly awful emo act 'for the kidz' in sight. I'm sure one or two will crop up in coming announcements, but the calibre of acts is already fantastic.
Wishlist/predictions: QOTSA, Wilco, Klaxons, Ricardo Villalobos
Be keen to hear other people's forecasts/wishlists...
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Radiohead - Pink Floyd of the 2000's maybe? I wonder if the website approach is a rethink of the singles market, hence the ? about price. If they get anything, great, but it is a vehicle to drive full album sales - 40 quid is not cheap.
Prince has always been a big live act and a good seller in the UK and I can understand how the stunt would have been effective there in boosting profile on low sales of his previous album.
But it comes back to the point. He gave it away because it was worth more to him than selling it.
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But it comes back to the point. He gave it away because it was worth more to him than selling it.
But a hell of a loss leader, you must admit. The thing about Prince is that he's managed to increase his live take year in and year out since the low points of the mid 90s, and, and I guess this is important to him, he has absolute control over his career and, now, his catalogue.
The Radiohead album will, after the 40 quid thing, then turn up a month later as a normal album..thus driving a third sale...you can bet on it. And they'll do a one album CD only deal with EMI or the likes.
Ricardo Villalobos
love that newish Fabric mix
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Be keen to hear other people's forecasts/wishlists...
One thing that's a bit of a problem with the BDO is that the lineup is always contingent on Australian tastes -- which means very little reggae. I'd dearly love to see Damian Marley play again -- his St James show last year was sheer magic.
I'm also hoping for a good house act in the tent. Simon has turned me onto Carl Craig and that would be good.
M.I.A. might be a good bet -- she did the Aussie shows in 2006 but not here.
Patti Smith? No, she's playing the Metropolitan Museum of Art that day ...
As ever, I'm dreaming of the Flaming Lips coming back ... They are touring at the moment but it looks like they'll be getting ready to premiere their movie early next year.
And I'll take a big punt now and say that Simian Mobile Disco will also appear in the tent.
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Radiohead - Pink Floyd of the 2000's maybe?
One of the lowest points in modern music has gotta be the Pink Floyd reunion - a bunch of leathery skinned sixty-year olds who've spent the last twenty years collecting sports cars and suing each other singing (very badly) about the perils of selling out without a trace of irony - Radiohead would have to make some pretty dreadful mistakes to reach that level of mediocracy.
M.I.A. might be a good bet
I've heard she's astonishingly good live.
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And I'll take a big punt now and say that Simian Mobile Disco will also appear in the tent.
And/or Justice per chance...?
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Hersh is either working for the Cheney team or lives in a land of make-believe.
It’s hard to get a handle on how reliable his anonymous “former intelligence” sources are, if they do exist. But if they aren’t just making things up to sound important once again then they must be being feed info Cheney wants spread about. The only reason for that is to make Iran believe that military action is a very real possibility (so they don't see it as mere bluff and decide to continue their nuclear weapons programme).
So articles like Hersh’s play that sort of role.
It’s worth noting that neither Barak or Clinton are unwilling to rule out the military option and Wes Clark (now backing Clinton and no neocon hawk) believes the US cannot let Iran go nuclear. So those who take exception to the approach of Bush really do need to at least recognise that the Iran issue is not just some neocon beat-up (Bill Clinton was pretty tough on Iran) and perhaps come up with some realistic alternative approaches.
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Quite a range of opinions on the BDO lineup at The Herald's Your Views. I can't quite understand why some people seem to be so angry
People complaining about lineups like this smack very much of spoiled child syndrome. The biggest get togethers in my "day" were, of course, the Sweetwaters weekends. Wonderful to have seen Taj Mahal, Psychedelic Furs etc and part of the excitement was that, back then, international artists travelled very rarely all the way down here. Are people these days spoiled for choice? It would seem to me that getting to see acts of the calibre of The Clean, and Bjork et al should be enough for people.Every year people whinge about the lineup. They're here, for god's sake, rejoice that you have such a huge choice. Tsk. Young people these days........
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Someone in Your Views referred to Iggy Pop as 'crap'. I despair.
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Iran - again (sigh) Thanks Bob for the Peter Galbraith link
I did especially like this paragraph
The scale of the American miscalculation is striking. Before the Iraq war began, its neoconservative architects argued that conferring power on Iraq's Shiites would serve to undermine Iran because Iraq's Shiites, controlling the faith's two holiest cities, would, in the words of then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, be "an independent source of authority for the Shia religion emerging in a country that is democratic and pro-Western."
Further, they argued, Iran could never dominate Iraq, because the Iraqi Shiites are Arabs and the Iranian Shiites Persian. It was a theory that, unfortunately, had no connection to reality.
I hesitate to quote a travel book - but in "Backblocks America" - WorldbyBike - Gareth & Jo Morgan - they went through 26 states - specifically lots of redneck areas and back roads to try and understand how those (mostly Republican) voters tick.
The results were scary (oblivious isolation etc.) and as those people are the ones who elected George W - I suspect that much of the cowboy posturing is for their benefit - even though it comes across as being incredibly naive and plain out stupid to many others.
Has the US ever actually got over the Teheran embassy siege? I wonder if this significantly influences their view?
They have never got over the demolition of their embassy in Beruit or the barracks bombing - also in Beruit in about '83 - both of those have been strongly linked to Iran
The reality is that Iran controls Iraq already and the U.S contributed immensely to this by favouring the Shiites - and as Russell notes
They're effectively arming and attacking both sides.
which is totally bizarre - but they probably can't tell the difference
Or to quote Peter Galbraith again
There is also the legacy of February 15, 1991, when President George H.W. Bush called on the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam Hussein.
Two weeks later, the Shiites in southern Iraq did just that.
When Saddam's Republican Guards moved south to crush the rebellion, President Bush went fishing and no help was given.
Only Iran showed sympathy.Hundreds of thousands died and no Iraqi Shiite I know thinks this failure of US support was anything but intentional.
And then there are KUrds on all sides as well.
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Hersh is either working for the Cheney team or lives in a land of make-believe.
Really? Since either choice is ridiculous to anyone who's followed his career, can we have option c/ "Neil has no idea what he's talking about."
(Ok the dirty double-bluff idea is amusing. We know Kissenger and Nixon pulled it, and Hersh met Kissenger in 1982, and, and and- so maybe his deep cover at the New Yorker is slipping and Hersh is about to be made Cabinet Secretary for Closing off Media Leaks. Or not.) -
Once upon a time, the tour promoted the album which paid the cheque that built the house the rock star lived in. In the download age, its become the other way round. Artists need the tour money and the resulting merchandising and sponsorships to make any bling. The actual music is becoming the free bit.
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Hersh is either working for the Cheney team or lives in a land of make-believe.
He's generally been on the money. He reported years ago that Saddam had offered, via the Egytptians, to vacate Iraq before the invasion -- which was confirmed this month.
It’s hard to get a handle on how reliable his anonymous “former intelligence” sources are, if they do exist.
Are you seriously suggesting that Hersh fabricates sources?
But if they aren’t just making things up to sound important once again then they must be being fed info Cheney wants spread about. The only reason for that is to make Iran believe that military action is a very real possibility (so they don't see it as mere bluff and decide to continue their nuclear weapons programme).
So articles like Hersh’s play that sort of role.In which case, why would Hersh's story say that an attack wouldn't be aimed at Iran's nuclear facilities? Thats a very tenuous theory Neil: is it not more likely that the Iran project is the talk of the town and, like quite a few others, Hersh is simply reporting what's going on?
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Well I'm pretty happy with both the Clean and Battles (and of course the Phoenix Foundation) - not too fussed about the rest at the moment. It is good to see a slightly more diverse BDO lineup - as someone said hardly an emo band in sight as such.
For me the real clinchers would be if either The Pixies or Modest Mouse were to come for the BDO. At the moment I'm just hanging out till Kristen Hersh plays down here (Wellytron).
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Gah - forgot to say - I am quite interested to see how scalpers try and get round the T&C on the tickets, was quite amused to see the wording (don't know if it will actually stop the scalping - or at least profiteering).
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At the very first BDO, my friend who I went with was wearing a Rage Against The Machine T-shirt. People kept asking her if RATM were playing, and eventually we started telling people they were, and as the day went on, we then said they'd just played (and they were AWESOME).
So I like to think there are people who will have a false memory of having seen Rage Against The Machine at the Big Day Out in 1994.
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Ricardo Villalobos
on the BDO... slap me silly, now that would be amusing
I was expecting a rather flat lineup and must admit I am pleased to say its not
Arcade Fire are meant to be off the hook live
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I would never rely on anything Hersh reported, he is an agenda driven individual, not an impartial reporter, but in this instance, what he wrote is more or less consistent with a lot of reporting from a wide variety of sources over here, but it is nothing new.
Bush started banging the Iran drum harder at the beginning of the year as one of the justifications for his Iraq surge and he has been sailing his carrier fleets up and down back and forth for most of the year.
I haven't read any great enthusiasm for bombing Iran over here, those that advocate for it put it in the nature of a "bad or worse" choice. Bomb Iran and goodness knows what will happen but at least you have a decent shot at setting them back a few years from getting a bomb, let Iran get a bomb and we can all watch an instantaneous nuclear arms race in the Middle East with the Saudis getting one from Pakistan quite quickly (the Saudis paid for Pakistan’s nuke program) etc. or the possibility of Iran giving a nuke or some nuke material to a terrorist group. Which is worse? Take your poison, glad I don't have to make the call.
I think it is pretty obvious to most that the kumbyya option will never happen. No one in their right mind would trust the current Iranian regime. Not when the subject is nukes.
Whatever you do, or don't do, the options in that part of the world are not easy.
I haven't seen anything to the effect in the NZ media (not that I am suggesting that readers on PAS only read the NZ media), but the Iraq debate has changed pretty dramatically over here. Not only did the Petreaus report reset the clock so Bush can have a large troop presence in Iraq until the end of his term, but now even the major Dem Presidential candidates wont pledge to have all US troops out of Iraq by the end of their (theoretical) first term in 2013, five years away, as long again as the US has already been there. I wouldn’t have thought that scenario was possible at the beginning of the year. That must piss off a lot of anti war protestors / activists etc.
The better news from Iraq probably has given Bush the leeway he needs to take a swing at Iran, if he chooses to. I read a hypothesis that March April next year is the optimum time from a US domestic perspective, after the main primaries and still 6 months before the election. It is a lousy way to decide when to take that kind of action, but unfortunately everything over here is politics. Either way, the next year is going to be interesting.
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Okay ... a blog review of Austin City Limits Day 1.
Bjork seems to have stolen the show.
Also playing: LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that the BDO lineup might look a bit similar. In which case, come on down M.I.A., Peter, Bjorn and John, and Wilco.
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Okay ... so does anyone else keep reading the heading of this as Ten Times Warner?
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