Popmatters’ Rob Horning:

I used to think that having too much music was a problem I would want, but I appreciated music a lot more when it was scarce. When it was scarce, I was much more likely to look for reasons to include songs in my life rather than reject them. Constraints make music meaningful.

…I’ve recently begun the quixotic project of trying to listen to all the music I have and sort out which songs I actually like so I can find them more easily. But since I’ve started, I never listen to music for sheer pleasure or distraction anymore; it’s systematic, Sisyphean work, as more unheard music keeps getting added to the pile.

“The Hype Cycle,” at n+1 Mag:

[T]he problem with hype is that it transforms the use value of a would-be work of art into its exchange value. For in the middle (there’s no end) of the hype cycle, the important thing is no longer what a song, movie, or book does to you. The big question is its relationship to its reputation. So instead of abandoning yourself to the artifact, you try to exploit inefficiencies in the reputation market. You can get in on the IPO of a new artist, and trumpet the virtues of the Arctic Monkeys before anyone else has heard of them: this is hype. Or you issue a “sell” recommendation on the overhyped Arctic Monkeys: this is backlash. But there are often steals to be found among recently unloaded assets: “Why’s everybody hatin’ on the Arctic Monkeys?” says the backlash-to-the-backlash. The sophisticated trader is buying, selling, and holding different reputations all at once; the trick in each case is to stay ahead of the market. And the rewards from this trade in reputations redound to your own reputation: even though the market (i.e., other people) dictates your every move, you seem to be a real individual thinking for yourself.

Anthony and I chatted about this idea of his a few weeks ago, and today he wonders aloud about Muxtape and if, perhaps, taking it open-source would save it from the inevitable legal problems looming…

Muxtape… [will become the] undisputed leaders in the space and will be able to define and develop it as they choose.  There also won’t be anyone who can get them to stop. 

I also hear people LOVE finding related mixtapes and discovering new ones their friends have uploaded. A site that indexed all open sourced Muxtape installs and offered extra value on top of that could be hugely valuable.  Naturally, Muxtape, as the creators of the app, are best positioned to offer exactly this sort of service.

That sounds a little like Hype Machine for Muxtapes, and I think Anthony’s probably onto something there.

Jez, I beg you to please post a hi-res PDF of this:

I transcribed the entire album [Destroyer’s Rubies] and produced an exhaustive collection of diagrams and analysis, including: every word contained in the album in order of how many times it appears; references; grammatical structure; and the overall distribution of lyrics and ‘la’s.

(via Evening Tweed)

Tunecore, unquestionably the best service for artists and indie labels looking for digital distribution, has just gotten even better:

… [A] new feature for TuneCore customers… If you sold music in iTunes you will be able to log in and see weekly trending sales data showing how many songs and/or albums sold the previous [week], the zip code/postal code, country and city of the buyer. In addition you also see the date of the sale and the projected money you have earned.

Why is this a big deal? Because prior to this, data of this kind was closely guarded and/or cost thousands of dollars to access (hello, Soundscan). But now…

…for the very first time, musicians can have very detailed information about who their fans are, where they live, what songs are being bought, how often, what country, how much money they have coming to them when the accounting statement shows up the following month and more from the largest seller of music on the planet.

With this information, musicians have the ability to plan a tour to where their buying fan are as well as promote themselves to local radio, TV, newspapers with hard proof that they should be covered.

(via Tunecorner)

Is it possible for anyone to watch this commercial and, after the first 6 seconds, NOT expect the song to turn into the New Pornographer’s “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism?”

Search for and download mp3s from the internet. Yeah, I can’t see how this site could possibly get into any kind of trouble.

Looks like another music mag is going down…

Blender’s ad pages are down 25%, and it’s not as if they were sky high before. Each issue is less than 100 pages. When the Reaper passes by The Blender Theater, it sees more authors speaking than bands playing.

(via Daily Swarm)

Previously:
No Depression: Dead
Harp: Dead
Resonance Mag: Dead

Lala has unveiled an interesting new plan: stream a song, as many times as you like, for a flat fee of 10¢. I don’t have anything interesting to say about it at the moment other than, “Huh! Well, that’s certainly a new model.”

Mike McGonigal chimes in over at Pitchfork today with an 8.3 for Brooklyn’s Crystal Stilts, who I’ve heard a lot of people digging on, and whose song “Crippled Croon” came about a hair’s breadth away from landing on this month’s list. True, you’re not going to hear a whole lot of Pomo-21st Century sounds here; if you’ve heard kiwi rock, jangle pop, C86… you’ve heard this kind of thing before. But as was the case with that first Interpol record, I think it must be a case of just the right thing at just the right time, because it sounds pretty damn good to me.

The first mp3 from the Silver Jews’ upcomer Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea (out 6/17 on Drag City) has surfaced. Sounds similar to the updated-ish SJ sounds we heard from ’05’s Tanglewood Numbers (and that’s good, btw).

(Image by David Berman via Impose Magazine)