Record companies embrace Napster

Sorry, you ain’t gonna see it. Never - not even after “Turkeys embrace Xmas”. No matter how much of a “community” it might gather or how badly consumers want it.

Napster is about downloading songs (particularly obscure singles from the 70s and 80s that are only available on expensive compilations now). When you can download individual songs, you don’t need albums anymore. And albums are what record companies sell (because, as recently reported, the market for CD singles is now tiny). That’s what they employ people to do - create, produce, package, market and sell albums. (In fact, they prefer to avoid the expensive, risky creation and production stages as far as possible, by repackaging existing songs and marketing new albums, such as compilations.)

But when you download something you want from Napster, you don’t require an expensively marketed plastic jewel case and pretty sleeve - and by extension, the people who made them and sold them. Sure, you might still want to buy actual CDs from your favourite artists (ideally, directly from them via mp3.com or wherever), but given that most albums now consist of 80%+ filler, you’ll probably mainly want individual tracks. Bye bye, record companies. Or not. Not without a fight anyway.

But don’t fantasise that they’ll want to offer Napster-like services anytime soon.

. Skinny ties were all the rage then, weren’t they? What were they all about, as Stuart Maconie would say? Where did they come from? Whither did they go, or did they wither to nothing? You can’t buy ties that slim anymore, and I should know because I’ve tried - when you’ve worn a skinny tie, all other ties look like kippers to you forevermore.

It was a grey leather skinny tie too - combined with a large check shirt and casual jacket (sleeves pulled up, natch), I looked like the synth player in a minor pop band or, less charitably, one half of Black Lace (although I would like to state for the record that I never wore bright plastic-framed specs). In other words - I looked cool. (Piss off.)

Never more so than when playing air guitar on the floor of the sixth form disco. Remember, this was when heavy metal still existed and even occasionally charted. What on earth were we thinking? That the girls would say, “Hey, check out the cool dude playing that amazing imaginary guitar! I must take his virginity NOW!” Of course, playing air guitar and headbanging was one of the few moments in our lives when we were not thinking about girls. That was the point.

Still, the eighties…bury them with all haste and deny everything.

Only three months into 2001 (“A Space Odyssey”, you will remember) and already we have self-adhesive postage stamps!! Is there no limit to man’s wily inventiveness and awesome technological capabilities? Surely, flying cars and big, black monoliths are just around the corner. Hold on to your hats, readers!

(N.B. Remember not to lick the stamp anymore. “It’th thtuck! Thith thtamp is thtuck to muh tongue! It’th too thticky! Help!”)

A friend writes:
“I wrote to a web development company - but my letter got sent to an accountant who is the liquidator of that company! But he wants someone to look after his website…“

• definitive proof at last that he’s full of shit.

I always suspected Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers wasn’t quite as gosh-darn clever as he liked to make out. Remember “sweating out intelligence, like I don’t know what it is” - there’s a surprise. Or how about the classic rawk ‘n’ roll couplet “In the beginning, when we were winning” (that would be when “windmills were spinning” too presumably). Now we have some hard evidence, in the form of his intemperate comments on Napster. Yes, we know Napster wants to become fat and rich, valley boy. But how anyone - particularly a recording artist - can attack them for it while working uncomplainingly for an existing large media conglomerate that also wants to “control the world” is beyond hypocrisy. Has the man not heard of the DMCA yet, or does he think that represents a fair deal for musicians and therefore that’s OK then? Perhaps Nicky is blinded by success - or wealth, or sheer lack of intelligence - and no longer able to choose a sensible target anymore.

…Hang on, this is the man who hoped Michael Stipe would die of AIDS. Did he ever possess a clue or is he just a pigshit ignorant, ex-working class taff with too much money?

UK news:

A minute percentage of the country’s population died yesterday in a freak accident that was over considerably quicker than the subsequent news coverage. Journalists scrambled to make a Big Deal out of a very short, simple story.

Disaster: what went wrong
Uninformed but authoritative-sounding speculation from someone in possession of exactly the same bare facts as everyone else, designed to introduce a note of needless urgency to an otherwise frustratingly straightforward event.

Disaster: industry in crisis
Blatent attempt to link today’s big story with ongoing negative press against something only tangentially relevant which, in any sane world, would be entirely disregarded.

Shoot-to-kill arrest law forced through
Highly significant event that may change the entire course of national history buried lower down the page where no one will take much notice until it’s much too late. Ongoing censorship efforts ensure that we won’t be forced to play these games much longer.

Comment: I told you so
Resident columnist claims recent ills are obviously caused by his pet hobbyhorse cause, such as the lack of legalised flogging for dwarves, and goes to long and tenuous lengths to demonstrate the links.

Comment: Argh, why us??
Columnist of diametrically opposing viewpoint asks there has been so much bad news lately and concludes that the gods must have it in for us, to pacify cud-chewing masses with their half-baked, ignorant and dumb opinions.

Wacky nutcase
Crazy man does or says something slightly bonkers because he’s mad, him, he just doesn’t care. Vital distraction in case you took any of the above seriously.

Focus: More foot and mouth cases

Britain’s ongoing agricultural crisis yesterday extended to the worlds of showbusiness and politics (Ed: are these actually any different?), as new outbreaks were confirmed in previously overlooked areas. A MAFF spokesman said: “Examination of new evidence, chiefly recent editions of Heat, Hello & most major music magazines, shows that the disease has spread into the entertainment world and that most celebrities now suffer from it to a greater or lesser degree. Furthermore, analysis of archive evidence - or “back issues” - suggests that that this has been the case for a considerable period of time.” The spokesman refused to discuss whether the disease may actually have originated in the entertainment business and been transmitted from there to the agricultural industry, nor how such a transmission could occur and whether Richard Gere was involved. He also denied claims that a plan of mass slaughter was underway, triggered by the excavation of several large trenches in the home counties that observers noted were close to the homes of several members of the Spice Girls.

An industry spokesman, who we have kept anonymous for the purpose of injecting our own opinionated speculation, said: “If you read most major celebrity interviews, you’d have to be extremely kind not to assume that these people must have some sort of debilitating oral disorder. And of course, because they’re shagging each other indiscriminately like gerbils, infection spreads quickly across both sexes.”

America was quick to demand the expulsion of several UK celebrities currently visiting or resident in the country, including Robbie Williams, in an effort to prevent the spread of the disease within their borders. However, experts cited “everything Britney Spears has ever said” as proof that such moves may have come too late.

In a separate press release, Chris Evans refuted allegations that he had given foot and mouth to Billie Piper, although he did suggest he may have caught it from her.

In a further development, one leading academic expert claimed the disease was also rife throughout parliament and had even reached into the top echelons of the cabinet. Professor Jeremy Beauvyne-pene-Traition said: “If you examine the Hansard records, you’ll find strong evidence that most MPs and ministers have been afflicted by some form of foot and mouth, particularly Jack Straw.” A spokesman for the Home Office denied the allegation, saying: “Mfffrr fffhhhddd uhn nnnhhh mmmfffthhh. Bsshhttt.”

On the subject of foot and mouth, BB notes cynically and not a little insensitively in passing that it took precisely 0.05 seconds after the first cases were reported for NFU leaders to tell the public (“such as ramblers -spit-“) to stay away from the countryside or, in other words, “Git orf moi laaand!” So no change there then. They were also quick to suggest that the outbreak may be due to the import of foreign (“-spit-“) meat rather than, say, feeding animal waste back to animals or other intensive production methods.

back when I was working for a scientific publisher desperate to jump on the Internet bandwagon before the market was ripped away from under them by the radical free content zealots rife in the academic world, we heard news that Proctor & Gamble had registered over 200 generic domains for their products, including names like spots.com, teeth.com and probably big-ugly-warts-that-itch-and-leak-pus-ugh-wont-sleep-with-you.com. At the time, informed observers such as we imagined ourselves to be (the kind of people who always included the trailing slash on URLs) wondered why they didn’t simply set up subdomains of their company domain - didn’t they know there was a $50 renewal fee for each domain? Now I hear, perhaps a little late, that they are selling many of them off.

Presumably, P&G realised, as they stared at another huge and pointless domain renewal bill, what a fucking stupid idea it was all along. To all the other big corporates with crappy web investment ideas: jump onboard the clue train.

I finally saw Napster. And it is good.

Big Bubbles has a theory that, whatever you want to do, however selfish, perverse, harmful, violent or shameful it is, your subconscious will always find a way to justify it later. This is most often illustrated in hypnotism (“What are you talking about? Of course I had to bark like a dog when you clapped! Are you crazy?!”), but it can be stretched to cover the most extreme acts. If you got your kicks from pushing the unconscious, drugged bodies of pensioners into garbage compactors (errr…not that we’ve tried this), you’d reason the following: * They will take up less space; * It will lubricate the compactor; * It’s art; * It can’t be as painful as rheumatism; * The eskimos, a wise and ancient people, also practised euthanasia. If you practice it too, you might become quite good at it.

Hence my surprise at finally locating an mp3 of “Carpet Crawlers (1999)” by Genesis within five minutes of logging on to Napster was only equalled by the speed with which I hit the “Download” button. After all, I reasoned: * I’ve bought all their other albums - they owe me; * I’m not going to buy the Greatest Hits for one track; * I hate record labels; * It’s only a rerecording of a 26 year old song (…that I badly, badly want); * Steve Hackett, the guitarist, slagged it off because it didn’t have enough guitar on it (no bias there then, Steve?); * I really hate record labels; * They’ve made their millions and have practically retired; * Actually, Mike Rutherford must still be raking it in with Mike & The Mechanics; * I really, really hate record labels; * They offered it for free download on their web site … in Windows Media Format (hack, spit); * Phil Collins ruined the band so badly that, when he finally left because he still wasn’t satisfied, they were incapable of improving; * I really, really, really hate record labels. Besides, I may not have actually paid for it, in the strictest sense of, y’know, coughing up dough, but it’s not like it didn’t cost me - do you have any idea how long it takes to download 6Mb on a 33.6K modem?! At least twenty minutes of my precious time, man!

So if you see the members of Genesis homeless and begging on the streets, it was me wot did it. I stole the last sheckels from their unguarded hands and then laughed in their faces. Of course, I’d cheerfully spare a few coppers for ‘em if I passed them on the pavement (except Phil Collins - after all, it’s just “another day in paradise” for you Phil, right?). If their record label execs are with them though, they’ll be lucky if I don’t just kick them into the gutter with all the other turds.

Emboldened by the instant rewards for my blatent theft, I immediately found justification for a whole series of diabolical acts. Gary Moore has never given Phil Lynott full credit for “Out In The Fields”, has he? Look, his name isn’t even in the tag of this mp3! Poor Phil may be dead now, but we can still redress the balance for him, can’t we? Zap, take that, Gazza! ELP want to release “Fanfare for the Common Man” while I’m still in nappies and unable to buy it, do they? OK, I’ll just have to take it now. And curse the SOS Band & The Temptations for releasing such darned funky tunes as “Just Be Good To Me” and “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”!

Oh, I felt bad afterwards. I mean, massively guilty. How many of these musicians would now starve or be forced to continue full shift working at the 7-11 because of my selfish, underhand crimes? Would the world soon be deprived of all recorded music, its value worthless and unappreciated, because I had helped devalue it?

Fortunately, I had some cool tunes to take my mind off my worries!

Dear Red Sports Car Owner,

Nice car, dude. Those of us waiting to cross couldn’t fail to notice it when you screeched to a halt at the lights and revved the engine to keep it warm while you waited. We admired the throaty roar from your rear end. And when you let the clutch out just as the amber filament began to glow, we thrilled to watch you zoom away in a cloud of dust, intent on setting a new record for the 200 yards between Barrington Road and Manchester Road. But that blasted, ignorant pedestrian didn’t care about your record bid, did he? How we gasped as you masterfully took avoiding action, twitching the wheel and sending your dream machine spinning over the central reservation into the other carriageway, facing the right way! Encore!! What control! What panache! And then you were gone, shooting off down a side street in a roar of disappointment before the pigs could spoil your fun.

But we enjoyed watching it…

I have the most superb example of corporate marketing non-sense here, intended to exhort me on to higher things during the daily grind and ensure that I am empowered to realise my full potential.

It’s a wireframe diagram of a square box, with a dotted line arcing out of it to a point somewhere outside the box. The point is labelled “Think here”.

OK, can anyone tell me what’s being said here? Anyone, anyone? You at the back? No?

Well, award yourself a point and a pat on the back if you said, “Think outside of the box”. Award half a point if you said, “Ponder someplace else”. If you said, “Don’t be square”, have two points for at least entering into the required spirit. If you said, “Don’t work in HR”, have five points and a life. Award twenty points if you said, “What kind of patronising, empty-headed garbage is this?” And have a lie down if you said something like, “The unknowable cosmic insigificance and need for a personal space to just be for homo sapien in an uncaring capitalist society, where even man’s relationship with God is subject to meta-transcultural displacement”.

So anyway, unfortunately this hasn’t answered all my questions. I’ve got a box here and I’ve briefly stood by it (but on the outside!) for a quick ponder. Having reached zero conclusions, besides noticing a slight itch on my right ankle, I’m mildly concerned that I may not be using the right sort of box. Does it need to be an actual wireframe box? If not, should it be a specific colour? The one here is black, perhaps that’s blocking the thought process? Is the size important (my wife assures me not)? How far outside the box should I be?

Furthermore: if I take this motivational leaflet to the person who designed it, light it and thrust it back up their arse, does that qualify as “thinking outside the box”? Or is that merely an attitude problem and if so, do you have any more diagrams to help me resolve it?

According to the Observer, feelings of pointlessness and inadequacy hit many MPs within three months of being elected. Which has an odd kind of symmetry, because similar feelings hit most voters up to three months before an election. (OK, it’s a cheap shot, but not without a grain of truth.)