Posts tagged Music at Switched

Posts with tag music

HP Pulls Ads Featuring Song By Disgraced Rocker

by Lee Bains, posted Nov 14th 2008 at 9:30AM

Due to popular complaint, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has pulled advertisements for the TouchSmart computer that featured a Gary Glitter song, WEBN.com reports. The song in question, 'Do You Wanna Touch Me,' was performed by Joan Jett in the version used for the advertisement, but was originally written by Gary Glitter, a '70s glam rocker and convicted sex offender.

Glitter, who is best known in the U.S. for the basketball arena anthem 'Rock and Roll, Part 2,' has been convicted of possessing child pornography in the U.K., and just recently served prison time in Vietnam for molesting two underage girls.

Having received an undisclosed number of complaints about the use of Glitter's song, Hewlett-Packard pulled the commercial, claiming that the corporation was not aware of Glitter's songwriting credit on the song.

For our part, we've been saying for years that 'Rock and Roll, Part 2' should never again be played at sporting events, as much because of Glitter's despicable crimes as because of that song's being freaking obnoxious. [From: WEBN.com]

Rock Bands Reimagine Album Art and Liner Notes in the Digital Age

by Lee Bains, posted Nov 10th 2008 at 1:25PM

As more and more music is bought (or otherwise acquired) online, physical sales of CDs have plummeted over the past few years and have dragged liner notes and album artwork down with them. But some folks in the music business, while they cope with the decrease in sales, are not willing to let liner notes and artwork go the way of the 8-Track, Reuters investigates.

As Pink and Snow Patrol have already done, the band Fall Out Boy plans to release an iPhone app resembling a CD booklet, prior to the December 16th release of its newest album, 'Folie a Deux.' Featuring the track listings, photos and lyrics of every Fall Out Boy album (as well as links to buy the albums in iTunes), the app doesn't sound all that different from the band's Web site.

Fall Out Boy and its various publicity and management teams, are just now beginning to respond to complaints that music fans have been voicing since, in some small part, the fall of vinyl records.

During the '80s and '90s, as popular musical mediums shrank (vinyl to cassette to CD), the packaging of those albums shrank, too, giving concern to some music lovers who swore that they could barely see or read a CD's diminutive cover art or liner notes. Now that the musical medium of choice is so small that it's invisible, artwork is even more incidental, and liner notes have largely been left behind.

While we do commend Fall Out Boy's attempt at resurrecting this lost art, we're not sure how well this iPhone app will come off. We just hope that some young mind figures out a way to bring album art back, in a significant way.

Otherwise, what will kids in the future look at while they're listening to Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy?" [From: Reuters]

New Technology Provides Greater Control to Paraplegic Pianists

by Engadget Staff, posted Nov 2nd 2008 at 10:32AM

Technology allowing paraplegics to operate the right pedal of a piano has been developed by a team of scientists in Heidelberg Germany, trumping earlier systems which didn't allow for half pedal or flutter variations. The device consists of a tiny remote module that's placed inside the pianist's right cheek, and a wireless transmitter and motor attached to the pedals of the piano. A small battery in the left cheek of the user provides up to twelve hours of power. The player grits their teeth when they want to control the pedal -- the module is sensitive to different amounts of pressure, which allow the pianist greater control over footing than previous tools. From the sounds of it, this thing would work just as well on a wah pedal, right? [From: UPI.com]

'Rock Band' to Feature Beatles Songs -- Take That, Steve Jobs!

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Oct 30th 2008 at 4:08PM

'Rock Band' Scores Beatles Songs. Take that Steve Jobs!

After years of negotiations, rumors, and quite probably begging, the Beatles catalog will finally be available for digital download -- but not on iTunes, and we're sure Steve Jobs is none too happy (despite numerous teaser announcements and rumors, the Beatles still aren't on Apple's online music store, or anywhere else online, for that matter).

So if not Apple with its iTunes Store, then who's the lucky distributor? Amazon? Napster? Actually, they've all been upstaged by 'Rock Band' makers Harmonix and MTV. That's right, a video game has succeeded where Apple's army of lawyers and messianic father figure couldn't.

MTV will have access to the entire back catalog of the biggest (and arguably best) band ever for the creation of a Beatles play-along game that will stand separate from its already established 'Rock Band' series. Details such as pricing, release date (all that's been announced is 2009), and exactly what songs will be included will have to wait for another day -- today's news was merely a victory lap.

Activision, Steve Jobs, you just got served. [From: Wall Street Journal]

'80s Rocker Bryan Adams Clamps Down on Fan Web Sites

by Will Safer, posted Oct 29th 2008 at 9:51AM

If you were an aging rocker with a few hits from decades past occasionally percolating up through the sappy songlists of soft-rock radio stations, would you tell your already slim and likely dwindling fan base to ratchet up the tribute Web sites, maybe to spur on a few album sales? Or would you employ the long arm of the Web Sheriff, and shut'em down! (That exclamation point tells you everything you need to know.)

Bryan Adams – one of Canada's least-impressive imports (well behind Wayne Gretzky and John Candy) – has decided that now is the time to clamp down on his small, yet passionate online fan base, using Web Sheriff, an English firm that bills itself as "Europe's leading internet policing specialist," to enforce use of officially approved images of the musician and legal posting or links to his songs.

Of course, we have no dispute with legal use of MP3s and respect Adams' rights and wishes to be properly compensated for his work.

When the also aging and somewhat more influential artist Prince chose Web Sheriff to clamp down on unauthorized fan sites last year, the action was aggressive and the response was not friendly, with threats of legal action ultimately in play. But, the Bryan Adams Web sites seem to be surrendering to the Sheriff more readily, according to Web Sheriff's John Giacobbi, who says "nothing we've asked for from the fan sites is unreasonable." He also notes, "We're not anti-fan."

In the end, maybe it is just more telling of Adams' fans that they're more ready to comply with their rock idol's wishes than Prince's. Or maybe Web Sheriff itself learned a few lessons about how to get better cooperation before threatening litigation? Either way, it's time to cue up Adams' "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)," which you may recall, was the theme song to the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner, the aging actor with a dwindling fan base. No word yet on what's happening with his unauthorized fan Web sites. [From: The Register.]

MTV Launches You-Tube-Style Music Video Site

by Lee Bains, posted Oct 28th 2008 at 4:15PM

Treading in the footsteps of Hulu and various other basic and cable TV networks, MTV has launched MTVmusic.com, a free Web site dedicated to streaming music videos, AlleyInsider.com reports.

Supported by advertisements, the Web site -- at least for now -- does a fine job of using a tight layout; although there are banner ads, they're relatively inconspicuous. A test-run of Young Jeezy's "Put On" yielded a smooth viewing (and listening) experience, with an intuitive, attractive player.

While searches for contemporary hitmakers like Jeezy or Brad Paisley reveal plenty of videos, MTV still has some catching up to do in regards to older and more obscure artists if it wants to compete with sites like YouTube; MTV only offers one pre-1980 Rolling Stones video and one video by the contemporary Athens, GA indie band the Whigs, while YouTube offers well over a hundred videos for each of those two bands.

Although MTVmusic.com could certainly stand to build up its video library, the site lays down a solid foundation with a clean, easily navigable design and a solid collection of videos by today's popular artists. Truth be told, we're just shocked that the folks at MTV still know what music videos are. [From: AlleyInsider.com]

Pics of Bono and Bikini-Clad Teens Surface on Facebook

by Tim Stevens, posted Oct 28th 2008 at 10:24AM

Bono Busted with Bikini-Clad Teens on Facebook

We've heard many things about Bono, including his numerous humanitarian efforts and his love for excessively loud music -- but hadn't heard anything about an apparent penchant for partying with 19-year-olds in bikinis. That's another side of the man the world is seeing after one of those girls posted pictures of her cavorting with the rock star onto Facebook.

The pictures are of 19-year-olds Andrea Feick and Hannah Emerson having fun in Southern France, drinking and engaging in mischief both on land and on a $25-million yacht thought to be owned by U2 guitarist The Edge. The pictures show the girls sitting on Bono's lap and and strolling on the beach with the rocker -- who has been married for 26 years. Naturally, all deny that anything inappropriate happened -- in fact, the girls both say they've been friends with the rockers for years. Regardless, we're guessing these girls will probably be advised to be a little more careful about what they post to Facebook in the future, lest they end up like these poor folks. [From: PopEater & The Daily Mail]

iTunes Mistakenly Censors Dirty-Sounding (but Clean) Song Titles

by Lee Bains, posted Oct 27th 2008 at 5:37PM

Visitors to the iTunes music store this past weekend were surprised to find that certain words in the titles of innocuous songs were blanked out, the Daily Mail reports.

Although the folks at iTunes give the full spellings of artist names like Nashville P***y and Holy F**k, they do censor song titles that they deem to be offensive. As the result of a bug in the iTunes database, however, perfectly polite songs were treated as vulgar; Dick Van Dyke's autobiographical hit from the film 'Mary Poppins' wound up as "The D**k van D**e Song." Other family-friendly, yet X-rated hits of the weekend included Danny Kaye's "I Thought I Saw A P***y Cat" and various tunes by "J****y Mathis."

While iTunes higher-ups claim that this was all merely a misstep, we think they might be on to something. That mischievous chimney sweep Dick Van Dyke always did strike us as having a less-than-gentlemanly interest in Mary Poppins. [From: Daily Mail]

Beatles Collector's Box Includes Limited Edition 120GB iPod Classic

by Darren Murph, posted Oct 22nd 2008 at 12:04PM

Listen up, ~~Ringo~~ Beatles fans -- your holiday gift has just been located, and it's on aisle 17 in Bloomingdale's. The somewhat janky limited edition collector's box is a dream come true for fanatics of the Fab Four, packing 13 original Beatles' CDs, an engraved guitar pick, two masters and the "Love" CD -- none of which are available via the iTunes Music Store, mind you. Just 2,500 of the $795 sets are available, but -- humorously enough -- you'll be stuck ripping and transferring every last disc onto your individually numbered, etched-with-a-Beatles-logo 120GB iPod classic. Ah well, at least this scenario lets you choose your own bitrate, right?

One Year Later, Radiohead's Music Experiment Hailed as Big Success

by Peter Mychalcewycz, posted Oct 16th 2008 at 6:29PM

At this year's You are in Control conference, in Iceland, Warner Chappell will tell the world what our three-year-old golden retriever already knows...The groundbreaking release of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows', though not flawless, was a massive success. For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, here's a little back story...

A year ago, Radiohead released its newest album on its Web site. That's nothing new. What was new was that the it implemented a "pay what you like" pricing program. Fans could literally pay whatever they wanted for the album. We will spare you the industry jargon that we can't understand and get to the statistics that matter most.

1.75 million physical CD's have been sold so far.
Total Sales to date: 3 million
Number of fans to view Radiohead on tour: 1.2 million

When you combine musical genius, business savvy and a little nerve, amazing things can happen. And by amazing things, we mean a lot of money. [From: Music Ally]

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