an open letter to eMusic

eMusic has recently almost doubled their prices, in tandem with an expansion of their download catalog. here is my email to their customer service, expressing my dissatisfaction:

I am really disappointed with the new pricing structure of eMusic. Under the new scheme, the price of each download will increase from $.25 per song to $.40 per song, under my current plan. Frankly I think this is pretty ridiculous considering other services like iTunes are lowering their prices.

I understand eMusic's desire to broaden their customer base by offering more mainstream music. But I, like most other eMusic customers, do not subscribe to this service for these types of offerings. And, sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion that by making your offerings more mainstream, you will neglect the more niche offerings to which most people on eMusic are attuned.

An obvious solution is to have a tiered pricing system, similar to that adopted by iTunes, that places a premium on more popular works. This would keep eMusic a more viable place for smaller artists, for which demand for their work may be more price elastic.

The previous comments are predicated on the idea that the new music you are offering costs more, which is why you are raising your prices. If the price increase is not simply designed to offset higher acquisition costs on your end, but also allows for an increase in artist royalties from downloads, than that is a different story.

I will say that unless a tiered pricing structure is implemented, or if the album pricing system does not provide a significant cost savings, I will probably cancel my eMusic subscription after a few months of the new system. I enjoy and appreciate your service but there are number of issues, most of all the rise in prices, that I find discouraging about the new arrangement.

Sincerely,
TS

townes van zandt - mr. mudd & mr. gold

live at the old quarter. simply amazing.

filastine, loda @ gallery in silver spring, friday march 13th

if i was going to be in town, i would most certainly be at this gig. in fact, i am pretty upset that i am going to be missing it. filastine is amazing, and after catching him at loda in September, i can guarantee that his live set will be pretty amazing.

his TheirSpace. more show details. listen to some tunes and see what you think.

last.fm back in effect

when streaming tracks (scrobbling in their parlance) to last.fm, i always used only the scrobbling feature (via an iTunes plug-in), and never downloaded the actual last.fm application. this was pretty much only because I was an early adopter, and had started the whole scrobbling thing before their was an actual application for your desktop.

eventually, last.fm stopped issuing updates or support for the scrobbling plug-in. this move makes sense by last.fm, from a business perspective, since presumably the value of their service is enhanced by people having and using the physical application. they were bought (twice?) recently by an established conglomerate, and with a lot of companies struggling with how to monetize these web 2.0 assets (i.e. facebook, myspace, etc.), i guess this move wasn't unexpected.

at some point earlier this year an update to iTunes rendered the plug-in inoperable. and although i downloaded the last.fm application, for a variety of reasons i never installed it, and last.fm sort of faded from my usage. today i installed it, and am "scrobbling" again.

the OCD portion of me will end up listening again to those artists that over the last 6 months i played heavily, to make my last.fm "accurate." why i'm willing to do this but don't care that last.fm doesn't reflect my cd/vinyl listening (which is mostly what i do at home), i don't know, but i'm fine with it. it remains to be seen whether i'll pursue ipod functionality. i used to have that, but it was a huge pain. we shall see...

why so fire?

i can't figure out why i find this graphic so fascinating. well, i guess i could be all po-mo and deconstruct it, but i'm at work and there's no need for any of that bs. hella dope. in case you're curious, it's the header for the fool's gold blog. droppin fire over there these days, on the nu-rave hip tip (i refuse to use the word hipster and am still searching for alternatives. it has now lost all meaning.

Feeling Good, Lewis!

i told you. here's the recent summer mix, reminding us that while it's ebbing slowly, there's so much good stuff still left.

cosmo baker, still good. via 5151.





cracked crab and lobster for everyone.

Looking Good, Billy Ray!

this dropped a while ago (the beginning of summer, to be precise). i've been derelict, but it's a companion piece, so stay tuned for more.

cosmo baker dropped this amazing summer mix, feeling good, as a way to start off the summer in the appropriate mood. still o' so fresh today. enjoy it, with more soon.

jheri curl alert

the rub djs are always rockin' it out in brooklyn and around the globe. unfortunately, i've never made it out to a rub party or been able to check any of them live. although i like to get down, my nyc friends aren't really down like that, and i've never been able to motivate much. not that i pushed too hard i guess.

but whenever they have a mixtape drop, i'm up on it. given that we've just hit the first day of summer (and it almost hit 100 in DC today), wanna pop out and throw back to a classic summer mix that dropped this past. from their own dj eleven comes summer madness, a collection of funky, laid back cuts that perfectly fit that summer aesthetic. this was the precursor to his winter sadness mix that i sent off to my boy after we hit that bad winter stretch in january. although similarly amazing, thankfully we've turned the corner and summer is back. now get out there! tracklist

latin heaters, comin with cumbia et. al.

while the whole blogariddims series has been killing it completely (check them out), the newest mix is complete fire. them dudes out of London, the Heatwave Collective, send in a latin diasporic blend of all things funky, "sung, rapped and MC'd almost entirely in Spanish, from reggae to soca, dancehall to cumbia and reggaeton to hip hop."

these guys have been killing it for a while in London (check out Blogariddims 10 for more, plus their remixes), now if they only could make to the States! or better yet, if I could make it to London

oh look, a pony

although i don't have a horse in this race (and in all actuality, as a wizards fan should be rooting against the cavs), i'm throwing this out in the midst of cleveland pushing for the EC finals. take any inspiration as needed.


artist: Randy Newman

still flying

i was jamming to the lyssnar! mix by Caps and Jones, particularly the last song, and was thinking "where have i heard this before?" hopped to google and typed in some of the lyrics (a completely unheralded google usage, btw), and realized it was the song from the silence of the lambs. q-lazzarus never meant anything to me prior to that.

four boys and a guitar

one late evening a few years ago, back in vt, my friend charlie and i were at this girl sophie's house. she threw on some old pre-doo wop vocal music, the authors of which i had no clue. charlie then asked "is this the mills brothers?" indeed it was, and it was quite good. i had been meaning to download some of their stuff, and finally got around to it. i'm still sifting through their prodigious discography, but i grabbed this track for a couple of reasons. enjoy. title: across the alley from the alamo.



this song is also apropos to some recent travel i did for work. i visited the alamo bend navajo reservation in new mexico this week. it was definitely interesting, but i'm going to resist the temptation to use this as an excuse to pen a long missive about the state of native americans. suffice it to say that the mescalero apache a few hours to the south seem to be doing much better economically than the alamo navajo.

shotgun willie

lately, i've been listening to a lot of willie nelson, and although i'd listened before, it all really came about over christmas when i borrowed my mom's car. yes, normally i would never be taking musical cues from my parents (especially not my mother, who usually has the same 6 cds in her car for months), but that's how it happened.

now at certian moments of extreme pain or embarassment, you'd be willing to trade lives with anyone. as a rule though, the list shortens when you aren't under duress. i try to shy away from this kind of thinking, but if i could trade lives with anyone, i think willie nelson's life would probably be the most interesting, if not necessarily the most enjoyable. make great music, meet interesting people, travel all over the country and the world, consume large quantities of drugs and alcohol, and still be kicking around and respected, with enough movie cameos to allow me to never play another concert should i so desire. i would take all that, even with the bankruptcy/tax evasion problems.

then again, i think it's somewhat of a sign of a weak human being if you'd be willing to throw away all your experiences to have someone else's life. i guess it becomes palatable if you've had a somewhat boring existence, but i'm not sure i qualify. so maybe this particular instance points to my inherent weakness, although as i added i try to avoid this kind of thinking. you be the judge.

thanks again riaa

dj drama and don cannon busted for making mixtapes. i think the riaa is finally really off their rockers, as most of the "bootleg" music used in mixtapes comes direct from the major labels, who use these things to promote artists (see jeezy, t.i., etc.). read about it here, here, and see it on youtube here. Note the copious amounts of ridiculous innuendo in the fox tv report, and the deep, soulless glaze to the riaa guy's eyes. i don't think they could be more clueless if they tried. guaranteed that drama had tons of contracts with labels to help promote their artists.