Rick Rubin to save the 'music industry'?

[David Lay]

http://tinyurl.com/2zayql

[Stephen Calhoun]

I cannot think of any A&R oriented label honcho who has ever done anything to revamp the record industry. Nothing in the article, itself a valentine to an admittedly talented and eccentric figure, suggests differently.

This 'greatest record store ever built' is what the music biz is up against. The industry watched this online, socially-networked, free music store arise, while the industry's own bricks-and-mortar paradigm raced to the bottom.

They demonized their own customers about copyright. However I can report that label A&R executives freely distribute party mixes among themselves!

Frank Zappa on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZazEM8cgt0

[ryan costa]

it is good that music labels are losing control of the radio stations. radio stations tend to play the same stuff over and over again.

And there is hope for the future: The White Stripes are issuing stuff on Vinyl. So kids of the future will be able to tack the album covers to the walls. it will be ok.

[David Lay]

Thankfully, thanks to the punk/indie scene's constant demand, vinyl is enjoying a bit of a revival.

Don't believe me? Take a trip over to My Mind's Eye and peruse the stacks...

[ryan costa]

That's cool. I had a lot of cool albums, but only tacked "Pac-Man Fever" to the wall. It is ok. Buckner and Garcia were legit. They came up from the local scenes. Pac-Man Fever was not written by a committee.

[David Lay]

Yeah, certain bands even encourage vinyl.

The band Shellac is a good example. They're a 3-piece band, with Steve Albini & Bob Weston (well-known recording engineers) in the ranks. It's well known that Albini & Weston are analog proponents.

Their last two releases have included a CD in the vinyl version. It seems as if the CD is thrown in as an afterthought: no printing on the disc, no artwork.

Their albums are recorded entirely in the analog realm; editing is done with a razor blade. No punch-ins, no cymbals that go 'pish'. The vinyl versions are DMM (direct-to-metal) mastered at Abbey Road, and the records are pressed on 180g virgin (audiophile) vinyl. The records sound incredibly better than their digital counterparts.

Speaking of Albini, he wrote an essay in the 90s called 'The Problem With Music' that details (down to the last penny) how major label bands get screwed. Definitely worth reading:

http://www.negativland.com/albini.html