NEWS: RIAA steps up lawsuits against students

Business Week reports that the RIAA claims to be sending out around 400 letters to students at thirteen different universities in the next month. These letters offer the opportunity for students who have broken copyright laws to settle at a "discounted" rate. The trade group plans to continue this action every month increasing the number of letters until universities comply in stopping illegal file sharing within their own networks. The RIAA has sued three times as many students this year as they did last year.

Radio UTD Charts for 2/20/07

1 DO MAKE SAY THINK You, You're A History In Rust Constellation
2 OF MONTREAL Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Polyvinyl
3 EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone Temporary Residence
4 PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block Almost Gold
5 SHINS Wincing The Night Away Sub Pop
6 DAVID VANDERVELDE The Moonstation House Band Secretly Canadian
7 DR. DOG We All Belong Park The Van
8 PETER AND THE WOLF Lightness Worker's Institute
9 APPLES IN STEREO New Magnetic Wonder Yep Roc
10 SHE, SIR Who Can't Say Yes Self-Released
11 ARCADE FIRE "Black Mirror" [Single] Merge
12 MEW Frengers Columbia
13 STEVE LIEBERMAN Melancholoa Falling Self-Released
14 POSTMARKS The Postmarks Unfiltered
15 RAFTER Music For Total Chickens Asthmatic Kitty
16 DEERHOOF Friend Opportunity Kill Rock Stars
17 ELVIS PERKINS Ash Wednesday XL
18 EARLY YEARS The Early Years Beggars Banquet
19 SIX PARTS SEVEN Casually Smashed To Pieces Suicide Squeeze
20 VARIOUS ARTISTS Imagine The Shapes What's Your Rupture?
21 TEDDYBEARS Soft Machine Atlantic / Big Beat
22 JULIE DOIRON Woke Myself Up Jagjaguwar
23 THIS MOMENT IN BLACK HISTORY It Takes A Nation (Of Assholes To Hold Us Back) Cold Sweat
24 BLOC PARTY A Weekend In The City Vice
25 P.G. SIX Slightly Sorry Drag City
26 MENOMENA Friend And Foe Barsuk
27 GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN The Good, The Bad And The Queen Virgin
28 CLINIC Visitations Domino
29 SONDRE LERCHE Phantom Punch Astralwerks
30 CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder Self-Released


Out of these I'd like to focus on Do Make Say Think whose most recent release "You, You're a History in Rust" shows how one of indie rocks greatest musical fusions has continued to improve while introducing new styles. Known for their post-rock with two drummers and jazz influences (especially in the percussion department), they have added the element of vocals to the mix. While only on a few songs (my personal favorite being "A With Living") use this it is an interesting development for this previously only instrumental band. The most popular track being played at the station is "The Universe!" and with good reason since it start stop intensity and ringing reverb gets it stuck in your head very quickly, which is key for a band that is more tailored to people who listen to music through their headphones more than in their cars. For a list of the Hype Machine's collected Do Make Say Think songs click here.

NEWS: The RIAA is Dumb

Yes, it's true, the RIAA isn't the smartest group of people out there. In response to Steve Job's essay about record labels dropping their DRM types they issued this statement:

"Apple’s offer to license Fairplay to other technology companies is a welcome breakthrough and would be a real victory for fans, artists and labels. There have been many services seeking a license to the Apple DRM. This would enable the interoperability that we have been urging for a very long time."

The best part about this statement is that Jobs mentions absolutely nothing in his essay about opening up Fairplay. He merely wanted the music industry to be a little bit more mac friendly, Fairplay and all. Maybe we should all do as Bill Gates says and "just buy a cd and rip it."

TECHNOLOGY: Virtual Singing

Computers have been able to process and create music for decades, able to recreate classical instruments and even create new ones. For years people have been making music using only computers and synthesizers with the only human element being the singing. All of that could change in a few years. A company by the name Zero G has created the first human synthesizer in Vocaloid. Using singer fonts created by real vocalists, the program is able to make the virtual performer sing lyrics in a melody and style decided by the user. While the sound is not perfect the effect is still absolutely amazing. Right now the female vocal models sound like variations of various traditional singers and the Leon (male) model sounds like Thom Yorke on a good day. The uses of this, especially for background vocals with the current technology is amazing. Even with the 2004 release the possibilities for this technology is endless. Imagine being able to write a song and then having Bob Dylan sing the lead vocals and then after deciding you don't like what you hear change it out so the singer is no longer Dylan but Paul Simon. All of this at the touch of a button. The companies website can be found here and an amazing sample song created using two of the different synth voices can be heard here. Prima: Vocaloid 2 is scheduled to be released in Spring '07 with improvements all across the board.

Radio UTD Charts for 2/13/07

I've decided to start posting RadioUTD's top 30 most played new albums of the week. It's a pretty useful insight into some good new music that's definitely worth checking out. Also remember to hear these albums and others be sure to check out RadioUTD.

Something to notice, the name of the record label of the artist comes after the album name. I know it's confusing but that's the way we get the charts in. If you have any questions about the album name vs label just leave a comment and I can get you an answer.

For example: OF MONTREAL Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Polyvinyl

OF MONTREAL = band name
Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? = album title
Polyvinyl = record label

Charts for 2/13/07:

1 OF MONTREAL Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Polyvinyl
2 SHINS Wincing The Night Away Sub Pop
3 DAVID VANDERVELDE The Moonstation House Band Secretly Canadian
4 DO MAKE SAY THINK You, You're A History In Rust Constellation
5 DEERHOOF Friend Opportunity Kill Rock Stars
6 YOKO ONO Yes, I'm A Witch Astralwerks
7 APPLES IN STEREO New Magnetic Wonder Yep Roc
8 EARLY YEARS The Early Years Beggars Banquet
9 SIX PARTS SEVEN Casually Smashed To Pieces Suicide Squeeze
10 PETER BJORN AND JOHN Writer's Block Almost Gold
11 THIS MOMENT IN BLACK HISTORY It Takes A Nation (Of Assholes To Hold Us Back) Cold Sweat
12 VARIOUS ARTISTS 8-Bit Operators Astralwerks
13 TEDDYBEARS Soft Machine Atlantic / Big Beat
14 ARCADE FIRE "Black Mirror" [Single] Merge
15 RAFTER Music For Total Chickens Asthmatic Kitty
16 VARIOUS ARTISTS Imagine The Shapes What's Your Rupture?
17 JULIE DOIRON Woke Myself Up Jagjaguwar
18 CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH Some Loud Thunder Self-Released
19 CLINIC Visitations Domino
20 OCTOPUS PROJECT AND BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW The House Of Apples And Eyeballs Graveface
21 CHUMBAWAMBA A Singsong And A Scrape AK Press
22 SUBTLE For Hero: For Fool Lex
23 ISIS In The Abscence Of Truth Ipecac
24 MEW Frengers Columbia
25 SHE, SIR Who Can't Say Yes Self-Released
26 MENOMENA Friend And Foe Barsuk
27 BLOC PARTY A Weekend In The City Vice
28 DR. DOG We All Belong Park The Van
29 LONEY, DEAR Loney, Noir Sub Pop
30 FUJIYA AND MIYAGI Transparent Things Deaf Dumb And Blind

NEWS: Steve Jobs condemns DRM use by record labels

In one of the more hilarious stories of late, Apple's Steve Jobs openly condemned major record labels' use of DRM protection on certain CD releases. According to him there is no reason for them to "protect" 10% of their albums at the risk of stifling usability by the users. This is extremely funny considering Jobs' company is notorious for their FairPlay DRM which keeps all iTunes songs exclusive to Apple brand products. It is so notorious that Norways consumer board has taken up talks with Apple threating legal action if they refuse to allow their media to be used on other mp3 players beyond the iPod series. This seems fairly typical of Apple's hypocritical approach towards digital media.

In another release Apple recommended that users avoid upgrading to Microsoft's new operating system Vista. This seems like an obvious statement but their reason for users to delay this upgrade is because iTunes has several critical conflicts with Vista keeping it from functioning properly. All of this after Apple made quite a few jokes at Microsoft's expense due to the time it took Microsoft to finish developing their OS. With five years since XP's release it seems that Apple had more than enough time to get their software functioning on the new operating system.

NEWS: Woman successfully countersues RIAA

Debbie Foster has been successful in her counter suit against the RIAA for their actions taken against her last summer when it was decided that actions taken on her isp account are not necessarily her responsibility. She will receive $50,000 for legal fees along with time away from work. This case is extremely important since it sets precedent for future cases where the RIAA might be less likely to sue since they will be forced to pay all legal fees in case of a loss. More can be read here.

WEB: The Hype Machine takes mp3 blogs to a new level

Wow... I have found what can easily be described as one of the most amazing music websites ever. Channeling the collective research abilities of hundreds of music blogs along with their tendency to disregard copyright laws, The Hype Machine has created a new and highly efficient way of discovering new music. Most everyone by now knows that music blogs love to post songs, whether they are unreleased, soon to be released, or just the new single. This is very nice but can be extremely frustrating as you attempt to find certain songs while going through old archives and utilizing not so friendly search abilities. The Hype Machine takes all of the guess work out of the process. Simply type in the song or artist you are looking for and they bring up direct links to all of the blogs that have posted mp3s of the requested artist or song. Not only does it make a list of links and quick snippets of information on where the source is, it also has extremely functional play options, allowing you to stream all listed songs from that page in Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes, or their own flash music player. And since bloggers love to be elitists you will find some amazing songs that you never knew existed. The site stays legal considering the fact that they are hosting none of the content, although I can see this site being an easy way for labels to find blogs that have been illegally distributing their music. This website capitalizes on all of the benefits of exploring music through music blogs while eliminating all of the hassles involved with searching for them in a traditional manner. A definite must see for any music fan.