Latest Content
0

The Apocalypse Is Nigh

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on March 9, 2008Posted in: Music Industry

Wired’s Listening Post has an excellent bullet point interview with Sony BMG executive, Thomas Hesse, about the current state of the music industry and what the future holds. Surprisingly, Hesse has some genuinely insightful thoughts on the state of the industry.

Here are some highlights:

  • Connected CDs are going to be a huge thing. Half of people put CDs in their computers, mostly for ripping, which is great, because they purchased the music legally. At that time, there’s a chance to connect with the user, sell more music, merchandise, etc. There are both promotional and upsell opportunities there.
  • The biggest opportunity we have is to create an access model for the consumer where the consumer can consume music in a virtually limitless way by purchasing some kind of subscription or device that comes with access to the music. Those are the most exciting, and are gaining traction. Various models are being debated right now. The mobile phone will play a critical role, and the device will play critical role.
  • There are so many options for consumers. We must be bold enough to throw out some of old models.

I gotta admit, the last place I expected to hear some rational, well-thought out analyses on the music industry’s current plight was from a Sony BMG executive. Mr. Hesse has managed to make me start to take the major labels seriously again. I don’t agree with everything he says in the interview, but he has enough good points that he has my respect.

Read the rest of Hesse’s interview [wired.com]

Tags: , , , , ,
0

Guitar Hero: Van Failen Edition?

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on March 9, 2008Posted in: Video Games

Saw over on Kotaku that Activision CEO Bobby Kotick may have let it slip out that a future iteration of his beloved hit franchise, Guitar Hero, would be a Van Halen-centric affair much like the recently announced Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.  I’ve already been over this with Bob Lefsetz, but it bears repeating again:

ACTIVISION, PLEASE STOP MILKING GUITAR HERO BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO SHORT SIGHTED TO SEE WHAT AN AWESOME BRAND YOU HAVE.

Activision’s already run the once venerable Tony Hawk franchise into the ground with yearly sequels that have diluted the game so much that no one gives a shit anymore. Now it looks like they’re about to do the same with the Guitar Hero franchise in half the time. (Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is scheduled to come roughly six months after Guitar Hero 3) Take a look at Microsoft’s Halo if you want to see a franchise done right. There’s been two sequels since 2001’s Halo: Combat Evolved and each one has been a megaton event game of the year selling record numbers. Do you think the Halo brand would be nearly as strong if they cranked one out every 6 months with new levels being the only difference?

Yes, Activision should do what it can to keep the momentum of the sudden Guitar Hero craze, but they should do it with tactics similar to how Harmonix or Bungie are supporting their games – affordable and regularly available new downloadable content or, in the case of Bungie, listening to the community and tweaking/refreshing/adding game playlists. You could even figure out something new!

Whatever you do, just don’t bombard us with $60 “new” games that simultaneously insult and revolt a big part of your core audience.

Tags: , , , , ,
1

Echochrome Brings MC Escher To Your Sony Game Consoles

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on March 8, 2008Posted in: Video Games

I saw over on PSP Fanboy the other day that Sony has made available a demo of the MC Escher influenced puzzle game, Echochrome, on the Japanese Playstation store for the PS3 and PSP. Being the intrepid game I am, I quickly signed into my Japanese PSN account and pulled down both demos and gave them a whirl.

Essentially the games are the same with the main exception being that the PS3 version has english voice narration for the tutorials. The game is very simple to play and very cool. You use one analog stick to rotate the “level” around to guide your human who has to run to other figures placed around different Escher-like constructs. The trick is to use the perspective to reach places that wouldn’t normally be possible. For example, if there’s a hole that’s impeding your progress, you can rotate the level such that a column covers up the hole. Your dude will walk straight through as if the hole weren’t there. As the old cliche goes, “Out of sight, out of mind.” The demo has a few other neat things you can do with the perspective that I hope the full version expands upon.A US version hasn’t been announce yet, but let’s pray SCEA does us a solid and brings it over here.Check out a video trailer after the break

Download the PSP demo [pspfanboy.com]

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , ,
0

Trent Reznor Releases New Nine Inch Nails Album, Ghosts I-IV, Available Now For Free*

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on March 2, 2008Posted in: Music
*The first fourth is free

Out of NOWHERE, Nine Inch Nails have released their new album available right this second from the nin website.

Trent Reznor shows again why he’s the most innovative artist today in pioneering new business models for music. The album, a 36-track instrumental album collection called Ghosts I-IV, is available via six different SKU’s, from free to $300. The album is even released under the Creative Commons License, solving the earlier issues he had when trying to hold remix contests with fans.

From the press release:

FREE DOWNLOAD Ghosts I – The first 9 tracks from the Ghosts I-IV collection available as high-quality DRM-free MP3s (320kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged) including complete 40 page PDF. Also includes the digital extras pack – various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc.
$5 DOWNLOAD Ghosts I-IV – All 36 tracks in a variety of DRM-free digital formats (320 kbps LAME encoded, fully tagged; FLAC Lossless; Apple Lossless) including a 40 page PDF. Also includes the digital extras pack – various wallpapers, icons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc. This version is also available from the Amazon MP3 store.
$10 2XCD SET Ghosts I-IV – 2 audio CDs in a gatefold digipak package with a 16-page booklet. To be shipped TBD. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in same choice of formats as $5 Download option. Download will include the 40 page PDF and the digital extras pack – various wallpapers, cons, and graphics tools for your computer, website, profile, etc. This configuration will be released to retail in North America (April 8), Australia (April 5), the UK (April 8), Japan (April 5) and most European territories (April 8).
$75 LIMITED EDITION DELUXE PACKAGE Ghosts I-IV – Hardcover book holding 2 audio CDs, 1 data DVD of all 36 tracks in multi-track format (in .wav files readable by Mac and Windows), and Blu-ray disc featuring stereo recordings in high-definition 24 bit 96Khz with exclusive slide show. Includes immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. Also includes 48-page hardcover of photographs by Phillip Graybill and Rob Sheridan. Discs and art book both housed in fabric slipcover.
$300 ULTRA-DELUXE LIMITED EDITION PACKAGE Ghosts I-IV – Contains all elements from deluxe package, along with exclusive 4XLP 180-gram vinyl set, and two limited edition Giclee prints available exclusively in this package. Disc book, art book, and prints are all housed in a fabric slipcover. 4XLP vinyl set comes in its own fabric slipcover. INCLUDES immediate DRM-free download of the entire collection in all formats and with all extras mentioned above. LIMITED TO 2500 PIECES, NUMBERED AND PERSONALLY SIGNED BY TRENT REZNOR.
$39 4-vinyl version will be available at retail April 8.

Brilliant. Trent’s definitely learned from the Saul Williams experiment.

By creating a tiered distribution model, Reznor satisfies different level of consumers with aplomb. He gets the mass-market/non-fans with the free 25% of the album. If they like the music, buying the entire album digitally is a very reasonable $5 investment. If they don’t like it, not as much bandwidth is wasted on them as giving away the entire album. It also creates a bigger incentive for people to pay up. For people who want a badge of honor/lossless recording/CD for the car a 2 CD set is only $10. While it’ll be a little bit before they ship, they still get the instant gratification of a digital download along with digital art bonuses. For the true audiophiles/remix artists/fans, the $75 edition has every possible file format (including Blu-ray!) you could want along with a nice hard art-package. Finally, for the extreme fans/collectors, he’s got a truly unique limited edition offer. Hell, there’s even a vinyl version if you’re a record snob/Bob Lefsetz.

Combining digital with physical offerings in affordable options makes too much sense. It’s a wonder no one hasn’t done it before. To top it off, there was no “street date” with this release. A new NIN album was a given, but no one had any idea it would be this quick and this sudden. The usual process of leading with a radio single, announcing dates and “building hype” is completely shattered. Taking a cue from Steve Jobs at Apple, Reznor announces and distributes AT THE SAME TIME. What an idea! Why the fuck won’t more artists/labels see this? Nothing is more annoying to a fan than seeing/hearing new material from their favorite artists and not being able to buy/consume it the second it comes out.

The only blemish on this release thus far is that the webstore seems to be absolutely hammered to hell right now. I can barely load the page, much less buy or download anything. Did we not learn anything from the In Rainbows initial fiasco?

Discounting the technical difficulties, though, this, my friends, is how it is done. It doesn’t even matter if the music sucks, I wouldn’t want to buy music from my favorite artists any other way from now on.

Read the full press release after the jump

Buy/Download Ghosts I-IV [ghosts.nin.com]

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , ,
0

What I’m Listening To (February ’08 Edition)

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 27, 2008Posted in: Music, Music Picks, Reviews

It’s that time of the month again. Here are my top 5 favorite records I’ve been listening to in February.

The Airborne Toxic Event – ?

http://www.myspace.com/theairbornetoxicevent

Track to start with: Sometime Around Midnight

If there’s one song you listen to all month, make it The Airborne Toxic Event’s Sometime Around Midnight. It’s been on repeat on my Winamp ever since I bought it off Amazon the other week. Sometime Around Midnight starts off with a symphonic string melody that fades into a soft guitar introduction. As the vocals and percussion come in, the song gradually builds a crescendo of sound into an intense, almost Arcade Fire – Intervention-like swell into head bobbing, belt-it-out bliss.

No, the album isn’t called “?”, the title just hasn’t been revealed yet. This Los Angeles quintet’s quickly garnered a lot of buzz recently amongst show-goers and local radio stations. Singer Mikel Jollet, has a smooth baritone voice that reminds you a fair bit of Morrissey with a splash of Win Butler intensity in there to keep you in check. Only four recorded studio songs have been released thus far and they showcase the band’s spectrum of sounds, from Franz Ferdinand-like danceability on “Does This Mean You’re Moving On?” to contemplative melodies (“Wishing Well”) to simply… epic (“Sometime Around Midnight”).

Operator Please – Yes Yes Vindictive [AU Import]

http://www.myspace.com/operatorplease

Track to start with: Just A Song About Ping Pong

Five-piece band from Australia, these kids are lots of fun. Operator Please takes the exuberance of The Go! Team and focuses it with the brattiness of The Donnas and the confidence of Shirley Manson.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , ,
0

Prodigy From Mobb Deep Is A Trend Setter

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 27, 2008Posted in: Internet Phenomena, Music

I saw over on Nah Right that Prodigy’s latest blog post delineates in exquisite detail his numerous contributions to the rap community.

A few of my favorites:

#2 RAPPING WORDS THAT DONT ALWAYS RHYME

#12 PROTOOLS,,,,STARTED USING IT IN 98

#19 WEB SITES, I HAD INFAMOUSSTORES.COM AND WAS WRITING BLOGS BACK IN 99 LONG BEFORE IT BECAME POPULAR IN HIP HOP TO HAVE A WEB SITE.

#23 MAKING EXPOSING THE ILLUMINATI, SECRET GOVERNMENT AND HIDDEN TRUTHS THAT NEW HOT SHIT…

#26 I COULD JUST KEEP GOING BUT NOW I’M TIRED… HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY TREND SETTING, LOOK AT WHAT I BRING TO THE TABLE.

For what it’s worth, P, I have never ever questioned your trend setting. You bring to the table a delicious feast of fresh and innovative actions that define the zeitgeist of the 21st century.

(Full list after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , ,
0

Indie Game Spotlight: You Don’t Know Jack

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 27, 2008Posted in: Indie game spotlight, Video Games


No, that’s not Seth Godin’s head up there. (At least… I don’t think it is…)

You Don’t Know Jack is a trivia game from Chicago developer, Jellyvision. It was first introduced in 1995 as a PC CD-ROM title published by Berkeley Systems, whom you might remember as the people who made the “flying toasters” screensaver for your Windows 3.11 machine. Needless to say, YDKJ is the best thing that ever came out of that company. Billed with the tagline, “where high culture and pop culture collide”, YDKJ was (and is) the most well-written trivia game ever made. After spawning a few sequels and spinoffs (e.g. sports), the game disappeared in 2000 and was only recently brought back in a web format in winter of 2006-2007. YDKJ’s charm comes from it’s ability to seamlessly weave stuff like the movie Juno together with Roman mythology in creating trivia questions that will either make you feel smart, or borderline retarded. Either way, you’ll still be having fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , ,
0

George Clooney Can Predict The Future

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 26, 2008Posted in: Movies

This year’s Oscars were serviceable if uninteresting. Stewart was good, but not particularly memorable. Which, I guess, is a pretty solid performance. None of the awards got me riled up except for a slight twinge when No Country For Old Men won out over There Will Be Blood for Best Picture. Personally I thought There Will Be Blood was far and away the best picture of the year, but I’m fine with No Country For Old Men as it would have been my second choice. At least Atonement didn’t win.

What really saved my Oscar watching experience, though, was being involved in an Oscars pool. Of course I failed miserably, but it definitely made the show more interesting. Only after the fact did I discover that along with being the coolest guy on the planet, George Clooney is also an expert at picking Oscar winners.

Mein Gott. He was on the fucking dot in every category! He didn’t pick the right actresses, but he did talk about them in depth on the little blurb in that Time article.

Is there anything this man can’t do?

Read George’s picks [time.com]

Tags: , , ,
0

Dear Bob Lefsetz, Aerosmith Only Guitar Hero Is Not That Awesome

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 15, 2008Posted in: Video Games

Ah, the mainstream penetration of everyone’s favorite guitar playing simulator, Guitar Hero.  Even our favorite video game newbie Bob Lefsetz deemed the latest entry into the franchise, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith worthy of mention in his latest email newsletter.  Unfortunately for Bob, his glowing enthusiasm for the newly announced title is not shared by members of the gaming community, myself included.  I wrote an animated reply back to him which I’ll post in its entirety after the jump.

My email may be a little acerbic, but something about communicating with Lefsetz gets me in a CAPITALIZING MOOD.  The fact of the matter is, Activision has severely diluted the Guitar Hero brand by releasing so many expansions/”sequels” in such a short time frame.  In a 12 month window we’ll have had Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80’s, Guitar Hero 3, and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.  None of these titles have advanced the core gameplay of the series in a significant way.  They all basically amount to song expansion packs.  While this may be fine and dandy for fans of the game who just want more tracks (or for aging rock bands to feel like they’re relevant again), but I feel that Guitar Hero is no longer synonymous with cool, innovative rhythm gaming.  It’s just about become like The Sims and its shamelessly exploited expansion packs.  A mainstream, casual gaming cash cow for sure, but zero credibility with gaming connoisseurs.  Understandable from a business perspective, but don’t go around plugging Guitar Hero like it’s Animal Collective.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , ,
0

The Music Industry, It’s FANNNNNNTASTIC! [Rock On]

By
Andy Yen
– Posted on February 12, 2008Posted in: Books, Music, Reviews

Did you know the average American reads 1-4 books a year?*Given that I probably read 0-1 books last year (but probably 20,000 blog posts), one of my resolutions for 2008 was to read more books. In my quest to defeat mediocrity, I’ve conquered a few books in the past few weeks, most recently Dan Kennedy’s new music industry bio, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad.

The book is not so much a biography of Kennedy’s life as a whole, but a snapshot into the 18 months of his life as a creative video marketer for Atlantic Records circa 2002. Having never worked in the industry before, Kennedy’s perspective as an outsider depicts an industry of excess, complacency, and hilarity. In fact, many of his initial encounters mirrored my own initial impressions when I started working in music. The internal monologue of “Oh shit I am standing next to (insert big name music star here)! Pleaseletmesaysomethingnaturalbecoolbecool” that he writes is spot on with how I reacted when I was a wide-eyed initiate in the music industry. A lot of the humor comes from Kennedy’s written “thoughts” and they had me lol’ing in my chair quite a few times.

There’s not much of a coherent plot, but that’s fine. Rock On is basically a collection of anecdotes from Kennedy’s tenure at Atlantic. If you’ve never worked in the business before, it’s an eye opening tale about just how ridiculous the inner workings of the industry are. You have executives in corner offices who don’t even show up to work because the whole reason they have their jobs is because they signed a big artist 25 years ago and have been riding the coattails ever since. $50,000 office desks, fat expense accounts, cluelessness, artist hypocrisy, two and a half hour lunches, corporate sycophants, high employment turnover are all things you’ll read about. All that glamor, glitz, coolness that you’ve attributed to the music industry in your mind is brought crashing down to earth in what amounts to an episode of The Office.

The funny thing is, everything Kennedy writes about working at a major label seemed natural to me at the time. In fact, I probably had less of a jaw-dropping reaction to a lot of the anecdotes than most people will when reading the book. If you’ve worked in music before, you’ll know what I mean. Nevertheless, Rock On was a very entertaining book that I read in two sittings one day. Recommended if you like music and/or office humor.

Buy Rock On from Amazon.com


*statistics are from googling “the average american reads how many books a year” and checking out what the first page gave me

Tags: , , ,
Older Entries
Newer Entries