Kinda funny, Reuters brought a story on a few presidential candidates’ campain songs.(You can vote for Hillary’s on youtube… whatever) I always love it when two subjects I like in this case marketing through music emotions and political marketing hit together.
So by googeling around I came up with a few more campaign songs. It’s actually not that easy to find (former) candidate theme songs. Would be cool to collect them all. Maybe I’m gonna write something on it later.
So far these are all I could find:
Bill Clinton - Don’t Stop
Mike Dukakis - America (Neil Diamond)
Al Gore - You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
Ronald Reagan - God Bless the USA (Lee Greenwood)
Dwight Eisenhower - I Like Ike (Irving Berlin)
John F. Kennedy - High Hopes
George H.W. Bush - Don’t Worry, Be Happy
George W. Bush - Right Now (Van Halen)
Ross Perot - Crazy (Patsy Cline)

Happy analyzing
(Reuters link found through hypebot)

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So it’s time again to look at the industry and find out what happened in the last days.

Let’s start with the boring stuff first. EMI is still not sold! Somehow I begin to understand why there are that few blogs and news sites covering the music industry. The problem is, that there is in fact not much going on. If you would go back half a year from today, you would find almost the same stories all over the blogs. Dropping CD sales, Warner trying to buy EMI (ok, today it’s not only Warner but some others as well) and of cause the old jump and run games between allofmp3.com and the music industry.

Also the allofmp3.com story gets more and more amusing. Since credit card companies stopped working with allofmp3.com individuals began selling vouchers for the site on ebay. And the good old IFPI is on the hunt again and got the UK police to raid one of the sellers. If you see all the file sharing going on, how PirateBay and other sites are able to operate legally in their countries, this all has some kind of humorous tragedy. People, who are still willing to pay money for music, getting raided, while others are free to operate under the law of their state.

Another thing, worth thinking about is, that allofmp3 did drive it’s popularity actively through some solid PR work. But in the end, their popularity is coming back to them and hurting their business model through becoming a poster boy for the bad music stealing Russian communists.

My standpoint is this: The entertainment industry NEEDS sites like allofmp3 or piratebay. It is the only way forcing it to realize that their current systems are more than outdated. Ideas, like putting area codes on DVDs to protect them of getting viewed in some territories, are more than yesterday and have nothing to do with todays global business approach. It’s the same with digital music and it’s territorial release dates or the expectation to implement US law in foreign territories. This conflict of globalism and the expectation of having the rest of the world behave like the neighbor next door does lead to not only technology and cultural but also real war.

Sad but true…

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Ahhh, again something worth watching. Oi Va Voi are a music band from London and melting experimental electronical sound with jewish traditional music. Most other songs they have are with a female voice on the lead vocals. Unfortunately this takes away the rough and driving caracter of the music and drives it to a (way to much) dreamy direction.
More songs on their myspace page.

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And yes, finally again a music video worth watching it. Fujiya & Miyagi are a british electronica band signed with Groenland Records. Their video is done only with different dices with really great animations and a cool use of these objects. Haven’t seen something like this for a quite while…

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Uhm, I don’t know what to say about this. It is a nice idea of collaboration and making Phil Collins hip in the hood but it is still such a very odd setup. Sometimes it might make sence to stay within the style one has established.

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I got again the research & learning fever…
If you are interested in these things, like user generated content, online right management, solutions for the copyright infringements and so on, this might be something for you as well. The Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society put up their lectures on the subject: Internet and Society: Technologies and Politics of Control. It is really quite good material to recent events and got a good mixture between geek and non geek topics. So far I watched the first 6 hours of lectures. But hey, it’s weekend!

Videos
Course Overview

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Quite cool to see this legendary painter / performer in this 1950s game show. Really very unique personality.

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Sometimes I wonder how todays re-re-re-mix culture of popular music will be seen in 200 years from now. Will anyone care about todays songs? Will the only songs survive be the ones by the Beatles or other hum-along tunes. For me, and I’m shure for most of you it’s quite similar, classical music is reduced to a few well know ones like Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 or Mozart’s Magic Flute, and even there very tiny fragments. The fragments which are ease to hum. Anyone up for a Hum Theory?

Anyhow let’s dignify the people who are still writing classical music like Giovanni Sollima. He might never play in Madison Square Garden, but his writing skills are still terrific. These two videos are Lasse Gjertsen and are excellent pieces of how music videos could work for classical artists. No superstar attitude, no fancy dresses, no big stage, but very artisanic by both the composer/ cellist and of cause the video artist. Enjoy!

Giovanni Sollima - Sogno ad Occhi Aperti Part 1

Giovanni Sollima - Sogno ad Occhi Aperti Part 2

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Finally! At the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this February Doug Zongker found a way to explain and demonstrate to all of us the crucial steps to bring the music industry back in the game. It is such a simple, such a genious solution we never really though of. But with having such a clear strategy and scientific evidence how this revolution will take place… well, we are all save now! Hurray for the music biz!

Side note: To understand the concept you might have to have to take part in major record label’s meetings first…

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Ok guys, this is a new segment. Most other industry bloggers do it, and since there is actually sometimes some real news coming up I will put them up. Most as one liners. And I promise not to write about the 100+1 rumor about the new and hot and sexy amazon mp3 shop until it actually will exist. Blah…

- Bertelsmann will after it’s sale of BMG Publishing found a new music publishing company. [L]

- Koch Buys Narrave [L]

AND news of the week (actually weak)…

(Kudos to coolfer for finding this)
“A digital rights management (DRM) software maker is threatening to sue Apple, Microsoft, Adobe and Real Networks for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by not using its product.”

That’s the funniest DRM story for a long time.
” Hey guys, our product sucks and no one wants to have it and DRM is on the decline. Ah, let’s just sue some big fishs for not using it. At least we might get some press coverage and in the meantime others might buy it just for not getting sued…”

But the ironie of things like this might help bringing down the DRM monster…

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