Now that cassette tapes are back in vogue, does that mean that home taping is once again killing music? Don’t die, music!
Road Tunes
New music releases for the week of 07-03-2012
Web2Carz Senior Writer
Published: July 3rd, 2012
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his Fourth of July week, take some time to think about one of the great American institutions: the music industry. Founded by a rag-tag group of businessmen who had the courage and the vision to pay artists a pittance for material that they could market and sell for huge profits, the music industry thrived for many years, making many artists wealthy, leaving many more destitute, but profiting from each alike—until one fateful day when the industry launched a digital music format which, unbeknownst to them, would prove to be their undoing. For it was this format which, combined with the rise of the internet, took from the industry the one thing that made its existence necessary: distribution. Bereft of the advantage of being the sole means of distribution, the music industry was soon exposed for the greedy, exploitative dinosaur that it was, and it soon perished, crushed by the weight of its own greed.
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Asia / XXX (Frontier) THEY SAY: Latest album from ‘80s supergroup celebrating their 30th anniversary. WE SAY: How former members of Roxy Music, Yes, The Buggles, and Emerson, Lake, & Palmer came together in 1981 to make one of the absolute worst albums of all time remains the greatest example of how musical chops only count for so much. The band’s signature song, “Heat of the Moment” continues to run neck-in-neck with “We Built This City” for worst rock song ever. Their new album features the band’s original lineup (previous lineups have included over 22 different members), and while the band fails to top their first album for sheer horribleness, it is nonetheless extremely bad. |
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Chris Brown / Fortune (RCA) THEY SAY: Fifth album from R&B singer/woman beater Chris Brown, and the follow up to 2011’s F.A.M.E. WE SAY: After numerous delays, and much hype (producer David Banner claimed Fortune would "change the way people look at R&B"), Fortune has neither changed the way people look at R&B, nor changed the way people look at Brown. |
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Duran Duran / Live 2011: A Diamond In the Mind (Eagle Rock Entertainment) THEY SAY: Live album companion to the DVD/BluRay of the same name, recorded in Manchester, England. WE SAY: Duran Duran have little else to offer than nostalgia, which they offer up in bucketloads on this live album, featuring such favorites as “Rio,” “Hungry Like the Wolf,” and “Planet Earth.” |
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Flo Rida / Wild Ones (Atlantic) THEY SAY: Forth album from Carol City, Florida’s Tramar Dillard, better known as Flo Rida. WE SAY: Flo burst on the scene in 2008 with the monster hit “Low.” His follow up album was also a huge seller, but since then his brand of club-centric rap has failed to connect with audiences. Not that anything since his first album has been much different, it’s just that there's a reason they call it a flash-in-the-pan. |
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Múm / Early Birds (Morr Music) THEY SAY: Collection of unreleased material from Icelandic post-rockers. WE SAY: Although mostly instrumental, Early Birds, featuring recordings made in the two years before their 2000 debut, Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK, shows a band who already had their sound fully formed. |
