Posts in Trends
KSCR CMJ Top 30 Playlist for the week ending 9/28/08
Hello there. I'm KSCR's Music Director and every week I submit a playlist with the top 30 most played albums at KSCR that week to the College Music Journal (CMJ), which tallies similar reports from college radio stations across the country. This helps them publish charts akin to the Billboard charts, but for music circulating on college radio stations as opposed to commercial stations. KSCR's genre directors also submit the top 10 albums played within their respective genres: Hip Hop, Electronica / RPM, Jazz, Loud Rock / Metal, and World music. Here is the list for what was played last week:

Radio 200

Rank Artist Recording Label
1 ABE VIGODA Skeleton PostPresent Medium
2 TV ON THE RADIO Dear Science Touch And Go-Interscope
3 JENNY LEWIS Acid Tongue Warner Bros.
4 DR. DOG Fate Park The Van
5 WALKMEN You And Me Gigantic
6 HEARTS OF PALM UK For Life Hypnote
7 THE FAINT Fasciinatiion Blank.wav
8 MOGWAI The Hawk Is Howling Matador
9 HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR Hercules And Love Affair Mute-DFA
10 SIGUR ROS Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust XL

Radio 200 cont'd

11 METALLICA Death Magnetic Warner Bros.
12 ETTES Look At Life Again Soon Take Root
13 POLYSICS We Ate The Machine MySpace
14 HOLD STEADY Stay Positive Vagrant
15 RATATAT LP3 XL
16 BRAZILIAN GIRLS New York City Verve Forecast
17 THE COAST Expatriate Aporia
18 DAEDELUS Love To Make Music To Ninja Tune
19 STILLS Oceans Will Rise Arts And Crafts
20 CALEXICO Carried To Dust Touch And Go-Quarterstick
21 EMILIANA TORRINI Me And Armini Rough Trade
22 OKKERVIL RIVER The Stand Ins Jagjaguwar
23 ZEBRAHEAD Phoenix ICON
24 RAPHAEL SAADIQ The Way I See It Columbia
25 LYKKE LI Youth Novels LL
26 BLITZEN TRAPPER Furr SUB POP
27 NEW YEAR The New Year Touch And Go
28 OXFORD COLLAPSE Bits SUB POP
29 ED LAURIE Meanwhile In The Park Dangerbird
30 INARA GEORGE AND VAN DYKE PARKS An Invitation Everloving
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Settle or Be Sued
Settle or be sued. These are the two options given by the settlement letters that many college students have received. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) recently sent out its thirteenth batch of settlement letters and of the 401 notices, 50 target USC students. Most will probably settle, whether through the RIAA’s p2plawsuits.com or otherwise, but what happens if someone actually decides to go to trial? After 20,000 cases never made it into the courtroom, the first lawsuit to go before a jury against an individual file-sharer was resolved. The jury considered the case, Capitol Records v. Thomas, for four hours before declaring a verdict: the defendant was guilty of copyright infringement and charged with $9,250 in statutory damages for each of 24 tracks, totaling $222,000. Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old single mother from Brainerd, Minnesota, was responsible not only for this sum, but also legal fees for both sides, making the total likely to approach $500,000. In statements during the days following the trial, jurors stated they came to the guilty verdict in a matter of minutes, with the majority of deliberation over the amount. While two jurors desired the maximum penalty of $150,000 per track, one held out for the minimum of $750 each. The final number of $9,250 was a compromise. While Thomas asked the district judge to set aside the judgment as "unconstitutionally excessive," the penalty was chosen by a jury of 12 ordinary Americans from her own state, making this a difficult point to argue. The real question, though, is how 24 tracks, which could sell for a total of $23.76 as legal downloads from the iTunes music store, are worth $222,000. The answer lies in current copyright law. While Thomas was accused of illegally downloading over 1,700 tracks from Kazaa, the lawsuit concerned 24 tracks found in her shared folder. The tracks Thomas made available could have been downloaded by thousands of users, or no one. There is then no way to calculate the exact losses to the copyright holders. In situations where exact monetary damages cannot be calculated, the copyright law allows for statutory damages of $750 to $30,000 per infringement (per track) and this can be increased to $150,000 for willful infringement. This means Thomas could have been held responsible for $3.6 million had maximum penalties been applied. Of course, the RIAA had a substantial amount of evidence against the defendant in this particular case. While Thomas' defense consisted largely of "I didn't do it" and the suggestion that someone else may have been using her Internet connection, the RIAA presented a number of counterarguments. Both the MAC and IP addresses of the file-sharer matched those of Thomas' computer at the time file sharing occurred. The computer was password-protected and only she had access to it. She had a 13-year history of using her Kazaa username ("Tereastarr") on everything from e-mail accounts to a match.com profile. There was a strong correlation between her musical tastes and the artists in the shared folder. She lied about the date she replaced her hard drive. The defense called no witnesses. It would be interesting to see how the case turned out with less substantial evidence. Guilt could be more difficult to prove in future cases. Jammie Thomas has responded to the lawsuit by saying she is innocent and vowing she will be "a thorn in the side of the RIAA" for the rest of her life. She is appealing the court decision and has set up a website for donations, which raised nearly $16,000 in the first few weeks after the decision. With over 20,000 lawsuits and thousands of pre-litigation letters sent to college students, the recording industry is spending millions of dollars trying to control piracy. According to The Daily Chorus, P2P downloading has actually increased by nearly 70 percent since the lawsuits began four years ago. There were at least 2 million users trading over 800 million total files the night Thomas was accused of sharing those 24 songs.
Jammie Thomas’ 24 Shared Tracks:
  • Aerosmith - Cryin’
  • Bryan Adams - Somebody
  • Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar On Me
  • Destiny’s Child - Bills, Bills, Bills
  • Gloria Estefan - Coming Out of the Dark
  • Gloria Estefan - Here We Are
  • Gloria Estefan - Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
  • Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
  • Green Day - Basket Case
  • Guns N’ Roses - November Rain
  • Guns N’ Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
  • Janet Jackson - Let’s Wait a While
  • Journey - Don’t Stop Believin’
  • Journey - Faithfully
  • Linkin Park - One Step Closer
  • No Doubt - Bathwater
  • No Doubt - Different People
  • No Doubt - Hella Good
  • Reba McEntire - One Honest Heart
  • Richard Marx - Now and Forever
  • Sara McLaughlin - Building a Mystery
  • Sara McLaughlin - Possession
  • Sheryl Crow - Run Baby Run
  • Vanessa Williams - Save the Best For Last
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"Who gives a fuck about an 'Oxford Comma?'" We Do.
Vampire Weekend came to the Echo last night and they killed. These witty preps from NY played a great live set, effectively translating their unique sound onto a live stage with a ton of energy. Long live danceable bass lines, airy island guitars, and diverse rhythms. Oh! and that keyboard! The boys got some chops. Did I mention the wonderful lyrics? Hold on, I think I'm drooling. Indeed, there's a lot of buzz surrounding this band of four Columbia grads - so much that even MTV got an interview with Ezra, Rostam, Christopher, and Chris. The best part about all of this? Vampire Weekend doesn't even release their debut self-titled until January 29th. Granted, their notorious "Blue-CDR" of recorded full length promos was leaked and has been floating around the internet for awhile. But, that's a lot of hype for a band with no official LP. So, why all the buzz? Answer: Gloriously catchy tunes, excellent live shows, and a fresh sound. Say all you want about Paul Simon's Graceland, early Talking Heads, and African tribal music/drums. These kids can play fantastically well, and desearve the attention. Here's a video of "Mansard Roof": Pick of the set: "Oxford Comma." Vampire Weekend is out 1/29/08 on XL.
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CFCF: An electronica like no other
Yea so this electronica artist from Montreal keeps coming out with consistently good tracks on his myspace page. From Kanye remixes to straight-up orginals, CFCF brings a sound that is instantly familiar. Maybe not as technically impressive as Daft Punk, but certainly as original. The sounds this guy makes with his computer are superb. Enough said. Check it out. And if you don't trust me, trust PITCHFORK WHO HAS NAME-DROPPED HIM MULTIPLE TIMES !!!!!
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"THE DEATH OF OINK, THE BIRTH OF DISSENT, AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF RECORD INDUSTRY SUICIDE."
Here is a fantastic blog about the fall of OiNK and its prophecy of music industry revolution It's a bit long, but a worthwhile read. There's a section in particular that I want to post below, for it yields understanding to the incentive and opinions behind many of us here at KSCR. "Unlike newspapers, record companies own the distribution and the product being distributed, so you can't just start your own website where you give out music that they own - and that's what this is all about: distribution. Lots of pro-piracy types argue that music can be free because people will always love music, and they'll pay for concert tickets, and merchandise, and the marketplace will shift and artists will survive. Well, yes, that might be an option for some artists, but that does nothing to help the record labels, because they don't make any money off of merchandise, or concert tickets. Distribution and ownership are what they control, and those are the two things piracy threatens. The few major labels left are parts of giant media conglomerations - owned by huge parent companies for whom artists and albums are just numbers on a piece of paper. It's why record companies shove disposable pop crap down your throat instead of nurturing career artists: because they have CEOs and shareholders to answer to, and those people don't give a shit if a really great band has the potential to get really successful, if given the right support over the next decade. They see that Gwen Stefani's latest musical turd sold millions, because parents of twelve year old girls still buy music for their kids, and the parent company demands more easy-money pop garbage that will be forgotten about next month. The only thing that matters to these corporations is profit - period. Music isn't thought of as an art form, as it was in the earlier days of the industry where labels were started by music-lovers - it's a product, pure and simple." Hopefully, the digital revolution will eventually banish money grubbing executives from recycling music as a disposable flavor-of-the-week. In addition, I suggest anyone who believes "indie snobs" are informed not by personal taste but by a self-righteous, just-for-the-sake-of-it rebellion to the "sheep" of pop culture, to read the above essay and then consider the common defense of mainstream music: "Popular music is popular for a reason. It wouldn't be popular if it wasn't good."
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Recycled Sounds: The Unassuming Return of Britpop
If you were a freedom-loving U.S. American in the mid-1990s, you surely remember the tense (and, in retrospect, patently ridiculous) battle for college rock supremacy between Hootie and the Blowfish and the Dave Matthews Band. It was a conflict that threatened to tear a nation of khaki-shorted collegians apart solely on the relative merits of "Let Her Cry" and "Don't Drink the Water." Now, imagine that same battle with way better music, far more drunken publicity interviews, and much bigger stakes (namely, the victorious band getting to define the cultural values of its nation and hobnob with the head of state; can you imagine Darius Rucker hanging out with Bill Clinton?). That, in a nutshell, was the Battle of Britpop (ca. 1993-1997) waged between Blur, a group of erudite, post-mod schoolboys, and Oasis, a band seemingly motivated only by the prospect of fame and their disdain for their fellow bandmates. To make a long story short, Oasis won the battle but Blur won the war. It was a seminal moment in the type of British rock history that only the British can truly comprehend. However, both bands had notable Stateside success during this period (even if Blur's biggest hit mostly consisted of Damon Albarn yelling "Woo hoo!" at the top of his lungs), ushering a brief cultural fad known as "Cool Britannia." The invasion was brief but influential, reminding Americans that there was life after grunge and introducing Yanks to a previously unseen side of British youth culture with a distinct nationalist flair. The Britpop influence was so pervasive by '97 that even its demise came from within, headed by the unlikely tag team of Radiohead and the Spice Girls. Ten years later, there's a distinct feeling of deja vu. Radiohead is more relevant than ever. The Spice Girls are touring again. Beckhamania has gripped the Los Angeles elite. And many a band that entrances the hipster audience hails from Britain--they just typically specialize in dance-punk or art-rock nowadays. Britpop, it seems, is as dated as Noel Gallagher's bowl cut and Union Jack-emblazoned guitar. America's embrace of music steeped in English esoterica hasn't endured quite as long as its fascination with music based on Lewis Carroll-esque nonsense words like "zigazig-ah." But in the UK, where a fierce loyalty to the product of native musicians remains, Britpop isn't quite dead yet. Even Oasis is still charting. Some of the neo-Britpop vanguard has made fleeting advances towards American chart success but hasn't gotten much farther than The O.C. soundtrack (a la Kaiser Chiefs). Razorlight, in its distinctly cheeky fashion, even penned a breezy single entitled "America" for its most recent album, only to see it gain far greater notoriety in the UK. Americans' tolerance for references to "old Leodiensians" and ebullient shouting of 12-digit mobile phone numbers only extends so far, I guess. It's a shame, because the vestiges of Britpop have carried on in acts a lot more lighthearted than Coldplay and Keane, where such bands' bowdlerization of Britpop is a capital crime. You can see it in The Hoosiers--an English band with a name that has to be the logical conclusion to the neo-Britpop obsession with its forefathers' unexpected success across the pond and the subsequent generation's failure to capitalize on it: The Queen doesn't need any more saving. God save Britpop instead.
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How can I take you seriously when you're wielding a medieval weapon?
We've all seen it - a photograph of some freaky looking metal band wearing spiked armor with one or two hands grasping a mace, sword, or some other medieval weapon (note: if only one hand is used for the weapon, the other is likely taking to be clenching an invisible apple). Today wasn't the first time I witnessed such a thing, but it was more like the next-to-last straw. As I was browsing Last.fm's metal tags to find some new music, I unfortunately stumbled into the dark realms of VIKING METAL *queue mad riff, stage blood spewing out of guitarists' mouths, and random Nordic chanting* Such music requires a very specific fanbase, and I'm wondering who these people are... To dig deeper, I sifted through some forum posts related to artists like Ensiferum and Moonsorrow (who produce songs like that unforgettable tune Kylän päässä and the jukebox classic Ukkosenjumalan poika) - there I saw devoted fans describing their relation to extremely distant Nordic ancestors. I can respect these bands' connections to their ancestry, but when is it just going to far? Surely you don't expect me to take you seriously when you're dressed like you got here with Bill and Ted on their excellent adventure from 1,400 years ago (and in some cases actually riding a Viking ship): Of course there are those more civilized Celts: Luckily the bands (but not necessarily the fans) that I've seen so far actually hail from Scandinavia...that makes their outlandish acts a little more acceptable. It seems it will only be a matter of time, however, until I come across an all-American alternative. That would be the last straw! (and as 311 would say, "there is no reason to take it there at all") The silly band member photos aren't restricted to just viking metal, though. Many genres categorized under the "metal" bubble follow this trend. I think one of my favorite metal bands, All That Remains, shares my pain: Link: More photos of Ensiferum Link: More photos of Moonsorrow PS: If you're Nordic...please...don't take this personally.
Currently listening to (in the year 2007)

All That Remains
The Air That I Breathe
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Recycled Sounds: Back to the Old Country
As far as cultural warfare goes, the Cold War is so passé--mostly because, in a few years, a majority of young musicians won't be old enough to remember it at all. But back in 1987, when the Berlin Wall still stood as a concrete reminder of entrenched ideological differences between the USSR and the United States, the supposed resistance to American cultural influence in the Eastern Bloc was put to the test through the efforts of none other than Billy Joel. Though I'm not sure how effective "Uptown Girl" is in improving diplomatic relations, Joel's sojourn through the Soviet Union took the first steps in the process in reconciling the consumerist cool of the New World and the tradition-rich culture of the Old World. And though it's been over 15 years since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the seeds Mr. Joel so courageously sowed have finally borne delicious musical fruit. The rise of Beirut, led by 21-year-old wanderlust Zach Condon, in the indie scene is built upon meandering European folk music rhythms and a decidedly pragmatic Soviet-era aesthetic (as the cover art for 2006's brilliantly-titled Gulag Orkestar will attest). On the other side of the ruble exists Gogol Bordello, a New York-based band peddling a sort of gypsy/punk rock fusion. Fronted by Eugene Hütz--a man whose style exists somewhere between Fiddler on the Roof and late '80s club kid--the band's eight-year reign has sounded (to WASP ears, at least) a lot like the fun ethnic weddings at the community center that you were rarely invited to. Yet what comes through in their most recent single, "Wonderlust King," is something even more, something that connects with the fact that a semester abroad in Prague is just as coveted now as one in London or Paris. Apparently there's a killer party somewhere east of the Rhine, and Hütz wants you to come along: Fans of Slavic folk music the world over salute you, Billy Joel.
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Geek Love and Postcard Confessions
I recently stumbled upon two really great ways to waste my time- the webcomic site XKCD and the blogspot site Postsecret. XKCD (Randall Monroe says "It's not actually an acronym. It's just a word with no phonetic pronunciation") is an online comic website started by Randall Monroe compiled from the margins of his old physics and math notebooks. It's for anyone who has taken an advance math class, gotten their heart broken, or appreciates sarcasm, or has an uncanny fear of velociraptor attacks. There is a comic featuring these stick figures for almost every situation. Some of the comics are a little above my head, talking about physicists and mathematicians such as Turing and Others are totally hilarious and capture the little moments of college life perfectly Delicious After going through withdrawal from Katamari Damacy- one of my favorite PS2 games of all time (Katamari Damacy is a game where you roll up objects on Earth that are bigger than you are into balls in order to make stars.), a friend of mine sent me this one: Comic 161 from XKCD.com Do you get it? This website also has jokes that are made for the science-nerd or math-geek in all of us: Centrifugal Force Finally, there are the three or four panel comics that simply and uniquely encapsulate human emotion: A Softer World and Automatic Doors I spend way too much time laughing at this website, and I encourage you to do the same. Postsecret is a community art website run by Frank Warren that receives postcards from all over the world with peoples' secrets written on them. He posts a new card with a secret on it every Sunday. The cards range from sweet to hilarious to heartbreaking. There are also a few books compiling the postsecrets that they have received.They've gained so much popularity (they even have a book tour!) because the postcards are so easy to relate to and they make you want to send in postsecrets of your own. Here is this past Sunday's: http://bp0.blogger.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/RxGha2GGY4I/AAAAAAAACJE/EfhfMbC-deg/s1600/heart.jpg
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Recycled Sounds: Return of the Dance
Until Daft Punk descended from the mothership in their robot suits for 1997's seminal Homework, mainstream dance music had spent a long time building its identity around slickly-produced synthpop cotton candy and mildly embarrassing Jock Jams-era stadium shout-alongs. With one look at Michel Gondry's Bubsy Berkley-on-acid video for "Around the World," you knew that cutting a rug didn't require random exhortations of "Everybody dance now!" anymore. Around the same time, the trance/ambient scene started to pick up steam thanks to the mojo of a Maryland DJ-turned-producer named BT (née Brian Transeau). His 1999 album Movement in Still Life marked the zenith of his efforts to introduce a special brand of hip-hop influenced, stutter-riddled trance to the masses, largely by virtue of his work composing film scores and collaborating with wildly successful pop acts such as NSync. BT's alternately spazzy and soothing compositions cut through the fat of an American dance scene awash with Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears singles. But then something unusual happened--people stopped moving. A sort of post-millennial exhaustion poisoned the dancefloor. Somehow, actual dancing became taboo in dance-oriented music, replaced by exercises for the comatose like snapping your fingers, doing the Rockaway, and leaning back. If somebody had released a record telling people to lay down and take a nap during this period, it probably would have been a huge club-banger. Even the old guard was off its game--both Daft Punk's Human After All and BT's Emotional Technology failed to resonate with audiences seemingly more concerned with an economy of motion (though I doubt BT's newly frosted tips helped matters). However, thanks to an infusion of new talent, the tide appears to be turning. Daft Punk protégés Justice sent people scrambling back to the dancefloor this year with their none-too-subtly-titled "D.A.N.C.E.", a song the French duo has described as an ode to Michael Jackson. Also delivering on their promise to make dancing sexy again is the Montreal-based electro-funk outfit (and current MTV interstitial darlings) Chromeo, who describe themselves as "the only successful Arab/Jewish collaboration since the beginning of time." Their recent sophomore effort, Fancy Footwork, puts the primal sense of attraction and jubilation back into the dance, encouraging all would-be wallflowers to "Let her see that fancy footwork/Show her you're that type of guy." When you toss in both groups' penchant for unique, whimsical videos (like Chromeo's "Tenderoni"), it's clear that the dance, at long last, is making its comeback. Daft Punk would (and should) be proud.
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The Artistic Plight of the DJ
A couple fridays ago, I attended the DJ Spooky Visions and Voices event at Ground Zero, primarily for a musical analysis assignment in one of my courses. Unfortunately, the event turned out to be more of a lecture than performance, but it sparked some interesting philosophical questions. DJ Spooky was clearly a very intelligent and educated individual, but I found myself disagreeing with some of his perspectives on art and ownership.Before continuing, I recognize that not everyone can DJ. Finding the right samples to mix together into a compelling track isn't a simple craft. And it can be impressive to hear two songs that, while seeming completely incompatible with each other in their original form, end up combined in an engaging, sonic latticework that makes you wonder: "How did he think of using those together?" And with an easier access to the world's music, globalization has opened up even more possibilities for DJs. That said, being a DJ seems to have artistic limitations in terms of self-reliance, in that most his work is usually, albeit complex, an amalgamation of original creations by other musicians. The DJ, then, to paraphrase DJ spooky, acts like "a filter." Various works come through him and are uniquely filtered to form a mix. But he also consistently referred to himself as an artist, and I guess where Spooky and I differ is in the degree of innovative artistry involved in being this "filter." For me, unless a DJ uses mostly his own material, it is a preponderance of external sampling that compromises a DJ's artistic independency. And this is because I believe art is significantly qualified by it being exclusive to its creator. If Bach had never existed, would another composer have come along and written the Well-Tempered Clavier, note for note? You'd sooner see Jessica Alba act well. One could argue, of course, that with all the variables a DJ works with when sampling and mixing a track together, his final product is his creative brain-child; the artistic lens of his filtering is exclusively his. To an extent, I would agree, but without those other innovations that lens would have nothing, or very little, to work with. Going back to the Bach example, if a DJ has sampled Bach in his works, then deleting Bach's music from history would critically fracture that DJ's music as well. Yes, in general, musicians are inspired by other musicians, and are therefore subject to some artistic dependence as well, but this relationship usually serves (if one isn't a flagrant plagiarist) as a creative motivator, a catalyst. Original recordings may inspire a DJ as well, but it's also the medium they work with. Rather than carve a new sound sculpture, they segment and combine pre-existing ones, however interesting that may be. I'm not saying that DJ's are rip-off craftsmen masquerading as artists, but after listening to DJ Spooky I wonder if some DJs may be giving themselves too much credit. What's peculiar is that DJ Spooky seemed to uphold a rather socialistic approach to music, in that it's more "of an exchange between people" than a stable item. In my opinion, this is rather inconsistent with labeling oneself as an artist, especially an independent one. I don't disagree that there's dynamism to pre-existing compositions, whether it be in interpretation, transcription, covers, etc. But there are also immutable characteristics that make "Bohemian Rhapsody" what it is: "Bohemian Rhapsody." And I don't recall DJ Spooky ever explicitly calling himself any kind of visionary or innovator (in fact, for the most part he was pretty humble), but it seems hypocritical to suggest individualism by planting your stage name on your oeuvre and then suggest collectivism by asking, as he did when referring to copyright law and the transfer of digital memory, "who owns memory?" If one is to embrace both this perspective of personal "filtering" and no concept of intellectual property, can't I just edit the tags on my iTunes library to say they're my own? Unfortunately, this has already happened to some degree with common P2P file sharing programs like Kazaa or Limewire. Tracks are frequently labeled with the wrong information, and become shared so rapidly that the genuine data might be in the minority. Would we really want this to exacerbate to a point of complete musical solipsism? DJ Spooky said in the Q & A that copyright laws "stifle creativity," which is very understandable if you embrace his philosophy. But, while I don't at all advocate a totalitarian control of intellectual property, I think copyright laws give musicians some dignity for their creations. I may even go far enough to say that they can be helpful reminders of how special music is.
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Spotlight: Future of the Left
**For the sake of this post, I am including McLusky as a previous form of Future of the Left because of their similar band members and similar stylings. They are not, however, the same band** I don't know quite what to call Future of the Left, genre-wise. Perhaps FotL is one of the main reasons I really hate categorizing bands. They just don't seem to fit anywhere. They're most notorious for their abrasive, 2-minute, shout-alongs. But then again, my favorite tracks are the 6-minute lullabies which include various "movements" throughout. They were never famous (not even by indie standards) outside of their hometown of Cardiff, Whales but anyone who has heard one of their songs has no doubt been caught by the bizarre vocal delivery of singer/guitarist Andy "Falco" Falkous. Not only is his delivery unique, but his lyrics are also confusing, if not nonsensical. So why does their music appeal to me? Simply put: no one else is doing anything as creative of Future of the Left in the rock vein. The 3-piece act have recently released their first full-length under a new name Future of the Left after switching bass players and dropping the name McLusky. Superficially the two bands sound almost the same. The back-up vocals are the main difference, obviously. If this is your first time hearing of the band don't shy away from picking up their release, "Curses". However, it would almost be mandatory research for the active music fan to get their hands on all of the McLusky releases plus the 3-disc bootleg/rarity fittingly called McLuskyism. I won't list my favorite tracks because it is sort of an unwritten rule that every Falco follower must have their own and I don't want you adopting mine. And as far as a live show goes... ... and I guess I'll call them "bar rock".
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