Archives for December 2006

Whatever Happened To…Rocketboom?

December 28, 2006 by Kassia Krozser

One of our goals when we started Medialoper was to look at independent efforts to create cool content for the new media audience — and Rocketboom was a prime example of how two people with a a camera, a broadband connection, and a good idea can succeed where so many media giants had failed.

The concept was simple: present interesting news in a cool format. It worked. The daily broadcast reached a huge audience. And then…the bottom fell out. Host Amanda Congdon left the program and the back-and-forth “he said, she said” stories flew across the Internet. It doesn’t really matter if Amanda was pushed or she jumped, not in the long run. After she left, the great Rocketboom experiment continued with a new host.
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The Daily Loper – December 27, 2006

December 27, 2006 by Lopy

What Part of Between 1:00-5:00 PM Don’t You Understand, Sears? Edition

Todays links of interest:

Illuminatus! Trilogy Audiobook
Coming soon. Best of all, it’s unabridged. If you were lost reading the book, try listening to it while you sleep.
Apple Quietly Fixes iPod Shuffle No-Play Problem
We aren’t surprised that there was a problem where the Shuffle suddenly wouldn’t work with iTunes purchased music; nor are we surprised that it took Apple a couple of months to diagnose and fix the problem; nor are we surprised that Apple hasn’t even officially acknowledged that there was even a problem in the first place. Nope, we are surprised that there are people out there who actually purchased and used the Shuffle in the first place.
Vista: The OS That Does Less, Costs More, And Can’t Protect Squat
We’re still calling 2007 The Year DRM Died. Windows Vista will be a big part of that death.

James Brown Finds Bridge, Crosses It

December 27, 2006 by Jim Connelly

You are going to read a ton of stuff over the couple of weeks about what kind of titanic presence James Brown was in 20th Century Music. And that stuff is absolutely correct. So I want to discuss another aspect of the man’s career. James Brown was one of the first American artists to understand — and more importantly, harness — the power of the mass media to brand himself in the public mind.

I would argue that while James Brown was a ground-breaking musician — and make no mistake, he was as important as Miles or Marley or Dylan or The Beatles — “James Brown” is an all-time icon: a bigger-than-life figure who will now be bigger-than-death.

In a day where even the humblest indie musician has a website and a MySpace page, the way that James Brown transformed himself into a gigastar for the ages is equally as awesome as “Cold Sweat” or “Sex Machine.”

The Daily Loper – December 25, 2006

December 25, 2006 by Lopy

The Santa’s Got A Brand New Bag Edition

‘Godfather of Soul’ James Brown dies, 73
Some wonder what happens to the soul after you die. It’s a difficult question that’s a billion fold more complicated when you have as much soul as JB did.

The Daily Loper – December 22, 2006

December 22, 2006 by Lopy

Happy Christmas My Arse Edition

Todays links of interest:

Video games keep you young: Study
Which is good, especially if it took you a lot longer to get your life in gear while you were spending your youth playing the video games.
Google upgrades Blogger service — for some
Look for a lot of angry posts about this!
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog – music: Shane MacGowan Archive
Shane MacGowan had been writing a "Yule Blog" for the Guardian over in the U.K. Dare you to read the entry about Kirsty MacColl and "Fairytale of New York" and not get chills . . .
Reed’s "offensive" concept album gets live debut
Three decades down the road, Lou Reed plays *Berlin* in its entirety. Next up: *Metal Machine Music!!*

The Daily Loper – December 21, 2006

December 21, 2006 by Lopy

Slowing It Down For The Holidays Edition

Todays links of interest:

Sony BMG to pay $4.25 million in settlement with 39 states
We hope that is is far far more than the sales that they would have lost from unfettered copies of the rootkitted CDs being shared.
Analyst Still Sees Rough Times For Yahoo!
Alternate headline: Due To Web 2 Snafu Boohoo for Yahoo!
Record labels sue operator of Russian music Web site AllofMP3.com
The heads of the labels had just better hope the Putin isn’t involved in any way with Mediaservices . . .

The Daily Loper – December 20, 2006

December 20, 2006 by Lopy

Hot Geeks!! Edition

Todays links of interest:

Largehearted Boy: 2006 Year-end Music Lists (A-M)
Speaking of year-end lists, Largehearted Boy gives us a master list of all of the year-end lists that he could find. We’re sure that someone out there has put together a master master list of all of the master lists of year-end music lists out there. Tim’s job is to go through all of the lists and see how many put music first officially released in 2006 on their "reissues" list.
Pitchfork Feature: Top 50 Albums of 2006
Too much music, too little time. It means something when you spend as much time as you possibly can chasing down music and listening to it, and you still haven’t even heard of — much less experienced — many of the albums on a lot of these year-end lists. We’re still wondering which of us is going to give that Joanna Newsom album a try.
‘King of the Hill’ Climbs to New Timeslot
Not only are we glad that the perennially underrated (including by us) long-running comedy was renewed, we already know that it will be better than whatever it’s replacing.
Web developers’ pay soars after surge in Net activity
Geeks are hot again.

The Daily Loper – December 19, 2006

December 19, 2006 by Lopy

Nuking the Algae Planet Edition

Todays links of interest:

Sony BMG settles suit over CDs
Cash and customer refunds. All due to DRM gone wild.
Rock heavyweights sue Web site to stop memorabilia sales
Honestly, we don’t really care about the memorabilia: we just want as many great rock shows to get out into the world as possible.
Miss USA: Donald Trump gives Tara Conner a second chance
It’s an uplifting holiday story of forgiveness and redemption!! Yeeaah surrrrre . . . I think we can all figure out what the unspoken part of this deal is. Once again, the moral is that if the person in power thinks that you’re hot enough, you can get away with pretty much anything.

Top 10 Albums Of 2006 (plus!)

December 19, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Because of my past life as an on and off rockcrit, I still get asked to vote in various music polls. And it seems like I get asked earlier and earlier every single year. It’s difficult to come up with a list when you are still digesting music: for example, the new Tom Waits doesn’t make my list because I haven’t heard it enough times. (And no spoilers!!)

One of the more interesting things to note is that in an era where the album has been eclipsed by the single; the single has actually been eclipsed by the song. One of the trends that has been growing but has reached its tipping point this year with all of the various polls is that they mostly aren’t ranking singles anymore, but rather “songs” or “downloads” or “tracks.” Sure, there are now, and will always be what we used to think of as “singles:” people still have to have something upon which to focus — noone who ventured into any public space or airwaves this year could avoid “Crazy” — but not always. I think that this reflects the post-millenial randomization of how we immerse ourselves in music.