Radiohead: In Rainbows

Everyone was busy finding out that Britney lost custody of her two sons yesterday. That must suck. Just another example of America eating its young, devouring the product to spite the progeny. Should Viacom be thanked? Les Monves and his team of super villain ‘big business’ acolytes help manipulate another stars destruction. Oh well. Federline seems like a pillar of the community, let him raise the boys to the relative dissapproval of the decency and families-first police.

That is unimportant though in the grand scheme of things, that news item and what the NY Times is reporting that Black Water staged a cover-up, allegedly paying off families of victims killed in the debacle (and possible other episodes). Private security is market-speak for ‘mercenary’ and as long as folks have a firm understanding that these guys get paid way more than volunteer soldiers, they should still be held accountable for fuck-ups as colossal as allegedly killing 8 Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16th.

Swimming through all the news I heard that Radiohead announced their plans to release their latest record, In Rainbows. This is culturally significant because Radiohead is the greatest rock group of my generation and I don’t care if you disagree. Actually it is significant because the band is releasing their 7th studio album online for “whatever you feel like paying,” which is hilarious and a huge sign that the billion dollar music industry had better start paying attention. They are also releasing a ‘Discbox,’ containing two LP’s, one with the entire In Rainbows and another, second LP with ‘extra songs,’ plus a bunch of art and a booklet. Sort of like what they did for Kid A with the CD release but about 100 times better because not only do you get vinyl, you get access to it all in MP3 format – and it’s not Kid A. How about that? So I bought it. I got sucked in. I bit the lure and swallowed the hook. Good job Thom and Co., now we’ll have to see if we can sync it up to Lightyears or maybe Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards with a bong load or two [like PinkOz!!!]. Its a gift that’ll be good enough for me and my wife, who is also a huge Radiohead fan.

This was the best news I have heard all week. Now I have something to look forward to. Black Water, Britney, Illegal Foreign Occupation of a sovereign country, Darfur, Monk Protests in Myanmar – all that shit just slides to the back for a few brief minutes. I’ll let you know how the vinyl is as soon as I get my hands on it. In the meantime I’ll report on how the MP3’s sound as soon as I get access on Oct. 10th.

Who needs record labels?

UPDATE: Check out the Review!

Consumption Junction: The Cultural Significance of Britney’s Ass or can I get a Ringle?t

I caught this post on Tech Crunch and in light of the hilarity of the 2007 VMA’s recently I thought it’d be appropriate to expound my opinion on a couple of things. I’ll address the Arousal Industry’s latest blundervestment: making ringtones available on CD and selling them as ‘Ringle’s.’ If you haven’t followed the rapidly declining sales of the dinosaur-wearing-gucci-industry into the rabbit hole of failure you’ll know that these gentle giants and habitual employment curtailers are scrambling for the next best thing to supplement their bottom line. For that they have thought long and hard while on the toilet, squeezing out a seared ahi and quail egg champagne shit as the collective stone was passed from urethra, chinking on the porcelain, inspiring the latest money maker – The Ringle.

 

To the uninitiated or layperson, basically the ‘Ringle’ will, “contain three songs: one popular track, a remix, an older track from the same artist and a ringtone.” The distro method will be a “CD with a slip-sleeve cover.” If you’re smashing your balls with a meat tenderizer right now in light of that news, well sir, you’ve been paying attention to the comings and goings of the music industry. If not, don’t despair. This can still be considered one of those ‘what the fuck’ moments. The first of those will be a single from recently re-celebritized Britney Spears, her song; “Gimme More” is already testing really well in the major markets. Sony and Universal are going to pump titles into the stream this fall and they’ll be available at your favorite wallet raping store. The propensity for continued revenue loss in the face of continued bad decision making isn’t as appalling as the fact they’re going to sell singles by CD. CD???  Or is Britney’s gunt more appealing packaged as a pitch corrected ringtone. I dunno.

 

Okay.

So now that your brain has come to a nice simmer and your eyes are bleeding a bit, drool slowly congealing somewhere on your shirt or blouse, hands limply at your sides, legs prostrate beneath you, a jolt of pop narcotic will bring you back. A shot to the jugular with a syringe full of excitement – a glass pipe filled with potent crystallized entertainment – a tincture of attention drawing, edge of your seat mayhem filled with blinking lights, celebrity and pageantry. For the kingdom of your brain we present the 2007 VMA’s. A nightmare ride into The Palms casino/hotel in Las Vegas for an amalgam of hyper stylized vampiric pop-lust orgy of coordinated chaos – presented by Chevrolet. That’s right. America’s car company. The company that brought you the Tahoe, and the tagline “An American Revolution.” AND John-fucking-Mellancamp leaning his jackboot on the fender of a truck while a montage of ‘life style images’ flood the screen. Look! Some sepia toned portraiture of African Americans that look doggedly low income smiling bravely for the high paid photographer, middle-American white folks ‘eating’ hot dogs, and team sports! Yes. Chevy has now taken it upon themselves to sell us cars by insinuating that this whole “save the world thing” is a punch line for some smog breathing fat cats with pockets full of cash.

 

Those genius marketers at MTV and Chevy teamed up for what they’re marketspeak calling a, “…Superserve Key 12-34 demographic with creative integration and multiplatform innovation campaign.” Essentially, they’ll use the power of their marketing muscle and advertising budget to sponsor something that MTV knows is well worth every penny for hooking new consumers. So they show a series of seemingly Eco-friendly spots. The spots are kinduh irreverent, edgy; MTV’s demo will totally jibe with this posish. (WOW 30MPG on highway! I can hear dolphins singing as baby seals swim in crystal clear water and unicorns shit rainbows).

 

This is part of MTV and Chevy’s “Break the Addiction” campaign, which sadly promotes the benefits of Flex Fuel or E85 and touts their continued development Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology. Want to know about E85? Click here < http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200701/decoder.asp>

 

MTV has always been the bane of my entertainment consumption. They’ve had some good shows and of course they used to play those dinosaurs of the entertainment dietary pyramid, THE MUSIC VIDEO but if the fact they’ve been dictating youth cultures taste in music doesn’t make you vomit your righteous indignation instantly, these commercials will. One example in particular is a scene of a young woman with dyed hair, fairy-winged, and glossy eyed. Hers is a character meant to exemplify some green friendly tree hugging marijuana addict blowing a tune into some plastic bottles strung together while a voice mockingly says something like “You can still save the environment without having to drive an ugly car you little sheep.”

 

And this brings me to Britney Spears ass. It has always been a shining example of slutty suburban chicks everywhere. Her ass is insignificant. Her music represents an industry’s reliance on tone corrected voices. It is robotic. She is ubiquitous. You could interchange her with Rhianna and only by ear you’d never know the difference. The reason she and Rhianna lip synced their shitty songs was because in the fantasy world MTV has made for viewers and the public, they’ve instituted a zero tolerance policy on imperfection. This is smoke and mirrors. It’s no wonder Viacom’s ad agency shares similar tactics as the US government’s agency that handles all of their “Be Army Strong” campaigns, or Chevy’s highly insidious and clever “Break the Addiction” campaign.

 

Britney Spears showed us all that you can sound like robot, dance like a star in a giant production but if you gain just five pounds you can lose all credibility. She also showed the world our addiction to perfection through her socially imposed imperfections. Soon we’ll see teen stars, weighing 90 lbs., chain smoking Marlboro Reds, eating a leaf of ice burg lettuce a day, while a Ringle from Mastodon plays “Holiday in Cambodia” on my sweet new iPhone.on. Chevy and British Petroleum will be champions of the Green movement and George Bush will go down in history as one of the most thoughtful presidents in history.

 

This isn’t science fiction.

 

This isn’t the future.

 

This is the perpetual “What the Fuck?”