Crazed by the Music

That old question came up on a Brian Eno mailing list.  The exact thread was “Does Eno give a shit about his fans?” which should give you some idea about what the presumed answer was.  The argument was that Eno indulges in gallery exhibitions plus limited edition releases and the rare lecture in far-flung places that makes it hard for a fan keep up with him or enjoy his latest work and musings.  On the list, there were people who defended Eno for following his own muse wherever it took him and others who thought that his obliqueness was his way of pissing off fans.  So what’s the right balance for an artist to maintain in relationship to fans?

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Radiohead’s radical “pay what you like” experiment for their In Rainbows album shook up the industry and is already one of the biggest music biz stories of the year.  But after some number crunching, reports are coming back (see this Comscore article) that the vast majority of people who downloaded the record didn’t pay squat for it.  Does that mean that this idea was a flop?

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It was a back and forth battle but in the end, the Eagles rule at the top of the Billboard charts this week, beating out Ms. Spears.  It was a squeaker though and not a slight one either. 

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It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that an investment banker takes over one of the last major labels and demanded that the artists take up the slack for the label’s failures.  It’s good to know who the real culprits are as EMI and Guy Hand are leading the way in yet another ill-advised crusade in the music biz (along with the beloved RIAA lawsuits).

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From tech guru Michael Geist’s website- “Gov’t Commissioned Study Finds P2P Downloaders Buy More Music” Should be amusing to see how the RIAA tries to spin this one.  They might also want to find a way to spin the story behind the woman who was one of their first lawsuits too.

I hate to turn this into tabloid fodder but rumors of writer Robert Christgau’s demise are greatly exaggerated.  Some message boards, mailing lists and even possibly his Wiki entry questioned this.  Christgau himself wrote to me this morning to say that it ain’t so.  No need to send flowers or anything then (unless you really just wanna be nice).