If the New York Times can foolishly hire wrong-headed idiot William Kristol as a columnist, then Arianna Huffington can make the same mistake by hiring former RIAA head Hilary Rosen. Start blaring “The Bitch Is Back” now. 

Just as Kristol was hired as a Washington inside (albeit a slimy, slanted, discredited one), Rosen is in the same position as the newest voice for Huffington’s blog team. Also figure that from the Observer article, she’s only too happy to have Huffington help her rehab her disgusting, disgraceful tenure at the RIAA, now claiming that she didn’t want to be anti-consumer and anti-technology the same way many conservatives have run away from the Iraq disaster and claimed they weren’t sold on it. 

You can look forward to other self-serving revisionist columns like her love-fest for Larry Lessig that she penned for Wired or her ridiculous article for Business 2.0 (which isn’t online now thankfully) where she also claims that she and her major label masters loved technology back in ‘03—guess she forget that they also feared it, sued it and flubbed it though. I look forward to more revisionist bullcrap from her at Huffington’s online home—at the very least, it’ll provide good laughs.

—Jason Gross

It pains me to chide an artist/writer that I admire and a publication that I feel the same way about but both Carrie Brownstein and the L.A. Times owe the Grateful Dead an apology.  Brownstein wrote about and the L.A. Times reported on (in a blog post) how supposedly the Dead didn’t want her to include “Friend of the Devil” in an online mixtape unless the band was subject of a story that she would do. 

Turns out that ain’t the case.  The band itself didn’t ask for any of that.  Their label, Rhino, did.  That’s a big distinction. 

LAT did correct that later but as you know, the correction is usually forgotten more quickly than the initial story (which turns out to be the wrong story)- note that the headline to the LAT blog post that reported the story still has the Dead making the request in the headline.  Brownstein and LAT have a powerful platform as they’re easily able to connect with a lot of people thanks to their rep and as such, they gotta be more careful about who they point fingers at in a story like this. 

As for Rhino, I respect them a lot for taking up the slack of a lot of labels who let material fall outta print but this was kind of a boneheaded request to make of Brownstein.  As the LAT post notes, the Dead ain’t exactly hurting for recognition, even today.  Also note that in the comments to the LAT posting, along with some shots at Brownstein, some other commentators question the Dead organization itself for the way it’s run.

—Jason Gross

When Apple actually considers breaking out of it’s 99 cent box for selling all of its items, that’s news.  No doubt that this has something to do with the fact that the entertainment companies that were supplying it with content were getting frustrated and finding other online services to do business with (i.e. Amazon).  While Apple still holds a huge share of the music download market, it’s not on as solid ground with movies or TV, where it hasn’t been able to strike as many deals.  No doubt the TV/movie companies don’t want to make the same mistake as the music companies (who are sometimes part of the same corporation) and all agree to give over all their goodies to Jobs and friends so that they can corner the market in another realm of online entertainment.  While they’re still far ahead, Apple ain’t dumb- they know that they have to stay competitive and that the entertainment big-wigs don’t like ‘em and want more options so they’re not tied into the whims of Apple (much like they have to kiss Walmart’s feet when they make decisions about pricing too).  Now if only Apple would see the light about streaming albums for a monthly fee…

—Jason Gross

Though both actions have been temporarily stalled, in New York and Chicago, various govt bureaucracies are trying to shut down music spaces, yet again.  For NYC, the notable Union Hall in Brooklyn (which hosts Bloodshot Records annual BBQ) is being threatened by a community board whose effort is spearheaded by another club owner with conflicting interests.  In Chicago, the city council was trying to over-regulate the clubs there and make it even harder to keep any music establishment operating until the club owners got the ear of an alderman- also see this fine Sun-Times article about the situation..  With live shows being one of the few parts of the music biz not hit badly by the online phenom, you’d think that the labels, unions and other parts of the biz with a vested interest would step up to the plate and help but it ain’t happening, as least yet.

Another trend that should shake anyone’s faith in the biz even further is that a pair of seemingly unstoppable forces are starting to wane.  Not only is American Idol losing it audience along with many other TV programs (though Idol obviously didn’t suffer directly from the recent writers’ strike) but now the vaunted social networking behemoths are losing ad money.  As the NY Post article notes, “while the weak economy is partly to blame, the bigger problem facing social networks is they’re still trying to figure out what kinds of advertising will work on their sites.”

If Simon Cowell’s baby and Rupert Murdoch’s baby don’t keep breathing life into the music biz, what are they gonna rely on to keep them going otherwise?  I guess that blogs and underground trading communities are gonna have to take up the slack.  Fans have certainly carved out their own DIY niches for themselves so why needs the big guys to lead ‘em around by the nose?

—Jason Gross

The NY Times had an interesting article recently about Gramophone magazine (a venerable classical publication) adding links to record labels along side reviews and opportunities to download the music too.  For many pop and rock publications, this is old news already. It’s considered being consumer friendly- making it easier to access the music being discussed.  But in the magazine/publication world, there is an important line drawn between editorial (or reviews) and advertising that many editors are still cautious about, and rightly so.  I understand why some classical fans are squeamish about this but as long as the editorial integrity can be maintained (i.e. even bad reviews have links), then I don’t see a reason to cry foul.  If it gets to the point where a mag is actively blurring that line (the way Rolling Stone and Amplifier did last year), then you have problems.

Speaking of classical scribing, a sad goodbye to Melinda Bargeen of the Seattle Times who penned a very thoughtful and insightful farewell article about her profession.  ST has a lot of other staff leaving too unfortunately.

—Jason Gross

OK, so what have the entertainment companies learned from trying to educate and fight and figure out consumers in the digital age?  Apparently nothing, which is why they’re working with Microsoft to make the Zune more user unfriendly and full of DRM.  Their theory is that as much as consumers hate to have restrictions on why they listen to or watch, they’ll still begrudgingly flock to the legal digital media alternatives because they have no choice. 

The problem is that consumers do have a choice and that’s to go to unauthorized downloading channels and get the material without all the locks and even with all the lawsuits that the RIAA piles on college campuses, there’s little evidence that it’s had its intended effect of scaring people into only using label-authorized downloading options.  In other words, the pact with Zune will probably have the opposite effect- music and movie fans will shun Zune (which is already hurting in competition with the iPod) rather than embracing it.

If these knuckleheads have a chance of getting potential consumers to embrace and buy into authorized formats, they stand a better chance (though not assured) by getting artists to pony up exclusive material there.  A recent example of this is Neil Young’s embrace of the Blu-Ray format, which might even help him release his long-threatened Archives series. 

Young argues that the new technology lets him deliver more multi-media goodies in a higher quality format.  While he’s right about Blu-Ray (which is compatible with DVD and CD’s for now), the question is whether only rabid fans will take the plunge and invest in the new technology or not.  If I had to bet, I’d say that it’s unlikely unless many other artists follow Neil’s lead and put out exclusive material in Blu-Ray format.  Even then, it would be a hard sell to get Gen X to shell out money for to replace music that they already replaced from vinyl to CD.  For all the arguments about how MP3’s suck in terms of sound quality, the fact of the matter is that most people ain’t audiophiles and usually don’t notice the difference or care enough to buy a new format player and then replace their collection with higher quality music or movies.  As for the post-millennium generation, good luck trying to convert them unless the industry wants to effectively kill off the old formats the same way they did with vinyl (which I think would be a disaster too, even if the market for physical product is dying down as there’s still a loyal though smaller following).

—Jason Gross