Another music model and the power of music

First is a Wall Street Journal story about the cleverly named “Rcrd Lbl” (get it) which is looking to give away music free and without DRM on its own blog. As always, money is the sticking point and in this example, the company looks to get their money from advertising and then to pay off the participating bands a percentage of their take from that. Even the label itself admits that this ain’t the ultimate solution to the music biz’s woes but expect to see other experiments like this in a post-Radiohead (expect to hear that term a lot) world where the industry is getting more and more interested in finding new models. It’s gotten to the point where the head of Warner Bros has gone from damning to praising iTunes, even though you know that he’s still cursing Steve Jobs under his breath, especially since Apple’s still makes its profits selling iPods and not music per se.

On a happier note, there’s this inspiring article about music therapy and one its greatest practitioners, Clive Robbins. Along with the important work of Oliver Sacks, this is more proof of what a strong, stirring effect music has our bodies and souls.