Video killed the Radio Star?

02009-06-15 | Uncategorized

This article in the Guardian argues that since every person has a finite amount of spending money and since Games and DVD sales have gone upe dramatically – game sales more than tripled and movie sales and rentals nearly doubled – there was simply less money left to buy music.

But, one could also say that it is easier to obtain and download free music than it is to obtain free games and movies – the gaming and movie industries use much more serious DRM than the music biz, which has actually dropped DRM in most cases.

Are downloads really killing the music industry? Or is it something else? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
The first clue of where all those downloaders are really spending their money came in searching for games statistics: year after year ELSPA had hailed “a record year”. In fact if you look at the graph above, you’ll see that games spend has risen dramatically – from £1.18bn in 1999 to £4.03bn in 2008.

Meanwhile music spending (allowing for that * of adjustment in 2004 onwards) has gone from £1.94bn to £1.31bn.

DVD sales and rentals, meanwhile, have nearly doubled, from a total of £1.286bn in 1999 to £2.56bn in 2008.

Monday Lotus

02009-06-15 | Music

I was having coffee at Cafe Angelique with Frank Louis, who took photos of me in New York, and while we were talking I noticed the Erhu playing softly over the sound system. I have always enjoyed the sound of that Chinese violin, the most human sounding instrument it is said, and thought that we were hearing a soundtrack. But, as we got up to pay and exit I heard a guitar solo and realized the song was Golden Lotus, from the album Monsoon by Asiabeat. Sadly the album is out of print and not even available online. I found a couple of entries in my diary from 1994, when I was in Singapore to record with Asiabeat: one and two.

Since the recording is out of print and not available and since I am only giving you one song from the album, I feel fine about doing this. Consider it advertising. Consider it trying to remind folks of an album that used to be available. Why albums that are out-of-print can’t at least be available in download-formats is beyond me. There are almost no manufacturing costs! Anyway, enjoy this piece, which was also available on the third Buddha Bar compilation at one time…

You can download the 320kbps file here.