Long long before we started Antiquiet, our need to support artists in the recording industry was inspired and fueled to a white heat by several who had the nerve and the experience to speak up and pull the curtains back for us. Today we were reminded of a big example, which you’ve probably read: Steve Albini’s 1993 essay, “The Problem With Music.” Idolator pulled it back up in honor of The Baffler resuming publication. Read that now if you haven’t. And then here’s another one, with a little less mileage than Albini’s piece. It was written by Courtney Love in 2000. Full Article »

On April 1st of this month, new law went into effect in Sweden, as part of the Swedish Antipiracy Agency’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive. This IPRED law gives copyright holders the right to force Internet Service Providers to hand over the identities of people illegally sharing files. While it’s not hard to trace the IP address of a computer transmitting or receiving a file, these IP addresses are constantly changing. So in order to actually identify the humans responsible, the ISP must cooperate by matching IP addresses with customer data, given the precise moment of transfer. Full Article »

It’s time. We’re a month away from the 15th anniversary of the final Arsenio Hall Show, and with Leno boring as ever, Conan on hiatus and Jimmy Fallon charting just beneath Carson “Bug Eyes” Daly on the douche factor scale, it’s high time we consider giving the man who rewrote the late-night script another chance. Full Article »

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the Pirate Bay verdict by now, in which four men were sentenced to a year in jail and fined £2.4 million for their involvement with the file-sharing website, being convicted of copyright infringement in Stockholm last week (April 16th). Despite this highly questionable verdict (if you consider the judge’s membership in two copyright advocacy organizations questionable, that is) however, a recent study has revealed some very interesting news about piracy: it helps the industry. Full Article »

After a murder trial that went on longer than O.J.’s, legendary music producer Phil Spector was found guilty last week of the killing of aspiring actress Lana Clarkson in 2003- a woman he’d only known for a few hours before the brutal murder in his home. But who the hell is Phil Spector, anyway? This trial’s been played out over the past five years, and the fleet of massive wigs have been interesting, but to most younger people, Spector is little more than a pasty old freakshow taking up TV time. There’s no historical reference. What they may not realize is that, despite his ridiculous appearance and obvious lunatic mentality, Spector is a crucial piece of the tapestry of music history. Full Article »

While the rest of the nation sets this day aside to bemoan the inevitably oncoming extinction of the beautiful piece of American pop culture that is the record store, gathering en masse to pump a little more revenue into the IV tubes, we tend to think that celebrating the actual records, those little spinning vinyl circles, is a more appropriate way of honoring the day. Full Article »

One thing is uncompromisingly clear about Amanda Palmer: she’s an artist, to the deepest marrow. A thrashing live wire of creativity and expression, this sometime Dresden Doll and full-time independent spirit has carved her own path and proven time and time again that giving a double jazz-hands middle finger to the industry’s standard operating methods can do more for her success, her fanbase and her philosophical legacy than her label ever could- or would. It’s time we took a closer look. Full Article »