I haven’t liked anything Oasis has done since Be Here Now; the album most trashed by both the band and its critics. I suppose it’s Oasis’ Pinkerton: The great album everyone hates, after which everything sucked.

Every once in awhile, I check back in with Oasis, just to see if I’m missing anything. And that’s why I picked up Dig Out Your Soul. Before hearing a note of any single, I had been made aware of its grade by one of my favorite assholes, Noel Gallagher, who stuck a dirty middle finger up at the Radiohead / Trent Reznor game: “That’s not our bag,” He told BBC 6 Music. “I didn’t spend a year in the most expensive studio in England, with the most expensive producer in America, and the most expensive graphic designer in London to then give it away. Fuck that.”

Found a message from Trent Reznor in my inbox this morning. You may have, too. On a short break from Nine Inch Nails’ current Lights In The Sky tour, he put together a survey to find out more about the habits and methods of his audience, undoubtedly to fine tune his communication and marketing tactics.

Since only self-absorbed sociopaths like myself would spend the ten minutes or so it would take to answer all the questions, Trent offered a video performance of 1,000,000 from their recent show at Red Rocks in Colorado as incentive.

No copyright infringement here, kids. Trent’s got no illusions of keeping it exclusive. In fact, he’s upping the ante to make it worth your time…

A few hours ago, I put up a review of the new Cold War Kids record, Loyalty To Loyalty. It was a glowing endorsement of one of the best records this year, with fond remembrances of seeing them live. I talked about a few tracks. I quoted some lyrics. And I streamed my favorite song on the album, Every Valley Is Not A Lake, to give a taste of the goodness to curious readers.

The problem is, the record doesn’t come out for another week. Sure, it’s leaked all over the internet in the past couple days, but evidently, Downtown Records believes that Antiquiet’s enthusiastic endorsement is going to damage their marketing plan in a way that widespread downloading can’t- drop their numbers, skew their charts and graphs, flip the wrong switches. We received an urgent cease and desist email shortly after the piece went up:

IMMEDIATELY REMOVE ALL LINKS, REFERENCES, ARTWORK, DOWNLOADS, VIDEOS AND MP3 FILES ASSOCIATED WITH COLD WAR KIDS “LOYALTY TO LOYALTY”
NOTICE OF INFRINGEMENT AND DECLARATION
DOWNTOWN RECORDS

Every single day I check the music news, and seriously every single fucking day, there’s something new about Metallica. We mocked Mission: Metallica and their overblown, over-hyped marketing bullshit, and I for one am pretty sick of hearing about them. But I have to admit, they’re getting it right for a change. They’re staying on the radar by serving substance, not just ads. They’re keeping it coming, giving it all away. They’re engaging the fans head-on.

There are three (and only three) simple truths, beyond which things get complicated: Fans consume art ruthlessly. Corporations make money ruthlessly. Artists make art ruthlessly.

Everything beyond these three truths can be picked apart and debated as the game evolves. But anyone who forgets any of these three truths is a fool, and anyone who fights them is asking for a Darwinian lightning bolt to wipe their useless genes off the planet. Today’s Metallica news brought one such waste of DNA to my attention: Per Sundin, President of Universal Music Sweden.

Since hitting the scene with a debut EP in 2004 and a follow-up full length album in 2006, 8mm have hit their stride and are finally getting some well-deserved attention. Their songs No Way Back and Forever And Ever Amen were featured on a December 2006 episode of the WB show One Tree Hill. The exposure’s worked wonders for the band, and last year was a busy one- they covered Carly Simon’s Nobody Does It Better for the Mr. & Mrs. Smith soundtrack, were featured as one of 2007’s “Top Bands You Need To Know And Love And Worship” by Alternative Press and have had their songs on various MTV shows that, like nearly all shows on MTV, have nothing at all to do with music.

But to hell with all that. The brass tacks are that 8mm is a standout independent band doing things their own way, and we love what we’re hearing. That’s why we called up Sean and Juliette last week for a ranting, impassioned discussion about their inspirations and aspirations, the chaotic state of the music industry and Axl Rose’s joke-telling prowess.