Last.fm: privacy invasion or site of resistance?

February 22nd, 2009 by Kevin Driscoll

Last Friday, TechCrunch posted an article provocatively titled, Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?. Based on a friend-of-a-friend tip, the piece alleged that Last.fm had “handed over” user data to facilitate the identification of U2 fans with leaked copies of the band’s forthcoming album, No Line on the Horizon. (This was before Universal Music Group copped to leaking the album and U2 started streaming it voluntarily.)

Within an hour and a half - midnight for the London-based Last.fm - the allegations were debunked. Employees responded to concerned readers directly,

“[Last.fm would] never personally identify our users to a third party.”

Last.fm’s reputation is saved, TechCrunch are lying liars, the RIAA still sucks, and then I found five dollars. Right?

Not quite. Last.fm, purchased by CBS Interactive in 2007, represents the tension driving this era in computing culture, a constant negotiation of value and privacy. I’ll enrich your database by telling you how many times I’ve rewound Las Mulas De Moreno today (five and counting) and you tell me about similar artists to obsess over tomorrow...

Read the rest of this post here.

Chomsky vs. Foucault

A classic encounter and a very revealing debate on the nature of power, nature and institutions between two authors that at this point most of you should be familiar with. Enjoy and be ready to discuss in class on Tuesday.

Documentary History II

As we move forward here are four chapter from Jack Ellis & Betsy McLane's A New History of Documentary Film. The readings should allow you to contextualize the films we have seen in class during the last two weeks, covering the main post-war documentary forms: Television Docs, Social Realism and British Free Cinema, Cinema Veritè and Direct Cinema and the militant documentary movements of the 'newsreel collectives' of the late sixties and early seventies.

Ellis - Chapter 12 Documentary for Television
Ellis - Chapter 13 British Free Cinema
Ellis - Chapter 14 Direct Cinema and Cinema Verité
Ellis - Chapter 15 English Language Documentary in the 1970s

In Between Years

The Folk Revival:

The Kingston Trio - Tom Dooley
Pete Seeger - Turn Turn Turn!
Joan Baez - Silver Dagger
Bob Dylan - Masters of War
Lyrics here.

Surf & Hot Rod Combos:

The Beach Boys - Surfin USA
Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Miserlou
Link Wray & His Ray Men - Rumble (Outtake)
The Stingers (Jack Cole) - Mustang

Uptown R&B from Motown/All songs by Holland-Dozier-Holland:

Martha & The Vandellas - Nowhere To Run
The Four Tops - Reach Out I'll Be There
The Supremes - You Can't Hurry Love
Marvin Gaye - How Sweet It Is

Girl Groups/Phil Spector Wall of Sound/Songs by Weill & Mann:

The Ronettes - Be My Baby
The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me
The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron

Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann songs NOT produced by Phil Spector:

Lesley Gore - It's My Party

The Wall of Sound in full-effect:

Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep, Mountain High
The Righteous Brothers - You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Covers

Pat Boone - Ain't It A Shame
Pat Boone - Bluberry Hill
Pat Boone - Tutti Frutti
Elvis Presley - Tutti Frutti
Elvis Presley - Shake, Rattle and Roll
Bill Haley & The Comets - Shake, Rattle and Roll
Gale Storm - Why Do Fools Fall In Love
Bill Haley & The Saddlemen - Rocket 88

Old habits are hard to die:

Pat Boone - Stairway To Heaven

Tutti Frutti Smackdown

vs.

Pop Music Readings III + Paper Assignment

in Cambridge Companion:

-Straw, "Consumption"
-Star Profiles I (Elvis, The Beatles, Dylan, Hendrix, The Stones, JB, Marvin Gaye)
-Keightley, "Reconsidering Rock"
-Middleton, "Pop, Rock and Interpretation"
-Street, "Rock, Pop and Politics"

in Garofalo you should read up to and including Chapter 6

The paper assignment you can find here. Due on Monday, March 9.

Full Metal Jacket: Film Aesthetics Assignment

Hey! Here's the assignment for the first paper based around Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.

Why We Fight

Frank Capra's Why We Fight Series on The Internet Archive. The first three and the final film are the classics of the series.

1. Prelude to war
2. The Nazis strike
3. Divide and conquer
4. The Battle of Britain
5. The Battle of Russia pt. 1
5. The Battle of Russia pt. 2
6. The Battle of China
7. War comes to America

Below you can find Joris Ivens' The Spanish Earth (1937) a different kind of 'bugler' film:

Panopticism

Jeremy Bentham, "The Panopticon Letters"
Michel Foucault, "Panopticism" extract from Discipline and Punish
You can find the original images that accompany the Foucault here.

Have the following readings completed, along with the first two chapters in the Lyon text by next week. Your assignment to accompany the readings is to watch The Truman Show (Peter Weir, USA, 1998) and Enemy of the State (Tony Scott, USA, 1998) and relate the concerns and dramatic features of the films to the issues raised around the issue of panopticism in the Foucault and Lyon texts. How is the panopticon being represented? What is not being considered? Are the problems raised by panopticism being contained in the films?

Pop Music Genealogy

Popular Music Genealogy

Lotsa Posts

Many posts all together. Doc, Surveillance and Pop Music classes all have new material and new reading assignments to look at. Scroll back or as usual use the tags/labels here on the side. Enjoy.

Complete Standardization

From WNYC's Soundcheck here is a report on a new Microsoft music making software called Songsmith. How does a computer program that composes and produces the musical accompaniment to whatever you sing into a microphone allowing you to adjust for tempo and style sound like? Standardization in action.


Here are fun examples of Songsmith in action: collection of videos including the involuntarily funny Songsmith ad from Microsoft and versions of some classic pop tunes redone by the software.

2007 Privacy Rankings

This is the link to the 2007 International Privacy Ranking Report developed by Privacy International. You can find the map that we looked at in class and the single country reports along with the criteria for the different rankings.

Also, please listen to these reports form this week's On The Media as they all revolve around issues of privacy, secrecy, transparency and surveillance.

NSA monitoring of domestic communications of American journalists.


President Obama's commitment to digital document transparency.


What if the ads you're watching are watching you back? A company called Quividi designs software that allows advertisers to guess your age and gender using tiny cameras inserted into billboards and video displays. Quividi's chief scientific officer Paolo Prandoni explains how the ads work.


And, finally, a report/article from Pop Matters, the online music magazine about the relationship of surveillance and hip-hop. Here.

Rock'n'Roll! Transubstantiated RnB?

Elvis Presley - That's All Right, Mama + Blue Moon of Kentucky
Bill Haley & The Comets - Crazy Man Crazy
Fats Domino - Ain't That A Shame + Blueberry Hill
Little Richard - Tutti Frutti
Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues + I Walk The Line
Chuck Berry - Almost Grown + Little Queenie
Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing
The Chords - Sh-Boom
Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall In Love

Independent Labels

Independent Labels

Big Joe Turner

Mainstream Pop

Patti Page - How Much Is That Doggie In The Window

Whitey's Lindy Hoppers (1941)

This is the Lindy Hop, the Jitterbug, the Suzie-Q. The clip is an excerpt from H.C. Potter's Helzapoppin' (1941). The Lindy Hoppers doing "The Big Apple" in 1939 are here. Enjoy.
In this clip the dancing starts at the 2:15 mark.

R'n'B is on the indies

Big Joe Turner - Shake, Rattle and Roll
Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog
Rufus Thomas - Bear Cat
Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - That's All Right
Jackie Brenston & His Delta Kings (aka Ike Turner) - Rocket 88
Junior Parker - Mystery Train
Little Walter - Dead Presidents

Postwar Hillbillies

Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys - Take Me Back To Tulsa
Hank Williams - Hey Goodlookin' + Lovesick Blues
Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys - Muleskinner Blues + Blue Moon Of Kentucky

Pop Music Readings II

in Garofalo:

-Chapter 2: Blues and Country Music: Mass Media and the Construction of Race

-Chapter 3: “Good Rockin’ Tonight”: The Rise of Rhythm and Blues

Charlie Gillet from The Sound of the City, "The Sound Begins"
Nelson George from The Death of Rhythm and Blues, "Dark Voices in the Night"

Pre-War Specialties

Doc Boggs - Sugar Baby
Jimmie Rodgers - Mule Skinner Blues
The Carter Family - Wildwood Flower
Jimmie Rodgers & The Carter Family - Blue Yodel
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Robert Johnson - Love in Vain

Barnouw

Barnouw - Chapter 3

Please read Susan Sontag, "Fascinating Fascism" and be prepared to discuss issues related to aesthetics and politics in documentary film and non-fiction representation. New York Review of Books link to the original article here. There's a 'multimedia' version of the article here --footnoted with video clips of examples discussed in the article.