Muxtape R.I.P.?

"I talked to a lot of very smart lawyers and other people whose opinions on the matter I respected, trying to gain a consensus for Muxtape’s legality. The only consensus seemed to be that there was no consensus. I had two dozen slightly different opinions that ran the gamut from “Muxtape is 100 per cent legal and you’re on solid ground,” to “Muxtape is a cesspool of piracy and I hope you’re ready for a hundred million dollar lawsuit and a stint at Rikers.”"

Read the story of Muxtape. Sasha Frere Jones on his New Yorker blog comments on the affair. It ends: "Can you name ten good things the R.I.A.A. has done for music? Five? Three?" Well...can you?

The R.I.A.A. is, of course, the infamous Recording Industry Association of America, the association that primarily takes care of the interests of the FOUR major record labels, those responsible for 81.87% (in 2006) of the music you listen to and love: Sony-BMG, Universal, EMI and Warner.

Good industry oriented story in The Village Voice this week about MySpace. The same people forcing Muxtape to close down are the ones running MySpace. There's something to be learned here.

Weekend Tunes

Here you go. Something old, something new...
Also, click on the picture to learn how to make paper planes...

M.I.A. - Paper Planes (DFA Remix)
Vampire Weekend - Ottoman
TV On The Radio - Dancing Choose
Eno - Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
The Cool Kids - 88

Beyoncé

Here's an article from last year's Best Music Writing. Bob Christgau --the Dean of American Rock Critics-- edited the volume and Daphne Brooks wrote the article about Beyoncé. Originally appeared in The Nation. To accompany our class screening and discussion of Beyoncé videos. What kind of reading does Brooks offer of B'Day? What were the readings offered in class?

Spectatorship: Effects, Vulnerability, Reception

Here are the readings for the next two weeks. The Gandy reading refers to our last section on the industry perspective on audiences. It works nicely as a compendium to the Meehan chapters. The other readings offer a good chronological survey on the thinking about audiences. All of them question simplistic "media effects" explanations and all of them in some sort of dialogue with the others.
[nb. fixed link to Gandy article and added Ang's "The Nature of the Audience" --integrate class lecture and discussion around the concept of the 'mass audience']

Ang - The Nature of the Audience
Gandy - Tracking the Audience

Lazarsfeld et al - The Peoples Choice + Merton - Mass Persuasion + Cooper & Dinerman - Analysis of the Film Don't Be A Sucker

Adorno - Culture Industry Reconsidered
Hoggart - The Uses of Literacy
Wertham - Seduction of the Innocent

Ang - On the Politics of Audience Research
Hall - Encoding/Decoding
Morley - The Nationwide Audience

Fiske - Undertanding Popular Culture
De Certeau - The Practice of Everyday Life

New Media: Film, TV, Games

Here's the extra articles on Film and Television. Biblio references on the articles themselves. Added bonus: Marshall's chapter on Gaming --keep it for later.

Marshall - Chapter 5 Games
Marshall - Chapter 6 Film
Marshall - Chapter 7 TV

Weekend Tunes

As promised to all, here's some random tunes for the weekend.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Shine
Tilly & The Wall - Beat Control
Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Go Leave

Media Bias

For those of you reading Ed Herman's article on 'propaganda' and political economy here's something from the New York Times: Media Bashing 101.

If you are following the meta-media discussions surrounding the campaigns and the elections don't miss the On The Media podcast from WNYC. Sample this episode called 'Stick Up'. It tries to answer the question: How does a non story become the story? According to them the "answer has to do with outrageous accusations, cost free ads, back and forth squabbling" and more... Listen to Stick Up here. The On The Media website is here.

Laptops Live

Article from The New Yorker by Sasha Frere Jones on the ubiquity of the laptop in live pop. Bjork, The Battles, Girl Talk, even Radiohead use it on stage. Think about it in terms of issues like convergence and the break down of longstanding barriers. Is this the ultimate form of remediation or just plain repurposing? IDM, electronica of course, has been doing this for decades, but it's the rockist embrace that is most pertinent here. Is it live? As SFJ notes, "There is no longer any way of telling whether or not the Wizard is behind the curtain. Does it matter?"

Kellner's Cultural Studies

You can find Douglas Kellner's "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture" here.

Check back in the next couple of days for other readings.

Privilege & Discrimination

Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"



Clip from The Tyra Banks Show on "eyelid surgery": relate to general introduction to Cultural Studies in Kellner essay.