Burn Baby, Burn!  by antiGUY

What the hell is up now? This time around I thought I might look at a few different topics that have been itching at me lately.  This might possibly be the last "What the Hell?" rant for a while.  Let me explain:

This series was originally started to have a go at some of the more questionable pop stars but the record industry has made it way too easy. In fact, it's hard not to single out "top selling" artists these days and that takes all the fun out of it. I mean, look at some of the recent artists we have had to choose from?  50 Cent? That's way too easy. What we basically have is third-rate Tupac knock off, foisted on the public by non other than Slim Shady.  I will give them credit for coming up with the perfect name. I mean not since Ludacris has a rap star embodied his stage name so perfectly. (Yes, I'm saying that 50 Cent's "music" is worth about half a buck and that's being generous.)

I know, some will jump on my case about this. But let's be honest, putting the way over hyped "I've been shot" thing aside, the music isn't that great. Again he sounds like a third-rate Tupac. I guess if you're gonna steal, steal from the best of the breed but 50 Cent does nothing to forward the cause of hip-hop. Then again as hardcore fans are happy to attest, mainstream and underground hip-hop and rap are two totally different ballgames. The same can be said about rock as well. 

Now that's I've given you my half dollar review of 50 cent, I'd like to take a few moments to look at music reviews in general. I know this will sound funny or even hypocritical coming from someone who writes his fair share of reviews but the bottom line is reviews are pretty much bulls***. There I said it, I feel better now. 

I've held this belief for sometime now, dating back to even before I began putting pen to paper and as Time Magazine once pointed out about us here at antiMUSIC offering "no-holds-barred, attitude saturated reviews� assessing the merits and shortcomings of new�albums." 

I was reminded of this recently when I began re-reading "Hammer of the Gods" for what seems like the thousandth time (with the new Led Zeppelin DVD and CD coming out, I wanted a refresher).  That book is loaded with quotes from reviewers who unmercifully trashed the now legendary band.  Part of that might be that those reviewers didn't get it at the time. Many saw Led Zeppelin as a "hype" band that basically took old blues standards and made them heavier. A couple of reviewers, including one from Rolling Stone, blamed Led Zeppelin's popularity on heavy drug use among the listeners. Of course in hindsight, Led Zeppelin have far outlasted their critics and gone on to become one of the most influential bands in rock history. So much for Rolling Stone's prediction in their review of the band's first album that they were just another "blues" rock band formed out of the ashes of the Yardbirds that wouldn't be around too long. (That was more inferred from that review that outwardly stated). 

But this just shows how far off base reviews can be. I know some of the reviewers at that time were aging hippies angry that Led Zeppelin was changing the musical landscape away from their precious hippy friendly bands. But things haven't changed much in the past 35 years, especially at Rolling Stone where one current reviewer feels that Missy Elliot is one of the most important artists in music at the moment. Now that is scary thought. 

It basically comes down to one simple thing; all a review really consists of is one person's opinion at a given time. I know from personal experience that I've changed my mind about albums over time. Maybe I was having a bad day and subconsciously took it out on some poor band. To be honest, I try to be as objective as possible in reviews and not base them entirely on my personal tastes but the overall merits of the music. I've given negative reviews for albums I've loved and given glowing reviews to albums I detest. But it's basically bulls*** and one person's view, including my own. It doesn't matter because in the end the fans make up their minds about what they like and don't like.

I'll continue to do reviews and people will continue to read them and agree or bash me for them and that's ok. One thing I do like, that we do here is allow people to write their own comments on most of the reviews we post. So you get more than one person's opinion and that's good but ultimately the individual will have to listen to the songs themselves and decide if they want to spend their money on it or as is the case now days, steal the songs off the net. 

That last idea is what I'll conclude this article on; the great MP3 controversy and the attempts of record labels to fight that losing battle. I won't get into the recent RIAA lawsuits against students who got caught sharing "millions" of illegal mp3's on their campus networks. Although it is funny that one student in particular is being sued for more money than the U.S. Congress set aside for the war in Iraq. Actually that one lawsuit comes to almost two and half times the 40 billion* the record industry brings in each year worldwide. (That number comes from the 150,000 per song the RIAA is suing that student for). 

Instead, I want to point out a recent experience I had that is loaded with irony.  A couple of weeks ago I was given an advance copy of an upcoming CD. Record companies tend to send journalist copies CD's a few weeks before their official release, so we have time to review them. A recent trend among the labels is to include copy protection on these CD's to keep people from "burning" mp3's of the tracks. This advance CD had such a copy protection scheme in place. 

The trouble started when I went to listen to the disc. I first tried my home DVD/CD player, which plays almost every known format known to man including mp3's. But try as I might, I couldn't get the damn disc to play. So I tried my car stereo that too plays mp3's (It's a lot more convenient to burn a single disc of your favorite CD's, that you own legally, than using a CD changer. You get more music too.)  My car deck wouldn't play the disc either. 

Then I tried my PC and the built in player that came on the disc kept playing one short loop from the CD and wouldn't play the rest. It keep telling my I need Microsoft Internet Destroyer 5.0 or higher (I'm one of the few remaining Netscape users). But I have 6.0123165464 installed. I tried my other PC and that wouldn't even load the special player. I didn't have any more luck with my Mac. 

I went to Download.com and got a dozen different media players and still didn't have any luck. I really wanted to hear this CD and my struggles to this point only made me hunger to hear it even more.  Finally, I said screw it. Let's see if I can rip the tracks from the CD and make an MP3 disc. At least then I can listen to the damn thing. 

I have a couple of MP3 rippers on my main system. (Again I rip my favorite CD's to mp3 to listen to in my car stereo, instead of using a multi-disc changer).  I didn't have any luck with the first ripper I tried, "FreeRIP V. 2.00". So the copy protection does work after all. It works so well you can't even play the disc legally! 

Then I fired up another ripping program that I hardly ever use, "AltoMP3 Maker" and to my surprise it loaded the disc fine and with the exception of the "data tracks" (I didn't want those anyways) it managed to extract the songs to MP3 with no problem. 

It was a frustrating experience to say the least. I'm sure the people who go to the store and buy these CD's only to be blocked from listening to them get majorly pissed off. 

The irony of course is the fact that the very same copy protection that is supposed to keep people from making MP3's from the disc forced me to actually rip the disc to mp3's so I could listen to it. So instead of stopping the burning of MP3's this "technology" actually encourages it.  So much for copy protection. 

Ok, on that note I'll sign off and get back to writing some bulls*** reviews. 

*Average Annual world wide commercial music sales according to the RIAA's website.