Music
by Nicholas Deleon on September 25, 2009

Do you know who Lily Allen is? I sure as hell don’t, nor do I care to know who she is. I mean, I know who she is now: she’s some musician who is against piracy. Good for her, great. Years from now, Future People will erect a statue of her and put it in the middle of New York harbor in order to honor her bravery. It’s the least we can do, right? Yeah, well, it seems Lily Alen isn’t just brave, but she’s also monumentally hypocritical. Again, good for her, I don’t care.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 24, 2009

Eminem has a problem with Apple, and it has nothing to do with the company railroading Google with respect to the FCC. Anyhow, Eminem claims Apple sold 93 of his songs on the iTunes Store without the proper distribution rights, and so he wants a couple of dollars he feels he is owed. It comes out to around $2.5 million that Apple improperly made off Eminem.

Unorthodox stop-motion music video uses Canon 1D and 16,000 flashes
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by Devin Coldewey on September 22, 2009

strobey
Normally stop motion is a laborious process of setting up the scene, adjusting the lighting and focus, taking the shot, and then starting all over again. But this method, where they’re essentially subtracting frames from a motion video, while not properly stop-motion, certainly creates that effect. Instead of lighting the guys and asking them to move into each next position before they take a shot, they’ve got an array of fast-recycle flashes synced to a 1D mk III shooting at 10FPS, which produces the frames used in the video.
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by Michael Arrington on September 22, 2009

Amie Street always made sense to me. The idea is to show demand for music via variable pricing. Songs start off free and move up in price (up to 98 cents) as more people buy them. I first wrote about them in 2006 when the founders were still living in a dorm at Brown University. In 2007 Amazon invested in the company.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 17, 2009

It has come to my attention that the music industry now wants royalties for those 30-second clips of music you hear in iTunes. That, I think you’ll agree, is bullshit. Seeing as though we’re a solution-oriented blog here at CrunchGear, I want to offer a completely fool-proof way to save the music industry and put an end to the years and years of nonsense we’ve seen since Napster first was first released: let’s ban music. That’s right, let’s pass a law that says “the creation or performance of music, in any form, is hereby banned. Any violation of this law will be punishable by death.” Problem solved, let’s all play Hungry Hungry Hippos.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 16, 2009

The following has very little to do with the actual headline.

Looks like iTunes LP can be pirated after all: Muse album found online
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by Nicholas Deleon on September 16, 2009

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Maybe there’s no DRM on iTunes LP after all? I could have sworn that when Apple announced the completely useless new feature last week that it had said there would be measures in place to prevent people from sharing iTunes LP files with one another. Apparently not, since I was able to find the iTunes LP version of the new Muse album online a few minutes ago. Exactly where I found it is irrelevant; what’s newsworthy is that, yeah, it seems that these things can be passed around pretty easily. Read More

by Nicholas Deleon on September 15, 2009

A comment from earlier in the day sparked a bit of a conversation in the official CrunchGear chat room: what’s to stop someone from ditching the iTunes-iPod “universe” and switching to the Zune HD? (We’re all pretty keen on the Zune HD for whatever reason.) Those of you with iPhones are pretty much stuck using iTunes, but what’s to stop someone from saying, “You know, I’ve used an iPod in one form or another for the past five years, so I think I’m gonna try something new for a change.”? Let’s see what’s up.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 15, 2009

Bose had some sort of official unveiling in New York earlier today, but I didn’t want to leave Matt and Doug manning the site all by themselves, so I didn’t attend. This is what I missed: the Bose SoundDock 10, a $599 (?!) iPhone/iPod dock that weighs some 19 pounds. It’s rather big, yes.

The Gadget Love of a Guitar God
2 Comments
by Thomas Scott McKenzie on September 15, 2009

AceFrehleyHighRes_4

Most gadget do-it-yourselfers have stories of an idea that didn’t quite work out. Maybe the prototype never functioned properly. Or maybe a competitor introduced a similar piece of gear into the marketplace first.

But how many gadget geeks can say that they were stymied by a cult, a laser, and legislative changes?

Of course, rock guitar legend Ace Frehley is no ordinary gadget guy.

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by Nicholas Deleon on September 15, 2009

Apparently Sony Ericsson will change the way we all listen to music, forever. Let’s see… headphones or speakers, and my ears. That’s how I listen to music; maybe you guys do it differently.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 14, 2009

It’s time for story Eight Million and Six-teen about how the record labels and the musicians they ostensibly represent no longer get on with each other. This time, we have a bit of a row developing over in the UK, where that proposed knock-people-off-the-Internet-for-file-sharing law is currently stirring division amongst the ranks. One on side, of course, you have the record labels who, in the year 2009, are still afraid of piracy destroying the music business (please note: that’s destroying the music business that made record label execs fat and happy; music hasn’t gone away, it’s merely changed, and change is death to the record label middle men), and on the other, the musicians who recognize that, you know, maybe suing the pants off your customers isn’t the best thing to do.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 13, 2009

This is probably a question that the record labels should be asking, but I’ll ask it here anyway: how do you guys listen to music in 2009? On your iPhone (or whatever portable device, it doesn’t matter for the purposes of this here post)? On your computer while you surf your favorite Web sites? At the gym? Now, how many of you will sit in front of your computer, and devote 100 percent of your attention to the iTunes visualizer? Not too many of you, I’d venture to guess.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 10, 2009

Did Apple swerve us, or are we just a bunch of nincompoops? (I vote for the latter.) So, so many people were expecting to see The Beatles finally show up to iTunes, if not the event itself, yesterday. Nearly 24 hours later, you’re still unable to buy “Help!” from Steve Jobs’ little store. Huge deal, or should we all just move on with our lives? And is the band making a mistake in ignoring the largest music store on Planet Earth?

by Nicholas Deleon on September 8, 2009

Record label EMI, which holds the rights to the Beatles catalogue, says the band’s music will not be on iTunes starting tomorrow. (Not that that matters, of course.) It seems EMI is concerned about piracy. I wish I were joking. But then Sky News in the UK supposedly ran a story that said, yes, the Beatles will be available on iTunes starting tomorrow. Our take: chill out. After all, tomorrow is only a day away. We’ll all get the answer then.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 7, 2009

Say what you will about Dr. Dre, but the man is a hip-hop legend. Say what you will about Lady Gaga, but she’s terrible. So you can either consider the fact that “Heartbeats by Lady Gaga” was just announced as one of two things: a callous cash grab, attempting to earn (?) more money while Lady Gaga is still popular, or… no, that’s the only reason these things exist.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 6, 2009

Someone call LATFH. This is “Sonic Fabric,” and it’s made out of old cassette tape, um, tape. It’s 100 percent ridiculous, yes.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 6, 2009

That blasted Apple event is on Wednesday, and in the interest of having fresh-but-not-really posts on this holiday weekend, here’s some interesting predictions I’ve stumbled upon. The highlight: say goodbye to the iPod classic.

by Nicholas Deleon on September 5, 2009

Knowing you guys, you not only knew Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 leaked several days ago, but you grabbed it instantly, and gained some nice ratio buffer in the process. Oh, and you listened to it many times over (as have I). Good, great.

by Dave Freeman on September 3, 2009

Well, they don’t have their own game, but at least the Rolling Stones have their own download pack. Guitar Hero just announced that the Stones have their own DLC pack, available starting today for 720 Microsoft Points (or $9).

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