Yesterday, a lot of good blogs headed over to Blogger to express their love of music only to find that Blogger had deleted their work. From Poptarts Suck Toasted (a 5 year old site) to I Rock Cleveland to Liquid Music, and a quite a few more, just *POOF* gone. Fortunately for a couple of them, they had backed-up their work, others, like Poptarts, had to go to their Google Reader and start copying & pasting from their RSS feed history into an undesigned wordpress they quickly set up on their own servers.
Now, I’m no idiot (well, at least not completely), I know that all of us that were/are on Blogger were probably violating some Term Of Service or two. When you take into account that even bands & labels don’t always agree with giving away an mp3 or two, it is probably impossible to guarantee an infraction-free stay over there.
I Rock Cleveland is a good example. Every single mp3 posted was label approved. Yet, there was a disconnect somewhere in the corporate hierarchy and a DMCA notice made it to Blogger and without any opportunity to show proof…
*POOF*
Now, look, it’s Blogger’s business, it’s their servers, their money, their bandwidth, and their asses that could be called into court over letting a song make itself be available through them (I mean, why sue a broke blogger when you’ve got the Multi-Billion-Dollar Google you can go after), but god damn, that’s some cold-heart shit right there, Blogger. How many words, thoughts, writings did you just delete in a blink of an eye? Is that worth anything to you?
If ever I needed a little extra reassurance in my move the other week away from blogger to here, this would certainly be it.
But…. All things move forward. Poptarts is up and running, albeit he hasn’t quite settled in his new home yet, and the others will to if they want to and feel it’s worth it (I hope they do). And just as new blogs will rise from the ashes of #musicblogocide2K10, life will move on.
SIDE NOTE/THOUGHT: Here’s a #musicblogocide2k10 question for you: We all know GvB is one of the most successful music blogs on blogger, over/under on their future deletion?
Maybe it’s really insulting or super appropriate that today (and really most of yesterday) Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You by Lightspeed Champion has pretty much owned my ass…
Because, life IS sweet and it is great to meet the new & ultimately improved music blogs that will come out of this, right? Or maybe that’s just stretching this segue a biiiit too much? Regardless, it’s what’s on in my ears so it’s what I’ll write about! Ex-testicle or something, Lightspeed Champion (aka Devonté Hynes), delivers his second album under this moniker and it’s fucking amazing.
Now, I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t listen to the other album Falling Off the Lavender Bridge. One look at the album cover:
And the whole “smacks with effort / trying too hard” thing was all I could think about. Cardigan? Rabbit? Bow-tie? Bad glasses? I do have some desire for artistic integrity and I saw none on that cover. Yeah, I’m good, thanks.
They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover but I think you can to a degree. The cover IS part of the art. Just as how we dress each day is how we choose to display ourselves, you can judge me a little by what I wear because I’m the one who decided to wear it, right? It’s not 100% accurate, but certainly it’s something.
So yeah, I ignored that album. But with a new album comes a new day & it was time to give this guy a go and see what’s what and man, I’m so glad I did! It’s brilliant. It’s really just pop/rock with a bit of the theatric thrown in here and there, but something about it, it has it’s toe in the retro, but feels so fresh & refreshing! Each song just feels, I don’t know, clever, I guess.
The two standouts, the two songs that, even if the other songs didn’t exist would STILL make this album brilliant (though probably it would just be a “single” at that point) is “The Big Guns Of Highsmith” and “I Don’t Want To Wake Up Alone”. I’m not going to bother trying to describe them, as I will fail. So instead of doing the first few chapters of the album, give those two songs a go and prepare to have your ears fall in love with your brain for doing just that!
That’s it. That’s all I can say… Enjoy! I’ve got to go listen to Falling Off the Lavender Bridge and make up for some lost time!!!
01 Dead Head Blues
02 Marlene
03 There’s Nothing Underwater
04 Intermission
05 Faculty of Fears
06 The Big Guns of Highsmith
07 Romart
08 I Don’t Want to Wake Up Alone
09 Madame Van Damme
10 Smooth Day (At the Library)
11 Intermission 2
12 Sweetheart
13 Etude Op.3 “Goodnight Michalek”
14 Middle of the Dark
15 A Bridge and a Goodbye
Some Lightspeed link lovins… Myspace | Official | Label
WOOT!
Cheers,
Tsuru
