Independent record label Century Media pulls its content from Spotify

"“Century Media and its associated labels “InsideOutMusic“, “Superballmusic“, “Ain’t no Grave Records“, “Hollywood Waste” and “People Like You” have decided to pull their repertoire from Spotify in an attempt to protect the interests of their artists"

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Full story here: http://www.theprp.com/2011/08/09/news/century-media-pulls-its-repertoire-from-spotify-statement-available/

Week 4

Buzzing. Humming. Whining. Whirring. Creaking. Grinding. Croaking. Wheezing. Expiring. Week 4 of NYU summer course Brain Dance: Pop/Rock Music and Literature, and this week we looked at the intertwining themes of noise and death. We read Jacques Attali's Noise: The Political Economy of Music. This rich and highly riveting work of theory, argues that we have overprivileged sight over sound, and should learn to listen more carefully, to the world around us and the onward movement of history. It traces four moments, through which to analyze how distinctions between what is "noise" and what is "music" are not only socially-constructed, but imbricated in socio-economic, political and ideological power: Sacrificing, Representing, Repeating and Composing. Music, once the province of outsiders to the community ("jongleurs"), has become the mouthpiece of the regime, argues Attali, enabling to make "repetitive society" tolerable and pleasant. The book ends by wondering whether it is possible for music to help reach beyond capitalism.

We considered the early death of Amy Winehouse (who died aged 27 on July 23, 2011, entering the "27 Club" along with Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain), and the deification of pop stars who die young: what happens when a feted musician dies before his/her time? How are their image and music transformed in the popular imagination? Are dead pop stars our own polytheism? Do pop stars who die young perform a sacrificial role, leading extreme and masochistic lives that the community enjoys vicariously, their young deaths part of their performance of vulnerable affective states?

Thinking of death and the "noise" it makes, we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), noting its tendencies towards camp, kitsch, and cabaret, its ironic and knowing parody and pastiche of horror goth and schlock conventions. While Dr Frank-N-Furter, played by Tim Curry, reprises the mad scientist/Dracula/Frankenstein role, with a transexual/alien twist, Eddie, the character played by Meat Loaf, acts out the role of Dead Elvis, murdered and literally eaten for dinner by the hosts and guests at the castle. Pop music cannibalizing and recycling its own idols/gods. This week we heard presentations on The Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol, punk band Rise Against, and The Grammys.

On Wednesday we examined a genre overtly concerned with death and noise: black metal. We considered the often extreme, anti-social, outsider and Romantic philosophical and political ideologies that underwrite this sometimes controversial genre, and Arthur Schopenhauer's notion of music as an embodiment of the will. We were visited by Brooklyn College (CUNY) professor Nicola Masciandaro, who illuminated us (should that be darkened us?) regarding the aesthetic and philosophical stakes of "black metal theory," a new hybrid academic field that investigates BM as a richly theoretical domain.

Provoked by Japanoise artist Merzbow, and inspired to listen to, meditate upon and describe the noise that surrounds us on a daily basis in a big, buzzing city, this week we learned that there is always more to noise or music than meets the ear.