About a month ago, the ‘almighty’ Pitchfork introduced a new feature on their site. However, it didn’t receive a whole lot of fanfare; I suspect because it’s mostly boring. The idea is a combination of a mix tape and an interview. Picture it: a hip dj puts together an exclusive mix for The Fork and then talks about the tracks and why he picked them, etc. — and it’s a great idea… in theory. So I kept an eye on it for a bit, scoping out the …

30Frames brings up some interesting questions concerning Apple and their role in the music industry. His tone is one of frustration and defeat: he works in the MV industry and reaps little benefit or reward. Apple on the other hand, who doesn’t really create songs or videos but rather sells them, makes a killing off the music industry. The confusion and emotion of the piece is clear: Apple making more money off of music than the content creators and to hell with them for doing so. While this all makes sense it’s based on a faulty premise: Apple makes a lot of money selling music. Unfortunately, this premise, while technically true, is patently false. Apple makes a lot (I don’t have enough html bold commands to stress that “lot”) of money, but not by selling music. They make it by selling music players: iPods (and iPhones and other iGadgetry). Apple outsmarted the music industry by avoiding it. Apple uses music as an excuse to sell something else. Apple out-MTVed MTV.

MTV’s Video Music Awards were yesterday. While you’d think a site devoted to videos and music such as this one would be all over that, it’s no secret that the VMAs have about as much to do with Music Videos as Country Time Lemonade has to do with lemons or tasting good. We could talk about Britney looking like some drugged sea lion, Dr. Dre admitting his steriod habit, or even JT ironically asking MTV to play more videos, but none of that really matters. What matters is Twitter and …

“Play more damn videos. We don’t want to see the Simpsons on reality television. Play more videos!” – Justin Timberlake

Mtv’s 2007 Video Music Awards have finished and we know you’ve been waiting for our take. We’ll just keep it short by making this point:

There may be a problem when you’ve got the New York Times calling you out before the show. One of our generations top entertainers (Justin Timberlake) calling you out not once, but TWICE during the show to “Play more videos.” The most entertaining moment of the night happening off camera. And another of the most popular artists in the world (Kanye West) banning himself forever from you after the show. In closing, we’ll leave you with the Twitter message our boy Jimmy sent us

“Rihanna wins video of the year. Does not thank director. That says it all, MTV.”

[Visit Shots Ring Out to read the rest...]

Go Universal, Go!

Universal as a whole is a cranky company. In particular they will swim agianst the stream of popular opinion to spite other companies. Currently two divisions are doing this. Their home video division refuses to sell high definition versions of their movies on the more popular Blu-ray format and instead goes exclusively with the less popular HD DVD format. They are the only large, major movie studio with this stance: the other studios either support Blu-ray exclusively (Sony, Disney, Fox) or support both (Warner Bros., Paramount). There’s been much speculation as to why Universal continues down this path and the consensus seems to be that Universal is less interested in succeeding than they are in Sony failing. That, and Toshiba pays them to support HD DVD exclusively. You see, Toshiba hates Sony too…

As for Universal’s Music Division, their “Sony” is Apple. They don’t like Apple. To be fair, most major labels stopped liking Apple the minute they realized they accidently gave Apple the keys to the castle, the castle being online distribution. If you haven’t figured it out yet, a record label amounts to nothing more than shady suits, Advertising money, CD replication plants, and distribution channels. Online distribution is making the latter two, plants and distrubition channels, obselete. You don’t need a CD plant when the music is sold online and you don’t need a bunch of stores when your music can be sold to everybody in the world from the same web page. By letting Apple have online distribution rights, which Apple quickly built into an empire, the record labels burnt one bridge (CD replication) and gave one to Apple (Apple being the world’s most popular online distribution channel). This shift, which everybody but the record labels have been expecting since 1996, has left the labels with their suits and advertising dollars. The suits are a dime a dozen and things like myspace have begun to erode the importance of corporate backed ad-money.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha…………..

Video of the Year

Amy Winehouse – Rehab

Beyonce – Irreplaceable

Justice – D.A.N.C.E.

Justin Timberlake – What Goes Around…

Kanye West – Stronger

Rihanna (feat. Jay-Z) – Umbrella

[Visit Shots Ring Out to read the rest...]

“Gangstas, wassup guys?” If y’all remember correctly, we told you to prepare for 300 way back in December. Then when March rolled around that shit slayed everyone from here to Thermopylae, and all the movie execs were dumbfounded at its greatness. We just sat and laughed at those who didn’t take notice.

[Visit Shots Ring Out to read the rest...]

One of the perks of being invited to such places such as E3 (R.I.P), San Diego Comic-Con, random L.A. Parties, and hell, even Star Wars Conventions, are some of the culturally interesting photos we come back with. Of course from the outside some of these may lie closer to the side of geekdom, but when you’re surrounded by scores of actors, actresses, directors, and rock stars you find that even though we’re in mixed company, as always, we’re always the coolest ones at the party.

[Visit Shots Ring Out to read the rest...]