Yo, Kanye! Your time is up

I think we've had enough from Kanye West, don't you?

Now off with him, then.

Oh, and I'd like to associate myself with these remarks from Pink, who tried to kick Kanye's ass, but was stopped by security:

"'Kanye West is the biggest piece of s*** on earth. Quote me.'"

Oh, and because this is a low-rent, no-class fool we're discussing, note that the first two videos are filled with off-color language. Why couldn't they just let Pink at him, eh?

Frank Zappa explains it all

In this docu-mashup, Frank Zappa and a few others explain why radio is dead and record companies are dying.

In short, people got greedy and content producers stopped taking chances on innovation for fear of endangering profits by messing with "success." Unfortunately for them, there was a slight miscalculation.

The world didn't stop turning. And people didn't stop changing.

IN THIS VIDEO, meantime, longtime media executive J. William Grimes explains why newspapers are just as doomed as radio and records.

The short version is this: Traditional media lost our attention and then they lost advertisers, who are following the public to new media.

Grimes, however, seems to think just enough of the public will pay for online newspapers what they pay for print ones. I remain to be convinced a) that the genie can be put back in the bottle now that news is free on the Web, and b) that just a few remaining free, quality news sources wouldn't explode the whole for-pay model.

Frankly, I think expecting people to pay mucho dinero for non-physical content which easily could be gotten for free is wishful thinking, not a plausible business model.

Grimes also stipulates that newspaper web sites would have to greatly improve to make this viable. Why should we expect organizations that sat on their laurels long enough to lose the public's attention to spend money they no longer have on quality they eschewed back when they were flush?

Nevertheless, Grimes gives us a great summation of the tsunami washing away media as we knew it. Watch and learn.

The father of modern music, more or Les

In the beginning of music -- and recording -- as we know it today, there was Les Paul. That's all you need to know.

Oh . . . and he was a hell of guitar player, too.

Les Paul died Thursday at 94, leaving behind an entire world of music as his legacy. Not bad for your life's work. Not bad at all.

May God rest his soul.

Triple cocktail of doom

Can I get a "radio"?!

RADIO!

Can I get a "records"?!

RECORDS!

Can I get a "newspaper"?!

NEWSPAPER!

What's that spell?!

R.I.P!!!

And that's the "dead and gone" of it. When you have a newspaper dedicated to covering radio and the record industry, and then you count on selling it -- for a hefty subscription fee -- to people in those two woebegone industries, you're pretty much toast.

JUST LIKE Radio & Records, dead of a terminal business model after a 36-year run. Here's what passes for an obit in The Tennessean:

Radio & Records, a major music industry trade publication, announced plans to close on Wednesday (June 3) citing the current economic climate as the reason.

Founded in 1973, R&R is headquartered in Los Angeles and was acquired in 2006 by VNU, a company that also owns Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter. VNU changed its name to the Nielsen Company in 2007.

Billboard and R&R publisher Howard Applebaum met with R&R employees in Los Angeles at noon Wednesday and told them the publication was closing. More than 40 employees lost their jobs, including at least one in Nashville.

IT'S BRUTAL out there. Good night, and good luck.

Vinylly!

Vinyl -- as in vinyl long-playing records -- is still back.

This means I've maintainined my retro cool since we last checked in on the trend toward once again putting needle to record groove. Like I always say, stick with what you really, really like long enough . . . and it'll be cool again, and so will you.

HERE'S the latest take, from the Omaha World-Herald, on the audio tech that's as old as Edison:

Some people are trying to restock their old collections. Some like the experience of putting a record on a turntable. Others just like the sound.

But no matter the reason, people are buying a lot more vinyl, whether new or used, whether new releases or classics.

Vinyl's popularity has been growing for a few years, but it appears to be spiking.

Nielsen SoundScan, the company that tracks music purchases, reported that sales of new vinyl albums grew to 1.88 million in 2008, an increase of 89 percent over 2007. The number was the highest since SoundScan started tracking sales data in 1991.

Folks like Spencer Munson of Lincoln are leading the charge. Munson, known in the clubs as DJ Spence, has nearly 4,000 vinyl titles.

"I had a dad who was really into records, so that's where I started. He had all the classics: (Led) Zeppelin, the Beatles," he said. "I filled in the gaps with his collection, and as I was building this collection, I started realizing there were other things that I was falling in love with."

After collecting rock records, he started going after funk, disco and soul. A large part of his collection is also made up of 12-inch hip-hop singles that he samples while DJing.

The vinyl craze is welcome news to local outlets.

Two of every three new vinyl purchases were made in independent record stores, SoundScan reported. In Omaha and Lincoln, Homer's stores have seen huge increases in combined new and used vinyl sales in the last three years, including an 85 percent increase in 2008, said general manager Mike Fratt.

Bands and serious music collectors started the trend, but now it's reaching the masses. Until recently, consumers didn't see a lot of new vinyl in stores, so they assumed it wasn't available.

In the first days of CDs, record labels stopped manufacturing vinyl so people would embrace the new technology. Meanwhile, some indie bands continued to release material on vinyl and some distributors manufactured classic titles on vinyl so that DJs would be able to spin them. And that caught on, Fratt said.

"As people started going into thrift shops and used record stores and started buying '60s and '70s titles on vinyl, they got a chance to experience those records in their actual form. The excitement for the music started to grow from there and . . . it all kind of snowballed into one big avalanche," he said.

Bands such as Radiohead are pushing the trend. The release of Radiohead's "In Rainbows" was highly publicized last year, and the album was available in a special vinyl edition. It was the top-selling vinyl record in 2008.

More recently, indie band Animal Collective released "Merriweather Post Pavillion" on vinyl in January, a full two weeks ahead of its release on CD. Record stores sold out almost immediately.

"It was an eye-opener to how much people now are thinking of vinyl first or exclusively," said Neil Azevedo, manager of Drastic Plastic in the Old Market.

GROOVY! He says, surrendering major cool points. Sigh.

You suin' me? YOU . . . suin' . . . ME???

At long last!

The joyous news is carried unto us by The Associated Press:

The music industry's courtroom campaign against people who share songs online is coming under counterattack.

A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003.

The professor, Charles Nesson, has come to the defense of a Boston University graduate student targeted in one of the music industry's lawsuits. By taking on the case, Nesson hopes to challenge the basis for the suit, and all others like it.

Nesson argues that the Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is unconstitutional because it effectively lets a private group - the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA - carry out civil enforcement of a criminal law. He also says the music industry group abused the legal process by brandishing the prospects of lengthy and costly lawsuits in an effort to intimidate people into settling cases out of court.

Nesson, the founder of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said in an interview that his goal is to "turn the courts away from allowing themselves to be used like a low-grade collection agency."

Nesson is best known for defending the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers and for consulting on the case against chemical companies that was depicted in the film "A Civil Action." His challenge against the music labels, made in U.S. District Court in Boston, is one of the most determined attempts to derail the industry's flurry of litigation.

The initiative has generated more than 30,000 complaints against people accused of sharing songs online. Only one case has gone to trial; nearly everyone else settled out of court to avoid damages and limit the attorney fees and legal costs that escalate over time.

Nesson intervened after a federal judge in Boston asked his office to represent Joel Tenenbaum, who was among dozens of people who appeared in court in RIAA cases without legal help.

The 24-year-old Tenenbaum is a graduate student accused by the RIAA of downloading at least seven songs and making 816 music files available for distribution on the Kazaa file-sharing network in 2004. He offered to settle the case for $500, but music companies rejected that, demanding $12,000.

The Digital Theft Deterrence Act, the law at issue in the case, sets damages of $750 to $30,000 for each infringement, and as much as $150,000 for a willful violation. That means Tenenbaum could be forced to pay $1 million if it is determined that his alleged actions were willful.

It is better that Britney should die. . . .

It was the high priest Caiaphas who decided "it is better for you that one man should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish."

He was worried this Jesus character was becoming too popular, that the Jews would come to worship Him as a god, and that would bring the terrible might of the Roman Empire down on all their heads. So the math was easy -- Jesus had to go. Better Him than many thousands.

Caiaphas obviously was a man after 21st-century America's heart. Trouble is, the Romans wiped out Israel anyway . . . albeit a few decades down the road. And not because of the Jesus Thing.

I WONDER how much -- in our own postmodern American Way -- we have determined that it is better that now-famous-for-being-famously-troubled Britney Spears should die so that the whole nation may not . . . what? Call it "Psychotherapy Is Not Enough."

The thought occurred to me tonight as I was browsing yet another volume in the library of Britney Goes Mental coverage -- this one from Rolling Stone -- consuming the worldwide press nowadays. It's really beyond debate that this poor child is likely to die, probably fairly soon, due to whatever usually befalls famous, psychologically troubled addicts living life on the edge in the company of the People Who Prey Upon Them.

And the best that we, as a society, can muster is to stand around and gawk at the spectacle of it all. It's as if we have stumbled upon a bad car crash, there's horribly injured young people trapped inside the ball of twisted metal and broken glass, and the whole mess is starting to catch fire.

No cops yet. No fire truck or paramedics, either.

So what do we do? Pose next to the broken bodies of the dying victims while the significant other takes pictures with the camera phone . . . of course.

And Junior -- a pragmatic lad, he -- grabs a bag of marshmallows, snaps off the antenna from the burning, wrecked car, and starts making delicious, roasted treats for the gathering crowd. At a quarter a marshmallow.

LIKE I SAID, that's what occurred to me as I read this excerpt of an upcoming Rolling Stone article:

In person, Britney is shockingly beautiful — clear skin, ruby lips, a perfectly proportioned twenty-six-year-old porcelain doll with a nasty weave. She cuts through the crowd swiftly, the way she used to when 20,000 adoring fans mobbed her outside a concert, with her paparazzi boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib, trailing behind.

Only a few kids are in the store, a young girl with her brother and two blondes checking out fake-gold charm bracelets. Britney rifles the racks as the Cure's "Pictures of You" blasts into the airless pink boutique, grabbing a pink lace dress, a few tight black numbers and a frilly red crop top, the kind of shirt that Britney used to wear all the time at seventeen but isn't really appropriate for anyone over that age. Then she ducks into the dressing room with Ghalib. He emerges with her black Am Ex.

The card won't go through, but they keep trying it.

"Please," begs Ghalib, "get this done quickly."

One of the girls runs to Britney's dressing room, explaining the situation through a pink gauze curtain.

A wail emerges from the cubby — guttural, vile, the kind of base animalistic shriek only heard at a family member's deathbed. "F*** these bitches," screams Britney, each word ringing out between sobs. "These idiots can't do anything right!"

Ghalib dashes over to console her, but she's already spitting, growling, throwing a big bottle of soda on the floor so that it begins to spill underneath the curtain, and then she's got a box of tissues and is throwing them on top of the wet floor along with piles of discarded merchandise. A new card finally goes through, but by then Britney is out the door, leaving her shirt on the ground and replacing it with the red top. "F*** you, f*** people, f*** , f*** , f*** ," she keeps screaming, her face splotchy and red as she crosses the interminable mall floor, the crowd behind her growing larger and larger. "Leave us alone!" yells Ghalib.

The siblings run after Britney to get a video to put up on YouTube, and some of the shopgirls run after her to hand off the merchandise she left behind, and there's an entire bridal party wearing yellow T-shirts who have pulled out camera phones too. A crush of managers in black shirts and gold name tags try to keep the peace, but the crowd running after Britney gets larger, and now the shopgirls have ­started to catch up to her, one of them slipping spectacularly in her platform shoes, grazing her elbow. She pulls herself up, mustering the strength to tap Britney's shoulder. "Um, I'm from the South too," she mumbles, "and I was wondering if I could get a picture with you for my little sister."

Britney turns to Ghalib and grabs his arm. "I don't want her talking to me!" she screams. She whirls around and stares the girl deep in the eyes, her lips almost vibrating with anger. "I don't know who you think I am, bitch," she snarls, "but I'm not that person."

BRIT MUST DIE. Because we demand it.

We won't admit that, any of us, but it doesn't make it any less so. If the bitch lives, the narrative is dramatically compromised. And even reality TV needs a compelling dramatic narrative . . . and redemption is so f-ing Bing Crosby playing yet another Catholic priest in an old black-and-white movie, you know?

Nope. The ho gotta go.

It is better for us that one Britney should die instead of the people, so that the whole nation may not perish. See, if this Greek tragedy in a modern Rome doesn't conclude with a media riot in a cemetery in Kentwood, La., we shall not be spared.

There will be a defective morality play to deal with. Then there will be ourselves to deal with.

If Brit doesn't die, then we're not any better than her, ultimately. Losers die while people laugh. We're not dead, and we're unaware of the laughter, so we're not losers. Or at least not as bad a loser as Britney Spears, who could not overcome being hillbilly trailer trash, alas.

Which is why she couldn't deal with all the drink, drugs, divorce, promiscuity, selfishness and extreme materialism. Or with the mental illness.

Unlike ourselves, who have a pretty good handle on things. That is why we can fake a long face for the benefit of Brit, even though the economy depends on her remaining miserable . . . at a bare minimum.

YEP, WE'RE DOING FINE right here in America, the New Jerusalem. And we think we can well afford our crocodile tears, as did a people long ago and far away.

Yet, there is that Cassandra's cry, drifting across millennia, settling -- unsettling, actually -- somewhere on the fringe of our consciousness as we ever more desperately try to overwhelm it with cacophony:

"Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep instead for yourselves and for your children, for indeed, the days are coming when people will say, 'Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed.' "

Dear RIAA: You Custer. Us Crazy Horse.

Thanks, RIAA! Now what the people are doing with your labels' music isn't stealing anymore. It's a political protest.

And I say "Power to the People!"

When the recording industry resorts to treating its customers like common criminals for ripping CDs they've bought onto the hard drives of computers they own, as detailed in this Washington Post story, it's time to engage in political acts aimed at bringing down those corporate tyrants:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE to know is this: How many people use iTunes software? How many have used it to rip their CDs onto their computers? How many people have music on their iPods that originally was on a CD they bought?

Now, does the RIAA think it can lock us all up? It might get some of us, but the ones it doesn't -- and that number will be legion -- will kill the record labels dead.

Book it.

You act like you're George Armstrong Custer. We are Crazy Horse. And we buy WhoopAss by the case.