response 41 of 71:

Oct 6 06:35 UTC 2001

re#40: At first I thought what a dumb question.  And then as I believe
the only truely dumb question is the one that is never even though of
much less asked...  The US could change the national anthem every year,
and maybe someday it will (in my opinion twood be a bad sign).  But one
could dismiss the question, 'yeah, next thing you know we change the
flag every year'. 

Fact is, while we don't do it every year the last time we changed the US
flag was as recent as 1959 - not that long ago and it has gone through
many many changes over the course of our nation's history.  But on the
other hand it is the same flag - same design, same concept so I guess
its the same flag. (If you look at the 1813 US Flag you would recognize
it - the flag that inspired 'our national anthem' -sung to the tune of a
popular british drinking song...and written during the 'War of 1812') 
(We all know the proper lyrics to the brit's national anthem, "My
country tis of thee, Sweet land of Liberty...." written much earlier.)

I guess the answer is, "Because that would not be proper".  And yet,
what kind of an answer is that?  What is a 'national anthem'?  An
enduring musical symbol of the nation.  Well, then we can't change it
every year.  Yet, until 1916 when Woodrow Wilson ordered that it be the
'national anthem' played by the military and naval services we did
without an official one for 126 years - and since it wasn't written
until 1814 we'd done without it specifically for 24 years (or longer
depending on if you think the USA was founded in 1776 or 1790).  (One
could suggest that the 1931 Congressional Act of 3/3/1931 officially
designating by act of congress a fact that had previously been ordered
'by executive order' was simply 'the commies have a cool national song,
we should have one too' while at the same time making a point in the
struggle between the executive and legislative branches.)  It should be
noted that the third 'verse' of our now 'National Anthem' was not sung
by the time it became the 'official' - so we do change it, although not
every year.

My own opinion is that as the pace of cultural changes due to technology
increased there was a social need for 'constant enduring symbols' sort
of as an 'anchor' or 'security blanket' ((C)Shultz).  We socially need
cultural ikons.  One should note that the first thing the successor
nation to the USSR did was to revert to the old Czar's colors (without
the royal crest), and the second was the choose a new 'national anthem'.
And just recently they reverted to the old 'soviet' anthem, but with new
lyrics.  

response 43 of 71:

Oct 18 19:06 UTC 2001

This item didn't really go where I was hoping it would; we already 
had the Napster item.
 
One particular meltdown I've been watching is the sales of Mariah 
Carey.  Virgin/EMI lured her away from Columbia/Sony with a deal worth
between 80 and 100 million dollars for four albums.  However, 
the sales of her new album GLITTER have not been impressive at 
all.  The album debuted at #7 with first week sales of about 116,000
copies; this was roughly one-third of what her last album sold 
in its debut week.  The album has steadily marched down the charts.
As of today it's at #34, with total sales of about a million.
Admittedly this includes the month following the attacks, but 
even in comparison to other CD sales right now, this is an 
incredibly bad performance, given what EMI invested in her.
(A million CDs sold would be a fine figure if the label hadn't
invested around 100 times that in the artist...)
(For comparison, the soundtrack to "O Brother Where Art Thou,"
which cost next to nothing up front, is at #19 on the chart.)

EMI chief Ken Berry has been sacked, though the Mariah deal 
was probably only part of his problems; he failed twice to get the 
company merged with another label.  There's a published rumor 
today (http://www.newmediamusic.com) that EMI is looking to 
extract itself from its contract with Mariah.

I suspect -- haven't done the research -- that the multimillion dollar
advance deals given to superstars have almost always failed for the 
labels.  I shouldn't just pick on Mariah here: I very much doubt that 
REM's megadeal paid off for Warner.

response 45 of 71:

Oct 18 20:42 UTC 2001

I think the answer to the first part of Mike's resp:44 is ::
there are only five major record companies, and they are all making 
the same mistake of wildly overpaying for yesterday's top talent.
Entry to the oligopoly has proven impossible for anyone for at least
25 years, though the Zomba label is making a good run at it.

response 47 of 71:

Oct 19 00:54 UTC 2001

What are the five major companies and how many minor ones are there?
(roughly, or do you count anyone with a CD burner)

response 49 of 71:

Oct 19 03:27 UTC 2001

After a little Google search:  NAIRD renamed itself as AFIM, the 
Association For Independent Music, and their online directory 
lists 531 members, not all of which are record companies.  
It looks like the list is almost all North American.

response 51 of 71:

Oct 19 20:04 UTC 2001

Re 50.  Or *designed* to be a write-off.  Does anyone remember "You Know My
Name, Look Up The Number"?  I have heard it twice ever, once in high school,
and again on a very peculiar radio show, which described it as "one of the
more *obscure* songs by the Beatles."

response 53 of 71:

Oct 19 21:07 UTC 2001

  But I digress..  Getting back to the subject at hand, how is it that
  the big-five record companies can make umpteen-million dollar mistakes
  time and time again, pass the costs along to their consumers, and still
  not get dismembered by their competition.  Is there any sensible way to
  account for this without concluding that some pretty serious anti-
  competitive collusion is keeping new players from threatening the
  entrenched powers?

  Even with only five major players (and a small army of smaller labels
  that are essentially vassals of whichever large conglomerate controls
  their distribution) doesn't it seem like a company which sinks $80-100M
  into a "sure thing" like Mariah Carey and then can't get it back should
  really be hurting compared to a company willing to invest that same $80M+
  into developing and promoting 50 relative unknowns in the expectation
  that maybe one or two of them can be developed into Mariah-level sellers?

response 55 of 71:

Oct 21 19:16 UTC 2001

 Sunday's New York Times has a large piece on the 
 difficulties facing the classical music CD business.  The article 
 starts with Tower Records' decision in May to stop ordering from the 
 major independent classical distributors -- the article does say
 that Tower and the distributors have recently come to an agreement.
 
 But with Tower failing in its traditional role as the leading 
 retailer of serious classical music, and with the major labels abandoning
 the field, the article is skeptical about the survival of the business
 of manufacturing and distributing physical discs.  One person quoted 
 in the article brings up the point that David Bratman and I had made 
 earlier: browsing for classical music doesn't work in the online 
 CD stores like Amazon.com, and most of the serious classical collectors 
 seem to be dedicated browsers.
  
 The article suggests that, like it or not, the classical music business
 will rapidly be forced to pure digital distribution, and everybody 
 better get the bigger bandwidth needed to download larger works at 
 higher fidelity.
 
 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/arts/music/21TOMM.html

response 57 of 71:

Oct 22 22:01 UTC 2001

The reason the majors can pour out millions for overpriced artists and 
not get eaten by the competition is that it's a good short-term 
strategy, and all the competition in the same league is doing the same 
thing.

response 59 of 71:

Oct 23 01:00 UTC 2001

  I'm sure that whatever counting scheme they use would be unrecognizable
  to most of us, but it's still got to be impossible to make some of those
  deals pay no matter what sort of accounting tricks you engage in..

response 61 of 71:

Oct 26 15:05 UTC 2001

I wonder if they're connected with Nimbus the CD manufacturer and mastering
house?

response 63 of 71:

Dec 20 02:26 UTC 2001

Matt Drudge pointed to this item from the Sacramento Bee:
 
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1348770p-1418333c.html

A number of big-time musicians are organizing a series of concerts
to raise money for a legal battle over their claim that the 
record companies systematically underpay royalties and generally
cheat the artists.  Participating musicians include 
Elton John, No Doubt, the Eagles, Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks,
Offspring, and Weezer, plus unnamed R&B and country performers.