You can download the new single “Get Some” of the Swedish artist “Lykke Li” for free from her website. The download link will be send to the e-mail address you enter together with your country. Also included is the b-side “Paris Blue”.
Here is the video clip from director Johan Söderberg:
In January 2009 Nine Inch Nails released 405 GB of HD footage from their 2008 “Lights In The Sky” tour. During a period of twelve months dozens of fans collaborated to produce a professional-quality HD 5.1 concert film. They call themselves “This One Is On Us” and the concert film they named “Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift” is available as a free download from the website in various formats (Blu-ray, DL-DVD, 1080p MOV, for PSP+iPod, etc.).
I shouldn’t forget to mention that there is an audio only version as 320 kbit/s MP3 and FLAC. Download links can be found on this page under “Mastered Audio MP3/FLAC”. It makes a great 32 track life album.
And if you like just browse the website. There is lots of stuff on it besides the film, like rehearsal footage and a concert filmed entirely by fans.
You can watch the whole film on YouTube here or only an excerpt below.
Discipline by Nine Inch Nails on YouTube from fan collaborated concert film production “Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift“.
It’s obvious that Rihanna covered “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell with “SOS”. But did you know that Crazy Town’s Butterfly” samples “Pretty Little Ditty” by Red Hot Chili Peppers? Or that Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” used music from Boney M.?
There’s a whole database about sample-based music called WhoSampled. Try browsing it. It’s astonishing.
“RiP!: A Remix Manifesto” is a 2008 documentary film about copyright in music in past, present and future. It tells many interesting stories surrounding the evolution of music as we know it today and the part copyright plays in that process.
The director Brett Gaylor bases his film on four assumptions:
It starts telling the story of Girl Talk an American musician who creates his music solely by sampling other music. This is against the current copyright laws because he uses copyrighted material of other musicians without permission. So Girl Talk is someone who builds on the past. But Gaylor shows that music was always built on the past. He tracks the traditional folk song “This May Be The Last Time“, recorded by The Staple Singers in 1959, to The Rolling Stones “The Last Time” from 1965, to an instrumental version by Andrew Oldham Orchestra in 1966, to “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve in 1997. The Verve was sued by The Rolling Stones’ publishers and Keith Richards and Mick Jagger took all writing credits.
Lawrence Lessig, a founding board member of the Creative Commons, says that you can’t stop people from using technology to remix culture. You can only criminalize them. He argues that similar to quoting text in an essay one should be allowed to also “quote” film and music to create a new work.
Cory Doctorow, a blogger, journalist and author, who releases his novels under Creative Commons licenses, talks about how business models are changing over time. In the times before radio and record people could only make money from making music by playing it live. The musician had to be charismatic for that to work. With records and radio the need for live performances to earn money from music was gone. From his point of view today large corporations try to save their business models, which are based on selling records. But maybe we reached a point in history where selling records has lost it’s potential to make money. Maybe today the musician has again to perform live to make a living. Why should these companies be allowed to stop these changes from happening? Should the musicians some decades ago have stopped companies from selling records and destroying their business model of live performances?
The film can be watched online in full length (1:26:25) on the website of the National Film Board of Canada in HD. You can also download the film and pay what you want (even nothing at all) on the film’s website.
Here’s the trailer:
Trent Reznor, the front man and leader behind the Nine Inch Nails, started a new project called “How To Destroy Angels” together with his wife Mariqueen Maandig. The third man is Atticus Ross, who was credited as a producer and programmer for the last four NIN albums.
How To Destroy Angels released a self-titled 6-track EP in June 2010. Like the last two NIN albums it was released under a Creative Commons license and can be downloaded from the website.
The music style is not too different from what Nine Inch Nails were doing the last years. If you like them you’ll probably like HTDA.
Besides the free 320 kbps MP3 version, you can choose to buy a lossless (FLAC/ALAC) version vor $2.00 USD. Included is the music video for “The Space In Between” in 1080p and 480p video quality.
Watch the music video on vimeo:
How To Destroy Angels: The Space in Between [HD] from How To Destroy Angels on Vimeo.
The film “The Social Network” is about the founding of Facebook and will be released on the October 1, 2010. The director David Fincher also directed the music video of “Only” by Nine Inch Nails in 2005. Therefore it may not be too surprising that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails got to write the score.
Five tracks of the score are now available as free downloads from the website of The Null Corporation, which is the label that also released the two NIN albums “Ghosts I-IV”, “The Slip” and the How To Destroy Angels EP.
The full 19 tracks are available as CD ($8.00 USD), HD Blu-ray Audio ($20.00 USD), and Vinyl ($25.00 USD).
Watch the trailer:
The Social Network Official Trailer -In theatres Oct 1 2010 by SonyPictures on YouTube.
U.S.-based 24 year old Professor Kliq produces music somewhere between Readiohead, Fatboy Slim and The Prodigy. He is currently studying music at the Columbia College in Chicago and describes his style as something between Big-Beat, Ambient and Trip-Hop. All his music is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA.
You can pre-listen and download all his music from his website.
Listen to my favorite track “Ode To Charles” from the album “Guns Blazin'”:
[audio:https://www.professorkliq.com/music/guns/10.mp3|title=Ode To Charles|artist=Professor Kliq]
Here’s another cool band releasing their music under Creative Commons licenses.
The Kyoto Connection is based in Argentina and released their sixth album “No Headphones Required” in July 2010. It contains eleven songs in 80s style synthpop. Each of their albums is available under CC-BY-NC-ND from the Internet Archive which hosts a lot of CC licensed music. The album is pretty awesome. You should check it out. I really can’t stop listening to it.
Here are my two favorite tracks:
All albums can be downloaded from the band’s website.
