DudeAsInCool

Here's what the new 1 Inch Panasonic looks like - I'll take one of these, too :)

Former Presidential nominee and Senator, George McGovern, has called for Bush and Cheney's impeachment, in an editorial in the Washington Post CNN Jack Cafferty notess the editorial and asks "Why Won't Congress Impeach Them?", and then follows up with typical angry quotes from the viewers: Read More The people in the United States want change...

They did: The recording industry continued to benefit from mobile music, with mobile phone owners buying 220 million ringtones, the firm said.

"Driver's Seat" is perhaps the most popular song by British new wave band Sniff'n The Tears. It was released in 1978 and reached #11 in the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in the US. A big hit in many countries. It also reached the #1 spot in the Netherlands when re-relased in 1992. A tip of the hat to Fark/Blender for the find.

She left me speechless and almost spam free :)

The Shenanigans are a clever young new indie quartet, who hail from Golspie, a small village in Northern Scotland. The band, which was created out of a sense of boredom and drunken antics just 18 months ago when they were in high school, consists of four longtime friends -- Daniel 'Wordsmith' Stewart (Songwriter/Lead Vocals/Guitar), Robert 'Bob Thomas' Runciman (Vocals/Bass Guitar), Alan 'Titty' Mackay (Guitar) and Neil 'The Funk Creator' MacLaren (Drums). The band does nothing fancy - it's a basic guitar and drum group which fuses basic rock with witty lyrics. And that is exactly what I like about their music, which reminds me of the early Kinks -- it's raw, honest, unpretentious, and they seem to be having a good time with it. Frontman Daniel Stewart says the band has a lot of new music to record and that they hope to start playing live soon. They will be on my radar in 2008. You can sample The Shenanigans work right HERE. - I particularly liked the song, "High Heeled Minx". Enjoy.

An analysis from the Lefsetz Letter: You've all been reading about the plunge in album sales this year, a total of 15%. But if you think sales are dropping across the board, on a strict percentage basis, you're wrong. The best sellers are taking a disproportionate hit. In other words, they're just not selling THAT WELL! Sales in 2007, including both physical and digital, topped out at 500.5 million albums. The peak year was 2000, when 785 million units were sold. So, you'd expect sales of best sellers to drop by approximately one third, or 36.25%, to be exact. The best selling albums of 2000 were: 1. "No Strings Attached/'N Sync: 9,936,104 2. "Marshall Mathers LP"/Eminem: 7,921,107 3. "Oops!...I Did It Again"/Britney Spears: 7,893,544 4. "Human Clay"/Creed: 6,587,834 5. "Supernatural"/Santana: 5,857,824 6. "Beatles 1"/Beatles: 5,068,300 7. "Country Grammar"/Nelly: 5,067,529 8. "Black & Blue"/Backstreet Boys: 4,289,865 9. "Dr. Dre 2001"/Dr. Dre: 3,992,311 10. "Writing's On The Wall"/Destiny's Child: 3,802,165 The best selling albums of 2007 were: 1. "Noel"/Josh Groban: 3,699,000 2. "Soundtrack"/ High School Musical 2: 2,957,000 3. "Long Road Out of Eden"/Eagles: 2,608,000 4. "As I Am"/Alicia Keys: 2,543,000 5. "Daughtry"/Daughtry: 2,497,000 6. "Soundtrack"/Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley: 2,489,000 7. "Minutes To Midnight"/Linkin Park: 2,099,000 8. "Dutchess"/Fergie: 2,064,000 9. "Taylor Swift"/Taylor Swift: 1,951,000 10."Graduation"/Kanye West: 1,892,000 So, the drop from number one over the past seven years was a whopping 62.77%! Number two: also a 62% drop. Number three: 67% drop. Number four: 61% drop. Number five: 57% drop. Number six: 50% drop. Number seven: 58% drop. Number eight: 51% drop. Number nine: 51% drop. Number ten: 50% drop. In other words, best sellers aren't selling tonnage! They're outpacing the decline of the industry SIGNIFICANTLY!

Top Socialist has posted the Top 27 Hilarious Album Covers Of All Time See More

Here's another interview, this one is from Gizmodo: In the first segment of our Bill Gates CES 2008 interview, we asked the difference between Apple's approach and Microsoft's approach when it comes to product releases. Apple steers clear of products that might be iffy in their first iteration—portable music rentals; DVR—whereas Microsoft rolls out stuff that may not be quite ready. Bill's response is illuminating, direct and humble. Watch

According to Wikipedia, "She Wants Revenge's sound is influenced by '80s bands and acts like Prince, Erik B and Rakim, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, Danse Society, The Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode, early The Sisters of Mercy[1], and Suicide." That sounds like rock to me - what musical genre would you put them in?

Engadget sat down with Bill Gates at CES for an "Exit Interview": Is there anything on the table that you feel like you never really got to see through or fully accomplish? Well, the tablet is not mainstream. Reading off the screen is not mainstream. Getting your TV over the internet -- we talked here about how Mediaroom is up to a million users. But that's just on its way to mainstream, that's not mainstream yet. So when I think about all the different scenarios, there are some that we've have made a lot more progress than on than others. Productivity, for example, although there is still a lot to be done on that. Computing in the cloud is this whole new frontier of how you make software automatically manage the hardware resources, recover, and load balance -- there's some phenomenal things we are doing related to that, both for the consumer and business computing. So this is an amazing time. I believe that all these things will happen but it takes time. Just like the medical technology -- things I'll be working on in the future -- those will take more time than I'd like. Read More

Who Would Jesus Vote For?

The Shins - Sleeping Lessons (Live At the Crystal Ballroom) - Via Pitchfork

Idolator: "Michael Jackson Will Not Stop Until London Audiences Have Had Enough (And Maybe Not Even Then)" "Don't Stop"

Good 'dirt' is more fun.

Stereogum notes that the BBC has announced its "Top 10 Expected Breakout Artists", which was published in the NME today. Teenage Londoner Adele topped the list, which was decided by over 150 music critics. 10 Santogold 09 MGMT 08 Black Kids 07 Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong 06 Vampire Weekend 05 Foals 04 Glasvegas 03 The Ting Tings 02 Duffy 01 Adele NMEs next issue, which will be on the newsstands next week, is devoted to new talent.

Classically trained Chicago songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird recently performed at the The Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival in Seattle and NPR and KEXP on hand to capture the performance. According to NPR, "Andrew Bird began his musical studies at age 4, on the violin, and over the years has developed a unique sound originating in blues, folk (American and European) and rock. Armchair Apocrypha, Bird's eighth full-length album in 10 years, showcases his ongoing evolution from traditional to electronic influences, as he collaborates with electronic musician Martin Dosh." Listen to the show here - the set list is below. Enjoy. Photo by Allie Pasquier for NPR

I've always preferred the anything goes spirt of the Golden Globes to the staid Academy Awards, so the following is disappointing news: Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood reports that "...the Hollywood writers strike can now claim its first awards show casualty. I'm hearing from my sources that NBC will not be broadcasting the big Golden Globes show as planned for January 13th. Nor will even a full frills unbroadcasted dinner party be held, either. Instead, a stripped down news telecast will be aired exclusively by NBC News from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, site of what was supposed to be the big show, where the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will announce the Golden Globe winners who won't be present in the room." Read More "Update: Writers Guild Of America has told the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that the union won't picket the 2008 Golden Globes as long as it isn't broadcast by AMPTP member NBC. But now NBC isn't allowing the HFPA to hold an untelevised awards show by arguing that the media group is contractually obligated to have the network broadcast the Golden Globes on January 13th or a pushed-back date." Read More

Good for u, mb!

The UKs Daily Star suggests that Coldlay's "fourth album could be their last proper studio effort for the struggling label, who have seen Sir Paul McCartney and Radiohead leave in the past year. Chris Martin, 30, right, and Co can fulfill their current five-album deal with EMI /Parlophone by issuing a Best Of collection in 2009, thus making the multi-platinum selling act free agents." Read More

File under "I want one!" "Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp will begin selling a 108-inch LCD television later this year, executives told the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday," according to a Reuters report. "Executives also said at a news conference that Sharp had developed a prototype 65-inch liquid crystal display TV that was just over 1 inch thick and weighed 23 percent less than previous models." Read More

What else is new? Here are some stats for 2007 from Nielsen's SoundScan - note that overall music sales were up 14% when you include digital sales.... If overall music sales are up, what is all the crap we hear about downloading killing the music business? Some Stats • U.S. album sales plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006 (includes sales of digital singles are counted as 10-track equivalent albums) • There was a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks - 844.2 million digital tracks sold in 2007, compared to 588.2 million in 2006, • 500.5 million albums sold as CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats (down 15 percent from 2006) • Digital album sales accounting for 10 percent of total album purchases. • Apple Inc.'s iTunes Music Store became the third-largest music retailer in the U.S. • Overall music purchases, including albums, singles, digital tracks and music videos, rose to 1.35 billion units, up 14 percent from 2006. Read More

Variety reports that Lou Reed will be the Keynote speaker -- and that he will be appearing in conjunction with a screening of Julian Schnabel's film "Lou Reed's 'Berlin," a documentary about his 1973 landmark album. Austin's 360 music blog reports that R.E.M. has confirmed a slot, no doubt to promote their 14th album, “Accelerate,” which will be released April 1, 2008. For more info, please visit the Official SXSW Website.

When the pros at TorrentFreak want to share a torrent with newbies or family members, they turn to BitComet Lite and Bitlet for their ease of use: "BitComet Lite is one of them, it’s basically a small BitTorrent client with a .torrent file included." "BitLet is a very neat web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files without having BitTorrent client installed." Read More

Billboard reports that "the Alternative Distribution Alliance, an independent distributor owned by the Warner Music Group, has acquired indie music lifestyle store Insound.com." " ...ADA made the move to expand its capabilities by providing a digital-store solution to its labels and to its indie accounts, according to sources familiar with the deal." Read More