Just when you thought it was safe to come back to my blog- I bring in a doozy.  I stumbled upon this great post dedicated to ranking the many, many saxophone solos of 1980s pop music. For the uninitiated, the 1980s were a great decade, rife with many kitchsy works of music... many of which were spotted with the obligatory saxophone solo- mid song. I think most of these solos are rediculous and cant believe that someone actually took the time to create a review of them (with audio clips!).  But nonetheless here they are.  Enjoy today's diversion and just be thankful that we are no longer in the Sax Solo Decade. http://imacomputa.org/sax/
Copyright Law told through a Disney Parody
Brilliant. Bloody Brilliant.
I know this is quite old, but nonetheless thought I would resserect it. I am finding myself a big fan of the many Copyright VS Fair Use videos out in the interwebs. I may just have to make this a weekly post...
Royalty Free Music VS Classical Cues
(This is a Simul-post from ClassicalCues.blogspot.com a music licensing blog that I contribute to.) I happened to stumble upon a fantastic blog post today while looking at my Google Alert updates. The post comes from a blog called MediaMusicNow. This is the blog of a British entrepreneur named Lee Pritchard who started a royalty-free music company which goes by the same name. The reason I make it a point to bring attention to this blog is the great simplicity in which Lee explains the licensing process. Starting with the conventional old-school major label model and moving to his own royalty free model, he explains much of the intracacies in very easy to read graphs and visuals that help even the most un-initiated get a feeling for the processes involved.
From the 3 main aspects of licensing
To the "old" standard of music licensing
Normally I am not an outspoken fan of royalty-free music as many companies in the sphere have (in my own opinion) de-valued recorded music - at least commercial recorded music. (I believe the phrase “Royalty-Free Music†is a bit of an oxymoron) Many of their buyout plans and bargain basement pricing make it nearly impossible for a label to compete and it just tends to make life a bit more difficult for folks like myself who represent a record label. The only saving grace for a record label is to rest assured that the superb quality of your recordings will out-weigh the discount of having picked your music up from a royalty free music library. Even with my internal feelings about the concept of royalty free music, I am able to find quite a few comparisons in the usage of Classical music for licensing projects and these royalty free one-stops. I would say approximately 85% of the deals I do involve music that is in the public domain, thus removing the publisher from the equation. At that point, I am basically serving as a one-stop licensing solution much as MediaMusicNow and the other companies in that part of the business. One-stop shopping and quick turnaround on deals is one of the things we pride ourselves on and no-doubt this is something that is important to filmmakers and other professionals on a tight production time line.
I urge anyone wishing to learn more about the process of music licensing, copyright and the music industry to check out Lee’s blog as it is chalked-full of great information. Heck, I even urge you to license some music from him for your next project as long as it isn’t Classical music . For that, you of course know to look here!
10 Most Creative People in Music?
Fast Company just announced their 100 Most Creative People in Business, and subsequently their 10 Most Creative People in Music lists for this year. Many of the names on the music list are recognizable and some might even be deserving this recognition, but come on... Soulja Boy as the #1 most creative person in the industry simply because he is a shameless self-promoter and used Myspace and YouTube to promote his "Superman Dance" and ultimately launch a career. Ridiculous! There are no doubt some folks on the list (read: Tim Westergren, Alex Patsavas, and Gregg Gillis (Girltalk) who no-doubt deserve to be there, but I think they are stretching it a bit with Soulja Boy and Pharrell. Creativity in the music business means coming up with new ideas. Changing the way people think and changing consumer and fan habits. Shameless self-promotion is a great thing and these folks are rewarded for all of their hard work in album sales, sold out concerts and endorsement deals. It does not, however qualify as creativity and I don't think it should be rewarded as such.
Therefore- I am generating my own addendum to this list. People/groups/companies who really and truly ARE creative. Who have ACTUALLY pushed the envelope. Added to this list should be (in no particular order):
Gerd Leonhard Radiohead Spotify Slacker Jim Griffin
I am sure I missed a few, but these at least round out that list and make up for the idiocy of adding Hip Hop stars to a list of industry creative powerhouses.