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After splitting into five separate personalities for 2007's American Doll Posse, Tori Amos pulls herself back together again on her latest. The result is a set of prog-inspired balladry with less bounce than her last disc. The plodding "Strong Black Vine" has Amos saving folks from "that evil faith" over strings straight out of Zeppelin's "Kashmir," and "Police Me" is a multitracked mess of percussion, orchestration and New Wave synth lines. Among the standouts: the ballad "Maybe California"

The cover of It's Frightening depicts the violent collision of a drummer and a pianist — an apt portrayal of White Rabbits' clacking rhythm rock. Like TV on the Radio, this Brooklyn-via-Missouri six-piece put the beat first, launching their second album with "Percussion Gun," which vibrates like a tribal drum line. Britt Daniel produced the record, and as on Spoon tunes, pounding piano leads the way on the Radiohead-esque "Midnight and I" and "Lionesse."

On this one, we turn our attention to dancehall, known for its hard edge and gangsta characters. Well some dancehall artists act gangsta but some are actually born and raised in that environment and it definitely comes out loud and clear in their music.

That leads us to David C. Brooks A.K.A. Mavado, the blazing hot Jamaican danchall artist out of “Cuba”, a hard Kingston ghetto which no doubt helped shape his musical identity.

Elephant Man is a strong singer and an event stronger performer. One of Jamaica’s finest. He dropped “Let’s Get Physical” on the Bad Boy label. He’s still affiliated to VP Records as Bad Boy and VP Records are like his co-labels. Just because of the Bad Boy influence, I was expecting a change of direction from his past work, at least for this project. This album is not rooted in the hardcore dancehall vibes we’ve come to know and love Elephant Man for. Then again, an artist should surprise his audience and to his credit, he did throw us a curved ball with this reggae project.
There is quite an eclectic mix of songs on this album. However, that comes at a price.

There’s a post up on Slide to Play claiming that Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 might become available for the iPhone in the coming months. According to the article, Lti Gray Matter have already sucessfully ported the game across to the iPhone platform and is just waiting for Activision (the licence holders) to approve the game for sale through the App Store.

According to Billboard.com, rapper Yung Joc would love to sue Diddy and his Bad Boy Records, as well as Block Entertainment over a list of contractual discrepancies.

These include – but may not be limited to – failure to pay advances and royalties for the rapper’s first two albums.

Yung Joc was apparently charged “outrageous clearance fees” when he collaborated on tracks with other artists.

Yung Joc wants Diddy and co. to know that he isn’t “some chump in this shit.”

He complains that he received a measly $25,000 advance for his first album, and though he had a million dollar budget for his second album, he received no advance.

For his third album (he complains further) he again only received $25,000.

According to the rapper, his main issues are with Block Entertainment, though he says Diddy and co. have been less than accommodating.

“Diddy says he’s got to stay out of it because it’s between me and Block Entertainment. I was never signed to Block Entertainment, but they’ve been interfering with a lot of my business. I feel like [Bad Boy] isn’t doing anything to try to intervene and help the situation.”

The pending lawsuit, says Yung Joc, is nothing personal: “I’m not even griping; I’m just letting it be known that what’s fair is fair, and I haven’t been treated fairly. I’ve been fighting for a year and a half. I’m prepared to weather the storm. So they could kiss my ass, and let’s go to court.”

Access Music announced today the OS3 official release for the Virus Ti line of synthesizers. OS3 has been released for the entire Virus TI range of products after some month of public beta testing. The new operating system features many new effects including a tape delay, a phlethora of new distortion types and a ring shifter.

According to the company, “We also launched the next public beta cycle for OS version 3.0.2 which will focus on stability and performance. The new OS version is available for public testing today.”

Downloaders/users of previous versions are encouraged to install OS 3.0.1.

Download it here today - www.virus.info/downloadvirusos.php4 .

“What are the new, web-native, social & inter-connected business models that will power the future of content creators and their industries?

In 2008, the disruptive force of the Internet finally hit home, and - as is usually the case - it all came much later than we had estimated but the disruption was also much bigger than expected. A quick look at some trends in this context:

* Newspaper revenues are seriously down (25% in some cases); and magazines and other print media are severely challenged, as well
* Digital music revenues are still going up, overall, but very very very far from enough to stop the free-fall of the recorded music industry, in general (approx 20%, globally, would be my estimate for 2008) *pennies for $$, see below
* DVD sales are declining, worldwide, prices are falling, too - and this will only accelerate next year
* Online video views and audiences are up a lot - but so far pretty much everybody has trouble making any real money with online video

“My hunch is that the Internet may well - and soon - bring us an utterly scary reduction of traditional content models that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:5, i.e. if you keep relying on the old ‘disconnected’ content revenues models you may eventually see only 1/5th of the financial returns that you had before. This could vary by industry, location and context, of course, but I would dare say that if you stick to your old models the future will be bleak, either way - and this goes for the actual creators but even much more so for the businesses that are build around them.

To me, the bottom line is that most of what used to work just fine in a disconnected world of ‘totally segregated consumers and producers’ will simply not work in the future.

This is why I think 2009 will be year of:

* Totally exploding consumer / user / fan / listener / viewer empowerment (yes, you ain’t seen nothing yet - wait until 2 Billion + people are wirelessly connected via increasingly smart and easy-to-use mobile devices)
* Re-inventing content commerce (such as: charge for access… not just units, bundle content into access, freemium etc)
* Re-evaluating copyright as that sacrosanct, sole, principal, or even main driver of revenue - the solution for what I like to call ‘digital payment-refusal’ aka piracy is not a technological issue but a business problem
* Re-inventing advertising (since new kinds of advertising will no doubt be one of the future drivers of content commerce, as well)
* Getting the telecoms and network operators aboard - for they can’t make it work without content, either!

And now for Napster’s next act…

With its 10-year anniversary around the corner, one-time music ‘biz bad boy Napster announced Monday a new subscription service featuring a $5 per month pricing plan that allows subscribers unlimited, on-demand streaming access to their library of more than 7 million tracks.

The kicker in the new deal is that you get to download and keep five songs per month in DRM-free MP3 format. Not too shabby. Put those tracks right onto the iPod, Zune or whatever. Let’s note that beyond the five freebies, if you want more MP3s, it’ll cost you between 69¢ and $1.29 — same as our friends at iTunes or Amazon.

The updated service also offers more than 60 commercial-free radio stations with more than 1,400 pre-programmed play-lists.

Best Buy SVP of entertainment Julie Owen said:

“A decade ago, Napster revolutionized the way people discovered and enjoyed music. The brand that started it all is shaking things up again with a new service that provides music lovers continued access to the entertainment experience they’ve come to expect of Napster and Best Buy.”

This is the first major re-launch of Napster since mega-retailer Best Buy acquired the service last year; the company plans to sell prepaid cards redeemable for the monthly service in Best Buy stores.

Anyone interested in trying the subscription model can try Napster for free for seven days and then pay $12.95 a month for the subscription plan.

One-time bane of the RIAA, Metallica and let’s just go ahead and say the music industry as a whole (not the music consumers though, we loved it), Napster has had quite a digital decade. Founder Shawn Fanning’s music file sharing service was shuttered in 2001 and brought back to life in 2003 by Roxio as a legit service. To say it caught the recording industry off guard would be a thunderous understatement. Whether or not they’ve recovered remains a good topic – but probably not for music execs.

Not sure yet how the new Napster is going to compare with Rhapsody, iTunes, Zune Marketplace, Pandora, Lala, and other services, but on the surface it appears to be a pretty sweet deal. It’s not a digital music game-changer, but an improvement nonetheless.

However, let’s not forget sites like Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker, for example, are free services, and good a deal as $5 per-month is, it’s still not free.

However again: the five, free MP3s each month is a nice bonus.

The new Napster offering is now available for U.S. residents at www.napster.com

Are you curious to check out Napster’s $5/month unlimited streaming service, or is that still too much to pay for music?

Track List:
1. It’s Five O’Clock
2. Wake Up
3. Take Your Time
4. Annabelle Lee
5. Let Me Love, Let Me Live
6. Funky Mary
7. Good Time So Fine
8. Marie Jolie
9. Such a Funny Night

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