2 posts in one day, damn I'm on a roll.

I was driving home today, playing Kidz in the Hall's latest release (The In Crowd) on my Ipod. As I skipped driving down the block, it hit me, I hadn't listened to radio in a long ass while. The digital age, well really apple's Ipod and the apple care replacement plan, made it possible for me to never have to listen to the radio or buy CD's.

Judging from apple's brisk sales of Ieverythings I am definitely not alone. This got me to thinking, with the cost of computers, Mp3 players, and broadband internet connections declining, how long much longer will the vast majority of people listen to the radio? Think about it. Primarily, I used to listen to the radio while in cars. However, with the advent of the CD player and cd player cassette adaptors the radio was abrubtly cut out of my life. With cars becoming more and more digitally intergrated, as any Cadillac or Ford Commercial will attest, will radio completely die out?

Well maybe I'm being a little morbid, radio will live on, I think that there will always be people who will listen to it the profitability of sattelite radio seems to attest to that. But the CD's lease on life seems to be inching toward a close, with declining CD sales and increasing use of the internet to get music it seems that the internet is quickly replacing CD stores. In my three years at college I have bought less than a quarter the number of CD's that I bought in my last three years of high school. This is not to say that I bought fewer albums, the number of itunes charges on my credit card statements can speak to that, but I made fewer trips to the CD store.

The greater implication for the death of the CD format is what will happen to music distibution. Itunes has been a great success, but it essentially works within the confines of the traditional label machinery. Radiohead's digital release of in Rainbows is a different beast, done without a label, their radiohead's independant digital release might revolutionize the music market. Why shouldn't independant artists raise money through shows buy hot beats, make a hot album, and sell it to people through the internet. They can build buzz via youtube, myspace, facebook, imeem, countless music forums, and countless music blogs. Think about all the possibilities of actually doing this, the main and most important one would be real artistic Freedom. Had Nas done this we might actually be looking foward to an album with the powerful name Nigger, instead of a much less interesting sounding title, Untitled.

I mean there's nothing new under the sun, so I'm sure that someone has begun the process I've described above already. I wish them luck

in the meantime I'ma leave you with some radiohead, complements youtube:



enjoy!

BET I call BS on you.

So, I'm trapped in Trinidad, without any of my close friends, and very little to do. Where do I turn for comfort, on a Saturday morning, during these dark depressing times? To BET J and specifically to Soul Sessions. If there was any indication of how fucked up the fact thart viacom owns BET is, it is the fact that VH1 Soul represents Soul and Neo Soul music better than BET J's Soul Sessions.
These were the five videos I caugh when I stumbled onto BET J this morning:
Honey by Erykah Badu of her latest, and very good album, Amerykah.



Rising Up by the roots feat. Wale and Chrisette Michelle of their latest, and ridiculously good album, Rising Down.



and then it all went to hell and 4 minutes by Madonna feat. Timberland and Justin Timberlake came on



This was followed by Kanye West feat. T. Pain with the now ancient the Goodlife



And to end the soul sessions American Boy by Estelle Feat. Kanye West

.

Now I fuck with all of these songs, except Madonna's. However, only two of them can actually be considered Neo-Soul. Wait, wasn't the name of the video block the Soul Sessions. The programming director, or whoever decides what videos to show in that block should feel ashamed. But, i think that this is indicative of a larger problem, the fact that what was once a black owned and run enterprise is now, white owned. Black people still run it, badly, and have done little to improve the image of black people in the media, sometimes even stifling voices that run counter current to the mainstream, Little brother's banning for being too intelligent being a prime example.
All this considered it seems like BET and Viacom add insult to injury by playing pop videos during a soul session. The insult being that white people know soul better than black people, remember that I mentioned VH1 soul being respectable earlier.

But fuck it all let's start the day on a HIGH note: