Obit of the Day: Playlist of the Dead 2012
It is time for Obit of the Day’s annual Playlist of the Dead. So listen to the music, read the posts, and remember some incredible talent we’ve lost over the past twelve months. (The glaring exception is the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch, for whom I was unable to write a post, but I did put “An Open Letter to NYC” on the playlist.)
January
Fred Milano – original member of Dion and the Belmonts
Johnny Otis – “The Godfather of Rhythm and Blues”
Etta James – Grammy winning R&B legend
February
Whitney Houston - Grammy Award-winning singer
Kathryn McDonald – member of Duke Ellington’s orchestra
Billy Strange – guitarist and songwriter, part of the “Wrecking Crew”
Louisiana Red – blues guitarist
Davy Jones – lead singer of The Monkees
March
Jimmy Ellis – backup singer for The Trammps
Eric Lowen – Grammy Award-winning co-writer of “We Belong”
Earl Scruggs – Bluegrass legend
April
Barney McKenna – last of the original Dubliners
Andrew Love – saxophonist and member of the “Memphis Horns”
Levon Helm – legend of rock and folk, member of The Band
Pete Fornatele – WNEW rock DJ
May
Charles “Skip” Pitts – bass player on “Theme from Shaft”
Donna Summer – disco legend and Grammy Award winner
Robin Gibb – member of the Bee Gees
June
Herb Reed – original member of the Platters
Graeme Bell – “The Father of Australian Jazz”
July
Jon Lord – keyboardist for Deep Purple
August
Scott McKenzie – singer, “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”
Willa Ward – member of the gospel group, The Famous Ward Singers
September
“Sugar Boy” Crawford – writer, and original singer, “Iko Iko”
October
R.B. Greaves – writer and singer, “Take a Letter Maria”
Bil Dees – co-writer, “Oh, Pretty Woman”
November
Cleve Duncan – member of The Penguins and lead singer, “Earth Angel”
December
Dave Brubeck – pianist and jazz legend
Fontella Bass – singer of 1965 hit “Rescue Me”
You should be able to find the playlist on Spotify under “Playlist of the Dead 2012” or through my account, Josh Eisenberg.
For more Obit of the Day:
Clever idea for a playlist.
As businesses, Pandora and Spotify are divorced from music. To me, it’s a short logical step to observe that they are doing nothing for the business of music — except undermining the simple cottage industry of pressing ideas onto vinyl, and selling them for more than they cost to manufacture.Alternative rocker Damon Krukowski • Discussing how his 90s-era bands, Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi, have struggled to make any money of note from Spotify and Pandora. In fact, in the most recent quarter, “Pandora paid a total of $64.17 for use of the entire Galaxie 500 catalogue,” he explains, which splits to roughly 33 cents per song per member for the entire catalog. Krukowski’s in an interesting spot — one where the band he’s best known for has a cult audience, but perhaps not one large enough to sustain a high number of listens. Which is no fun for the band, because they need 47,680 listens on Spotify — or 312,000 plays on Pandora — to earn the equivalent earnings they’d get from one album sale.
If you’re wondering why the Spotify desktop software has hardly been updated in a year, it’s because the company is preparing to launch a completely overhauled browser-based version of its streaming music service, multiple sources confirm. Along with moving to the web, the redesign will focus more on discovery, including following the listening habits and playlists of influencers in addition to your friends.
One source even said a lower subscription price for its mobile app could be in the works. With a healthy user base and the record labels’ support, the browser version could help Spotify continue dominating the streaming music spotlight.
If there was one annoyance we had with Spotify (besides the fact they don’t pay artists very much), it was the requirement to have an app on your computer that played the music. This would go a long way towards solving that problem.
We’ve looked really really hard for evidence of cannibalisation, almost unobjectively. Across the business, we’ve been unable to find that evidence.Universal Music UK’s Director of Digital Paul Smernicki • Discussing the effect that streaming services like Spotify have had on the music industry, during the Guardian’s Changing Media Summit on Wednesday. Not only did Smernicki have positive things to say about Spotify, but he was unusually optimistic about physical sales during 2012. “We’re very definitely starting to see a flattening of that decline,” he said, adding, “It’s not quite tipping up the other way, but it’s certainly not in terminal decline.” source (via • follow)
Why can’t you listen to “El Camino” on Spotify? There are a lot of reasons why The Black Keys’ discography ends with “Brothers” on the service, and it’s not because “Tighten Up” is the best song they’ve ever done. Really, the problems here are ethical. As an idea, the concept of subscription-based music has been around for years — remember Columbia House? or how about eMusic? — and in a lot of ways, Spotify and MOG and Rdio are merely the latest generation of that. But The Verge’s Paul Miller touches a solid nerve with a single sentence: “I suppose what I really want is some sort of ‘free range’ sticker slapped on my music consumption, so that I know the artist was ethically treated in this transaction.” Here’s a breakdown of the issues involved here.
» But is that actually the case? Small-scale bands probably have less to lose in terms of cannibalization, but in a change from the iTunes era, it’s the biggest bands on the planet, not the ones with legacies to protect, that are protesting the services. One Universal Records exec, Rob Wells, says that the artists have nothing to worry about: “Every single one of those bands has earned more money from its album being on Spotify than it has from being on any other services within a period of time.” But try explaining that to Patrick Carney, the drummer for the Black Keys: “For a band that makes a living selling music, it’s not at a point where it’s feasible for us.” For what it’s worth, Spotify and its ilk are working hard on discovery these days.
Coincidentally, the two guys who started KaZaA back in the day, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, run a direct competitor to them, Rdio. Would you use this?
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Once again, we see patents being used as a tool to shakedown companies who were actually innovative in how they executed, with a ridiculously broad patent that contributed zippo to the actual state of the art.TechDirt’s Mike Masnick • Offering a spot-on take regarding the patent lawsuit filed against the finally-in-the-U.S. Spotify. The company suing, PacketVideo, specializes in mobile streaming solutions, but did not develop the patent, which dates back to 1994. Instead, they bought it a couple of years ago. Masnick, in his argument about patent law, rightly points out that it’s easy to patent an idea (especially one that was already floating around the ether in 1994, like audio streaming), but it’s very hard to do what Spotify does — which is, corral the cats into a room and get them all working in unison. Fact of matter: PacketVideo didn’t put any of the work into getting the labels on board, creating an innovative distribution model, or making it a cinch to use. Spotify did. And it’s another example of how patent law fails to protect real innovation, but instead punishes success. source (via • follow)
Spotify is coming to the U.S.: About freaking time. You can sign up over here.
Copyright 2009-2013 Ernie Smith • Ask us stuff! • E-mail us • Follow us on Twitter • Follow us on Facebook
