6 Songs

In This is Your Brain on Music, Daniel Levitin writes about a scientist friend who was totally disconnected from modern music and asked for a CD of 6 songs that represent rock 'n' roll. He'd heard Elvis Presley, so Elvis was left off the list:

1. Long Tall Sally by Little Richard
2. Roll Over Beethoven by The Beatles
3. All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix
4. Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton
5. Little Red Corvette by Prince
6. Anarchy in the U.K. by the Sex Pistols

What are your 6?

Breaking the Law

"news" item from Mike Adams:

On the heels of the RIAA's recent decision to criminalize consumers who rip songs from albums they've purchased to their computers (or iPods), the association has now gone one step further and declared that "remembering songs" using your brain is criminal copyright infringement. "The brain is a recording device," explained RIAA president Cary Sherman. "The act of listening is an unauthorized act of copying music to that recording device, and the act of recalling or remembering a song is unauthorized playback."

thoughts on the music business from Seth Godin:

A frightened consumer is not a happy consumer.
I shouldn’t have to say this, but here goes: suing people is like going to war. If you’re going to go to war with tens of thousands of your customers every year, don’t be surprised if they start treating you like the enemy.

Kirsten Dunst Meets Rufus Wainwright

Kirsten Dunst: "Do your best songs come out of pain or happiness?"

Rufus Wainwright: "My catalogue consists of material on a subtle but steady incline of quality which will reach its zenith the moment of my death when, like Beethoven, I try to conduct the sound of distant thunder. Basically, I'm in pain."

from a 2004 conversation published in The Observer