The Evil Empire strikes again

No, I'm not talking about Darth and his asthmatic team of henchmen wreaking havoc around the universe, I'm talking about the music industry, which has been fairly dumb about music on the internet. And why? .. pure and simple greed. It's not enough that we pay nearly £14 for a brand new CD from shops in the UK, it's worse when you hear that the artist's cut is less than one pound. So you know straightaway that the record company, purveyor of nothing but distribution, marketing, premises etc is making the real killing. Should a third party that is merely an enabler make the lion's share of the rewards, when they actually produce no music at all?

What's so fantastic about the recent Arctic Monkeys rise to fame is that from their creation, they built up a huge fanbase on the Internet. This meant that when they starting touring in earnest, even they were surprised that hordes of people actually turned up to their gigs. Furthermore, their first single went straight into number one, with no bespoke record label hyping and very little radio airplay. How cool is that? The record company's (naturally) clamoured to sign them, and radio stations had to play their records, in order to reflect the zeitgeist. But it was the music and its fanbase that ensured success, nothing that the Evil Empire did.

Because of the fundamental greed, the music industry sees the Internet as a potential dent in profits, and keeps attempting to introduce restrictive measures, particularly in the arena of music copyright. Their thinking is that people who download music are slashing their profits. So they've introduce Digital Rights Management, so that tracks contain license information that restrict the copying and distribution. In some cases, this means that the tracks cannot be loaded onto iPods or other MP3 players. This is stupid. Damien Kulash, the lead singer for the band OK Go, put it nicely in his NY Times article "DRM Screws me, and my fans", when he says:

"As for musicians, we are left to wonder how many more people could be listening to our music if it weren't such a hassle, and how many more iPods might have our albums on them if our labels hadn't sabotaged our releases with cumbersome software.

The truth is that the more a record gets listened to, the more successful it is. This is not just our megalomania, it's Marketing 101: the more times a song gets played, the more of a chance it has to catch the ear of someone new. It doesn't do us much good if people buy our records and promptly shelve them; we need them to fall in love with our songs and listen to them over and over. A record that you can't transfer to your iPod is a record you're less likely to listen to, less likely to get obsessed with and less likely to tell your friends about."

Arctic Monkeys proved that the appetite for sales was whetted by free exposure, by handing out free 16-track demo disks at some of their early gigs, and being available for free downloads. Within 3 months of their first single release, they have managed to fill Brixton Academy, holding 4000 people, three months ahead of the gig. The current Number 1 in the UK music charts is Nizlopi's JCB song, a cutesy folk song about a boy who rides on his dad's JCB at work. When interviewed on the radio this morning, the band's singer Luke explained that they had built up a following by touring relentlessly, and by getting Web presentation company Monkeyhub to put a line-draw video for the song on the internet. What prompted them to actually release the song as a single was when they realised the video had attracted over 1 million hits. And there they are, at Number 1. Bad for profits? Of course not. He did add however that they won't be number one next week. He knows, and we all resignedly know, that the might of the Evil Empire will swamp the market with the manufactured pop of this years X-Factor winner, or Westlife, who are so successfully marketed, that this will be their 4th Christmas number 1. They will ensure massive radio play, massive marketing and massive sales, leaving us all massively dispirited with the state of our music industry, just to achieve a Christmas Number 1.

I say industry, not the actual music itself - the internet has meant that up-and-coming music is as healthy as it's ever been. CD sales actually increased to a record high last year despite the Empire's draconian measures. Fingers crossed they don't succeed.

Analysing emotions

New Scientist magazine published an article this month about some new software which will analyse a photograph of a face, and rate its expression based on six primary emotions. It bases its assessment on an algorithm which takes into account lip curvature and eye crinkles, and these are compared against "neutral expressions" stored in a database.

Why would you want this? Well, one of the facets that has revolutionised the web has been personalisation. Amazon tailor their suggestions to you, based on things you have bought before, and the items you have searched on in the past. Imagine a machine that can analyse your mood based on your facial expression. Actually, it sounds like it could be really annoying, but the potantial is there, certainly.

. But what do they make of the most famous expression in history, Mona Lisa's enigmatic smile? Well, apparently, she was 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry. Case closed, no more speculation.

(Thanks to Boing Boing).

Helicoptor game

If you want a bit of seasonal fun, try this helicoptor game. The idea is to pick up stranded people, using a helicoptor that you have to both keep off the ground, and steer. Be careful you don't let it drop from too high, it'll crush the poor little fellas.

(Thanks to boing boing)

The Great Scottish Santa Run

Now this made me feel Christmassy! One of my work colleagues travelled down from Edinburgh last week, and I read in the Daily Record that the city had hosted 1500 runners, dressed in Santa costumes, in order to raise money for the terminally ill. The sight of that many bright red costumes cannot help to bring a smile to the face.

I read that the world record attendance is 3445 in Powys, Wales, but was also surprised to read that they held one in Las Vegas too. I know it's only about 20 degrees out there at the moment, but that's hot enough to run a 5k, with a full Santas outfit on. Still, a good cause, and the costumes are even provided for you.

(Picture courtesy of BA - Thanks to JWalk)

Film Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

And so the fourth Potter film is upon us; time has passed since the last movie. All the characters are a little older, as are the audience, permitting a darker theme. The movie is less kidlike (reflected in the 12A rating), is more fun, and there are more adult themes explored. The central trio are now teenagers, both confused and vulnerable; when Hogwarts holds its annual Yuletide ball, the full gamut of hormonal uncertainy is exhibited. First, they survey the opposite sex with some 'nudge nuge wink wink'-style knowing looks. Then they get to worry about who they will take as a date, whether they can handle the rejection, or even dance when they get there. On top of which, there is of course a little misplaced jealousy, and the obligatory tears after the party.

Mike Newell has recognised the mood shift in the series, and the cutesy constraints of the previous movies no longer apply. In acting terms, they have all developed, and Daniel Radcliffe is starting to look like he can actually do the job at last. There are still some of the usual gripes. Ron still pulls the most ridiculous gurning facial expressions, but his voice has broken now, and he's no longer just a comic foil to Harry; in fact they have a fairly normal teenage relationship. Hermione is still annoying; she exhibits some more teenage characteristics, such as scrubbing up nicely for the Ball, and that helps, but she's extremely irritating. "Oh Ron, you've ruined everything" she exclaims at one opint, in the same way that Kiera Knightly would; that overpronounced, melodramatic, fake up-yerself poshness. Nobody actually talks like that.

Some of the newcomers put in great performances. Ralph Fiennes is an excellent Voldemort, convincingly evil, and sporting a pair of lizard-like nostrils which add a really sinister look. Brendan Gleason plays mad-eye Moody, the imbalanced professor on the Dark Arts, and he must have relished the opportunity to portray such an eccentric over-the-top character.

The central event of the movie is the "Triwizard" contest, for which Harry is unwittingly entered. The individual challenges are fantastically portrayed, scary and realistic; historically people have actually died performing these tasks, and you really sense the danger, These passages give the special effects teams the chance to shine. The dragon sequence, and the underwater challenge are incredible, they both look and feel realistic, and really involve the viewer in the tension. This can very often be a shortcoming of FX-driven sequences, we know they're not real and we therefore don't care - this isn't the case here.

I found the ending disappointing, Without describing events, there is a intense low moment, followed by everybody suddenly leaving. Huh? No happy ending? It's hard to understand how the morons on the tube reading this book would have been satisfied without the standard triumph of good over evil. Apart from the fact that, as remedials, still reading junior school primers well into their 30s, they are obviously easily pleased generally.

Despite the darker feel of the movie, there's still plenty of the usual cute stuff to please the younger sections of the audience. The touches of magic are still enchanting, such as the self tidying library, and the the ever-present living paintings. There's plenty of humour too, such as when Harry encounters Myrtle in the prefects bathroom, and the cheeky scene that follows. The movie series improves with every release. Harry is less like an invincible being, and much better portrayed as a "mortal with potential of a superman" as Bowie once put it. He genuinely comes over as a young man who is really up against it, under intense threat, and you sense that worse is to come later in the series. It still has some shortcomings, but it sufficiently whets the appetite for the next offering. 7.5/10.