In reporting on music and technology my dislike for large music labels is growing and growing. Check out this post over at Idolator, The Guitar Hero People Don’t Think Much of the Music Biz. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the CEO of Blizzard, the company that produces Guitar Hero, addresses complaints from the music labels that they aren’t be paid enough for the songs used in the video game.

WSJ: How do you feel about the criticism from Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman that Activision and others aren’t paying enough for the use of artists in Guitar Hero and other music games?

BK: We compensate artists and publishers extremely well. There are millions and millions of dollars that are being made and paid. There’s a misunderstanding of the value we bring to the catalog. What happens to your catalog in digital downloads? What happens to your merchandise? What happens to your ticket sales? When you look at the impact it can have on an Aerosmith, Van Halen or Metallica, it’s really significant, so much so that you sort of question whether or not, in the case of those kinds of products, you should be paying any money at all and whether it should be the reverse.

WSJ: Traditionally, music in videogames has been seen as a good promotional tool for artists. But aren’t you a little more sympathetic to the idea that songs in music games like Guitar Hero are actually selling the games?

Mr. Kotick: No. We have lots of music to choose from, lots of artists to choose from. A 12-year-old kid has no idea who Steven Tyler is or who Aerosmith is. The bulk of our consumers will tell you they’re not purchasing the products based on the songs that are included. They’re purchasing based on how fun the songs are to play when they’re playing them.

I have to agree with Mr. Kotick on this one. Guitar Hero instantly made older, forgotten to the young generation, songs popular. To be honest I never heard Ziggy Stardust until I played the first version of the video game, and that got me to check out David Bowie’s music. And for the other songs I knew, it made them even more fun to listen to. It will be interesting to see what kind of influence this game will have over the industry as time goes by. It certainly is playing a large role in shaping the musical listening habits of the younger generation. Perhaps even more influential then MTV at this point.

If you didn’t know by now, MySpace Music has launched as a joint venture with all the major music labels that opens their music catalogs to unlimited free streaming on MySpace profiles. People in the tech blogosphere are giving it rave reviews and declaring that paying for music is over! TechCrunch declares that, “MySpace Music Puts the industry on the right track”. I have a few things to say about this.

1. Until there is ubiquitous wireless broadband internet access on every music playing device, this doesn’t really do much for the user. You still have to pay to download tracks. I really like having my iTunes playlist and music stored locally. It lets me put it on iPods, send to my friends, listen to when my internet breaks. Manage tracks in my collection like I actually own them. Also, the interface is a little clunky and the audio quality isn’t perfect.

2. This is more a breakthrough in the labels ability to monetize their music catalogs but it is unclear how much the actual artists will see of this revenue. So we can all cheer that the labels have found a way to pump money again. But you won’t see me cheering until their is a better infastructure for putting money into the hands of the artists themselves. Yes, it is clear that selling advertising is easier then selling records, but does this make a big difference to musicians? Here is my vision for the music industry:

What is needed is an infastructure similar to Google Adwords and Goggle Adsense, where Google connects advertisers to content producers. All those ‘Sponsored Links’ boxes you see across the internet are served up by Google. Advertisers pay Google a certain amount for each click they generate, and in turn Google pays content producers (bloggers, websites) part of that money to get more clicks.

Imagine this model with music. Artists submit all their tracks to a service. Then that service pairs advertisers with bands that they think target their demographic. Advertisers bid on given bands, so clearly the more popular bands will get more bids, as well as have more plays to pair advertising with. Then anyone blogging about a band and their music can embed a music player on their site that plays the tracks and serves up the advertising and for each play the blogger takes a percentage. Ok, here is the kicker, each track can be downloaded for free as well. But each free download comes with a mini audio ad at the end of each track, that while could be easily removed, would probably get a number of listens. Band’s then offer souped up albums, that come with hardback books, or posters, or anything that document the process of making the album or artwork associated it. This is already happening but I would like to see more of it.

The reason why the Google Ad network works so well is that it doesn’t really cost much to launch a website and write content for it. There aren’t many powerful ‘blog labels’ that own writers’ content. Back in the day music recording technology was not in home and to make music sound good you needed a lot of expensive equipment. Now music recording technology is available to anyone, check out my music, thebdmethod music @ myspace.com, I did that all with Garageband. Its no longer about access to technology, its about how good you are at writing songs and using the technology. The only mileage that the labels have right now is that they own the rights to nearly all popular songs. But more and more bands are going independent, NIN, Radiohead, they know what’s up.

With this new model, you just have to put out an EP have a lot of people like it and before you know it your sitting on some cash to pay your own producer and recording engineer to make your music sound better and you are off to the races, with no need for a label. Promoters, yes, but bands will have no need for the full suite label.

So for this to work, music discovery needs to become more powerful. Services like Pandora and Last.fm are on the right track. But there needs to be a better infrastructure for people to find new independent music, stuff that isn’t promoted as much. I see something like digg.com for music coming in handy here. Or some type of iTunes feature that compares the taste of everyone using iTunes to generate recommendations, and if all music is free to download then that will grease the wheels even more. Perhaps the new Genius feature on iTunes will enable this type of filtering.

What would also come in handy would be a module that automatically adds ads between every few songs and let people curate their own radio stations through iTunes. People can start to find the DJs they like and be exposed to lot of music quickly, and the moment you hear a band on that station you like you can download their entire album. Who even likes mainstream radio anymore?

At least MySpace Music lets you do something like that in a small way. You can make your own custom playlists and share them with people. Perhaps this will be the new form of the mix tape. Check out a playlist I put together here, and look at some McDonald’s ads.

My MySpace Music Playlist

Hmmmmm, this gives me an idea for a website like Digg.com where people can post links to people’s playlists and vote on them…. Maybe if I get better at Ruby on Rails I could build it.

Google just released a little Google Labs app called ‘In Quotes’, it allows you to catalog quotes by people and face them off through keyword filters. They already posted one with quotes from both Barack Obama and John McCain. Check it out here: Google’s In Quotes
And read more about it here: TechCrunch:”Watch The Political Spin Machine With Google “In Quotes” “

This little app sparks a few thoughts. The first is that it reminded me a lot of my favorite videos from The Daily Show where they dig into the archives to find politicians saying complete contrary things. This clip doesn’t even represent the best of it.

Politicians have gotten away with being inconsistent with their words because it takes the research and time of a journalist to call them out. And when a journalist does ask the ‘tough questions’ to a political figure their answers are filtered by our own opinion of the bias of the reporter. By Google becoming a force in cataloging all these quotes the individual can do even more investigation for themselves, taking the journalist out as the middle man.

Now imagine Google adding YouTube videos to this quote machine application. With that you could conceivable curate your own ‘Daily Show Style Videos’, a feat that even a week ago seemed like a job that would take tedious hours scanning through speeches and archives.

I am no political scientist, but it seems that above policy and ideology it is important for politicians to be consistent. People want someone who remains true to their word and doesn’t stray what they believe in so at least you can predict what that person will do. John Kerry lost the election because he was viewed a flip-flopper, Rudy Guiliani and Mit Romney probably didn’t make it through the Republican primary’s because their stance was so radical from their pasts.

If this quote thing really caught on as a popular place for news and information for politics (which it definitely won’t), then being raised in a culture where it is so easy to show and display people’s inconsistencies that it would demand up and coming politicians from day one to be weary of what they say over time. Imagine if as a country we could make that a priority - ensure that politicians, no matter what their beliefs, actually do what they say. Don’t we need people who will honor their word? Without that then their beliefs and promises really don’t mean anything.

If only Google knew how to dress up their technology and market it to people perhaps some of these social powers would be unlocked. Its a shame there isn’t better user friendly and engaging design on the web — but that’s a post for another day.

Recently, other then the iPhone Apple hasn’t really been impressing me with updates to their products. But the new iTunes really turns me on for a few reasons.

The Genius Playlist

Lets say you finally pick a song that fits the mood for whatever you are doing, you pick a upbeat song for a party, or some downtempo stuff for late night internet browsing, now all you have to do is press the magic genius button and iTunes will generate a playlist with similar songs from your own iTunes music library.

For instance I start listening to Bjork’s track ‘Hidden Place’ and want to continue to the mood, so I click the genius button and iTunes creates a playlist filled with tracks from Air, Portishead, LCD Soundsystem, Goldfrapp, even Shpongle. Now I would never sit down and listen to a Shpongle album these days, but somehow iTunes finds the song of a Shpongle album that is similar to ‘Hidden Place’ that works really well in the context of the new playlist.

For people with large music collections this new feature allows you to rediscover music you already have on your computer that you may have overlooked. I already like it much better then Pandora which has never really helped me to find anything new.

Beware: iTunes accomplishes this magic by reading and storing the details of your music library. Also, this features only works with tracks that are on the iTunes music store, so if you want to test what else sounds like some Garageband track you made it won’t work.

Grid View - Ripping Off Cover Buddy

iTunes also added another view setting called grid, that is more or less a rip off of a number of 3rd party plug-ins that have existed for iTunes for a while, like Cover Buddy. Lesson #1 never make a plug in for an Apple product because they will steal it and make it better by the mere fact that it integrates cohesively into Steve Jobs worldview. Remember, Apple is interested in creating a world for you, rather then allowing you to create a world with it.

Just like with cover flow I tried to getting into using it but kept switching back to the normal list view, because its just more functional. I actually wonder how many people out there use coverflow and grid view. The idea of having the visually stunning artwork of the album covers displayed while listening to your music is definitely attractive, but not always that functional.

It is not like when I play music I just want to sit there and look at the album art. I am usually doing things on the internet or working in some other application. I usually just have iTunes running in the background. And if I ever want to have a visual I will just turn on the visualizer. I think that the coverflow and grid view work much better on the iPod because its only function is to play music.

With that being said I think the best set-up is the list view with the album work as a small thumbnail on the side. This gives the cohesive feel of the album while not taking up too much space.

The New Visualizer

The choices of Visualizers for iTunes has always been lacking. Clearly no one out there takes serious the art of the visualizer. This new one looks really pretty and slick but it doesn’t really grip to the music like the classic one does.

Because this new visualizer is so crappy it is inspiring me to learn how to build my own visualizer. So as I investigate that I will post my finding and hopefully make it easier for others to program their own visualizer, this could wind up to be very difficult but I shall explore anyways.

I recently marathoned both seasons of Dexter this month, what a treat. It is perhaps the smartest, most well produced show on television right now, and I am excited as ever for season three and so should you.

The best thing about this show is the intimate character development, particularly of the main character, Dexter himself. The basic premise is that Dexter, a blood lab technician at the local police department, is also a serial killer who only kills murderers that the system couldn’t put behind bars. Dexter is a miracle of efficiency and works with absolute precision. His number rule is “Don’t get caught”, so no other characters in the show know about his dark condition, they think he is just a regular lab geek. The viewer is the only one who gets to see him lead his alternative life as a vigil ante killer and this creates a lot of intimacy with his character.

It is also the type of show that each episode is part of the larger whole, unlike other detective shows where the episodes are much more self contained. The entire season makes an overall statement and each episode plays a vital role in making that statement. And this leads me to why season three promises to be a monster season.

If you are familiar with Nietzsche’s Three Metamorphoses or any standard mythology Dexter follows it quite expertly. Dexter learned about how to kill and not get caught from his adopted father, Harry. The code that Harry teaches him are strict rules that help him to survive. This mirrors Nietzsche’s first metamorphosis of the camel, that carries a heavy load on his back without question to its destination. It is like being born into a world and needing to learn its rules. The entire first season deals with this for Dexter.

The second metamorphosis begins when the load on the camel’s back becomes too much of a burden and it throws off the load becoming a fierce and free lion who roams with speed and destruction in the desert. By the end of season one, the load of Harry’s code becomes to great and Dexter realizes he needs to try a new set of rules. Season 2 is all about Dexter getting into deep trouble when he casts off his old rules, and starts improvising, like a lion.

At the end of season two Dexter realizes that he still needs the code of Harry to keep him out of trouble, but he no longer needs to be totally ruled by them. This mirrors the third metamorphosis, which occurs when the lion enters the dark cave and slays (and drinks the blood of) the Thou Shalt Dragon to become a baby. What Neitchze’s point here is that only when you have fully embraced both what you were born into and what you desire to create yourself do you become truly human, no longer an animal. Well in season three Dexter has arrived as a baby and will be getting quite creative with his behavior, becoming even more powerful, that I am sure.

Go ahead and watch season one and two at SurfTheChannel.com or buy the DVDs on Amazon and prepare yourself for season three that premiers on Sunday, September 28th at 9pm, and see one of TV’s most interesting characters kick some ass.

By now everyone should have heard about Google Chrome, the new web browser made by Google, as it has garnered loads of international press. For the tech crowd it may be easy to see what Google is up to, but for those not embedded in the internet the quick version of it is that Google is trying to turn the web into an OS ( OS stands for Operating System, Windows and OSX are operating systems). An operating system is basically something that can run applications. More and more applications are being created on the web. Look at Gmail, it is basically a e-mail application like Microsoft’s Outlook, or Apple’s Mail. Even Facebook is a web application. This makes Chrome much more then just another web browser to add to your dock, at least in the long term.

It is first important to understand why Google would have so much interest in pushing the internet to become the next operating system. The simple answer is that the more people use the internet the more money Google makes. Google’s core business is internet advertising, there are few websites you go to where you don’t find a box with ads by Google. They serve up targeted ads based on content of a website. The more websites, the more ads Google can serve, the more they can rake in. Also, the larger the internet becomes the more valuable Google’s ability to organize is.

Web browsers are gatekeepers to the web, they access and display all the information contained in the internet. Browsers started off as a way to display basic scientific information, since then developers have pushed the possibilities of code, extending the power of HTML, adding CSS, using JavaScript for dynamic functionality. But with all developing we the internet has hit a roadblock into advancing to the next level. For one, can you ever imagine an application like Photoshop running on an internet browser? There have been many attempts, but they all fall short. Actions don’t get processed fast enough, you can’t really impliment keystrokes well, something is lacking without the solid bedrock of an normal OS.

To give a web browser that same solidity is very difficult, and it is a challenge that none of the current browers are up for. The top three browsers right now are Firefox by Mozilla, Internet Explorer by Microsoft, and Safari by Apple. IE and Safari have no interest in turning the web into an operating system because their makers core business is their computer based operating system. Firefox, while surely interested in turning the web into an OS, simply does not have the resources to do such a thing — they are almost purely supported by Google as it is. Faced with this Google had to make a play. At the end of the day it may not care if Chrome is the most popular browser, it just cares that browsers develop to the point that the internet becomes a substantial OS.

This point couldn’t be more clear after witnessing how Google chose to annonce its new browser with a 39 page cartoon. Check out the cartoon here:

Google Chrome Launch Cartoon

Some of the topics may be over the head of people without some familiarity with coding, but regardless it is very interesting to check out. Of course this cartoon was intended for developers. The cartoon constantly reminds that the entire browser is open source, meaning that ANYONE including Apple and Microsoft can steal any of the features for their own browser. It also mentions a number of times that they are interested in advancing the conversation of the web. Perhaps more important then the browser its self was this cartoon, which was surely read by 10,000’s of web developers. For any developer to see the potential of what a browser can be, it will intensify the demand for a such a browser. Without this cartoon fleshing out in detail the infrastructure changes etc. the launch of this browser would have just looked like a faster more stable browser with a cool new idea for a homepage. But they needed to make it plain an clear to the developer community what the actual intentions are. So if you choose to download the new browser know that you are not just using a faster browser but you are pushing the boundaries of the internet.

Download it here:

http://www.google.com/chrome

Check out TechCruch’s first post revealing the new browser. For those of you not familiar with TechCrunch it is the second most popular blog in the world and covers internet technologies. If this post interests you would would good to make it a daily destination.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/01/no-joke-google-introduces-its-own-browser-with-a-cartoon/

This website has certainly been long overdue. Thebdmethod has been around since I was in middle school, it first serving as my AIM screenname and most recently as a musical performace artist. Many people have asked what exactly is the method of bd? I have always given a vague response because to encapsulate what exactly it is would take a very long time to explain. So now when asked that question I can direct people to this website and they can explore the method at work in its entirety. Of course thebdmethod is the overarching way in which I see reality and determine what is significant or interesting.

You will find to main things on this website. (1) This blog, where I will collect my thoughts and ideas on topics that matter to me, and hopefully show you why I find them important and meaningful. Topics will greatly center on my interests: technology, philosophy, music, art. I greatly encourage people to post comments in response to my ideas. (2) Portals into my various projects. You can check out how the ideas and thinking processes captured in my blog translate into real world projects, whether it be my lighting design for the psychedelic rock band Grandfather, the music I make, the websites I design, or the other art I produce. I will also be posting all the projects that are in my past, and while may not represent my current thinking, they are witness to how my thinking has evolved.

Lately I have been describing thebdmethod as the possibility of full self-expression. Very rarely should a person ever feel embaressed in my prescence. Whether you want to dance around like a fool, talk about silly ideas for the future, or rant about the pains of life, there are few things that I cannot appreciate. In this same vein I decided to create this website as a means of my own self-expression. I realized (I have lots of realizations by the way) that I needed to unabashedly share my thoughts with the world. This may seem perhaps self-indulgent, but I will allow the audience to the be judge of that. So judge away, and enjoy my site.