I have wondered much that Christianity is not practiced by the very people who vouch for that wonderful conception of exemplary living. It appears that they are anxious to pass on their religion to all other races, but keep little of it for themselves.
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Read moreBrandon Lucas Green writes about Spotify from an indie musician’s perspective and his piece contains some useful insights. Green points out that the service is a much better value proposition for musicians who are already popular and on major labels.
Read moreArtists living in a late-stage capitalist society (ie. basically all living artists) need to accept that Spotify is not for them. This is a for-profit business whose biggest cost source is royalty payments to artists. The only ones they cannot avoid are major-label artists, due to the outsized influence of the 3 major labels (oh and Tencent Holdings, the massive Chinese conglomerate, which has a stake in both Spotify, Warner Music Group, and (full disclosure) Epic Games which formerly owned Bandcamp). Therefore, it is not a surprise that the labels and Spotify peacefully coexist in a rat-king of entangled investments, including from private equity.
A couple of posts from independent bloggers have struck a chord with me in the last few days. I’ve spent some time over the holiday break moving my site back to Blot (my favorite blogging service) after support returned. After doing some redesign work, I hit a point where I started to question the value of diminishing returns with respect to over engineering the UI. Khaled Abou Alfa, who is a much better site designer than I will ever be, has some words of wisdom on the subject.
Read moreOver the last 20 years of playing around with websites I have wondered to myself why I bother spending time tweaking and fixing and sweating the pixel details. I’m not alone in this space as clearly many, many others have the same tinkering itch. It’s an itch that you can’t help but scratching away at. Leave it alone and it will be fine.
One of the Christmas presents from my wife was the latest Mo Dotti release, Opaque, on CD. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the compact disc version of the album comes with 4 bonus tracks (one of which is the oft-covered “She’s My Best Friend” by the Velvet Underground). These tracks are not on the Bandcamp site for the album or the version that appear on the streaming services. I read musicians complaining about the meager compensation opportunities that the streaming landscape affords and I can’t help but think this is the way to (somewhat) manage that.
Giving your fans a little something extra for buying a physical release that will actually put money in your pocket seems like a no-brainer. Whether it’s a booklet with lyrics and proper liner notes, bonus tracks or exquisite packaging, you should incentivize music lovers to invest a little bit extra to get a better experience.
Read moreNicholas McDonald writes for The Bard Owl about a Christian interpretation of Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Read moreJack is captivated by the aesthetics of Christmastown. He’s spellbound by the values of the transcendent framework: love, beauty, purpose, etc. (at the center of which is our Christ-figure, Santa Clause, more on that in a moment). In the same way, those of us living in modernity may still feel the pull of the enchanted world we’ve left behind, where the Christian story provided the framework for the kind of transcendent truth, beauty and love we all desire “deep inside of our bones”.
My sister’s boyfriend recently asked me if I was still using Qobuz, a year after we first talked about the streaming music service. I answered in the affirmative, having just renewed my subscription a couple of months ago, at which point he told me that he had switched back after giving Tidal a try. The biggest issue he mentioned running into with Qobuz was slow downloads.
Read moreMaybe it’s a bit early to be making New Year’s resolutions. Though this used to be a popular practice, many now don’t even believe in setting stretch goals just because the calendar changes. I confess that I have waxed and waned in my observance of making annual resolutions. This year, though, I have something lined up that I think will actually improve my life in meaningful ways.
Read moreNot too long ago, I posted about a shoegaze cover of a music charts staple from decades ago and, well, I was sorely tempted to do it again.
I came across a YouTube channel for a service called Musora which is billed as “the ultimate music lessons experience.” Musora offers a subscription which will help you learn to play an instrument and your favorite songs. For $20/month (with an annual subscription), you gain access to a suite of interactive practice tools and a community of like-minded students.
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canned dragons