Nikka Costa did something good. Very good. Releasing her 3rd Lp free of a major label , instead working with the indie gofunkyyourself records along with Stax Records. Which makes sense because this record stanks of Stax records classics. It’s all there.

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TVOTR were kind enough to announce the Title(Dear Science,) , Release Date (September 23, 2008 ) of the 3rd full length lp. Hopefully Scarlett Johansson will not appear on this record. Maybe she just comes to the shows.

Also some tour dates after the jump.
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Has anybody else noticed how busy Busta Rhymes has been trying to remain culturally relevant? As I was doing research for another project I came across this. I did’nt make it all the way through the video because frankly Linkin Park’s high school angst inspired piano parts give me the creeps.
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Get it here while it’s hot. Or free, or you can actually pay for some music…or free, whatever. How is Greg paying for all those samples?

My Morning Jacket plans to debut their upcoming album “Evil Urges” on the internet jukeboxes in dive bars nation wide one week before it becomes available in stores. This does seems like a new and interesting way to promote a new release. We thought that The Hold Steady would have beaten them to the punch on this one.
If anyone knows where one of the 10,000 Jukeboxes is in Brooklyn let us know. I will take you down there and show you how cool it is.

Duffy’s sound is very nostalgic and retro. I’m not going to lie…she does
sound a bit like Amy Winehouse, but that isn’t such a bad thing. I mean
musicians bite off each others styles all the time, right?

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Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I was brought up with the capitalist concepts of producer and consumer - someone makes something that I want, and I pony up the cash for my own copy of it. There are shared assumptions in this agreement - I believe that the company will make something that I want (and they will front the cash for the development of it) and they believe that what they’re creating is so good that I won’t be able to resist paying for it, thus covering the costs of the R and D and providing a profit as well. Simple enough, ay?

Sure…but as artists like Jill Sobule and Giant Drag are showing us, it’s definitely not the only way. As more and more record labels look to cut costs by eliminating “extra frills” like, say, production, artists are turning to their fan base to support their art. Now, there’s nothing new about this - artists have been selling everything from buttons and fridge magnets to posters and t-shirts to help fund their future endeavors; still, unless they’re a major touring act, those magnets rarely generate the kind of capital necessary to fund their next album. In fact, the purpose of a modern day label lies almost exclusively in being a production, distribution, marketing and financial resource for an act. As we all know, however, most of those functions have been put in the hands of artists these days anyways (certainly digital distro and marketing) - so one could argue that the primary value of a label to an artist is money. Effectively, labels invest in an act, hoping that their investment will pay off…and if it doesn’t, they’re out. So what if this last function of the label, money, could come from another source? Would there even be a need for the record label’s bank accounts?

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