Rocknerd

James Blunt tops decade charts, pop declared dead.

3 January, 2010 Pop 0

PUBLIC ENEMA, The Hit Parade, Thursday (N! News) — James Blunt’s Back To Bedlam was the UK’s biggest-selling album of the 2000s, objectively establishing

The occult symbolism of the Video Music Awards.

27 December, 200927 December, 2009 Pop 0

From unexpected drama to shocking performances, MTV’s 2009 Video Music Awards managed once again to raise eyebrows and get people talking. What most people

So how was your haul?

25 December, 200910 December, 2016 Audio 3

I got a new MP3 player for Christmas from Arkady. It’s a cheap shitty ChiPod — S1 chipset-based. I actually asked specifically for a

Hell Freezes Over.

16 December, 200916 December, 2009 Metal 0

Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax are confirmed to share the stage at the Sonisphere festivals in Poland and the Czech Republic next Northern Summer.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ legacy to benefit lupus.

16 December, 200916 December, 2009 Pop 0

Julian Lennon and co-songwriter James Scott Cook will donate a percentage of profits from a song on Lennon’s new EP to the Lupus Foundation

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

13 December, 2009 Writing 0

Spotted by Redcountess, Martin Newell’s 1992 rock’n’roll Christmas lyrics. I particularly liked “Hip King Wenceslas.”

All praise the Hammond B-3.

11 December, 2009 Musician 0

Andy Updegrove is a computer standards lawyer. This is about as far from rocknerdery as you get. But I deeply appreciated his piece from

Get Well Soon Ronnie James Dio!

5 December, 2009 Rock 0

We’ve all poked fun at him over the years, but one of Rock’n’Roll’s veterans with a big heart, Ronnie James Dio is battling the

Rage Against The Machine For Christmas No. 1

5 December, 200927 March, 2010 Pop 2

There is a social networking campaign to stop Simon Cowell achieving another Christmas no. 1 spot this year with one of his overblown ersatz

Pet musical peeves.

29 November, 200929 November, 2009 Rock 4

“What kind of music do you like?” Fuck. Who can answer a question like that? I HAVE FUCKING THOUSANDS OF ALBUMS, MOTHERFUCKER. IF YOU

The opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night.”

25 October, 2009 Musician 0

You can’t figure that chord out, can you? Turns out there wasn’t just guitars in the studio, but a piano as well — as

20 years on, woman finally deciphers meaning of mix tape.

10 October, 200929 April, 2017 Writing 2

From NewsBiscuit: “Two decades after being given a C60 cassette of specially selected songs, Rachel Hannigan, a 38-year-old consultant from Knutsford, finally realised the

Shut up ’n play yer Wangcaster.

6 October, 200927 November, 2020 Musician 3

Solid body electric guitars are only shaped like an acoustic for reasons of familiarity — get the neck right and you can do anything

Featured Artists Coalition terminally shoots self in foot.

5 October, 200929 April, 2017 Industry 0

If you’re trying to be the peak body for musicians in the UK, it helps not to alienate anyone who can read. Supporting Lily

Take it to the bridge.

1 October, 2009 Indie 0

My first thought was: “Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey will be more than a little annoyed.”

It’s not DRM, er, DCE, it’s DPP! Yeah.

9 September, 200926 December, 2016 mp3 1

In the digital world, you can make anything anywhere and anyone can have copies without you losing yours. I would so download a car,

The good parts.

2 September, 200929 April, 2017 mp3 2

iTunes beat into people’s heads that they could buy a single song instead of a CD of two good songs and lots of crappy

The social history of the MP3.

30 August, 200930 August, 2009 mp3 2

Eric Harvey at Pitchfork posts a social history of the MP3. “It’s possible the past 10 years could become the first decade of pop

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil

30 August, 200929 April, 2017 Film, Metal 2

After screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival last year, Anvil! The Story of Anvil is to go on general release in Australia in

The Universe as seen from the music industry.

24 August, 200915 October, 2016 Industry 0

The Performing Right Society has produced a really nice chart of the music universe. Everyone involved is on this diagram. … except one group.

Rocknerd.org sorta viewable for the moment.

21 August, 200921 August, 2009 Rocknerd 0

Rocknerd v2 is still in the hands of a domain squatter, but the front page as of 2007 is up from archive.org. Would you

Party Fears index updates and #11 up.

10 August, 200912 April, 2017 Rocknerd 0

The archive of my Perth ’80s–’90s Perth indie rock zine Party Fears has been updated, with the addition of a PDF of #11 and

Now that’s industrial.

10 July, 200912 April, 2017 Goth, Industrial 0

Is Joy Division goth or post-punk? When played by hitting bits of metal, you may wonder. Best cover of “Transmission” ever, by steel band

The discreet charm of the Grateful Dead.

12 June, 200919 January, 2017 Country 1

What is a Deadhead? How do they get that way? Why, dear God, WHY? Daniel Chamberlain attempts to answer this question. He does note

It’s not downloading, it’s games. Here’s the numbers.

11 June, 200921 May, 2017 Games, Industry, mp3 0

Charles Arthur from the Guardian nails music industry bollocks to a wall. The article is worth reading (the data was quite interesting to gather),

ACS Law is definitely not Davenport Lyons. Probably.

10 May, 200910 September, 2016 Your rights 1

Remember Davenport Lyons? Their clients who discovered that it was actually ruinous to get a reputation with paying customers as RIAA-like thugs certainly do.

WFMU launches the Free Music Archive.

7 May, 200920 May, 2017 Esoterica, Radio 0

WFMU is a fine New York-based “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT”-format public radio station. They have a blog with a fine selection of the

Artist’s shit.

27 April, 20093 May, 2017 Esoterica, Opinion 2

This week, the cheap shitty MP3 player is filled with improvised noise. I have entirely too high a tolerance for this sort of thing if it’s the right genre, in this case early industrial — all those albums from the eighties released in limited editions of a few hundred for the Artist’s Shit market.

Sound copyright extended into perpetuity.

26 April, 20098 March, 2011 Industry 0

TALKIN’ ABOUT, Degeneration, Thursday (NNME) — With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an

Music is free. In China.

25 April, 200925 April, 2009 mp3 0

Google now gives away legal downloads in China. And thus the official market catches up with the kids with 500GB USB drive parties. Meanwhile,