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May 20, 2002
Edward Said
The Crisis for American Jews
May 19, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
May 14, 2002
Jacob Levich
Leaving the Truth Out?
Alternative Online Publication
Tells the Big Lie about Palestine
Michael Colby
Bush's
Cuba Blunder
Dave Marsh
Scapegoats: the Music Industry's War
on Cassettes
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
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Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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May
20, 2002
The
Big Squeeze
and the Jolly Roger
by
Dave Marsh
Around the time that Thriller redefined the blockbuster
hit in the mid'80s, I found myself reporting a vision. "What
the record companies really want is to release one record a year-maybe
one each, but maybe just one," I said. "Everyone will
buy it. They'll be able to promote it for a year, and then carry
it over for the first few months of the next year while they're
gearing up their next one. And that's all there will be."
It was a little bit of a joke. Around the time of Celine Dion's
ascendance via the Titanic soundtrack, it seemed about to become
reality.
Not quite. The five majors who constitute
the FTC-defined distribution cartel sell only 85% of all the
music, instead of the more than 90% they sold a decade ago, which
is mainly the result of a hip-hop scene too volatile for them
to be immediately imitated or bought out. But the dream's alive
and it's practical, too. In essence, we now have just one company
programming music radio, and just one company (unironically,
the same company) packaging and promoting almost all of the big-league
concerts. (I know it was Justice Dept. antitrust pressure that
stopped the Clear Channel / House of Blues merger last week.
Those guys are really good at locking the barn after the horse
is lost.)
It will be a while before one album a
year is all you hear. But the noose tightens. Billboard's Ed
Christman reports that former Island Def Jam chairman Jim Caparro
has created a manufacturing and fulfillment (warehousing, shipping)
concept that would unify those services for several, if not all,
the majors. "With each major employing between 900 and 2000
workers in manufacturing and manning warehouse facilities, that
means that if Caparro got some of the majors to back his plan,
thousand of jobs could be trimmed," Christman writes. He
also reports that Caparro wants to handle sales and credit for
small accounts. Reportedly several of the majors are wary but
"the proposal only needs two majors to get started and could
then serve as a test case for other majors."
The real guinea pigs would be independent
retailers and consumers. The plan essentially would create an
octopus like the Standard Oil of old-which has reconstituted
itself in recent years without a squawk from Justice. For retailers,
this tightening of the cartel would mean price-setting on nonnegotiable
terms. For artists, it would mean that not being a major label
priority would be worse than ever, strung out for seven album
cycles without a prayer of moving forward (or of getting paid
if lightning struck, not that that's new). For consumers, consolidation
means less choice and even higher prices. Universal has already
bumped star product up another dollar this year, for the first
time making the $20 CD more than an omen on the horizon. If there's
an advantage to artists in the plan, I can't see it, and it may
well have anti-artist wrinkles.
The majors never really competed on this
stuff, anyway. Universal's price rise will be followed by all
the other majors within 90 days, which is how it's gone for more
than the 30 years I've been writing, without a peep of protest
from the FTC or Justice. At least all the thousands who lose
their jobs will be is unemployed (and unable to afford $20 CDs).
Amateur music lovers are in bigger trouble
if the cartel has its way. Last week, Universal/Motown put up
an online survey on "Music Behavior." To get into the
questions, you had to click past a box that contained this: "Definition
of music piracy: The act of making or distributing copies of
copyrighted music without authorization from the music label.
The only exception is the user's right to make copies of his
or her own legally purchased music for archival purposes."
That's a lie, but it's also an escalation.
Pirates go to jail.
DeskScan:
(What's playing at my house)
1. "Cold Woman Blues" / "99
Blues" / "Outside Woman Blues," Blind Joe Reynolds
(from a CD burned by a friend of newly discovered tracks-plus
the well-known "Outside"--by a country bluesman so
great a friend commented, "He sounds like Robert Johnson's
lost brother."
Very very scratchy 78 sources-try http://www.tefteller.com/html/intro.html
for your own sample)
2. 1000
Kisses, Patty Griffin (ATO)
3. Return
of a Legend, Jody Williams (Evidence)
4. Down
the Road, Van Morrison (Universal)
5. Try
Again, Mike Ireland and Holler (Ashmont)
6. Adult World, Wayne Kramer (Muscletone)
7. Anthony Smith (Mercury Nashville advance)
8. Talk
About It, Nicole C. Mullen (Word/Epic)
9. Plenty
Good Lovin', Sam Moore (Swing Cafe, UK import)
10. Songs
of Sahm, The Bottle Rockets (Bloodshot)
Dave Marsh coedits
Rock and Rap Confidential.
He can be reached at: marsh6@optonline.net
Dave Marsh's
Previous DeskScan Top 10 Lists:
May 14, 2002
May 6, 2002
April 30, 2002
April 22, 2002
April 15, 2002
April 9, 2002
April 2, 2002
March 25, 2002
March 18,
2002
March 11,
2002
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