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Today's
Stories
June 26-28, 2009
Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet the Retreads: Obama's Used Green Team
June 25, 2009
Kathy Kelly
Now We See You, Now We Don't
Jack Bratich
You Provide the Tweets, We'll Provide the Info War: the Media and the Iranian Protests
Wendell Potter
The Health Insurance Industry v. Health Care Reform: a Former Insurance Industry Insider Tells All
Charles R. Larson
Don't Cry for Him, Argentina! GOP Sex Scandal of the Week
Alan Farago
The Tears of Mark Sanford
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Firms Accused of Profiting Off Holocaust
Gareth Porter
Khobar Bombings:
Telltale Signs of Saudi Fraud
Bitta Mostofi /
Bill Quigley
"You Will Not Get Past Us"
David Macaray
Six Ways to Reinvigorate Labor
Mark Schuller
Haiti's Elections: "Beat the Dog Too Hard"
Website of the Day
Worst Slide Story
June 24, 2009
Andrew Cockburn
How the U.S. Has Secretly Backed Pakistan's Nuclear Program From Day One
Dean Baker
Making Financial Regulation Work
Andy Worthington
The Story of Abdul Rahim al-Ginco
James Bovard
Obama and the Torturers
Diana Gibson /
Ray McGovern
Torture Eats the Soul
P. Sainath
The Age of the Everyday Billionaire
Gareth Porter
Investigating the Khobar Tower Bombing: Why Was Al Qaeda Excluded From the Suspects List?
Robert Alvarez
The Department of Energy's Nuclear Albatross
Dave Lindorff
Medicare for All
Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi
Website of the Day
Protest as Terrorism
June 23, 2009
David Price
Obama's Classroom Spies
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Reels Toward a New Era
James Ridgeway /
Jean Casella
Bi-Partisan Bull on Health Care: Three Ex-Senators Get It Up for the Health Care Industry
Dave Lindorff
Using the Economic Crisis to Attack Workers
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
Puerto Rico: Biotech Island
Gary Leupp
Dennis Ross Moves to the White House
Brian M. Downing
The Erosion of the Mullahs' Monolith
Robert Bryce
Are Theocracies Doomed?
Nicholas Dearden
The G8 is Dead
Yousef Munayyer
Seeing Through Israeli Delay Tactics
Website of the Day
The Great White Father of America
June 22, 2009
Michael Hudson
Obama's (Latest) Surrender to Wall Street
Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in the Iranian Presidential Election? A Hard Look at the Numbers
Chris Floyd
Dexter's Legions in Afghanistan
Jack Z. Bratich
The Fog Machine: Iran, Social Networks and Genetically Modified Grassroots Organizations
Atash Yaghmaian
We Children of the Revolution
Laura Carlsen
Victory in the Amazon
Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran
Vijay Prashad
Gun v. Butter: Now You are Only Poor
Fred Gardner
Charles Lynch Gets a Year and a Day (No Thanks to Eric Holder)
Andy Thayer
The Blank Check: How We Got the Obama-DOMA Debacle
David Macaray
Unions and the Newspaper Crisis
Website of the Day
The Most Spied Upon Town in America?
June 19 - 21, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
I Become an American
Jeffrey St. Clair
Firebrand: Rod Coronado's Flame War
Patrick Cockburn
Who Will Control Iraq's Oil?
Al Giordano
What the Left Should be Learning From Iran
Henry A. Giroux
The Iranian Uprisings and the Challenge of the New Media
Anthony DiMaggio
The Electoral Façade
Paul Craig Roberts
Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated "Color Revolution?"
John Ross
46 Dead Mexican Toddlers: Sacrificed on the Altar of Neoliberalism
Gareth Porter
Spinning Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Carl Ginsburg
Obama's Bix Fix: Placating the Bankers, Again
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
40 Years After Stonewall:
From Smash the Church to Going to the Chapel
Joe Bageant
Workers' Rights: No Balls, No Gains
Serge Halimi
Protectionism: We've Been Here Before
P. Sainath
Price of Rice, Price of Power in India
Jim Goodman
The Claim Deniers: Why the Health Insurance Industry Doesn't Deserve Our Trust
Dave Lindorff
Obama's Health Care Waterloo
Rannie Amiri
Bush Jumps Over Maine, Carter Lands in Gaza
Robert Fantina
Iran, Obama and McCain
Harvey Wasserman
Big Nuke's Radioactive Hoax in Impoverished Ohio
Walter Brasch
They Got Away With Murder: 12 Angry White People
David Ker Thomson
This Moment's Bill of Rights
Charles R. Larson
No Voice: Telling Her Mother's Story
David Yearsley
Escape From the Torture Chamber
Kim Nicolini
When the Closet is the Culprit
Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini and the Art of Ambiguity
Poets' Basement
Beatty and Kowitt
Website of the Weekend
Grown in Yellowstone, Slaughtered in Montana
June 18, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Case of Netanyahu and the Curious Incident
Robert Sandels /
Nelson P. Valdes
U.S. Cuba Policy: a Case of Post-Diplomatic Strees Disorder
Anthony DiMaggio
The Iranian Elections and the Faith-Based Media
Robert Weissman
Obama's Financial Sector Reform Plan: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Joshua Frank
These Are Obama's Wars Now
Jonathan Cook
Canadian Ambassador Honored in Illegal Park Built on Razed Palestinian Homes
Reza Fiyouzat
Iranians in the Streets
Norman Solomon
Obama and the Antiwar Democrats
Ali Jawad
Reformists are Islamists, Too
James Ridgeway
Am I on Crack When It Comes to Flight 447?
Website of the Day
The Death of the Ghost Prisoner
June 17, 2009
Carl Boggs
Torture: an American Legacy
Dr. Bryant Welch
Torture, Psychology and Sen. Daniel Inouye: the True Story Behind Psychology's Role in Torture?
Winslow T. Wheeler
How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense
Liaquat Ali Khan
Obama's Gift to Pakistan: a Civil War
Jonathan Cook
Beating and Torturing Children
Binoy Kampmark
Gordon Brown's War Inquiry
Karim Makdisi
The Lebanese Elections: a Box Office Success?
Dave Lindorff
Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black
David Swanson
In Congress: 32 Heroes, 21 Frauds
Gene Marx
How Fox News is Helping to Nationalize the GI Sanctuary Movement
Website of the Day
The Diamond Mine That Ate Mirny
June 16, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Looming Peril: a Plague of Snakes
John Ross
Undermining Mexico
Afshin Rattansi
Guarding the Revolution
Marc Levy
How I Nearly Won the War
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Youth Make History
Brian M. Downing
Democracy in Iran
Merle Lefkoff
Israel's Angels in America
David Macaray
Charles Manson and Me
Robert Jensen
Finding a Stubborn Hope to Live in a Dead Culture
David Swanson
An Exit Strategy That Keeps Wars Going
Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament Fundraiser
June 15, 2009
Michael Hudson
The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire
Reza Fiyouzat
The Iranian Elections: Sure They Stole It...Up Front and Honestly
Patrick Cockburn
A Whole New Ballgame in Iraq
James Ridgeway
Did Composite Parts Bring Down Air France Flight 447?
Marjorie Cohn
Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
Rannie Amiri
Iran and the End of the "Obama Effect" Myth
Dave Lindorff
How Obama is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Elections and the Hysterical Media
Leonard Schwartz
The Angel of History and the Ghetto of Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Start Your Engines, Drug Reps!
Website of the Day
Single-Payer v. Public Option
June 12-14, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Who Needs Yesterday's Papers?
Gareth Porter
The CIA's Drone Wars
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Parlor Trick
Mark Ames
Elmer Fudd Nation
Esam Al-Amin
What Really Happened in the Lebanese Elections?
Franklin Lamb
Carter in Lebanon
Patrick Cockburn
Prisoner Swap in Iraq
Andy Worthington
The Long Ordeal of Mohammed El-Gharani
Heather Gray
A New Perspective on the Confederacy: Southern Greed During the Civil War
Felice Pace
Why NPR Refuses to Report on the Single Payer Movement
Ron Jacobs
Flashback to the End of a War That Really Did End
George Wuerthner
Burning Questions: Why the National Fire Plan is a Trojan Horse for Logging
Jeffrey Buchanan /
Trinh Le
Biloxi Trailer Blues
David Ker Thomson
Americana
Renaud Lambert
Brazil: More Dependent Than Ever
Kevin Zeese
Congress and the Health Business Lobby
David Macaray
SAG Vote:
A Lesson in Solidarity ... Not
Evelyn Pringle
FDA Throws Lifeline to Antipsychotic Pushers
Chris Genovali
Blood Sport Auction: Why eBay Should Stop Selling Guided Hunts for Bears, Wolves and Cougar
David Michael Green
The Rhetorical President
Brian J. Foley
Our Solar System is Not a Suicide Pact!
Charles R. Larson
No Safe Return
Kim Nicolini
Foreclosure is Hell: Sam Raimi's Frightfest
David Yearsley
Bach on Torture: Mr. Cheney, They're Playing Your Song
Lorenzo Wolff
Intent to Discord
Poets' Basement
Chris Jordan
Website of the Weekend
The Red Room
June 11, 2009
Kathy Kelly /
Dan Pearson
Down and Out in Shah Mansoor: With the Swat Refugees
James Bovard
The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
Tristan de Bourbon
The Toy Makers of Chenghai: the Financial Crisis Seen From China
Dave Lindorff
The Wheels are Coming Off the Recovery Program
Kevin Zeese
The Case for Disbarment of the Torture Lawyers
Ralph Nader
The Craft of Sam Maloof:
a Visionary Woodworker
Harvey Wasserman
The GOP's Trillion Dollar Reactor Plan Goes Radioactive
Nicole Colson
The Anti-Abortion Movement's Climate of Violence
Mark Weisbrot
Showdown Over the IMF
Dan Bacher
Big Water's Big Lie Unravels
Website of the Day
Top 10 Most Absurd TIME Covers
June 10, 2009
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Obama's Doublespeak on Iran
Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine
The Dangerous World of Indefinite Detentions: From Vietnam to Abu Ghraib
Kathy Kelly
Visitors and Hosts in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Fear Rules
Rev. William E. Alberts
First the Torture of Truth ...
Peter Lee
Obama and North Korea: a Warm-Up in the Offing?
Carol Miller
Why
We Need a Holistic, Cradle-to-the-Grave National Health Care System
Emily Ratner
Dreams of Flight in Gaza
Robert Weissman
The IMF's Accountability Moment
Dave Lindorff
The Sutra of the Crushed Volvo
Website of the Day
Starving in Gitmo
June 9, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
Back From the Dead: Pentagon Pork!
Mike Whitney
Is Hyper-Inflation Around the Corner?
Stan Cox
Biofuel's Drug Problem
Sibel Edmonds
The Battle Against the State Secrets Privilege
Jonathan Cook
Where the Victim is the Guilty Party
David Macaray
A Bad Time for Unions
Robert Jensen
In South Africa, Apartheid is Dead, But White Supremacy Lingers On
Nadia Hijab
The Obama Difference
Mark Weisbrot
Vulture Funds Descend on Argentina
Website of the Day
Waging Non-Violence
June 8, 2009
John Ross
Mexico: Politics as Drugs / Drugs as Politics
Paul Wright
Deconstructing Gus: How a Former Prisoner Took On and Took Down Corrections Corporation of America's Top Lawyer (and Cheney Pal)
Paul Craig Roberts
Long-Term Economic Memory Loss
Franklin C. Spinney
"Natural Growth:" Israel's Demographic Hogwash
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon's Elections: Return to the Status Quo
Uri Avnery
The Tone and the Music
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Loyalty Oaths
Eric Toussaint
/ Damien Millet
The Partisans of Capitalism Have Lost All Credibility
Jim Goodman
The Dairy Oligarchy
Norman Solomon
Words and War
Reza Fiyouzat
When Accusations Fly: the Spectacle of the Iranian Elections
Website of the Day
Latino Jobless Rate Soars
June 5 -7, 200
Alexander Cockburn
High Words, Low Truths
George Galloway
Our Convoy to Gaza
Paul Craig Roberts
Obama in Cairo
Jennifer Loewenstein
How Much Really Separates Obama and Netanyahu?
Franklin Lamb
Watching Obama's Speech in Lebanon
Mike Whitney
The Biggest Rip Off Ever?
Andy Worthington
Death at Guantánamo
Missy Comley Beattie
Peace Be Upon You?
Farzana Versey
Walk Like an Egyptian: the Oprahfication of Obama
Stanley Heller
Obama's Non-Starter
John V. Whitbeck
Nothing Comes From Nothing
Robert Weissman
GM: the Path Not Taken
Lee Sustar
The Fall of GM: Why Workers Will Pay the Price
Dave Lindorff
What a State-Run GM Could Do
William Blum
The Great, International, Truly Demonic Iran Threat
Ernest Callenbach /
Harvey Wasserman
A Green-Powered Trip Through Ecotopia
Greg Moses
By George! Austin Leads the National Recovery
Ron Jacobs
The Meaning of Yasser Arafat
David Yearsley
Art Set in Concrete:
the Desolate Urban Landscape of High Culture
Tim Stelloh
Pot Home Invasions:
Bud and Blow Torches
Belén Fernández
The Joksters: Obama and Thomas Friedman
David Ker Thomson
The Academics
Karyn Strickler
Clean Coal: a Dirty Joke
Christopher Brauchli
Judicial Amnesia and the Federalist Society
Charles R. Larson
Leaving Tangier: Exile and Exploitation
Kim Nicolini
"Hunger:"
Art With a Punch
Lorenzo Wolff
Good Head (Or Why the End of Hand-Crafted Music Isn't (Necessarily) the End of Music)
Poets' Basement
Jenkins, Orloski and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Tankman
|
Weekend Edition
June 26-28, 2009
When the Songs Remain the Same
Craving Diversity
By LORENZO WOLFF
Last night I got home from a mini-tour of the southern Midwest. We managed to cover three thousand miles in five days, cramped up in a little red SUV sprinkled with a cross section of the insect population of the United States. In the fifty hour round trip we worked our iPods to the point of exhaustion, spinning first songs, then albums, then whole catalogs. After two hours of Chuck Berry tunes we got to talking about diversity from song to song, and from album to album.
It’s a pretty new phenomenon to want every song to sound different from the last. Before the early sixties albums were a luxury that most people couldn’t afford, folks bought singles or just listened to the radio. This meant that an artist’s new single could sound similar to the last one since they were less likely to be played back to back. Just buy a Greatest Hits from someone like Fats Domino or Little Richard, and even though they are incredible songs and performances you can hear that these songs were not designed to be played in rapid succession off of the stage.
Then around the time of the British Invasion full albums started being made more affordable and the newer rock crowd began amassing collections of LPs. This meant listening to the same voice for a longer period of time, and by necessity songs were forced to distinguish themselves from each other. In rock this meant more ballads. Because of the pressure of radio, the last generation had to put out mostly up-tempo singles, since you can only play so many slow songs on a pop station. The newer crowd, however, could afford to bring down the energy for a song or two, since people were listening to them for a longer period of time.
Nowadays the situation is a little more complicated. While full albums aren’t quite as popular as they used to be, music collections are growing. People tend to have large collections of songs by a single artist instead of collections of albums. So modern artists now not only have to worry about two songs sounding similar on a given album, they have to think about their whole anthology. Your average listener could build a playlist with a song from Darkness on the Edge of Town right next to a track from The Rising.
When you get down to the heart of the matter it’s a question of control. At first, artists could control what single they wanted their audience to hear at a certain moment of time. Later the LP meant control of a greater amount of time, but it came with certain limitations as far as the relation of the tracks to each other. Now you can listen to an entire discography in any order you see fit. This means you have an entire career to get your ideas across, but you have a much greater responsibility for how you do it. It’s like the Boss says:
Nothing is forgotten or forgiven,
When it’s your last time around,
I got stuff running around ‘round my head
That I just can’t live down
Lorenzo Wolff is a musician living in New York. He can be reached at: lorenzowolff@gmail.com |
