But who is Madonna to accused Lady Gaga of being derivative? Was or is Madonna SO original? No. She rode the dance disco wave without taking too many chances, making too many inovations. Where Madonna WAS different was the WAY she presented her songs, not the songs themselves. We weren’t left wondering what she’d do next musically. We were left wondering what she’d look like, what her video would be like, what she’d say. There’s no doubt Madonna was a groundbreaker, but not with what she did on record. She exploited the media like no-one before, and obviously still does. Madonna gave birth to the Pop Tart. It’s Britney Spears, Ke$ha and Rihanna who must bow to their “creator” Madonna, not Gaga.

Where Lada Gaga IS the same as Madonna is that she is also a groundbreaker, and not musically, but as a packager of music. Gaga has opened the door to the next generation and closed the door on Madonna and her offspring - and that’s why Madonna needs to bring Gaga down a peg or two. Look at the web reports and you’ll see that we’re all singing Madonna’s tune perfectly. She must be laughing. I hope Lady Gaga can see through Madonna and is laughing too.

Gaga has a new album coming out too. Whose will be more relevant? Whose will you be more intrigued to hear?

We live in a litigious world. The smell of money brings out all sorts of legal claims. The music business reports a new one almost every day. Michael Jackson’s honey pot unearthed them all, the almost obligatory song theft claims, even “wives” wanting their share – but since his death NO child has come forward to say they were inappropriately dealt with by Jackson. If ever there’s been a “window of opportunity” it’s been during the last year and a half. Even his grubby family keep putting their hands out in one way or another, but there’s been a significant silence in this area. You’d think that if there was a claim out there – legitimate or malicious – we would have heard of it by now.

OUR problem was that we live in a corrupt filthy-minded world. We see threats and evil everywhere. We COULDN’T believe that an adult could possibly be playing with children without being a predator.

I’m NOT saying that Michael Jackson was probably as pure as he might have had us believe. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble – and expense – to silence his first accuser, Jordie Chandler. He never allowed that charge to be tested in court. That was his big mistake. But it’s rather telling that during the media assault he embarked on afterwards to defend his honour Jackson quite openly and innocently declared that that he was sharing his bed with children and saw nothing wrong with it. He really did believe that and WE couldn’t believe it.

Michael Jackson loved the Peter Pan concept – the Boy who never grew up – but truth is he was a tarnished youth from the beginning. That he couldn’t change. He couldn’t change that he’d seen and heard things no “child” should see and hear. Before they became famous the Jacksons played in strip joints where women exposed themselves to him. His brothers and father thought nothing of having sex around Michael. We know that Michael Jackson a distorted outlook on sex. Fellow child star Brooke Shield tells us the first thing Michael wanted to talk about when he got her alone was sex. Nothing happened.

We also know that off stage Michael Jackson was unbelievably shy, another outcome of his upbringing. That shyness wasn’t an act. So, there’s every chance that Michael Jackson DID look at pornography with his little friends, that he DID get himself and them drunk, and maybe he exposed himself to them – but THAT’s as far as it probably went. The shyness would have got in the way. In that respect he WAS the child that never grew up. There has always been a question mark over his sexual relationship with his wives Debbie Rowe and Lisa Marie Presley. We know that his three children were begat without intercourse.

While he was alive that was all a very sensitive aspect of Michael Jackson’s existence, and the moment there was any suggestion of impropriety he threw everything he had – and he had plenty – to bury it. Michael’s not around any more. I don’t think the Michael Jackson Industry that his death has produced would or could be bothered to be as defensive as Jackson himself. We’ve heard nothing. Maybe our suspicious were misplaced. Maybe we had dirtier minds than he had. Things DID happen, but probably not THAT.

The raw facts however suggest that rock isn’t dead, or least is breathing easier. According to Nielsen SoundScan, in America Rock was the biggest music genre of 2011. Rock music had a 1.9% sales increase during 2011 and sold almost double total R&B sales.
It comes down semantics of course. The Black Keys and Ke$ha aren’t talking about the same thing when they talk about “rock”. For Nielsen SoundScan it’s a genre rather than a musical spirit. And that’s where The Black Keys and Ke$ha are in unison. “Rock” used to be that music which had an edge, the music that pushed at the boundaries. Rap has been the new “rock”.

I’m not a fan of bands like Nickleback and Maroon 5, but it’s too easy to make them a target fore derision. There have always been bland bands– Electric Light Orchestra, Chicago – acts which radio gravitate towards because they are safe and non-confrontational. They serve a purpose. We remember them, and we’ll remember Nickelback, for their success rather than their contribution. The bands that define “rock” were more often than not NOT successful in sales terms. Their importance is measured by impact and influence. It’s hard to find that kind of artist amongst today’s “rock” fraternity. Rock doesn’t have an Eminem. I can’t think of a contemporary rocker who might inspire the future. Dave Groel and Jack White are contenders, but they’re keeping the flame alive not lighting new fires.

In those terms rock IS dead but look and listen hard enough there’s some exceptional rock music being written and recorded – The National, Cold War Kids, The Kills, Death Cab For Cutie – and while there’s a band around of the calibre of Radiohead you can’t say rock is dead.

What’s dead is rock music that’s “dangerous”.

‘Sexy And I Know It’ is also back at No.1 in Australia. In 2011 between this No.1 and ‘Party Rock Anthem’ LMFAO spent 17 week at No.1 in Australia. No-one has accumulated such a dominant 12 month run in Australia since Abba in the 70s, and the Beatles in the 60s. No-one else!

We have to take LMFAO seriously. They’re not the decade’s Village People or KLF. They’re doing the business and are symptomatic of the times, not exactly perfomers, not exactly a group – a “project” created by two DJs with an interesting heritage.

Stefan Gordy (Redfoo) and Skyler Gordy (Sky Blu) were born 11 years apart. Stefan, the younger of the two, is Skyler’s uncle. Skyler is Stefen’s father’s grandson. Stefan’s father is Berry Gordy IV, the second of three children from Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr’s second marriage. Gordy (the father) married three times. He didn’t marry Stefan’s mother, like he didn’t marry Motown star Diana Ross, who also secretly bore a child to him. Berry Gordy Jr fathered eight children altogether, four inside marriages, four outside. Stefen is his youngest child. He’s the product of a brief relationship Berry Gordy Jr had with Nancy Leiviska, a Motown executive for 18 years. Leiviska did more than sleep with the boss. She came to Motown as Sammy Davis Jr’s personal assistant, and at Motown saw the company into the video age – long before the advent of MTV. When it came to MTV Leiviska wrote and produced a cutting edge video for Rockwell’s ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’, the first Motown clip aired by MTV. Rockwell, incidentally, was another of Gordy’s sons, another of the non-marriage children. Leiviska also directed and shot Rick James’ landmark ‘Superfreak’ video. She’s not watching her son’s worldwide success with LMFAO from the sidelines. Stefan’s mum administers the ‘Party Rock Anthem’ copyright.

One last family connection. The name LMFAO was accidentally coined by Skyler’s grandmother. When the messaged her to say the duo planned to call itself Sexe (pronounced Sex-say) Dudes, her response was LMFAO, a more profane extension of the Internet acronym LOL (laughing out loud). One could safely assumed that it was the grandmother on Berry Gordy IV’s mother’s side of the family. IV’s mum Raynoma has been the whistle blower on Berry Gordy Jr’s “interesting” history. She was the one who revealed for the first time the child Berry had had with Diana Ross – who had quickly married her manager when she discovered she was with child. Raynoma was there at the start of the Motown story. She helped her husband establish his recording empire. After they divorced and she remarried, Raynoma went back to the company, only to find herself sacked during a cost-cutting exercise. The final cruel blow came when Berry Gordy Jr sold Motown for $61 million in 1988 she expected a “little something. Her name had been on the original company documents but Berry had persuaded her to take it off for the good of the company. In 1988 she didn’t get a cent. SO she wrote a book instead. Now Berry is taking about creating a Broadway musical about his life. How much of the above will feature? The official Motown story is filled with fiction covering over a much more sordid reality.

More of that some other time. Let’s get back to LMFAO, worlds away from the original Gordy family empire. If we dare to attempt to predict the future we shouldn’t expect RedFoo and SkyBlu to party on for much longer. They’ll become a hit factory for others, as producers and maybe even as record label executives. In recent history there’s a long list of hitmakers who’ve been handed the keys to the front office, often a case of being prompted out of their depth. In the Gordy boys’ case their father paved the way.

Like the Black Eyed Peas – Will.I.Am was RedFoo’s junior high school friend and an early supporter –LMFAO, together or separately will become a money spinning corporation. RedFoo also has business background in investment and money. While their father’s Motown Records’ music will always remind us of the 60s and 70s, in a very different way LMFAO already have and will continue to shape the times were living through right now. Whether ‘Party Rock Anthem’ is the new ‘Lambada’ or ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is yet to be determined.

Adele’s  is a story without the celebrity seeking Twitter fuelled orgy surrounding her contemporaries, an oasis of reality in a sea  of falsehood and audience manipulation, a distinctive voice in a time of autotune mediocrity. Adele has charmed the world with honesty all along the way, a refreshing nakedness. Our every contact with her has shone with integrity. It’s in her songs. It’s there with every performance, on stage or on television. It’s there in her every contact with the press.

As the major record companies shrink in number and pour their dollars into fewer artists, Adele has risen without them and amongst them, like a flower from a wasteland.

While Adele MUST be celebrated, at this point in time an aspiring musician coming into the “business” can’t hope for a living. A recent study  told  us that for an American artist to make minimum wage ($US1,160 per month) by just selling downloads, they would have to move 12,399 tracks on iTunes. There you see one of the problems. While the U2s and Paul McCartneys praised Steve Jobs loudly after his death, Jobs can be seen as one of the great villains in this story. When the record industry was at a loss at how to handle the digital age, running around like the proverbial headless chickens, Jobs offered them a one-fix solution – iTunes. In reality iTunes was a Trojan Horse. Apple’s priority wasn’t and isn’t selling music. iTunes exists to provide content to Apple’s other products. The cheaper the music the more viable the phones, etc etc. The record companies just handed over the whole shebang, getting sued in the aftermath for violating contracts they had with their artists.

Yes there’s been other successful artists in 2011, each of them in some other way illustrating the state of play. Lady Gaga’s multi-media assault. Her songs, her albums are one part of a complex success equation. Gaga’s using what exists to her advantage. Rihanna is slave to it. Katy Perry is a more playful participant. LMFAO point to the trend towards a single track music industry rather than one based on “bundled” albums. Good for the record companies, not so good for creativity and building careers. Harder for us to form relationships with artists and their music, artists becoming as disposable as hit songs.

Once apon a time a successful artist opened doors for others. A record company with a successful artist found themselves in a position of strength, able to grow and take chances. Those days are gone. Successful artists are now enterprises in their own right. That’s where the growth will go. There’s no trickle down.

The digital age has also made music much more global at the top level. If you take a look however  you’ll notice that the world’s audiences are in fact quite territorial. Wherever we live we are very still and increasingly keen to enjoy our local produce, but we have to do so under the growing weight of the need of the major international labels to make as much out of their stars as they can – and that (Adele again against the tide) means American stars.

So here’s another problem for the rest of the world. What America wants is not necessarily what the world wants. Country music is an American staple. It isn’t and never has been for the rest of the world. Same applies to a lot of rap. This is music that America wants, needs and will support, so that’s what THEIR record companies NEED to and DO provide. That’s THEIR territorial music, but because of the American industry’s strength and place in the music industry, THEIR record companies are also EVERYBODY ELSE’s record companies. Adele could not have come out of America!

That’s leaving less and less room for what the rest of the world might want. What we’re looking at is what Hollywood has done to the movie industry. With Hollywood dominating available screens other countries struggle to sustain healthy movie industries.

At the end of each year there are the inevitable ‘best of’ lists. 2011 wasn’t an impressive year for music. It was out there but we’re being denied access to it, and it’s being denied access to us – an ironic thing to say in the days of YouTube. Five minutes of fame is not what we’re talking about.

Music is in era of great change. We’ll look back and see this time as being as significant (maybe more) as the change from 78s to 45s, vinyl to compact disc. Change is change. It isn’t necessarily progress. The introduction of the CD was when record companies started killing our engagement with music, not intentionally but in effect. The change into the digital age could have been exciting. It may still become exciting. But it didn’t have to be like this. It didn’t have to force so much out of reach of consumers. It didn’t have to drive so many of music-makers into poverty.

There were a lot of factors, but a lot of the blame has to lie with the music industry itself. No courage. No imagination. No love for music?

So, the reunion is about nostalgia rather than musicianship. It’s rather telling that what we know so far about the new album is that the group as is in 2011 has re-recorded their 1968 hit ‘Do It Again’ as its heralding call for the new year.  Don’t be surprised if that’s what we see and hear at the Grammy Awards. Awards used to be about recognition of achievement. They’ve become events. The Awards and winners have become less of the priority. The reunited  Beach Boys will be a Grammy event.

‘Do It Again’ was written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. In 1968 it was a return to the traditional Beach Boys sound after Brian Wilson’s sand-box collaborations with Van Dyke Parks. Mike Love was the Beach Boy who was most unhappy about Brian working with Parks and the music Brian was creating. Cousin Mike is on record for calling ‘Good Vibrations’ “shit”. Eat your words Mike.

In subsequent years Mike Love initiated lawsuit after lawsuit against his fellow Beach Boys, over his contribution to the songwriting,  over the name of the band, etc etc. ‘Do It Again’ isn’t just an appropriate theme for 2012, that song offers is a peace dove within Beach Boys ranks. Missing in action in the meantime of course are Brian’s brothers Dennis and Carl who have taken their surfboards into the beyond.  Dennis drowned in 1983. Carl lost his life to cancer in 1998.

The 2012 Beach Boys will see one-time protagonists Brian Wilson and Mike Love joined by Al Jardine and David Marks. Jardine was a high school classmate of Brian Wilson’s who joined the Wilson Boys and their cousin Mike for their first recording session   When he left the Beach Boys shortly afterwards he was replaced on bass by Marks but returned in 1962 at Brian’s request. Marks, despite many overtures,  didn’t become a permanent Beach Boy again until 1997.

What’s kept our attention on the Beach Boys over the years of course was the group’s relationship with Brian. After a mental breakdown they left him at home to write songs while they sang their old songs about surfing, girls and hot rods around the world. They came back and found him in his sandbox with Van Dyke Parks. Try as they might to carry on without their deranged resident genius they could never quite manage it. Whenever the Beach Boys needed a career lift they tried to get Brian on stage or into the studio again. Eventually it just all fell to pieces although Mike Love and Al Jardine put some of the broken bits together separately towards their own ends. Miraculously Brian Wilson emerged (relatively) sane and has been making some wonderful (and eccentric) music.

In the beginning Brian Wilson needed the rest of The Beach Boys. He didn’t for long, but he was stuck with them, just as they were stuck with a quickly out-dated name. The Beach Boys always needed Brian Wilson, even if it was only spiritually. While Brian’s been working with musicians worthy of him the Beach Boys have limped on. Was that version of the Beach Boys that toured Australia earlier this year REALLY miming?  To be at all relevant he Beach Boys STILL need Brian Wilson and will have him again in 2012.

Suddenly The Beach Boys name means something again.

At the same time as she’s been named by Forbes as one of the year’s best paid female entertainer there’s worrying signs that she might be starting to unravel. Cancelling gigs (Ireland) due to stress is one thing. Keeping your fans waiting for more than an hour (England) is another. It’s unforgivable. It’s spitting in the eye of the very people who’ve put her in that high priced bracket – kind of.

Today entertainers get to where they are and get what they get financially through more than the records they make and the numbers who attend their concerts. These things help to create a brand, which leads to endorsements, which leads to $$$ and more $$$. While the music industry whinges about piracy’s impact on their income, have you noticed that the top artists are earning more money than ever before? Product endorsement is a big part of it. Rihanna’s list of endorsements is nearly as long as the list of her hit records.  It’s important to remember that during the storm over that Chris Brown incident there were fears that SHE might lose endorsements if she pursued Brown in court.

In recent years Rihanna has been pop music’s most consistent star. On top of her own records everybody from Eminem to Coldplay wants an association – another form of endorsement. Apart from consistency Rihanna has certainly been BUSY. In just over six years she’s released just as many albums, almost unheard of in the modern history of music. If it was JUST about music right now SOMEONE would be worried. Elvis Presley’s Colonel Tom Parker lived by the management maxim: “Overexposure is like sunburn. It hurts’. It might hurt a music career but it keeps the endorsements providers happy.

 Are we really so celebrity awe struck that we’ll buy a perfume because it comes with Rihanna’s image? Apparently.

Something else to note about Rihanna. In that relatively short career she’s had a number of changes in management, usually with $$$ at the core. It’s happening right now. She’s unhappy with her current management – NOT because they’ve got her churning out music, NOT because she’s working to the point of stress, NOT because  she’s putting out videos with questionable messages – but because her management has  just taken on management of Beyonce and there might be a conflict of interest when it comes to those all-important endorsement clients.

But  …. as much as we’re watching those eye candy  videos, as much as we’re consuming those Rihanna songs – have you ever noticed how LARGE those songwriting credits are? – and apparently beating our way into the stores to buy anything else associated with her name and image ….  we actually don’t care do we?

If Rihanna IS unravelling, and I’m not saying she really is, and – dread the thought – she’s heading the way of Lindsay Lohan or Amy Winehouse we really won’t care will we? We’ll consume all that with just as much fascination. As well as celebrity we love a trainwreck. That year Britney Spears dominated Google etc etc, it wasn’t to do with our love for her as a singer.

Rihanna deserves all that money she’s making. I’d just like her to find time to enjoy it.

It’s happened before of course. John Lennon’s ‘Double Fantasy’ was finished before he died. It wasn’t just his record. Half the songs were Yoko’s and performed by Yoko. He himself hadn’t meant it to be that way, but this was his first outing on record after five years of “watching the wheels”. If that’s the way it had to to be … Afterwards he went straight back into the studio, planning to somehow make his own record again. That’s what he was doing when he was shot, concentrating on a song of Yoko’s to make it so good she might be inspired to want to be on her own too.

So we heard an album called ‘Milk And Honey’, again half John half Yoko. At least we heard the songs  the way John left them. We can heard that there was a reason John had left these songs off ‘Double Fantasy’, not just to make room for Yoko. At best they would have been fillers.

Jimi Hendrix wasn’t so lucky. After HE died a producer called Alan Douglas claimed the right to go into the studio to give us the albums Douglas insisted Jimi had planned to make. Douglas used session musicians Jimi had never met.  This was different to Steve Cropper  adding the seagulls to ‘Dock Of The Bay’ after Otis Redding died. What Jimi did was collaborative. What Alan Douglas to his music did was sacrilege. Years later his family tried to unscramble the “egg”.

Jeff Buckley struggled with the follow-up to his magnificent ‘Grace’ album. There was a whole album he recorded afterwards and scrapped – or thought he’d scrapped. He was in the process of rehearsing a new band in order to try again when he died. So we heard the music he hadn’t wanted us to hear as, part of ‘Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk’. Ultimately a beautiful experience  – ‘Grace’ – was tarnished. It was his mother’s doing. Where does keeping a memory alive finish, and exploitation start?

Couldn’t we just have taken ‘Grace’ in its full glory as our lasting gift from Jeff?

Amy Winehouse’s “third album” isn’t worthy of her. These are not “treasures”. They should have remained “hidden”. For her sake – for our sake – it would be better if, as with ‘Grace’, we were left with only her two complted albums ‘Frank’ and ‘Back To Black’ to enjoy over and over. That’s who she was. That’s who she wanted to be. Finish.

They say that death is a good career move. For who?

Hardly a week goes by without news of another celebrity artist being appointed as a judge or making a guest appearance on that seemingly ever-growing list of television reality talent shows … X-Factor, (Insert Territory)’s Got Talent, The Voice. Has everyone forgotten what these shows are SUPPOSED to be about .. unearthing unknown talent .. giving people a break?

Maybe that dream was there in the beginning .. it’s still the dream of the contestants-cum-combatants .. but that it’s a dream that’s been hijacked. If that dream was ever really there it’s been stolen. The dream has become a scam.

 It started with (Insert Territory) Idol holding feature nights, you know, twenty-something  year olds forced to sing the songs of a Lionel Ritchie who’s there on set to “mentor” them, catalogues so old they are not part of the lives of the singers forced to perform them, songs they have no passion for, may not be suited for. And at the end of one of those episodes someone gets thrown out. Sorry. Lionel Ritchie walks away with a big exposure boost. Thanks.

Then came the celebrity judge phenomenon. Christina Aguilera and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine take time off from their busy recording and performing schedules to give the wanna-bes the benefit of their experience and knowledge on America’s  version of ‘The Voice’. Popular show. Massive exposure. Who gets the most benefit? Aguilera records ‘Moves Like Jagger’ with Levine’s Maroon 5. No.1 single in America and around the world. Thanks. Who WERE those contestants?

‘The Voice’ is about to be launched in Australia. Signed up as judges are Keith Urban and Delta Goodrem. Keith, despite his Australian origins and his mammoth status in the US, is NOT a mega star in Australia. Not yet. Delta USED to be a mega star in Australia. She’s been concentrating on establishing am international toehold. Urban and Goodrem can both do with something high profile to turn the tide. ‘The Voice’ will do the job nicely thank you. I can guarantee you now even, before the first show is filmed, that when the series is over those two careers will making new Australian headlines. The pay for being on the show won’t hurt either. What contestants? Line up so we can applaud you and spit you out.

England’s judges for ‘The Voice’’s 2012 launch in that country will be singer-songwriter Jessie J , Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am, Tom Jones and The Script frontman Danny O’Donoghue.  The show will do none of them harm. Can you feel a Jessie J/will.i.am collaboration coming on?  What contestants?

Theme nights, celebrity judges and – thanks to the massive audiences these shows boast – now some of the biggest acts in the world are lining up to make guest performances. Coldplay performing on X-Factor. The television bosses don’t mind. Look at the ratings. Simon Cowell doesn’t mind. Look at his bank balance. The artists don’t mind. Look at the exposure.What about the contestant?.

In the annals of show business there’s that legendary man with a cigar who comes up to uninitiated and promises to make them a star. Reality or an evil trap? That’s what these shows are the equivalent of. You can’t blame the Coldplays etc etc. They’re looking after their own interests, exploiting the shows, as they exploit those innocents.

And us? Are we being exploited too? Did we start watching those shows to help Christine Aguilera and Adam Levine to a world-wide No.1 or did we share Susan Boyle’s dream?

Both X-Factor judge and Simon Crowell have admitted that Lady Gaga wouldn’t have survived one of these shows. Reid had the chance to discover Gaga properly in the first place, but he didn’t see her potential. He says he had a bad day.

For the last ten years the music industry has been lamenting downloads as the industry’s downfall. Don’t these shows also have a lot to answer for? A lot of energy and money has been invested for what result? Not much as far as the health of music is concerned.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

Feist (Metals): As a singer she has extraordinary warmth. Her voice just envelops you like sunshine. As a songwriter she has taste and imagination. Already a recording artist with a commendable history this is arguably her finest work.  I was hooked before. I’m addicted now.

It used to be that music video clips were made to save artists from appearing on every television show going to promote their latest release – when there were still television shows to appear on. Video didn’t kill the radio star. It killed the music star. We saw them more often, mouthing their songs accompanied by eye candy  often so memorable we talked about “seeing” someone’s new song. But we stopped seeing them in their raw state. Live performances on video and on television shows became boring.

But I digress.

Videos USED to promote songs. If you create a high profile big budget video for a song with already proven sales traction what’s the purpose? It HAS to be to promote the artist rather than the song, to make them more famous than they already are. For what purpose? Isn’t Lady Gaga’s video going deflect our attention AWAY from her song? We might look at the video again and again. Will we want to buy the song – if we haven’t already – to play the song again and again?  Playing the audio has been made a partial experience.

In Lady Gaga’s case the strategy MIGHT be to raise our expectation for the album waiting for release. Maybe. Hasn’t the music industry destroyed the album’s pride of place as the artist’s ultimate gift to their fans – a body of work in a collectable package?   

For some time we’ve been in an era of fame for fame’s sake. The music itself is a sideshow, the bait when there’s bigger fish to fry.  Sponsorship. Merchandizing.  Get a hit. Make a video to raise the artist’s profile even further, with product placement if possible. Create a platform from which to sell merchandise. How did someone who can hold a tune – not that all of them can – suddenly become a fashion designer or perfume mixer? More dollars in that than the pittance iTunes has forced the music industry down to.

And yet those top music artists are making much more money than music artists ever made. It ain’t just about music any more.

For artists who ARE about music the video still serves the traditional purpose.  Go visit YouTube. But where do you start? And how long with that forum last before it goes the way of MySpace?

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

The Waifs (Temptation):  There’s more to music than struttin’ and  dancin’ and posin’. There’s self-expression, emotion, melody and performance. There’s the Waifs.