Turns out, they’re every bit as good as the review said.

The downside is I have to steal their music.

I’m not sure if they ever even sold it, or if they were just giving it away free. Doesn’t matter. Somebody threw a takedown notice at them and they complied.

But anyone with half a brain should know you can’t take anything off the internet. Maybe ten years ago, but people are wise to that shit now. Torrents make it easier than ever, and believe me—when something gets taken down by force, people flock to it. They want it ten times worse than before…but by acting so stingy and selfish, copyright holders are throwing away money. How is that, you might ask? Let me explain, and then you can decide for yourself whether the current system works best.

What this artist is doing is brilliant. They’re called Team Teamwork and so far they’ve released three albums. One is a set of standard mashups, but the other two are incredible mashups of rap and videogame soundtracks. This type of thing will never be a mainstream hit, but there are nerds everywhere who would die to get a copy of Busta Rhymes rapping over the Gerudo Valley theme music. And as much as nerds like to “cheat” the system to get free music, they also show incredible loyalty to what they perceive as a quality product. Something like “Ocarina of Rhyme” would, at the very least, solicit a couple of bucks in a PayPal donation.

But the rights holder says no, forget it, you’re violating our ownership of the original songs. Take it down, scrap it. What happens from there?

1. The artist takes it down.
2. Someone (maybe even the artist?) puts up a torrent. It takes 30 seconds.
3. Someone in the media writes about the takedown. (Pretty much guaranteed these days.)
4. People SCRAMBLE to get a copy. Demand is through the roof.

You mean an artist has produced music that people want? Well, to hell with that! Ownership trumps everything, apparently.

The problem is, rights holders (don’t even get me started on intellectual property in the first place) are operating under a set of legal precedents that were established way, way before anything like the internet ever existed. There was no way to predict what would happen now that information can be shared globally in an instant.

So, traditionally, the school of thought is that when someone violates a copyright, you shut them down in order to protect your business. That works if someone is hand-printing copies of your book and selling them cheap on the street corner. It doesn’t really work the same if someone is scanning a digital copy of your book and selling it on the internet…you’re talking about two very different things now.

“No,” the rights holder would say. “They are still stealing my copyright and should be punished.”

Not so fast. Remember, people will only seek to provide goods and services that are in demand. If you only publish physical books, and do not sell electronic copies, then it’s clear that people want something you are not providing, and are being forced to look elsewhere.

The same logic applies to music. The artist that produces a mashup of rap and videogame music is not stealing either one. They are creating an entirely NEW product, for which there is SIGNIFICANT demand.

If a rights holder has done the research to know an artist is using their copyrighted material, then the rights holder already knows exactly how much is being used, and what a fair amount would be to charge for it. It’s called licensing. Clearing the sample. Whatever.

It would be to the benefit of the artist AND the original rights holder to negotiate a payment structure moreso than it would be to just demand that they stop creating something that people obviously want.

I don’t know the backstory of this particular situation, but I do know how record companies and other rights holders operate. And they don’t seem to care about the little guys, the up and coming artists. But I would argue that they should, because yeah, maybe they only make a hundred bucks off of Team Teamwork. But the mentality of working WITH an artist rather than AGAINST them will soon pay off, and when there are 40 more artists out there using your material, all of a sudden you’re making $4,000. And it can go up from there.

The solution is mandatory sample licensing, the same way that we already have mandatory mechanical licensing. You can record a cover of any song you want—as long as it’s been released commercially in some form—and no one can stop you from selling it. You just have to pay the licensing fee of a couple cents per track sold.

I know there’s all kinds of arguments about why sample licensing is much more complicated than ordinary mechanical licensing, and it’s not. It isn’t. Just set a price that everyone can agree on—yes, you have to pay the owner of the song and the owner of the sound recording, but who cares? That’s petty shit. Just work out the details, stick a price tag on it and let the artists go to work. That’s where the record companies can recover and begin to earn some trust back from artists as well as consumers.

Say the fee is 10 cents per track, to simplify things. And let’s say each Team Teamwork track has one rap vocal and one piece of videogame music. The guy who owns the rap song gets 10 cents. The guy who owns the videogame music gets 10 cents. Team Teamwork sells the tracks for 99 cents each, and the store takes 15 cents. The artist then earns 44 cents from every sale, and EVERYONE gets paid. And EVERYONE WINS, because now fans can buy the music and the artist doesn’t have to cower in fear just because they want to sample a killer track.

No one wants to hear about some stuffed shirt exec clamping down on a creative artist for stupid, backwards reasons. I don’t care what the reason is, to the consumer it just looks mean.

I wish I could point you to an online store where you could buy Team Teamwork. But sadly the powers that be have decided that’s not a worthy option. So you can download everything for free at the following link:

http://8tracks.com/teamteamwork

Click on each album, and you’ll see a download link right below the audio player. If that fails, there’s always the torrents…

For all the talk about piracy, no one has said much about what goes on inside the industry. TV shows can be a great opportunity for an up-and-coming artist, but should we throw all our rights out the window just for the chance to be featured? Here’s an e-mail I received the other day:

Hello,

We are looking for background music for the next round of episodes for [name of show removed]. Our goal is to give exposure to as many bands as possible through our selections.

If your song is used, the selected track will be tagged with a lower third graphic when played in show which will include the artist’s name, title of track and label. The song and band will also be posted on the [show] website as further promotion. You can see examples here:

Tagged Track: [link removed]

Links to Band: [link removed]

The music must be instrumental only. Ideally, we are looking for songs with the vocal tracks removed that is good mood music, high energy rock, pop songs, ect.

All songs (publishing and masters) must be licensed to us gratis, worldwide, in all media and in perpetuity as this is a promo trade.

If you are interested in working with us, please contact me at [e-mail removed] with streams to potential tracks, contact info and band websites (myspace is acceptable).

Thank you
[name removed]
Series Producer

I don’t care how the music industry is supposed to work. From where I am, I can look at their practices and decide for myself if it’s something I want to go along with. And this is a bunch of shit.

“All songs (publishing and masters) must be licensed to us gratis, worldwide, in all media and in perpetuity as this is a promo trade.”

So what you’re telling me, as the series producer for a MAJOR show on a MAJOR cable network, is that it’s in my best interest to give you a professional-quality song for you to use for free, forever? That I am supposed to be happy with a “promo trade”, whatever the fuck that is?

Let me ask you something: does your camera crew work for free because it would look good on their resume? Did you get the show host to work for free by convincing him that you were actually doing him a favor by giving him free screen time? Of course not. You pay them, and you pay them well. And it sickens me that you think music should be any different.

I understand the concept at work here. I don’t have a problem with the idea of trading services, or doing something for free if it’s in the mutual interest of both parties. The problem I have here is with a professional music-based show that has advertisers and a budget based around this concept—and yet they don’t have the money to PAY for the concept?

You don’t even have the decency to offer $500 a song? That’s chump change in the TV world, but it’s better than nothing. Nothing is a slap in the face, an absolute insult.

And the worst part is, there are plenty of bands that will take advantage of this offer—because they are so used to getting NOTHING that even a small credit is worth a shot. And as long as bands are willing to give it up for free, there will always be situations like this.

But I don’t care. I work too hard to give anything away for free, especially to someone who can obviously afford to pay. At least people who torrent music have an interest in that music, something that could potentially benefit me as an artist. I doubt this guy gives a shit about the music, as long as he can throw it under a montage.

“Our goal is to give exposure to as many bands as possible through our selections.”

Bullshit. Their true goal is to get as much music as they can for free and exploit it for a profit. Show producers like this guy only care about the bottom line of their show, and they could give a fuck about the music. I would advise any artist considering a deal like this to think about what you’d really get out of it compared to what you are giving up.

(Granted, it was Vanderbilt radio, but still…)

At first, I was horrified. Then I saw the humor in it. Now it’s taken over my brain…

Where did we leave off with these guys? They had a breakthrough album a couple of years ago that they were able to milk for all it was worth. You know why? Because it was full of great songs. There’s no mystery here. Yeah, they had the videos, they were a gimmick to draw people in. But the music sold itself, and without the music those videos wouldn’t mean a damn thing. Good music sells itself.

Now, here we are in 2010. The boys have had a long time to think about what they wanted to do next. Oh No was poppy and unique, but it wasn’t definitive. It was excellent, but still I wanted to hear what they would do next.

So what do they do? They call Dave Fridmann and say, “Hey Dave, Go here. I’ll tell you what we’d really love. We’d love to make an album with you that sounds like the Flaming Lips and Prince had a baby.”

And Dave says, “Ok!”

This album feels definitive. It has presence. It stands up in a room full of similar albums and announces itself proudly. There is an urgency about it that was also there on Oh No—a great mark for a band. The best music is the most desperate, the stuff that is made with everyone’s asses on the line. Every Clash song sounds like something huge and awful is about to happen. The Stones at their best sound like they are about to fall apart.

No one makes desperate music anymore, but this is close. It’s urgent.

What we get from it is a progression. That’s what an artist should strive for. No one can predict where tastes will go, or whether an album will be a hit. But what you CAN do is buckle down and work to find new directions, new ideas, new ways of saying things that don’t bore us to death. The progression itself doesn’t have to be groundbreaking. I can imagine writing an algorithm that would take Oh No as the input and spit out this new album. I guess that means it’s formulaic, but the formulas are so tastefully applied that you never feel like you’re listening to a product. It feels like an adventure. It weaves in and out, from the weird 5/4 of “WTF?” to the sea shanty ramble of “Needing/Getting” to the cool groove of “Skyscrapers”. At the end, you feel like you’ve been somewhere.

But this album will never sell. It will never be the hit that Oh No was, and that’s because it’s not nearly as accessible—which is such a stupid and dirty word. The songs are written just as well, the production is just as good if not better, but because the average person won’t “get it”, it’s “less accessible” and therefore less valuable to the public. I guess making a badass, fuzzed-out pop-funk record isn’t good enough. I hope I’m proven wrong, but I can’t imagine a record like this having the same impact as Oh No. It’s always sad when the best music doesn’t get a fair shake.

Unordered, because again, who wants to argue whether Yoshimi is better than Kid A?

Radiohead – Kid A: Let’s get it out of the way. It’s on the top of all the lists I’ve read, but no one seems to understand—it’s not about the blips and it’s not about the “experimental nature”. When you cue it up, it grabs your attention immediately and does not let go. Who cares what the medium is? Whether a band chooses to deliver a song with a guitar or a keyboard or a custom synthetic sound? It just has to be good, it has to be worth listening to. And I looped myself into a trance with this.

Whiskeytown – Pneumonia
Ryan Adams – Heartbreaker: For all its troubles, Whiskeytown was the rare band that wasn’t torn apart by drugs, money, or anything else within the band. A record company shakeup left them out in the cold, and despite their obvious talent and excellent track record, the new management was simply not interested in releasing what ended up being the band’s final album. Ryan Adams ended up doing all right: first he holes up in Nashville with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to make the instant lonesome classic Heartbreaker, then he follows that by scoring a deal with the newly formed Lost Highway, a label designed to cater to wayward souls just like him. In the process, he convinces them to release Pneumonia, and Whiskeytown’s rough alt-country gets a full makeover and a proper sendoff infused with pop (“Mirror, Mirror”), 50′s standards (“Paper Moon”) and even a bit of James Iha (“Don’t Be Sad”).

The Strokes – Is This It: We take them for granted now, or perhaps we hate them for spearheading the lo-fi garage-rock revival. This is intellectual music with brains left out of the equation, and I definitely hated it before I could love it. Is it derivative? Yeah. But at least they’re honest about it, and sometimes (most times) I’d rather listen to a good, polished imitation of Iggy Pop than the man himself.

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – Global A Go-Go: I was thrilled beyond belief by the first Mescaleros release, and as great as that was, this took things to an entirely new level. Rock Art and the X-Ray Style thrived as a quirky electronic album. Global A Go-Go scraps all that in favor of something much more organic (“Johnny Appleseed”), while retaining the right to pile on the blips and zips when appropriate (“Global A Go-Go”). The secret ingredient here is the addition of old Clash buddy Tymon Dogg, a key contributor on fiddle and classical guitar. The other secret ingredient is the uncanny ability of Joe Strummer to remain relevant at every stage in his career.

Morrissey – You Are the Quarry: I waited so incredibly long for this album. I can remember reading about it at least six months before it was released…no, it was longer than that, because Morrissey was on the Craig Kilborn show in 2002, talking about having an album’s worth of songs and zero label interest (something that, sadly, seems to happen a lot). So I waited about two years, and it was worth it. Quarry has its faults—the songs are heavy-handed, for sure, but you knew that, it’s Morrissey—but it is also an album done by someone who knows how to make albums. And it’s a snarling, aggressive return to form for a man whose previous album was full of lyrics like “To someone, somewhere (oh yeah!) alma matters in mind, body and soul / In part and in whole”. Blech.

(Sidenote: For you diehard fans, I just found this clip of Morrissey performing a rocked-out version of “There Is A Place In Hell For Me And My Friends” on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. I know everything about that sounds made-up, but it’s true.)

Pedro the Lion – Achilles Heel: Another album I can recall waiting for, and another one that delivered. From the opening salvo of “Bands with managers are going places / Bands with messy hair and smooth white faces” you knew David Bazan was out for blood. Those two lines—among the best opening lines of all time—completely took the piss out of the indie rock scene. And from the looks of it, no one seems to have listened…

The challenging thing about Pedro, and later Bazan solo, is he continues to move away from the stereotypes. He could make easy money churning out thinly-veiled Christian commentary, but unlike the rest of the so-called Christian music industry, as he gets further in the criticisms become deeper and more fundamental, mirroring his own actual spiritual journey. I think the only quality required of any artist is honesty, and we should absolutely demand it at every turn.

The Streets – Original Pirate Material: The most original thing to come around in years (the title doesn’t lie), Mike Skinner made tracks that held a wicked mirror up to the urban street life of the time. He would later go on to incredible fame and fortune, taking shots at celebrities and snorting various substances off of various body parts of various models.

But before he morphed into the British late-period Eminem, he gave us Original Pirate Material. You can feel the desperation bleeding out on every track. Skinner has something to prove, he’s got an axe to grind and he wants you to bear witness to some amazing feats…

Spoon – Girls Can Tell / Love Ways: These were recorded as part of the same sessions, and Love Ways is the stronger of the two, but as an EP I don’t feel like it qualifies on its own. Together, there’s no question. This is not their most ambitious record, or the one that got everybody interested, but it’s certainly the most accessible and the strongest in terms of songwriting. Britt Daniel tends to annoy me because he likes to write lyrics based on how the words sound, and not necessarily what they mean. It usually works, but a song like that leaves me feeling empty. Girls Can Tell and Love Ways are full of excellent exceptions: “Take the Fifth”, “Anything You Want”, “Jealousy”—these lyrics have weight, and the songs deliver something more than just a pleasant mix of sounds. “The Fitted Shirt” is the first Spoon song I ever heard, and I still think it’s the best.

The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots: The Lips had been on my radar for a while. I admit, I was taken in by the campy suggestiveness of “She Don’t Use Jelly” back in the day. Yoshimi is, however, something else entirely. What strikes me about this album is its continuity. These songs feel very much at home together, and the production is very consistent. Dave Fridmann does a hell of a job making Wayne Coyne’s vocals sound good.

None of that shit matters. What you get is an album that hits you over the head (“The test starts…NOW”) and takes you on a journey, telling you these stories that are all somehow related—it feels like Asimov, you have robots with feelings, and humans with feelings, and they’re all mixed up together trying to deal with each other. And of course it’s a pretty transparent metaphor, but at least it’s well done.

Andrew W.K. – I Get Wet: This album came along when rap metal was everywhere, and it blew all that shit away. That may make it the most important album on this list. It’s stupid, mindless, borderline misogynistic rock and roll—but I like it. It’s processed, chopped up, and compressed all to hell—but I like it. Yes, I do. Definitely not the kind of thing you could build a career on, but that’s fine since the man himself is apparently much more interested in becoming MTV’s version of Dr. Phil than having a musical career.

Jay-Z – The Black Album: This is the album I would recommend to anyone who doesn’t know where to start with rap music. It lacks the bite of his earlier stuff, sure, but it’s amazingly consistent and effortlessly listenable. From here you can go all sorts of ways. It might fuel your interest in Kanye, Biggie, or Dre and Snoop. It might lead you to follow up on the producers—Kanye (again), The Neptunes, Timbaland, Just Blaze. (For the record, pound for pound, Just Blaze is currently the best producer in rap, and smart—check out his blog.) The Black Album was my gateway drug to all of those things.

Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot: This is not, as many would have you believe, an experimental album. That word is thrown about too often when the subject is somewhere beyond the scope of the author, and the connotation is purely negative (an “experimental” work is taken to mean that the artist happened on it by chance, by twiddling knobs or trying things at random). What the critics mean to say is that this is an intellectual album. It is a precise album. It is an album of simple songs presented in complicated ways. The timing was somehow perfect. When we needed this album, it was there.

Manic Street Preachers – Lifeblood: This album got overlooked somehow, and it really bothers me. Europe didn’t love it, America never even heard it, and it wasn’t until Send Away the Tigers that people began using the word “comeback” in conjuction with the Manics. But Lifeblood is a significant achievement, written and recorded by a band that could have quit 10 years prior and still had their names firmly etched in the history books. The difference is that any other band would jump the shark, and these guys never have.

Lifeblood is classic Manics and would serve as a good introduction, especially to someone who would not necessarily be interested in the band’s politics. It’s less political and more personal, which may have been the reason it didn’t sell. Regardless, without this album there is no Send Away the Tigers and no Journal for Plague Lovers—both listed here as honorable mentions and absolutely worth checking out.

Kanye West – The College Dropout: Before he went crazy, he was really fucking good.