25 posts tagged “haterade”

Dear major labels:

If you want my money, meet or beat digital prices in physical stores. Please. I want to buy CDs. I want to support artists. I care about album art, I really do. I want to see that producers and mixers and people at the plant get paid, and I still spend more on music than 95% of the U.S. population.

But insulting me with $13 releases, especially during the first couple weeks the CD is out just earns my ire and rancor, which, in the end, costs you money.

Sincerely,

a fan of music.

Mountain Dew and Halo 3 have teamed up. This is a match made in hell.

"Like I always tell those closest to us, if you fuck with someone in this band you're gonna end up with a song about you."-Ray Mazzola (singer, FULL BLOWN CHAOS)

"Like I always tell whomever will listen, this is why I hate beatdown hardcore."-James Hepplewhite (contributor, PASTEPUNK.COM)

-Local Clear Channel conduit Q101 recently played the entirety of the new WHITE STRIPES record. Two hours later, an angry lead singer called in from Spain to verbally berate the DJ. When reached for comment Q101 was unavailable, reportedly busy counting unmarked bills. 

We saw the Beatles and we bought guitars.-Bob Lefsetz

Wait, we? Seeing as you're an industry pundit, and you write criticism of music, I'm fairly sure you never were in a band in your life. Sure, the Beatles might have inspired you to pick at a guitar, but don't you dare suggest that you had anything to do with music aside from being a pundit.

Are you thinking?  What are your values?  What do you stand for?  Can you be sold to the highest bidder?  Do you ever say no? When did we stop believing?  Could be in that fall of ‘76.  Could be that "The Pretender" was the last hurrah.  After that it was all corporate rock and disco.-Bob Lefsetz

Yeah, man, music totally got lost after '76. No one did anything new or innovative afterwards. Everyone was another part of a marketing machine. Oh, I'm sorry, the Clash, the Ramones, Black Flag, Minor Threat and the Bad Brains beat me over my head.

EXPAND upon the music with your identity, don’t make the identity primary.  Yes, create a whole culture around your music.  Don’t come up with stunts/marketing plans, come up with enhancements of your ART!  Those last.  Marketing efforts evaporate.-Bob Lefsetz

Here, Mr. Lefsetz is referring to Cartel's recording in a giant bubble. Scott Heisel, music editor for Alternative Press said what was actually the most prescient comment on the topic.

"Anyway, nothing about this changes the fact that Cartel still write their songs and will continue to do so without any outside influence. If their new record rules, it's not because of Dr. Pepper. If it sucks, it's not because of Dr. Pepper, either."

It's an interesting marketing stunt that allows Cartel to record in the state of the art facility. We'll see what the result is when the CD is leaked. Whether it was a good decision to record in a bubble or not, who knows, but it's getting people talking about Cartel...

And then there's this:

There is not a healthy live music scene.-Bob Lefsetz

This is news to me. Especially since I'm seeing 3 shows in two weekends the instant I get back home, and that's just the announced shows. Keep in mind, this is in a city where all ages venues have been eviscerated.  Wow. I suppose this industry pundit is right. I suppose I'm wrong, and the live music scene I take part in isn't healthy. I suppose it's all over.  I guess I'm behind the fucking times, I should start stealing music, tune into 60s and 70s music and say it was all done better before I was born.

Not now. Not ever.

There's at least 10 wonderful labels that will never see a dime putting out wonderful music that I can come up with off the top of my head. Rivalry, Think Fast!, Bridge Nine, Deathwish Inc, Robotic Empire, Suburban Home, Abacus, No Idea, G7 Welcoming Committee, Asian Man. I'm sure you can name hundreds of others, and mine are just examples of punk rock. Music isn't dead.  Punk rock isn't dead. We're all here, and if we're not moving units so an industry pundit can proclaim it dead, then oh well.

Edit: After having watched the interview, I agree with the guy in italics. Danny Ledonne is a total tool, and it was clear these answers had been prepared.

That said, what do you expect? With such a touchy issue, I'm glad Ledonne didn't shoot from the hip, but at the same time, I do feel like he's not that articulate of a spokesperson for videogames, and perhaps a bit of a self-important dick. Of course I'd rather see someone like Brian Crecente or Jerry Holkins speak on behalf of videogamers, but sadly, you can't always get what you want...

The Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (Yes, the exclamation point is supposed to be there...) garnered attention when it was first released on the internet, and continued to when it was booted from the finalists at an independent games festival. Many other games bowed out as well, crying censorship. G4, doing something right, decided to host the creator of the game and Brian Crecente from kotaku.com. G4 dutifully posted the interview on the internet, and kotaku ran the story. This comment was taken from kotaku:

I feel this guy's pain. Damn, to have your hobby and pastime suddenly be "spoken for" by a person you consider a deceitful, two-faced schmuck is a feeling that really can't be described without vulgarities. I don't know why Danny made the game, but if it's true that he did it to set the record straight, then he deserves to be applauded. It was publicized because if you're going to make a game about a controversial event not called a military engagement or a war, then it will find controversy. True, many people are getting over Columbine. I'd argue this was as much a shock to parents as well as kids. The kids got the bad end of the deal, they got shot and killed. Parents, on the other hand, had to scramble to point the blame. Anything but us! It must have been the music! Yes, yes, Marylin Manson deluded our kids! Or maybe it was Doom! Clearly a vehicle made for the clear and express purpose of turning our precious Eric into a psychotic killing machine...These parents just weren't paying attention and didn't take their children or their children's pain seriously.


Just don't blame middle America. Nothing EVER goes wrong there.

So, what do you get when you cross the most polarizing band in mainstream punk rock and a merchandising agreement with a clothing line started by a company that bought out local retailers in the United States wherever it could?

You get FALL OUT BOY and Aeropostale!

Apparently, the group isn't happy about this, as the deal was made, it would appear, between Island and Aeropostale, which FALL OUT BOY is none too pleased about, as their preferred retailer is *chortle* Hot Topic. Now, I'll tell you what Matt Fletcher told me, which was that "Hot Topic is all that some kids have", but I still could not help but chuckle when I read that.

Have you ever felt cheated?

Currently, we gamers are getting tagged as violent soon-to-be-psychopaths by the driving forces of our government. And, if we're not violent, we're too stupid to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Not that this is really news to those souls paying attention, but more for the people who might not be aware. The most recent insult to our collective reasoning ability is below...

Here is the trailer to the movie Moral Kombat.

It purports to be a expose and on games and the games industry, though anyone who reads Penny-Arcade knows how incredibly swiiftly this kind of garbage can be dissected and recognized for what it is. 

My favorite quote? We are what we pretend to be.

Most disgusting, I thought was suggesting that the terrorists who plotted 9/11 learned their manuvers from MS Flight Simulator. It's insulting to both my intelligence and the flight school in which those Al-Qaeda operatives were enrolled.

This should obviously be resisted. I can only hope it's intelligently.

There's more. There always is. There's Left Behind, a videogame about the Rapture and the coming Apocalypse, and God. It is Evangelical Christian proselytizing, and there's also a poorly constructed videogame. It lets you kill non-believers (though you lose points each time you do so), but gives you more points for converting said enemies.  You can regain those lost points by praying. You can find more information about the game at it's website, here.

I find that rather offensive. Nevermind that on the website, in a shot of the "good" versus the "evil" all of the positive portrayals of characters are white, and all the enemies or evil doers appear to be black, hispanic or vaguely asian. Which is thoughtful.

Slow down a second, you say. In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City  there was a mission where you had to kill all of eiether the Puerto Ricans or Cubans. You can read more about that at Wikipedia.  What's the difference here?

Left Behind is dead serious in its intent, to teach you about the teachings of Jesus Christ in a way that "gamers" will find palatable. It's not as though this is news.  Their hope is that teenagers pick up the game. Therefore, the mechanics must be discussed. It is clearly a work of fiction, but it is a conduit through which a message is passed. So, what are the messages the game is delivering?

1) The website purports that the game is more pacifist than anything else, since you lose points for killing other units.
2) Another message is biblical verses.
3) The forces of good, at least, originally, are all white.
4) You can kill as many non-believers and so long as you pray long enough, God will forgive you.

Grand Theft Auto's message, on the other hand, is far harder to pin down. Is there one? I would argue no, there isn't. I can't recall Rockstar Games ever suggesting that there was ever a serious message from the Grand Theft Auto and graphically, the game is not attempting to be hyper-realistic, in an attempt to mimic reality.

I don't know what to say about Sony's schemes. I'm referring to, in praticular, their closing the proverbial door on  PS1 emulation using the PSP.

Here's the score. Currently, there are only a few titles available that you can rip from the disk, to your PS3, and then send to your PSP. The PSP hacker community have recently announced they broke the emulation program so you can play whatever PS1 game you like on your PSP, so long as you are willing to send it.

This means that Sony is telling people who have likely spent over $750 (probably more, since the PSP originally retailed around $250, and at the least expensive, a PS3 costs $500, and odds are those same people own a PS2...) that they're not willing to give them something extra for how much support they've given to the company.

Obviously, Sony could be worried about piracy, since it's concievable that people could send their games to other people's PSPs. But at this point, numbers are down on the PSP, and really, Sony could use the positive PR and the goodwill, because right now, with their abysmal launch of the PS3 where they didn't have half the units they said they were, what goodwill they've got is pretty limited.

Why stop nickel and dime-ing your fanbase when you could lose money but gain back a bunch of support that was lost?