Britney Spears new album, Circus, which was released December 2, 2008 is headed toward grabbing the number one spot on the billboard charts. From Britney’s six studio albums this will be her fifth that debuted at number one, her 2007 album blackout came out at number two.

Spears’ nearly ten year career has surely seen its ups and down but it appears that she got it back on track with the release of Circus. After her marriage very publicly failed and she lost custody her two sons, the public’s opinion of Britney changed. She went from being America’s sweetheart to an out of control party girl. After several months of seemingly crazy acts such as shaving her head, beating a paparazzo’s car with an umbrella, not giving her kids back to their father at the court mandated time, and being hospitalized, Spears fell off the scene for several months.

Things started to change for Britney in September at MTV’s video music awards. She won her first VMA of her career when she won Best Female Video; she also picked up Best Pop Video as well as Video of the Year that night. A few weeks later the first single from Circus, Womanizer, was released. Womanizer went straight to number one, her first single to debut at number one since Baby One More Time in 1999. She also did a documentary, For the Record, for MTV which aired on November 30^th. During this two hour special she revealed everything from how she feels trapped by the paparazzi to how the end of her marriage affected her.

Britney Spears was the most searched celebrity of 2008. Now whether people are back to viewing Britney as America’s sweetheart or not is yet to be seen, but she has stepped back into the spotlight in a positive manner.

Today’s World Wide Web provides us with an almost infinite amount of information on any given topic.  Amazing isn’t it; the power to find research on any single with a few strokes on the keyboard and our confidence in the almighty Google that we have so much faith in.  However, with such a great, powerful tool, we must be weary of what we read and how we are to interpret its legitimacy and incorporate it into our own learning and researching needs.

Evaluating website legitimacy is the first step in researching, even before one begins reading the material presented.  What is the point in wasting one’s own valuable time sifting through information to then find out that it is totally illegitimate and has no legitimacy to it?  Olney Central College provides all researches alike with a great page to determine if the website they are contemplating using for research for any project is legitimate (http://www.iecc.edu/occ/lrc/evalwebpg.htm).

After evaluating the legitimacy of a web page, now it’s time to decide how to use all of the information gathered from the page.  Using proper citations and being careful not to steal or plagiaries ideas, we go on with our research project, incorporating other professionals’ ideas into our project for the sake of our own legitimacy.  One could say this is all fine and dandy for a standard research paper, but how can this be applied other forms of media that can be plagiarized?  How is legitimacy applied to the title topic of our website: music today?

In reality, there only twelve simple notes that make up all music; there is bound to be some repetition or “plagiarism” in all forms of music.  Take for example Vanilla Ice’s one and only hit “Ice Ice Baby” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxN_pbMOFk0).  The bass line that everybody knows from this song was actually the bass line in the song “Under Pressure” by David Bowie/Queen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtrEN-YKLBM) prior to Vanilla Ice having a “music career”.  This is a perfect example of blatant plagiarism in the music industry.

This brings rise to the issue of what is called sampling. Sampling is when one musician uses the musical ideas of another musician and incorporates them into their own musical works.  Sampling can be a totally legitimate form of musical expression if gone about in the right way.  Professionally speaking, musicians must get written permission from the musician they wish to sample in the form of a contract.  In the example above, Vanilla Ice did NOT get permission from Bowie/Queen and flat out stole their musical idea.

One perfectly legitimate example of sampling happened with hip hop artists Run DMC did a remake of the famous tune “Walk This Way” by Aerosmith and featured Aerosmith in the music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8A0rhVG91U).

But what happens when musical ideas are sometimes duplicated in a subconscious manner?  Take for example the song “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6EQAOmJrbw).  Does it sound like any other tunes you may have heard?  Well, try singing the lyrics from the song “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” written by Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss and first released by Brian Hyland during the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXJUtPMaYYg&feature=related).  As soon as the chorus of “Teenagers” is about to begin, start singing “She wore an itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini…”  Hear any similarities?  If you do, it’s because they basically have the same chord changes and are somewhat in a relative tempo together.  Such examples as this are rarely dealt with in the music industry because it is such a minor similarity, but yet, it is still considered plagiarism; my Chemical Romance never gave recognition to or gained permission from Vance or Picuris to use those chord changes.  This is still a very gray area of the music industry because it is hard to argue that artists have palpably stolen musical ideas from others when they clearly had no intention to do so.

With the current uprising of sampling-prone programs such as Frooty Loops and Garage Band, sampling will continue to be a very controversial topic in all of the music industry.  For more additional reading and video on music law and sampling visit: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:noix3pBwJqIJ:www.princeton.edu/~artspol/studentpap/undergrad%2520thesis1%2520JLind.pdf+music+law+and+sampling&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a & http://www.law.duke.edu/musicandtheft/.

Great guitar player from Melbourne, Australia: Tim McMillan.  Just thought I would share a very talented, not so well known (in the US) musician with you all.  Enjoy!   (P.S. Check out Tim’s album “Afterparty” on iTunes and his websites: http://www.virb.com/timmcmillanandband &  http://www.myspace.com/timmcmillanguitar)

The Internet has changed the music industry drastically in the past ten years.  Some musicians claim that the Internet has had a negative affect on their careers, while others credit it with their success.   Whether the musicians like it or not they have to admit that it has changed the whole music scene.

The thing that most artist dislike about the Internet is how easy it is to download music illegally.  This file sharing all started in 1999 with the creation of Napster.  Napster made it easy for people to share music with each other, leading to a decrease in record sales. Napster was shutdown after numerous lawsuits where filed by various artists. Most of these lawsuit were based on music being leaked onto the site before it was even released.  Although Napster is no longer used to download music it opened the doors to other sites like Lime Wire, which is the most popular file sharing site today.

Other than these file sharing sites the Internet has brought only good things to the music world.  Myspace is one of the biggest perks that the Internet has brought to the music scene.  There are a lot of bands and artist that were discovered because of their Myspace page.  Myspace pages are also important to established acts, everyone has a Myspace page that post tour dates, music videos, merchandise, and some of their music.  Most bands also use their Myspace to get promote other bands with a similar style to them. Fans go on to a Myspace page of a band they like and look at other bands that they may also like.

Youtube is another advantage that the Internet brought.  Youtube allows music videos to be posted as well as interviews with bands, and performances.  Youtube allows listeners to view music video’s for their favorite songs very easily.

There are also other website like MTV.com, vh1.com, BET.com, and CMT.com.  These sites all have music video’s, artist pages, music charts, top news stories about musicians, and photo galleries.  There is also Buzznet, an online music community.  Buzznet allows both fans and bands to post video’s and photos.  Some bands use this site to let their fans see their life offstage by posting videos on the tour bus, at their houses, in the dressing room or just of random things that happen.

All of these different websites have changed the music industry.  It gives the bands that are signed with smaller record companies more coverage.  They may not get their video’s put on MTV but they will be on MTV.com and youtube, their songs may not be played on the radio but fans can hear them on the bands Myspace page.  The hope is that with the exposure that these bands get from the Internet the fans will then come a concert.

Legend: : up : down : new entry : non mover

http://www.at40.com/
]]> http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/week-of-december-8th-2008/feed/ 0 sarah foegen http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/youtube-more-than-just-streaming-video/ http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/youtube-more-than-just-streaming-video/#comments Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:45:00 +0000 naertste http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/?p=109 ]]> By: Steve Naert

YouTube is storming the front for the ability for everyone with access to a computer and a webcam to distribute their own media with the few simple clicks of a button.  Many professional and amateur musicians, film makers, and comedians alike are now beginning to take advantage of this powerful technology.

The music aspect to YouTube has been revolutionary to all musicians.  Many musicians are now doing what are called “Virtual Jams”, where one musician records a part of a song they wrote on their instrument and then uploads it to YouTube.  When other musicians see and hear this video, they record another video, further adding on to the song, in a sense virtually jamming with the other musicians.  There is no longer a need to clear out the garage and drive the neighbors crazy anymore; musicians can now have “virtual bands”.

Rivers Cuomo

Rivers Cuomo, front man of the band Weezer, took this concept to the extreme on March 19^th, 2008 when he uploaded his first “Let’s Write a Sawng” video to YouTube.  In this video, Cuomo informed all of his viewers that he needed their help to write a song.  Over a period of three months and 15 discrete steps, viewers sent in all of their lyrical ideas, melodies, harmonies, verses, and choruses, while Cuomo informed viewers of the ones he liked and wanted to go further with. This is how the song “80′s Radio” was born.

A majority of playing on the song was that of musicians other than Cuomo who sent him their recorded tracks using the chord progressions and lyrics that were chosen for the songs.  Other musicians kept building off the song until it was finally done and now being added to Cuomo’s second solo album, Alone II: The Home Recordings of Rivers Cuomo.

The premise for this YouTube virtual jam song by Cuomo was ingenious.  A song for fans by fans is completely revolutionary to the music industry.  We can only wait to see what other possible wonders YouTube may bring to the music industry.

To see more on Cuomo’s “80′s Radio” project and his other songs, visit his YouTube channel: Rivers Cuomo YouTube Channel

Born in Santa Barbra, California on October 25th, 1984, Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, or the girl better known as “Katy Perry” has become America’s new pop sensation of the year.  Being the child of two pastors, Perry grew up listening to and singing gospel music in church for most of her childhood; this is what is said to be what sparked her interest in music for her later success in the music industry.   

After graduating from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, California in 2003, Perry moved to Los Angeles and was signed to Red Hill Records by Steve Thomas and Jennifer Knapp.  After having her fist album (a christian gospel album) under her real name of Katy Hudson, she decided to change her stage name to Katy Perry (her mother’s maiden name) due to the fact that Katy Hudson seemed to be too close to Kate Hudson.

In 2004, Perry began working for the record production team The Matrix, amongst many other side projects.  It wasn’t until Perry signed to Capitol Records that she began recording her official debut album: “One of the Boys” was released in the U.S. on June 17, 2008.

On April 29, 2008 Perry released her first official single from “One of the Boys” entitled “I Kissed a Girl”.  The song has received much recognition for its great pop feel and chord changes, strong driving synthesized rhythms, and catchy lyrics.  When debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, the song started out at #76 and later climbed to #1 as of June 25, 20008.  On Itunes Top 100, it reached #1 on June 3, 2008.  The music video for this single was released on May 21, 2008 on Perry’s myspace page.

On September 9, 2008, Perry released her second single also from the “One of the Boys” album entitled “Hot N Cold”.  This song climbed to #5 on the charts in the US, while also reaching up to #7 on the charts in the UK.

No matter how catchy her songs are to her listeners and fans, some of Perry’s songs have been the target of controversy.  Two in particular are the songs “Ur So Gay” and “I Kissed a Girl”, both from the “One of the Boys” album.  These songs have been stated to being homophobic as well as possibly showing a dislike or hatred towards men in general.  However, Perry responded to all of this controversy dealing the the word “Gay” with “It’s not a negative connotation. It’s not “you’re so gay”, like “you’re so lame”, but the fact of the matter is that this boy should’ve been gay.  I totally understand how it could be misconstrued or whatever… I wasn’t stereotyping anyone in particular, I was talking about ex-boyfriends.”

To read more about Katy Perry and see her upcoming tour dates and locations, visit her myspace at www.myspace.com/katyperry

By:Sarah Foegen

All Time Low (from the left:Jack Barakat, Zack Merrick, Alex Gaskarth, Rian Dawson)

All Time Low is a pop punk band from Baltimore, Maryland.  The band is made up of singer, Alex Gaskarth, guitarist, Jack Barakat, bassist, Zack Merrick and drummer, Rian Dawson.  This group of nineteen and twenty year olds meet in high school and started playing together.  After nearly five years of playing together All Time Low is on their way to becoming a mainstream band, with their video’s being played on MTV and their latest single, Poppin Champagne, being played on pop radio stations across the country.

The band released a full length album, The Party Scene, in 2005 to very little success.  They came back two years later with their new sound on So Right, It’s Wrong.  This album had and is still having much greater success.

Their success was not overnight.  In those two years between albums the band spent most of their time on the road touring.  They gained a lot of exposure and fans from their various tours such as 2007 and 2008 Vans Warped Tour and Tourzilla where they opened for a well known band in the world of pop rock, Boys Like Girls.  After the Tourzilla tour All Time Low took a step forward and co-headlined the Alternative Press tour with The Rocket Summer.  This tour was a big hit, having sold out shows all over the country. The band then took a quick trip overseas to co-headline a tour with Cobra Starship.  All Time Low is currently on their first offical headlining tour, The Compromising of Integrity, Morality, & Principle in Exchange for Money Tour, with the support of up and coming bands Every Avenue, The Maine and Mayday Parade.  This tour has had sold out dates and added shows all across North America.

Alex Gaskarth

Their recent success could be due to their upbeat, bouncy music style that is very easy to dance to as well as their energetic, and often times humorous, live performances.  It is also in large part attributed to all the exposure that they have received lately.  They were featured on the Jimmy Kimmel concert series in March of 2008 and they have had several video’s on MTV’s TRL since then.  They also performed at MTVU’s Woodie Awards last week; where they were nominated for the break through artist award.

With a new album in the works that is slated for a summer 2009 release, the future is looking good for All Time Low.  Following in the footsteps of similar sounding bands such as Boys Like Girls, Blink 182 and All American Rejects it is very obvious that their is an audience for this genre of music.  With the fan base that they have already built and all the exposure they are getting, All Time Low maybe a mainstream name in the music industry very soon.
]]> http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/bands-to-knowall-time-low/feed/ 0 sarah foegen All Time Low Alex Gaskarth http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/upcoming-releases/ http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/2008/12/02/upcoming-releases/#comments Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:34:59 +0000 Sarah Foegen http://musictodayx.wordpress.com/?p=103 ]]>

By: Sarah Foegen

Britney Spears Circus

There are many big name artists that have new albums that are due to be released soon. Starting with the Britney Spears album, Circus, that will be released Tuesday December 2nd.  This album is highly anticipated because it will decide if Britney Spears will be able to make a comeback or not. The single, Womanizer, has done very well so far climbing all the pop charts across the country.  Another big release that is set for Tuesday is Akon’s, Freedom.

On December 9th their is a battle of old school verses new school rappers.  Busta Rhymes’ B.O.M.B. is set to release against 50 Cent’s Before I Self Destruct.  Other notable releases on that date are Brandy’s Human and Common’s Universal Mind Control, but the main two that will sell in big numbers will most likely be Busta Rhymes and 50 Cent.

December 16th is a big day for album releases.  There are six big releases that are all schedules for the last full week before Christmas.  The All-American Rejects, When the World Comes Down, is their first album since Move Along in 2005 which went double platinum.  The first single from When the World Comes Down, Gives You Hell, has been in radio rotation for nearly a month and is doing well.  Fall Out Boy’s Folie a Deux is also their much anticipated follow up to Infinity on High.  The first single, I Don’t Care, has been all over the radio as well as reality television.  There are also albums by Jamie Foxx, Bow Wow, and Keshia Cole.  The Dave Matthews Band has a live CD, Live Trax Vol 13, that is due out on the 16th as well.

Some notable releases for 2009 are Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Lily Allen, Christina Aguilera, Breaking Benjamin, Eminem, Jay-Z, Match Box Twenty and U2.  All of these albums are currently slated for early 2009, but they could always get pushed back.

One album that I am personally looking forward to is Papa Roach’s Metamorphosis.  Metamorphosis was originally suppose to be released in September of 2008, but it they decide to go back into the studio and touch it up.  Now the album is set for a March release date.  The band performed two songs from the album, I Almost Told You That I Loved You and Change or Die, on the Cruefest tour over the summer.  In late October a music video was released for the single Hollywood Whore.

http://www.metacritic.com/music/upcomingreleases.shtml

 Paramore is an up and coming band who’s sweet sounds are starting to turn heads. Originally from the small town of Franklin Tennessee, this four piece ensemble as been making music for over four years now.  Paramore’s members include brothers Zachary and Joshua Farro on drums and guitar along with Jeremy Davis on bass guitar.  Their vocalist, Hayley Williams gives the band a sound that is unlike any other.  Her lyrics and “in your face” style of singing gives the band an edge that is hard to attain.  The band played their first gig in Nashville Tennessee in 2004 and it was not long before they had a small fan base.  In early 2005 Paramore got the big break that every local band dreams of.  They played a show in Florida and in attendance was the founder of the record label Fueled by Ramen, John Janick.  Janick was very impressed with the raw talent that each of the band members had and their energy on stage and quickly signed them to Fueled by Ramen Records and set them to work on making an album.  In the summer of 2005, Paramore released their first album, All We Know is Falling.  The release of this album stirred the music industry and people started to talk about the new rock band with orange-haired girl singer.  Paramore brought a new sound to the table and people were responding to it very well.  Paramore was talked about on radio stations across the country as being a new sound.  

With the release of a new CD it was time for Paramore to do what every band does, go on tour.  The band toured all through the year 2006 all over North America and then Europe and Japan with bands such as Simple Plan and Straylight Run.  To many people, Paramore is even better on stage than in the studio.  The live performance is a very hard thing for many rock bands to master.  Live performances are much more than a band playing their music on stage.  Having energy all throughout the performance a and selling yourself on stage is something that many bands have problems with when they set out on their first tour.  Paramore, however, came on stage every night on fire and kept the heat on all they way to their last song, leaving the audience screaming for one more song.  Their ability to please the crowd helped them to sell out shows all around the world and greatly increased their popularity.

One of the most important things for a rock band to be good at is putting on a good live show.  The live performance is how rock bands get their big break.  Someone from a record company will see the band perform and sign them based on their music and  their stage presence and how they please the crowd.  Many solo recording artists get recognized by producers and imedieltly go into the studio and start working on an album.  Performing live and being able to entertain a crowd with more than just their music is something that many solo artists have to learn.  Paramore has perfected the live performance and their large fan base is proof.  

After their first tour came to a close, Paramore went right back into the studio and started working on their second album.  On June 6th 2007 the band released their second album,RIOT!  Since its release RIOT! has sold over 1,000,000 copies.  With the help of producer David Bendeth, Paramore achieved a more refined sound with RIOT!  This shows how much better the band had gotten and how much each of the band members had matured as musicians.  Their sound was still very raw and in your face but it was a little bit cleaner and tighter than in their first CD.  Some of Paramore’s most popular songs are on the RIOT! CD.  The song “Misery Business” is an example of how the Paramore was able to put out a very tight and refined sound that is still very raw and has the energy that Paramore is known for.  Shortly after RIOT! was released “Misery Business made its way onto the at40 top forty list.  As sales of their newest album continued to rise, Paramore went back on the road during the summer or 2008, selling out arenas across North America.  During their tour they filmed  The Final Riot!, a CD/DVD set which they released on November 25, 2008.  The DVD set includes exclusive interviews with the band members as well as a documentary entitled “40 Days of RIOT.”  Paramore is now taking to the big screen with their newest single “Decode,” which premiered in the movie Twilight which arrived in theaters November 21, 2008. 

Over the last four years, Paramore has gone from a local band in Tennessee to a big time record label band.  They have toured all over the world and have soled millions of CDs and accumulated millions of fans.   With a pure, raw punk-pop sound, Paramore is definitely and up and coming band that has been turing heads since the release of their very first album.  Paramore has come a very long way in their four years in the big music scene and it is almost certain that their popularity will continue to rise as they keep making music.  

http://www.paramore.net/