Erik Heels, the most interesting of all patent attorneys, is mad that Rolling Stone makes it so difficult to find all of the albums rated with 5 stars. There's not many of them, in fact, there were only 3 in the 90s, Slanted & Enchanted by Pavement, Automatic for the People by R.E.M., and Metallica by Metallica, and all of those were released by 1992. Also interesting is that most of the albums given 5 stars in the 2000s were reissues. Do those even count? Click through for the full list.

(From Mint, via Barry)

"The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like All The President's Men."

Oh well.

Universal Music Group says that the traditional music business isn't dying (at least not as much as it seems because the 6% decrease shoots up to a 1% decrease when you account for the strengthening of the dollar against other currencies.

What happened? CD sales are still declining, of course. But Vivendi said the rise of digital music–that means you, Apple (AAPL)–is finally beginning to balance out some of the decline. Digital sales increased 33 percent in the first nine months of the year, the company said.

And then Live Nation has announced that they will begin selling DRM-free MP3s for their artists making LN a one stop shop for everything involving your favorite artist (so long as they are a Live Nation/Music Today band).

Essentially, Live Nation is turning into a microcosm of the music business at large. If you're a fan of one of its bands, you're going to spend money on them eventually, whether its a concert ticket, a T-shirt, a CD, fan club access to exclusive "VIP" content, an MP3 from an artist page or whatever. And when you do, Live Nation will be there to take a slice of the pie -- a savvy business strategy when no one knows for sure where the bulk of music revenue is going to come from.

This touches on something I got from Kevin Kelly's True Fan thoughts from several months ago. Musicians don't need record labels to do most of the stuff for which they used to need record labels. They don't need large advances to record in expensive studios (they can record in Garage Band). They don't need help with distribution (they can upload their music themselves to iTunes and social networking sites). And they don't necessarily need marketing help (they can use Facebook and MySpace to organize street teams, directly target their fans, and create and manage a community that increases a fan's passion for the band).

Many savvy bands will be able to manage all of this (the community especially) themselves, but many also won't or will not want to. I think this is going be where music businesses of the 21st century make their money. The record label dinosaurs can stick to their business model, or they can adapt to offer community management services from which they may once again become prosperous.

I've always been envious of Music Today as someone who used to work for a band (and I'm still sending out CDs twice a month! How's that for long tail?). They figured out that it's mostly impossible to make any money offering services to bands because band's don't usually have any money. The way to make money off of bands is off of their fans. That will always be true.

I can't remember the last time '24' was on. It's been a year and a half, or so. When it was on before, I blogged it. I'm a little out of practice, and I don't know if I'll remember all the characters and whether they're good or bad. That's a lot of qualifying, isn't it? Let's just get on with it.

Here's some other '24' related posts you might be into.
Season 7 Episode 1 and 2 Live Blog
Season 7 Episode 3 and 4 Live Blog
Season 7 Episode 5 Live Blog
Season 7 Episode 6 Live Blog
24 Season 7 Episode 7 2 PM - 3 PM Live Blog
24 Season 7 Episode 8 3 PM - 4 PM Live Blog
Redemption Live Blog
24 Tag from UnlikelyWords featuring season 5 and 6 Live Blog.


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If you have any interest in comparing how Obama does through his first 100 days, click through to this chart.

"My father said, 'Son, when the communists take over, they're going to shoot everyone with more than 50 dollars.' And for 30 years I never carried more than 49 dollars."

Esquire has been celebrating its 75th anniversary this year with several different look backs and lists. As someone who loves lists, this has been a good year. As a culmination of the celebration, they've listed the 7 greatest articles of all time, though, judging by the list, the magazine was shit until the 60s, then again until 2003 with a brief beacon of light in 1986. Not sure if this is accurate, or if they just wanted to make sure that everyone knew that Gay Talese and Norman Mailer wrote for Esquire. In any case, I enjoy best of lists and each of these articles is sure to be a great read. As Esquire is a hog for pageviews and presents most of their lists in slideshow form (I'll complain about anything, I know), I've gone through the trouble of reproducing the list here. Hope you enjoy it.

"The School" By C.J. Chivers June 2006

Kazbek Misikov stared at the bomb hanging above his family. It was a simple device, a plastic bucket packed with explosive paste, nails, and small metal balls. It weighed perhaps eight pounds. The existence of this bomb had become a central focus of his life. If it exploded, Kazbek knew, it would blast shrapnel into the heads of his wife and two sons, and into him as well, killing them all.

"The Falling Man" By Tom Junod September 2003

In truth, however, the Falling Man fell with neither the precision of an arrow nor the grace of an Olympic diver. He fell like everyone else, like all the other jumpers--trying to hold on to the life he was leaving, which is to say he fell desperately, inelegantly. In Drew's famous photograph, his humanity is in accord with the lines of the buildings. In the rest of the sequence--the eleven outtakes--his humanity stands apart. He is not augmented by aesthetics; he is merely human, and his humanity, startled and in some cases horizontal, obliterates everything else in the frame.

"What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" By Richard Ben Cramer June 1986

He's always first, 8:00 A.M., at the tennis club. He's been up for hours, he's ready. He fidgets, awaiting appearance by some other, any other, man with a racket, whereupon Ted bellows, before the newcomer can say hello, "WELL, YOU WANNA PLAY?" Ted's voice normally emanates with gale force, even at close range. Apologists attribute this to the ear injury that sent him home from Korea and ended his combat flying career. But Ted can speak softly and hear himself fine, if it's only one friend around. The roar with which he speaks in a public place, or to anyone else, has nothing to do with his hearing. It's your hearing he's worried about.

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" By Gay Talese April 1966

He was the victim of an ailment so common that most people would consider it trivial. But when it gets to Sinatra it can plunge him into a state of anguish, deep depression, panic, even rage.

"M" By John Sack October 1966

"They hit a little girl," and in his muscular black arms the first specialist carried out a seven-year-old, long black hair and little earrings, staring eyes--eyes, her eyes are what froze themselves onto M's memory, it seemed there was no white to those eyes, nothing but black ellipses like black goldfish. The child's nose was bleeding--there was a hole in the back of her skull.

"The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" By Tom Wolfe March 1965

Starting time! Linda Vaughn, with the big blonde hair and blossomy breasts, puts down her Coca-Cola and the potato chips and slips off her red stretch pants and her white blouse and walks out of the officials' booth in her Rake-a-cheek red show-girl's costume with her long honeydew legs in net stockings and climbs up on the red Firebird float. The Life Symbol of stock-car racing! Yes!

"Superman Comes to the Supermarket" By Norman Mailer November 1960

Yes, America was at last engaging the fate of its myth, its consciousness about to be accelerated or cruelly depressed in its choice between two young men in their forties who, no matter how close, dull, or indifferent their stated politics might be, were radical poles apart, for one was sober, the apotheosis of opportunistic lead, all radium spent, the other handsome as a prince in the unstated aristocracy of the American dream.

Via Lifehacker, Popular Mechanics 100 Skills Everyone Should Know.