Song Of The Day

I hate Universal Music. Its brass is so BACKWARD!

You can’t hear this track on MySpace. Oh, you can hear the demo. When will these fucks realize that locks don’t work, that they’re the antithesis of the Internet paradigm? That you have to make everything AVAILABLE! You’ve got to lower barriers. Maybe, like Google says, you have to know where in the food chain to charge. Since you’ve ruined selling music, if you want to go into management, owning the Sanctuary assets, you should realize in this era of clutter you’ve got to give people the tools to spread the word. And by refusing to put music on MySpace, you’re doing just the opposite.

But it gets worse. If you go to the act’s site, you can only watch 60 seconds of the video. What, do they want us to BUY IT? Since MTV airs no videos, why hold back?

Ah, that’s the English site. If you go to the U.S. site, both begin on the same page, you can watch the video. Not that you can see it on Yahoo if you’re running Safari. You’ve got to use Firefox.

And Doug Morris is worrying about incompatible DRM schemes? God, he’s doing a great job of confusing the public all by his lonesome.

What the FUCK am I talking about?

Fire up your P2P app of choice. Don’t even watch the video, the audio is so horrific. And when you SEE this guy, you won’t get it.

Search on James Morrison. "Wonderful World".

I know, I know, you’ve been into him for months.

I tried playing the CD. But where to begin? I needed radio to pick out a track. And in the parking lot of Rite-Aid this afternoon, just after firing up my Saabaru, this mellifluous number came pouring out of the speakers, via Sirius’ Spectrum.

I’ve become immune to hype. Immune to press. Who is paying attention? God, it’s so hard to get people’s attention anymore. There’s no one you trust. As for the people who e-mailed me about Mr. Morrison, with the unfortunate name of one of the greatest rock and rollers of all time, they didn’t play dj, they didn’t pick out a specific track.

There are certain records that are one listen, that you only have to hear once to get. James Morrison’s "Wonderful World" is one of these.

I’m sure at some point I’ll decipher the lyrics. But now I’m just enraptured by the style, the changes. It sounds positively seventies, with a big band. Horns, backup singers, a whole CORNUCOPIA of players. And atop them all is this dude with a fresh voice singing like he’s got not a care in the world, all that matters is the music. How often do you hear a song that takes you away instantly, that makes you forget your problems?

I could go on and on, but really you’ve just got to hear it. That’s why I fired up MySpace, to make sure it was available there. After all, I was going to clue tens of thousands of people in, I wanted them to be able to hear it INSTANTLY! But they CAN’T! "Wonderful World" isn’t ON MySpace. Oh, there’s a demo. But don’t listen to that, this is a record, not a song.

His Website, www.jamesmorrisonmusic.com/, gave me the choice of entering or going to the U.S. site. Haven’t we known to go to the English site since the Beatles, ever since Capitol raped their albums?

I’m hunting all over.

If you want to hear the song, go to Yahoo Music. But, use Firefox if you’re on a Mac. But the effect is going to be ruined. I had a whole movie in my mind. But the guy didn’t look like this, the images didn’t look like this. It was dark, a nightclub. The singer was older. He was wearing a suit, with a tie loose around his neck. And long after dark his large band took the tiny stage, and when they fired up he sang like his life depended on it, like this was his only chance to close the audience.

And you’ll be closed as soon as you hear "Wonderful World".

Not that this is Top Forty-friendly. Not that this is even Hot AC-friendly. This is the kind of music that needs to be sold word of mouth, by baby boomers, like Norah Jones.

And you’ve got to give boomers help. They no longer listen to the radio. THIS should be playing in Starbucks, not McCartney’s substandard crap. Play "Wonderful World" and people will be looking to the ceiling asking WHO IS THIS?

This is a read-only blog. E-mail comments directly to Bob.