Album of the Year Spoiler Alert?

Sound Opinions posted on their Facebook page a solicitation for listener nominations for Album of the Year. I sent in my nomination (which I won't yet mention, since I'm still working on the Showcowgo.com list), and this is the response e-mail I got:

"Thanks for sharing your nomination Matthew. We think you'll be pleased when you tune in this weekend.
Sound Opinions H.Q."

So, sounds like I may have inadvertently agreed with Greg and/or Jim, who I most strongly didn't agree with last year. Either of them. I guess we'll find out on Friday!

Greg Kot - Music Industry interview podcast

This is largely a repost from Gizmodo, of all places, but Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune rock critic and co-host of Sound Opinions recently wrote a book about the downfall of the music industry as we know it, thanks to illegal file sharing. He has no love for the old model, but also doesn't think that iTunes and its ilk is the answer. His views largely mirror the sentiment in my rant to Larry Ribstein, but Greg is a lot more effectual and a lot less effusive than my missive.

From Gizmodo: "In his interview on the fantastic podcast The Sound of Young America, Kot states that the music industry was actually one of the primary causes of piracy. The explosion of boy bands and bubblegum pop in the late 1990s was due to the labels' insistence on pouring a huge amount of money into just a few dumbed-down, impersonal, lowest-common-denominator acts, which meant in turn that commercial radio was almost completely garbage. There was little room for genuine weirdo geniuses like, say, Prince or David Bowie, and devoid of good music, the market was bound to react—hence Napster."

Download the podcast here.

Motorhome @ Subterranean 5/19/9

I got to Subterranean too late to see the band I intended to see, the Vindits, so I happened to listen to Motorhome instead. Now, at first I was amped because I remember Motorhome from my high school years in the early to mid 1990s. I saw them by chance at the Metro, then heard a review of that show on Sound Opinions, who loved it as much as I did. I ran out and bought Sex Vehicle, which I still listen to occasionally to this day. I had no idea they were still around. Turns out, they're not. No, this wasn't THAT Motorhome. Instead, to my surprise, the band I saw this time is an alt-country band that my friend from the Vindits summarized as "Kings of Leon with Lemmy Kilmister as the singer." I think it's more accurate to say veteran bar band meets the Silver Jews, but whatever. They're very talented, know how to boogie, and pumped up the small, quiet crowd. It was an unexpected treat, and that deserves a lot of credit.

Value/Cost = $5/7 = 72% = C-