My first post from Google Chrome...

I remember first using Google as a search engine in 2000, and compared to other search engines I used before it, it seemed a lot better. It was also cool for me as well because I actually was TELLING my friends about it, rather than being told...it was if I had made a new discovery. And now, Google is pretty much the default search engine for everybody these days - to the point of people branding something as "Googling" - "Google that" is a statement I frequently hear from my friends. It's like saying "I'm going to do the Hoovering" rather than "I'm going to do the vacumming". They've went from a simple white paged background with Google written on it to a huge corporation, and now they've created their own web browser, launched today. I've had it now for a few hours, and I'm VERY impressed with it already. Very streamlined, very fast, very easy to use and simple...I miss faithful Firefox though, but it has got far too slow for me recently. I highly recommend it to all PC/Windows users, especially if you still use Internet Explorer - come on mannn get with the times ;)

Get it here!

(I'm not working for Google or anything, haha)

Anyway, updates, and thoughts...

This weekend was pretty stagnant - a rejection letter from Allstate, a lot of Guitar Hero III with Garth, and chilling out. Monday involved me doing ANOTHER test, this time on a computer, for the Belfast City Council job..like my dad said to me before it, it was very easy. Was the first person out of the test! Just like my dad was when he did it. Hopefully awaiting word from them in a few days.

Today, I went into town to meet Adrien, ate a Subway, dandered around - and bought some CD's as HMV have some really good offers on at the minute. I bought (despite owning digitally or previously)

The Fall of Troy - Doppelganger & Manipulator

Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade

Incubus - Light Grenades

Faith No More - The Real Thing & Angel Dust

Deftones - White Pony

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

All for just £35. Great! Me and Adrien had an interesting discussion, on how when we first met at uni, how we both were equally interested in the other persons taste in music, but now we've basically musically went our separate ways. And, the past few months has seen a shift in musical taste for me as well - I'm less into "Heavy" Metal and some Progressive music, and more into alternative, crazy and experimental music, with an emphasis on good songwriting and production. I've also recently got big into Trip-Hop, artists such as Portishead, UNKLE and DJ Shadow fitting the bill nicely. My current main band that I listen to is Incubus...Light Grenades and Morning View both being fantastic albums. And, I'm really enjoying MGMT's album also, great lyrics and really interesting (and dare I say progressive) music. Maybe someday soon I'll write a big extensive list of stuff I'm digging.

Me and my good friend Dan Acheson had a chat tonight about the Music Business, and how frustrating it is right now to be making music - seeing as there's a lot of good bands about (and equally just as many bad ones who get most of the fame ;)) and virtually everythings been done. We then were thinking about is Music REALLY purely enjoyable even if it is just for yourself? Do people enjoy writing music just so when they hear it it sounds good...or do they want recognition, and if they don't get it, do they just give up? And it made me think too: despite REALLY enjoying writing the songs I write, a part of me (my ego) wants people to recognise it and enjoy it; and if I got a record deal out of it, then great. But then there's the problem of writing music simply because the label wants you to; and you're just making it for them, and not for you really in the long run, and they'll get the majority of the profit you make from each CD sold.

Then, it got me thinking about how Radiohead, Prince and Nine Inch Nails (and hopefully soon more other bands) released their albums on the net first, Radiohead giving the option for people to "name their price" for In Rainbows (arguably one of their best albums yet), Prince giving away his newest album for free to a British national newspaper, and Nine Inch Nails putting their newest album The Slip and Ghosts I-IV available for an optional free download, or as a digital download with bonus materials, for a price - before they both released the albums in the shops, at the normal RRP. And, I'm thinking that this is the FUTURE of music - artists independently recording albums, promoting them on their MySpace or by any other means they can, and getting people to download it, perhaps optionally for free or for a price, before releasing it in the shops to the general public - with the ideal setting of the person going out and buying the album (as I have done with In Rainbows and The Slip...to make a point). I think that if those 2 albums were disappointing for me, I would not have bought them - so then it pushes the artists to their limit, of making music that is good enough to both own digitally for free and to own physically at a price not set by the artist themselves (presumably). 

Of course, the "fat cats" at the record labels would not possibly let this happen, as they don't want to lose their already bludgeoning hold on the artists, and of course their profit. But, the music business is getting an awful lot like an oil company - they know that digital downloading, online shopping, and online promotion is the current way forward, but are too scared to change completely just so they don't lose their supposed profit, so they bang the prices of CD's in shops right up (Smashing Pumpkins "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", a 2CD album, costs £18 in HMV, and there's plenty more examples at a higher price) - like an oil company refusing to realise that oil is running out severely in the world, and that reuseable energy is the way forward, and so are banging oil prices up to a stupifyingly high level). I mean, record companies do need to be around for certain reasons - they have the financial power to get bands/artists to tour around places which artists could not fund themselves unless they sell magnificently and have the right contacts, and of course the promotional power too - but more artist creative freedoms, and a greater percentage of profit given to the artist, should be given by these record companies - and a flexible time schedule also, just so that bands don't churn out albums simply because it says so in their contract (see: Dream Theater; Metallica).

But still, it leads me on to my original point - with all the infinite amounts of albums and artists that are around today, is it difficult for new and upcoming musicians like myself to be a whispering voice of new music within a screaming crowd of current music? Yes, I think it is. These days, it's all about self-promotion, and on MySpace you see just about every band comment-spamming all their "friends" to check out their music, having little to no regard for who the person is - as long as their comment gets up (and most likely unread and/or deleted) they don't care. Again, this is the incorrect way to do it, I think - everyone loves attention, and so therefore personal messages help. Anyway, it's not my position to tell people how to promote their band/themselves. I'm getting to a point now where I feel that I'm writing music, simply for myself - but I question as to whether or not that will always make me happy, and the answer is probably not. But, I could never lose my passion for music, I've seen too many people (some of those closer to me than you might think) lose their passion for music simply because it didn't work out for them that one time they tried to go big - I could never let that happen to me...music is too important to me, it is the life within me, really. It's really the only art-form that can affect and compliment your mood, and can lead you on a journey within just a few minutes (or more).

I think a nice summary for this is - too many cooks spoil the broth. Especially if those cooks are really terrible musicians.

Iain