“End the Need for Benefit Concerts”
Universal health care strengthens business; who would know better than two music industry vets who know what it’s like to be real entrepreneurs?
Via Chicago Tribune

“Shakira’s Stats Don’t Lie: Facebook/Ustream Music Video Debut Is A Hit”
Half a million views via a (mostly) artist-controlled content channel. MTV, stick with Heidi Montag, you’re finished.
Via Techcrunch

“Soundtrack for Philippe Starck iPhone Application”
Taking audio wallpaper to a new, ridiculous level. Are this, and programs like it, really necessary?
Via Designboom

Wrapping Up
Sasha Frere-Jones on rap’s stylistic Balkinazation and Freddie Gibbs’s reliable hustle.
Via the New Yorker

Hell Awaits for Illegal File-Sharers
“Anyone illegally selling, copying, uploading or downloading this material is condemned to eternal hellfire. Happy listening, God is love.” Really helps you concentrate on doing your job as a reviewer.
Via the Guardian

Interview: Modeselektor
Jim Jones sampling and Twitter as a cult… always good to hear from the German duo.
Via FACT

Joe Orton’s Lost Beatles Script
Not strictly unknown, but still a fascinating look at an unfinished Beatles screenplay about overthrowing a female oligarchy.
Via Rock’s Back Pages

“Freedom, Rhythm & Sound: Revolutionary Jazz Original Cover Art 1965-83″
Great review of what looks like an amazing book of cover art from Soul Jazz.
Via Dusted

“Rdio: Kazaa, Skype Execs Tackle Subscription Music”
A new streaming service seeks to shake up the established players.
Via Hypebot

“Bon Jovi Take Up Residence at NBC”
First a primetime Leno plague, now Job Bon playing repeatedly… way to drive up ratings, floundering network.
Via Vulture

“Sony Converts Iceland Town Into Massive Soundsystem”
This sounds like a living hell, though it would make a cool music video. Where’s the Bjork and Sigur Ros on the playlist, by the way?
Via Gizmodo

“Q&A With Jeff Mills”
Techno legend talks about remotely performances in Japan, the blowback of technological advances and the peculiar state of the U.S.
Via Rhythmism

“Peverelist Reveals Details of Debut ‘Album’”
Punch Drunk boss to drop new album of old tracks named after the guy who invented the artificial heart valve. Ohhh, futurism.
Via FACT

“P.E. Announces New LP Using Revolutionary Funding Method “
Public Enemy is using Sellaband.com to fund their forthcoming album. I bet it’ll sell like their last one, “How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?” That moved serious units.
Via Allhiphop.com

“Massive Attack Plan Burial Remix Project”
Burial is playing the Mad Professor role on a new Massive Attack project.
Via Resident Advisor

“Wu-Tang Clan’s Method Man Charged With Tax Evasion”
Nobody ever loses with the “too smoked out to pay taxes” defense.
Via the Guardian

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“Western Music Piracy in China – The Major Labels’ Role”
As the how-to video above proves, the industry has made a few tactical errors in regards to fighting piracy. This report on their willful disregard for a black market music distribution system in China they helped create is equally damning.
Via Music 2.0

“Record Stores: Out of Sight, But Not Obsolete”
What to do when your retail vinyl business goes belly-up? Host private record buying parties.
Via New York Times

“Suicide’s Martin Rev: New Album, Tour, Art Show”
“The tall, smacked-out one who was always wearing shades” is dropping a new release November 30th called Stigmata.
Via FACT Magazine

“Meet a Mate Based on Your Twitter Feed, Netflix Faves”
A new dating service promises real-time information and analytics, such as online music streaming, to help singles find a date.
Via New York Times

“Guitar Center and NAMM Accused of Price-Fixing Guitars”
Who thought shitty service also meant extremely shitty pricing? Guitar Center also happens to be owned by Bain Capital, which was founded by Mitt Romney.
Via Daily Swarm

“Hey What’s That Sound: Sampler”
Get a quick refresher course on the early history of the sampler.
Via the Guardian

“Sam Cooke Biopic Announced”
A new movie — modeled after Ray, one assumes — about the life of Sam Cooke is being made, based on the excellent book Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke. It should be required reading for anyone interested in American music.
Via Paste

“Guest Post: Why The Band As A Startup Model Doesn’t Make Sense”
Drowned in Sound founder Sean Adams, who helped release Metric’s album in the UK, pokes holes in the assertion made by this New York Times piece that bands are the new startup.
Via Hypebot

“Big Content: Ludicrous to Expect DRMed Music to Work Forever”
The title sort of says it all.
Via Ars Technica

“Scene and Heard: Crack House”
Drum and bass pioneer DJ Zinc dropped out and reemerged spinning crack house, a raved up, bass-heavy version of 4/4. Confused? Listen here. (Download link via Sasha Frere-Jones)
Via Guardian

“Billboard Frees Charts for Web Access”
Part of Billboard’s strategy to stay relevant, they’re releasing all chart info and starting a Soundtrack of My Life feature with an attached download store. I like to think Michaelangelo Matos’ great Project X chart analysis features spurred them on.
Via MediaWeek

“TechDirt: UK Music Industry Economists Admit, Music Biz Getting Bigger, Not Smaller…”
Economists working for the Performing Rights Society concluded that increases in business-to-business payments and live revenues mean the UK record industry has grown over the last few years.
Techdirt via Daily Swarm

“It’s a One-Man Band Versus a Canadian Music Funder.”
The letter Unfamiliar Records boss Greg Ipp recently wrote, complaining about the government grant funding system in Canada, gets an official response.
Canada.com via Daily Swarm

“Looking Back at Woodstock from the Inside”
According to a book penned by Woodstock organizer Michael Lang, the Grateful Dead’s set at the festival was terrible cause they were (stop the presses) too stoned to play. Jerry Garcia was quoted as saying “our performance onstage was musically a total disaster that is best left forgotten.”
Via Jacket Copy

“Silk Stalkings: Prince Peaces Out of L.A. and Returns to Minneapolis!”
A blog gossip column about Prince’s return to Minneapolis sounds like the most fun a music writer could possibly have in the Twin Cities, and that’s not meant as a diss. Plus, you get to call L.A. a “douche factory.” Score one, Upper Midwest.
Via City Pages

“A Chart Hit with 64 Sales?”
Florence and the Machine’s “Rabbit Heart” single hit number 16 with just 64 physical sales. That’s probably the amount crooked label staff bought per store to juice the numbers back in the ’60s.
Via Guardian Blog

“The Scramble Begins for New Michael Jackson Songs”
If there really are MJ songs from the ’70s, that could be really interesting. Here’s hoping the lawyers sort this out quickly.
Via BusinessWeek

“Blogger Sentenced for Leaking Guns N’ Roses Album”
As part of his one-year probation for leaking parts of Chinese Democracy, blogger Kevin Cogill needs to let the Feds search his computer. Better erase that porn now.
AP Via Daily Swarm

“Madlib Interview in The Wire”
It’s a tease with a long-winded introduction, but it’s an effective one. Need to get this issue.
Via Stones Throw

Photo by erikadotnet used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic License