REPORT: Geffen and Interscope Records "Merge"...

The Music Industry just got a rancid taste in its mouth as 60 faithful employees (and presumably most of their affiliates, interns, etc.) were cut off of market share leader Universal Music Group yesterday.

According to reports, Geffen Records invested over $18 million dollars in set ups and albums releases for such artists as will.I.am, Eve and Nicole Scherzinger. No profit seems to have come back.

Happy Holidays, right?

If there's any one out there who thought that a lil piracy isn't doing too much damage... take a look.

Yes... in the '80s and '90s we were able to tape songs off the radio and make mixtapes... but that took effort. Not only that, but the pace at which copies were made was much slower due to the technology of the time. You couldn't email mixtapes to a few hundred friends, or make the tapes available to millions since Napster, KaZaa, Audio Galaxy, Lime Wire and the Torrent Networks did not yet exist.

Now... instead of the hours that it would take to painstakingly piece together a decent mixtape, one can download, mix and make available entire albums to the WORLD in about 30 minutes (unless you still use Dial-Up to connect to the internet).

60 people... and this isn't the first record label foreclosure, nor will this be the last.

Guess that's what happens when people leak albums to the internet before they're even released.

Lemme try to get this taste out of my mouth now...

Let the blogging begin...

So the world of blogging is reaching adolescence. I remember when the world thought blogging was for people who were too anti-social to have face-to-face conversations. That was a whole what... 6 or 7 years ago?

Now Corporate America is clamoring to get on the train before it's completely left the station. It's not cool to be in high school without reading a solid collection of blogs ranging from ConcreteLoop to Clay Cane; from Kanye's blog to AOL Blackvoices; from The Fashioniste to Hot Music Beat; from SoulTracks.com to JazzCorner.com

If it wasn't for the Writer's strike, TV shows like "Gossip Girl" would be the hottest thing since Reality Shows.

Crazy, right?

Anyway... I'm just a lone soul who recently migrated from America's farmland to America's metro-land. No longer am I seeing moose in my front yard; now I see city buses, subways, taxi cabs and pavement. I love it though... it's a beautiful thing to be able to ride a horse one minute, and ride the train the next.

You're going to be getting yet another glimpse at things you might not think about.

Let the blogging begin...

Catch ya.

-The Dark Taste