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Everyone has certain albums that forever influence their musical life, albums that forever define who they are musically. Matt and I give our top 4 from the 1990s, which was our junior high and high school years, and our musical enlightenment period. We also give some music picks and of course have more beer! Enjoy!

Beer of the episode - Schlafly India Pale Ale

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matte@themusing.com
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mattb@themusing.com

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In this day and age, there are still music superstars, but they are often relagated to a particular genre or demegraphic. They often do not garner widespread critical praise as well as commercial success. But that has not always been the case. The Beatles were not only hugely successful commercially, but also considered by most critics to be the best pop/rock band ever. They had and still have a huge fan following. The question is, will we ever see a band or artists reach this kind of success ever again? Listen and find out!

Beer - Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager

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matte@themusing.com
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mattb@themusing.com

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What’s up with Australia? Now they want to charge a licensing fee to DJs who want to convert music they already own to mp3. That’s called format shifting, and here in the U.S. of A. it’s legal and it better stay that way. But is it something that may become a topic here? Plus EMI hopes to invigorate its digital presence by hiring a top Google exec, the question is, will it work. And where does LiveNation get all of this money they are throwing around? Madonna, U2, Jay Z…whose next? And how do they plan on making all of it back and more? Finally, the teaser for next episode…will there ever be another artist as big as the Beatles? Come back to find out!

Beer of the episode - Yuengling

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matte@themusing.com
or
mattb@themusing.com

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Ah Apple, it’s hard to go an episode without talking about you. This time it is rumors that iTunes may offer a subscription based service. Sounds pretty sweet right? Well Matt and I try to hash the pros and cons and the likelihood that it would even happen. We also discuss the advantages of releasing more EPs as opposed to less LPs. Would it benefit modern artists to release smaller amounts of quality music more often? Are the days of one record every 2 years gone? Listen and find out!
Plus as always new music picks and of course more beer! Enjoy!
Email any questions and comments to:
matte@themusing.com
or
mattb@themusing.com

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Matt E hails from California. So forgive him for that and move on. He attended and more importantly graduated from Middle Tennessee State University with a degree in Music Business. He now works in A&R for a music publishing company in Nashville, and is always a little suprised that he still has a job every morning. Aren’t we all. We’re not suprised that he still has a job, it’s that we all still have jobs…oh never mind. He is happily married and has a cat. A cat named Beethoven. Yup, he’s one of those people.
Email: matte@themusing.com

Matt B is also from California, so forgive him too. He also graduated from MTSU, but his degree was in Music Production and Technology. That’s right, he’s a nerd. But a married nerd, so it’s not all bad. Though he does like Harry Potter and sci-fi…anyways, he now works for a web design company in Nashville doing country music artist’s websites, and likes to think this qualifies as “working in the industry”. Because for some reason “working in the industry” is important in some way. Hasn’t figured out why yet.
Email: mattb@themusing.com

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I was trying my hand yet again at playing Guitar Hero, and I have come to the conclusion that I just plain suck. I play guitar, you know, real guitar, and every time I try to play Guitar Hero, I try to actually play the song, not the button pattern the game is throwing at me. I know many musicians are using this as a reason why they suck at Guitar Hero and why that’s okay, but I’m telling you it’s true. It’s not an excuse really, but it is a reason. Though the beer I had been drinking may have had some effect on it as well…

I had the pleasure of seeing Brooke preform live last December at the Holiday Noize 2 CD release concert at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville, TN. She only did 2 songs, but while she was singing you could hear a pin drop in that room. Everyone was enraptured by her, the music, the melodies and especially her voice. It has that soft, gentle, but substantial quality to it, in the vein of Feist, Regina Spektor and Leigh Nash. Brooke is also a talented pianist, playing just enough to back her voice and be interesting without being distracting.

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Ah, the new album from Jimmy Eat World, Chase This Light. I must admit, this album has been on repeat on my iPod for over a good 2 months. Something about it just rubs me the right way. Maybe it’s the strong, memorable hooks in every song. Maybe it’s the shiny, polished, but not overdone production. Maybe it’s the real emotion and honesty that seems to exude from it. Maybe it’s all of these things. Maybe I should stop saying maybe.

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Well it has certainly been awhile. Sorry for the hiatus, but finding people in the recording industry that want to write things on their spare time is like…well like getting anyone in the recording industry to do anything on their spare time! But it will happen, and we will be expanding things a little bit. The site will now be the regular hosting site for the M2 Podcast, which will probably be changing it’s name soon, and will have show notes, links and other things related to the podcast. Plus we will be doing more reviews of CDs and other music related items, and still offering any wisdom and insight we might have pertaining to the recording industry and music in general. So start checking the site often and leave some feedback, we love interaction!

Digital Rights Management. Basically, it keeps your music from playing well with others. It is the record industry’s attempt to make everyone buy their own copy of a song, instead of one person buying it and then sharing it for free with all of their friends. This used to be easy; you had to buy your own record/cassette/8-track/CD, unless your friend gave you their copy, in which case they didn’t have it anymore. Now a digital file can be copied with no loss of quality, as many times as you want. That quality loss used to be a deterrent to copying music, at least with cassettes; the sound quality went down the more copies you made. Even with CDs, where the sound quality doesn’t suffer, you still need a CD burner and blank CDs, which is more work than some people want to do. Digital files, however, just take a couple of mouse clicks and you’re in business.

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