Epitonic Newsletter: Vol. 4, No. 19 'End of an Era?'
05/17/02
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In case you missed the news item, on May 14 the New York Times and other papers reported the resignations of Napster CEO Konrad Hilbers and boy wonder Shawn Fanning, the Northeastern dropout who wrote the pioneering peer-to-peer software (several other high-ranking employees also packed up their desks). It sounded like the death rattle for Napster, coming in the wake of a failed round of negotiations with the German media giant Bertelsmann, even as the company careened toward Chapter 11 and its board remained stalled by its own factionalism.

But today, in a rather stunning reversal, Bertelsmann announced it had salvaged the deal to aquire Napster and its assets, and that Hilbers and Fanning would return to work. Still, the future remains awfully cloudy for the pioneering file-swapping service. Questions persist about the company's ability to develop a legal business model, particularly in the face of competition from new free services like KaZaA and Morpheus which do what Napster used to do, only better. Meanwhile, there's the additional issue of more impending litigation, courtesy of the RIAA.

Still, whatever ultimately becomes of Napster, it's been an amazing and important story, hasn't it? From a sheer narrative perspective, the Napster saga has assumed some of the dimensions of a classical Greek melodrama. And of course from a business standpoint, well, it's challenged the economics of the industry, scared the hell out of the big record labels, offered unknown artists new avenues of self-promotion, and altered the fundamental conceptions of music consumers the world over.

We should add that while we have certainly used Napster and similar services, we do believe that there's a good reason for peer-to-peer's illegality, which is that in the long run, it seems more likely to hurt artists than it is to help them. Clearly, we've been in the business of supporting your digital rights for the past three years, but we can't support those rights if they come at the cost of our favorite artists' rights to earn a living, and for us that's the ultimate failure of P2P.

Still, peer-to-peer services are going to keep on changing things. Yesterday, when we thought this was the end of the line for Napster, we were going to suggest that years down the road, it wouldn't seem so much like the end of an era, but rather the end of the beginning of an era -- one in which some of the basic structures of the entertainment industry are turned on their head. Now that Napster has a second life, that prognostication feels a bit less apropos. But still, it'll be awfully interesting to see what happens over the next few years, to Napster in particular and peer-to-peer in general.

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Now, back to the somewhat less tumultous landscape of Epitonic: watch next week for a slew of great new rock downloads. We've also got some other new goodies in store for you, so stay tuned.
Jake Mandell
"The Prince And The Palm" by Jake Mandell
Laptop producer Jake Mandell composes complex, leftfield drum and bass and shiny, spiky techno for London's Worm Interface, Frankfurt's Force Inc, and New York's Carpark Records.

Greg Davis
"Eleven Eight" by Greg Davis
Greg Davis' blend of folksy instruments and ambient electronics is wooing fans of Boards of Canada and Plaid away from Warp and over to NYC's Carpark Records.

Fauna Flash
"Mother Nature" by Fauna Flash
Christian Prommer and Roland Appel make up Fauna Flash, a Munich-based production-and-DJ duo whose genre-defying sound is capturing the ears of listeners around the world.

Mellow
"Take Me Higher" by Mellow
French electro-pop trio Mellow crafts contemporary homages to '60s psychedelia and '70s progressive with 21st Century instrumentation and studio tools. If Syd Barrett were still making music, it might sound like this.

The Bees
"A Minha Menina" by The Bees
This wonky pop duo from the Isle of Wight combines '70s light rock textures with a little bit of this and a little bit of that -- some funk, some tropicalia, some smooth reggae. The effect is the warm bliss of a perfect summer afternoon.

TW Walsh
"All Stops Applied" by TW Walsh
This Massachusetts songsmith is moody without being brooding, meanders without getting lost. He makes gentle, folky pop that's subtle and understated, and often quite pretty.

Aroah
"Come Home" by Aroah
Aroah is a young Spanish-American neo-folksinger with a beautiful voice and a deft musical touch. Her short, small songs are graceful, dreamy, plaintive, and quietly tough.

Erik Sanko
"That Train" by Erik Sanko
This longtime member of the Lounge Lizards and onetime frontman of Skeleton Key has finally ventured out as a solo artist, composing collapsed little gothic almost-folk songs which often incorporate his fascination with "non-musical" sounds.

Burd Early
"Driftwood" by Burd Early
Burd Early is a city boy with a rural sound, a singer-songwriter who writes meandering, introspective folk-based compositions that will call to mind the likes of Giant Sand and Smog.

John Vanderslice
"Amitriptyline" by John Vanderslice
Though John Vanderslice is a known prankster (as evidenced by his media-fooling hype surrounding the provocatively titled "Bill Gates Must Die"), this is no joke band. Clever lyrics and soaring melodies combine to create catchy, thought-provoking music. Pop fans of the world unite!

Lambchop
"Is a Woman" by Lambchop
This raving mad collective of more than a dozen musicians drinks from the cup of nearly every imaginable American style -- Nashville country, Philly soul, Tin Pan Alley pop, avant-garde experimental, Broadway cabaret, the Las Vegas all-nude female revue -- producing a sound that's messy but smooth, absurd but soulful, a sound which people have been struggling to describe for nearly a decade.

Tracer
"Indigenous" by Tracer
Elements of space rock, Brit-pop, and even some breakbeat make Tracer an infectious barbituate cocktail. Inject the music of this Chicago trio into your subconscious and you'll never come down.

Black Dice
"Endless Happiness" by Black Dice
Black Dice gives entirely new meaning to the word aggro with their punishing, indecipherable bursts of horrific sonic chaos. If you want to hear the sound of your psyche unraveling, look no further.