With the recent RIAA bust of Mondo Kim's in NYC and the news of Apple'smove to Pentium D chips embedded with copyright-protection lockdownsystems, it's pretty clear that the recording industry and Hollywoodaren't planning on slowing down their draconian Gestapo tactics anytimesoon. That's why Negativland's new album No Business could not have arrived at a better time. No Businessis far more than an album: it's a multimedia essay and meditation onthe concepts of public domain, fair use, copyright law and theramifications of digital media filesharing on the music business as ithas existed for the past several decades.Seeland
In addition to advertised"EIGHT TRACKS of AUDIO on a ROUND CD," this generous package fromSeeland also contains a 18-page essay entitled "Two relationships to acultural public domain," a hilarious Quicktime video and a whoopeecushion toy emblazoned with the "circle c" copyright symbol. The essayitself is perhaps the best thing about the album, as it touches on manyissues and possible trajectories for the current war between themainstream music business and the internet-savvy consumer. Negativlandmake several modest proposals about the future of the music business inlight of the digital revolution, some of which involve the very realpossibility that making music may no longer be a viable way to makemountains of cash. This is not necessarily the end of popular music;but it may very mean the end of corporate music. As Negativland pointout in their essay, they themselves have never made any kind ofreasonable living off of their music, but they continue making itanyway, because they have a sincere desire to make music. Having beenat the receiving end of several well-publicized lawsuits because oftheir plunderphonic audio collaging, which frequently took jabs atcorporate-label music such as U2 and Michael Jackson, Negativlandclearly know of whence they speak, and this makes for an engaging read,one of the best and most level-headed essays I have read on the topic.The accompanying CD may be the weakest link of the package, whichthough it does have several very amusing moments, is not nearly asstrong as their last album, the fantastic Deathsentences of the Polished and Structurally Weak,an unsung masterpiece of noise. This CD is something of a first forNegativland, as it is entirely constructed from plunders and samples,with no additional voicework over top, as is the usual case for thealbums derived from their Over the Edge radio broadcasts.Instead, it's a series of People Like Us and Evolution ControlCommittee-style gags, resplicing Ethel Merman until she's singinglyrics like: "There's no business like stealing/It's so appealing."Also in the audio blender are The Beatles, the soundtrack to Disney's The Little Mermaid,an RIAA spokesman's speech at the Grammy Awards, a vintage radio dramaand other sources too various to mention. The oversized wallet thathouses the album and essay is filled with so much corporate iconographyand mythological characters, it looks like the dual wet dream of JosephCampbell and Marshall McLuhan. All told it's an absolutely fantasticpackage from Negativland, and I'd suggest getting your hands on itbefore the RIAA shuts down its sale on account of all those peskyunauthorized samples.
samples:
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