Explain to me what's happening with new MySpace Music and with labels' new royalty deal

MySpace is introducing its new "MySpace Music" today. A new model for listening/marketing music, with humongous amounts of free music streamed online, supported only by visual ads. Question is whether it will challenge iTunes and hasn't already been superseded by YouTube.

Lets you create vast playlists. But I probably won't get a chance to start playing with this until tonight.

Also, a really poor Reuters piece about some deal on online royalty pricing among "record labels, music publishers, songwriters, and online music services." Can't tell from the article what the significance of this is or who/what it will affect. Basically, the problem has been that royalty costs for online streaming have been prohibitively high, making it extremely hard for online radio and Pandora etc. to make a go of it (and of course therefore encouraging yet more people to download illegally or to head to YouTube to hear what they want). So, I don't know if the new rates take care of the problem or not. Remember, the major labels' first impulse since the rise of the 'Net has been to do the wrong thing. So, are they still on their first impulse here, or are they finally - with this and the MySpace deal - seriously taking account of reality?

Also, on first listen the Ne-Yo album has a beautiful sound from start to finish but may not have enough great songs to carry us further than the basic beauty.

Haven't heard the Jazmine Sullivan yet.

Lawmakers debate pizza vs. Thai

My second-favorite sentence in the NY Times story on the bailout agreement:

After the overnight drafting efforts on both sides of Capitol Hill — with pizza on the House side, and Thai food in the Senate — Democratic officials said they had completed a unified draft of a bill.

My first-favorite sentence (key ingredient in bold):

They also said that there would be limits on pay packages for executives whose firms seek assistance from the government and a mechanism for the government to be given an equity stake in some firms so that taxpayers have a chance to profit if the companies prosper in the months and years ahead.

Fingers crossed that this works. Waiting for Krugman to tell me what to think, but he hasn't posted yet: but I get the impression that the public conversation about the proposal actually made the likely legislation much better. The executive-pay-package limits are a minor issue - though the limits help to reduce "moral hazard," supposedly. Major is that the public sector gets some authority rather than just providing the moolah. Questions: Is the oversight really devised to be strong and effective and to help create [buzzword alert] transparency? How will the equity stake be determined? (Oh yeah, and what's an equity stake? Can you put it on pizza?)

Year In America September 25, 2008

T.I. rises back to 1, Kanye enters at 3, Archuleta gets a second wind, M.I.A. hangs onto her bullet, and Jennifer Hudson sits at 41, still unable to kick the door in. So, really, is anything new? Barely.

( Kanye West )

( The Rock Heroes )

1978 Revisited (my first MySpace playlist)

Using the new MySpace music gizmo, I just made my first MySpace mixtape. If you want to hear it, simply go to my MySpace page and the music should load and play automatically, though you may have to have Flash Player 9 on your computer (which you can download for free from Adobe). In one instance (at the start of CSS) the player stopped, and I had restart by hitting play.

The set:
1. The-Dream "Ditch That"
2. Buraka Som Sistema f. Pongolove "Kalemba (Wegue Wegue)"
3. Cyndi Lauper "Into The Nightlife"
4. Annie "Songs Remind Me Of You"
5. Michelle Williams "We Break The Dawn"
6. Cansei De Ser Sexy "Rat Is Dead (Rage)"
7. Black-Eyed Peas "Pump It"
8. Sir Mix-A-Lot "Posse On Broadway"
9. V.I.C. "Wobble"
10. t.A.T.u. "Kosmos" (Russian version)

( 1978 Revisited )