Rolling Stone- Foo Fighters Sonic Highways -http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/foo-fighters-sonic-highways-20141111 -Doyle, P. (2014, November 14). Foo Fighters Sonic Highways. Retrieved January 29, 2015. - Dave Grohl, Nirvana's former drummer, headed back into a Seattle studio to record. The album is called "Sonic Highways" which is pretty much perfect for the concept that the album was trying to attain. Basically Dave and the boys traveled to major citys across the country writing songs relating to each experience across the country. Grohl described the album as a "love letter to the history of American Music." Despite the intense concept the band still incorporates many of their well know attributes such as the same Monster guitar crunch, crescendos, and hard bridges found in albums past. IMPORTANT QUOTES! "This time, he's built the concept of his 2013 documentary, Sound City – in which he brought heroes from Stevie Nicks to Tom Petty back to the L.A. studio where they made some of their most classic LPs – into a cross-country road trip of an album" "During the past year, Grohl traveled to eight great American cities with an HBO crew, interviewing key figures ranging from punk icon Ian Mackaye in D.C. to Willie Nelson in Austin, and soaking up inspiration for Sonic Highways" "These songs are some of the band's most ambitious moments yet. The closer, "I Am a River," grows from sprawling to self-righteous over seven minutes, with Grohl getting emotional on top of an orchestra." Dave Grohl is a genius and anyone who thinks otherwise can shove it! 20 years ago he was a drummer in a little band, you may have heard of , by the name of Nirvana! Find me another instance in music history where someone has done what Mr. grohl has done. He basically went to 8 major cities and recorded a song based off each visit and from information gathered through intense research with legendary American musicians such as Tom Petty and good ole Willie Nelson(im sure they shared a nice doobie;)) The reason I think its genius is because he took some many different aspects in music from each of these 8 American cities and incorporated it into a collective album while still staying true too the FOO!

Rolling Stone Country Article The Cadillac Three Get Heavy at CMA Fest, Eye Metallica Date Rolling Stone Country Article. (2014, June 10). Retrieved January 8, 2015, from http://www.thecadillacthree.com/2014/06/10/rolling-stone-country-article/ The Cadillac Three are a recently formed southern rock band that has blown up with country fans of all ages across the country. There a band of three dudes who are extremely passionate about what they play and only sing about what they absolutely believe. These three gents are true southerners that care deeply about story telling in music, which recently, unfortunately, has become a lost art. "Country Music" today is kinda of bullshit pop if you ask me. Its like the labels are telling to the country artists some random bullshit with some country words and things to a pop rock rock beat. “You don’t get story song-telling in rock radio if you listen to it right now." "We made our first record ourselves in a basement studio here in Nashville and it got picked up by Big Machine and [label head Scott Borchetta] and they have always supported the way we really sound,” Mason said. "It’s faster, a dirty riff. And basically is me finding a reason to call a girl a ‘party,'” said Johnston, laughing. “You can take that any way you want to.” The thing I like most about these guys is they chose a label that supports the music they want to put out. Musicians nowadays sell out to labels and put out garbage for money and because it sound good and people will like it. The Cadillac Three make the music they want to make and sing about what they believe in and their label supports that. That is something the music industry lacks today and needs desperately.

The Guardian - Lindvall, H. (2009, January 29). Why Artists Should Retain Ownership of their Recordings. Retrieved November 27, 2014, from http://www.theguarudian.com/msic/musicblog/2009/jan/29/recording-copyright-ownership A main problem in modern music is the record companies' ownership of the music that their artist makes. When a artist signs a record deal they no longer own the songs that they make. This is a problem because the only way artist can retake their songs is if the record business went out of business. Artist have had meetings to try and make laws for the ownership of their songs. One law option would be after a certain amount of time the record label would no longer own the song. IMPORTANT QUOTES

What is being proposed is that all deals should be licensing deals, which means that the artists retain ultimate ownership of their recordings, and the label only has control of them for a set amount of time.

Traditionally, when an artist signs a record deal (particularly with a major label), they assign the copyright of their recordings to the label. This means they no longer own them and only have a right to royalties. In fact, the only way artists might get them back would be if the label went bust.

The "use it or lose it" approach is already becoming more common when it comes to publishing. If the publisher fails to get a song "cut" by an artist, after a certain amount of time, then instead of it gathering dust the songwriter has a chance to get it "cut".

I think with the converging world of media today and the all mighty and powerful internet artists are more capable of retaining ownership of their music. As mentioned in previous posts on my blog the internet is almost completely putting record companies out of business. This whole article is what started the controversy over ownership of music. Through the years and the development of the internet its been made possible for artists to actually retain ownership completely independent of record companies. Its articles like these that sparked the fire under the asses of musicians to seek elsewhere besides record companies that just want to use them to make money.

Surviving in the Music Industry Today

Tunecore - Price, J. (n.d.). Music Industry Survival Guide. Retrieved November 26, 2014, from http://www.tunecore.com/guides/promote_introduction `In many ways technology has changed the music industry. The way music is distributed and sold and how music is discovered today are the two main ways technology has affected the music industry. The article basically explains how the music industry used to be and how it was changed. Before a record label would contact you if they were legitimately interested in your music. They would then help you mass produce your music, market your music and finally sell your music. However, it is not like this anymore. Now anyone has the opportunity to do this while keeping their rights. In todays world the internet and technology are a musicians best friend. Through mp3 blogs and such its very easy to get your name out there. MP3 blogs are very effective in communicating your music with the world. It's fairly simple, one person anywhere can like your music and put a link in their blog then their friend clicks on it and loves it and bam! you've single handed-ly made your music famous just through our little friend called the internet, while at the same time keeping your rights that the record labels would have stripped you of. IMPORTANT QUOTES "In the old model, most people primarily discovered music in one of three ways: Radio Print magazines like Rolling Stone Viacom owned properties like MTV, VH1, BET etc These three outlets would choose what songs they played, what videos they showed or what bands they wrote about from a limited pool of artists pushed to them by the labels. If you were not on a label, you were not in the pool, and therefore you had virtually no opportunity to get exposure from any of these outlets." "You cause the music to sell and they take money from these sales while controlling your rights." "The music industry is about distribution. Record labels make the "thing" to give to the distributor. The distributor puts the "thing" in the store. The record label then markets the "thing" to create demand." I love this article. This is the future. The main argument presented in the article is that musicians can market, promote, and make money while still keeping there rights. Have you ever heard the term sell-out? Record companies gave birth to that term. Before the internet music revolution you would basically have to sell your soul to these record companies just to get your music out there and sold. Lets say now that your music isn't as big of a hit as they originally thought, your fucked! So your in a hole your music wasn't as good as they expected, and you've just sold your soul to sell the music that didn't sell. The Internet fixes all these problems. Musicians nowadays are blessed to be able to easily promote their music through blogs and to actually be able to keep their rights.