The Plastic Wave is an Iranian electronic rock band (with Portishead leanings) and has a female lead singer. They’ve been arrested before. But they had a rare - and legal - opportunity to perform in public when they were recently scheduled to perform at SXSW. Unfortunately, the US consulate in Dubai wouldn’t give them a visa to get them here, the band says.

New Yorkers, however, will still have the chance to hear their music, albeit through a cover band, at Littlefield in Brooklyn on Wednesday, March 3rd. The night is part of a worldwide protest in support of musical freedom aptly called Music Freedom Day. Cruel Black Dove will play Wave’s music, but for added poignancy, the night’s last song will be only a recording that will echo through the venue as the stage remains empty of all but the instruments they would have used. The event is called Impossible Music, and they plan to host more nights like it. This first session is sponsored in part by Freemuse, which is also organizing the worldwide protest.

On a related note, here’s a video of a pretty nice sounding cut by a female Iranian rapper named Farinaz, courtesy of The Atlantic. She would probably face arrest if she lived in Iran. (Image by Kako.)

In New York, half of women that are murdered are killed in domestic incidents.

Apparently, Keira Knightley is a megastar over in the UK, so daps to her for doing this public service announcement about domestic violence. Although some writers may disagree, Culture System thinks that the video was effective in bringing home the helplessness of Knightley’s situation at the end. By having her call out for the director’s help and exposing the film set, it blurs the line between reality and fiction, and helps tear off the glossy sheen of movies that we have all become accustomed to.

We thought the fact that Clark plays in the background was enough of a tie in to make this relevant to a music blog.

A New Era of Responsibility was the name of Obama’s budget proposal. But it might also be a phrase that describes what some expect for hip hop, now that a black man is the leader of the country.

In Slate magazine, Jonah Weiner writes about how Obama’s rise to the presidency could help to change the definition of power and success in hip hop.

“[Jay-Z] never tried to rewrite the rules of the game beyond the one that said a black man couldn’t win. While he takes pains to portray his success as, at bottom, a racial coup, he’s never been interested in dismantling the status quo so much as infiltrating and mastering it. This is a fair description of what Obama did, too—with one crucial exception. For Jay-Z, the fact that he got rich as a businessman constitutes its own rebellion. Obama, though, is a former community organizer who chose public service over private-sector paychecks. His example might open up new sorts of narratives in hip-hop, ones where power isn’t a synonym for wealth.”

(On a related note, peep this mini-documentary about Obama and 50 Cent.)

"Contrary to Brazil’s national mythology, Brazil was a brutal and deadly place for slaves. But they didn’t submit willingly. Thousands escaped, while others led political and militant movements that forced white farmers to leave. Largely unknown to the outside world, today these communities struggle to preserve a rich heritage born of resistance to oppression."

NEAR THE START OF THE NEW YEAR, Apple revealed that it would begin selling all of its music on iTunes without copyright software. The move was welcomed by many as the introduction of a new era. But where does the move actually take music?

By shedding the software, listeners have many more options about what they do with the music they buy. But there are hurdles on this path towards freedom of use, including new privacy issues and inflexibility in upgrading collections previously bought at the iTunes store. Furthermore, new copyright software - often called DRM, which is shorthand for digital rights management - is popping up at Apple and iTunes for other forms of digital culture.

Apple began selling 80 percent of its catalog without the copyright software immediately after its announcement at the Macworld expo on Jan. 6. The rest is expected to become available by the end of March. This means that users can now listen to their songs on a range of devices, and no longer just an iPod. They can also download them to as many computers as they like, whereas they could only do so five times previously. The songs will now also become compatible with many different kinds of software, so listeners could use an editing program, for example, to cut the intro out of a song if they wanted to.

FOR 30 CENTS A SONG, users can upgrade their entire collection to the new format. But this is where the issues begin. One has to upgrade their entire collection, and cannot upgrade song by song.

And the songs are not entirely free of copyright software. The digital music files now include the email address of the purchaser, in order to track where the songs go once purchased. (Click here for a screenshot of how visible your address is on iTunes.) Your email is included on a text file downloaded to your computer along with the iTunes file. It is easily alterable, if you were so inclined to get rid of it. But DailyTech wonders if the email is also included in the file elsewhere.

iTunes is not the only one to do this, however. Dance music digital retailer Juno Download also includes a watermark on songs purchased from them. Amazon MP3 does as well, although it is anonymous and simply tracks where the song was bought, not who purchased it. (Amazon began selling such DRM-free digital music lasy year.)

ALTHOUGH APPLE IS DITCHING DRM for iTunes music, they continue to use it for hardware and other forms of digital entertainment purchased at their store.

Accessory makers must now purchase a license to make their products compatible with the newer iPods. But the authentication chips on the new iPods do not work with older, properly licensed speaker systems, writes Twice.

Furthermore, new Macbooks can only be hooked up to external monitors that conform to copyright protection standards, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The advocacy group also points out that movies, TV shows, and audiobooks purchased at the iTunes store are still DRM-laden.

COPYRIGHT SOFTWARE MADE ITUNES songs compatible only with the wildly popular iPod. Apple argued that this was the only way to make the software effective. But by tying the two together, the move undeniably helped make the iTunes store the largest music retailer in the world, surpassing Walmart as title-holder last year.

But DRM software has proven very ineffective. Even with the prominence of iTunes and the growing popularity of buying digital music, illegal downloading of music is still rampant. Digital music sales grew by a quarter worldwide last year, and accounted for 20 percent of the music market. Illegal downloads, however, still account for 95 percent of all music online, according to a new report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

The music industry seems to be coming to grips with the fact that copyright software doesn’t tamp illegal downloading. It didn’t help record labels or artists. But it did benefit Apple, so good thing for them that the TV and movie industry seem to be making similar mistakes.

From the comments section of a post over at Dutty Artz about knowing something about the lyrics and culture of the music DJs and producers are playing or sampling. A thoughtful discussion over there.

In her post, she backs up her manager’s claim that DP gave Lynn permission to bite "Technologic." And although there was no reference to DP on her website, like he claimed, DP’s manager did show some love for her in a blog post that I overlooked. Actually, I saw the post back then, but didn’t realize that the author was Daft Punk’s manager. As far as all that goes: my fault.

And although she resorts to name calling, and ragging me as an "eeediot," I still say that I like the cut, and would even prefer to listen to it over the DP original. But it still needs a more prominent reference to Daft Punk. Just because someone gives you permission to bite doesn’t make it all better. If somebody in a graffiti crew flips a style like someone else that’s down, they still lose a measure of respect. The fact that Lynn hasn’t put out much of anything else doesn’t help her either.

But in the sake of good faith communication, I’ve included the original review I wrote with a couple small edits. Read it after the jump.

The Gutter of Gutters

Damn, ma’s not lettin’ anyone forget just how gutter the city she comes from is. Best to put the kids to bed before this one.

In "Kingston Logic," Terry Lynn’s first single, released on Phree, she tells a story about her hometown, the capital of Jamaica, that covers violence, murder, drugs, and everything in between. On first listen, you might mistake the lyrics for a pop song. But the hard ass, grimy electro beats will give you your first clue to the object of this dark tale. The video might help you visualize thing too. (Just a bit…)

On her website, she says the violent imagery she produces is not meant to glorify, but is just an attempt to paint an accurate portrait, and I find this legitimate. Besides, who wants a collection of nothing but Prozac music. She even says her full album, scheduled to be released this spring, will make an attempt at a broader range of subject matter. Lynn says the search for peace is what inspires her to make music. and some of her blog posts concerning the violence raging in her hood make me more likely to believe her. (At the same time, the posts could just serve to strengthen her rep in an industry where street credibility is more important than talent.)

But I still take issue with the first person story telling; all of the images of her holding weapons and what not. Why’s every artist gotta put themselves in the role of the gangsta? Why not tell a story about someone else doin’ the dirtiness?

She’s also going to be eventually posting free downloads on her web site. "I know what it’s like to want something and can’t afford it. I’ve been there, am there. Support me if you can." That sounds like a good thing to me. I can dig that.

Its owner may be the first black man to own a store on the area’s major thoroughfare, 125th.

Dude opened his store "before R & B music got its name".

Sounds like the type of thing the Landmarks Preservation Commission should be paying attention to.

<via the NYTimes>

The study did note, however, that music heads and the "Internet cognoscenti", as the report called the web savvy, search for music in a different manner.

And a couple of new studies might help to shed a little light on this part of the population.

A recent non-scientific survey of users of the blog aggregator Hype Machine found that, like the first report, friends still played a large role in discovering music for Hype Machine users. But friends were only the runner up as a source of music, not the prime source. Online editorials were the go-to place for Hype Machine users.

But one of the readers was a little peturbed that the study didn’t include radio as one of the multiple choice options for sources of new music. A total of 7.6 users wrote this alternative into the "other" category.

Entertainment Media Research also just recently published(pdf) a study of digital music consumption in the UK. (Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll caught this one.)

In this online study of 1,700 people, MySpace ranks as the most important web site for music, with YouTube coming in second. More importantly, perhaps, is that 10 percent of respondents said the social networking sites have led to purchases. This is surely to increase now that musicians are able to sell MP3’s directly through their MySpace profiles. And it’s just in time: nearly half said it needs to be easier to buy music from the sites.

Regardless of their popularity, two-fifths agree with the statement that the networking sites "are full of idiots nowadays". Yes, they really asked that question. So scientific.