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I would say that Green Day is a guilty pleasure, but that would be somehow slighting them on their contribution to music. I have loved Green Day since the first time I heard Basket Case, and none of the albums have tarnished that vibrant impression of a Billy Joe Armstrong looking psychotically at the camera in the MTV video for the same song.

It’s been quite a few years since then, 15 to be exact, and 5 albums later I am just as impressed. Maybe it’s the fact that summer is creeping up and my first real listen to this album was yesterday, sunroof open, windows down, jamming out at more than appropriate listening levels. Maybe it’s the nostalgia from my life in 1994. I think it’s just because Green Day is an awesome band. If you look at the other mainstream punk acts, Blink 182 for example, nobody has consistently put out the amount of quality music you will find in Green Day’s catalog.

21st Century Breakdown

Although it’s the 6th album to me, it’s actually Green Day’s 8th studio album. This time they brought in Butch Vig of Garbage fame to helm the production and the result is just awesome.

Including the intro, there are 18 tracks on this album. You will definitely feel like you got your money’s worth, there isn’t a weak song in the bunch. Just like American Idiot, 21st Century Breakdown is a rock opera of sorts. The album has 3 acts: “Heroes and Cons”, “Charlatans and Saints” and “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.” The story follows a young couple name Christian and Gloria through their life in the US following the Bush presidency as they deal with the aftermath of his years in office.

Impressions

I am guessing you have already figured out I really like it. I hate when reviews dive into a track by track review rating the songs because I think that part of the fun of listening to new music is seeing where it’s going to go next. What I will say is the songs are classic Green Day without sounding recycled, the production is top notch to say the least and the album is just simply amazing.

Buy this album, by that I mean BUY this album. Don’t steal it. Do whatever you do, CD, iTunes, ZunePass, etc., give them their credit, this is a masterpiece.

Before we get started, I want to clearly define something. The Music Industry, as protected by the RIAA, is largely considered as the business of music: Record Labels, Concert Promoters, Merchandising, Distribution and the like. Ironically there is a huge piece missing from the traditional definition, the artist.

Key #1: If you are an artist, never give up ownership of your music, ever.

If you read Mix Magazine’s interview with Chris Anderson from Wired Magazine, you will read about a technologist’ un-watered down opinion of an industry that’s dying. Surely you are not surprised by this, but let’s state it again for clarity. The greed and fear that surrounds the music industry is toppling from within, but it goes far beyond business men clinging to antiquated business models. It is centered around one of the most obvious oversights in the history of business. An industry that has forgotten it’s product.

In order to maximize profits, the music business is offering more of less music. By this I mean, they are more than happy to release greatest hits collections, remixes and rehashes of everything you have ever heard, than promote a newer, unproven artist. Today, the music business is still the primary source of new music. Channels like radio, iTunes/Zune and television still promote known artists because they know it sells.

Suffer the long tail

Chris Anderson’s book focuses on the long tail, a concept that says that basically says, with an unlimited ability to provide products to customers, you will reach more customers than providing a more limited set of more popular products.

Key #2: Take your music to your audience, record labels don’t tell people what to listen to anymore, make sure that you are where they go.

The internet is that unlimited shelf. These days anyone has the ability to get their music on iTunes, Zune, Amazon, Facebook, Myspace and the like. The places where people congregate are finally accessible. Get your music into the path of the long tail, and if it’s good, it will reach the head.

The rap industry has embraced this philosophy and it has made countless millions under the radar of Sony, RCA and the like. With home studio equipment being affordable and capable of the quality many major studios produce, it was just a matter of replacing the distribution model.

Is history repeating itself?

I have seen something very similar to this before. I have been writing since I was in my teens. Submitting editorials to newspapers, I even published my own weekly paper for about a year. I love to write, but I have never been in a position to truly write professionally. In those days, that meant having your articles picked up by some sort of a major circulation, having a book published, etc. Today that means pop up a blog, say something interesting, promote yourself a bit, and watch the readers come. These days they come to the tune of about 30,000 a month. That’s 10 times the circulation that my weekly newspaper reached. It’s even more so than that because I know they came, publishing a newspaper like I did was “put it out and hope they read.”

Fast-forward to today, and you will see newspapers and magazines falling left and right. Some bloggers have become quite powerful, and an entire industry struggles stay in the game because while they were sleeping, a pretty incredible replacement for their medium showed up in the night.

It’s already happening

Take a stroll to Trent Reznor’s NIN.com. Trent in particular, has quite a good grip on how things are going. Being a particular premium product, and that’s what artists are in the music industry, he managed to just stroll out the door of the bigs and walk his own way.

Key #3: Be your own marketing pioneer, manage your own community, use your music as a reward to loyal listeners.

How it will look in the future

If random guys like Shoe Money can make tons of money on the hype of blogging via ads, I am betting that many other musicians can too. The ways a musician can make money are still there.

• Some people will still want physical CDs, instead of making thousands, use a service that makes one on demand, of course it will cost you $3-4 per CD plus shipping, but I guarantee you the $6-7 left over is loads higher than what a label would ever give you.
• Don’t give up merchandising, and do it yourself. Make your band/artist website the exclusive place to get T-Shirts, Hoodies, Hats, etc.
• Play out and play a lot. Concert money is yours, you will still have to deal with promoters and such, but get with it, you are your own business manager now.
• Stream some of your performances on your website to entice people to visit your site and hopefully visit you in concert.
• Build your own site, use sites like MySpace and FaceBook to point people to your real site. Monetize it with ads, endorsements and sponsorships.

Being someone who considers themselves both a musician and a technologist, I find the entire development both fascinating and hilarious. Music will continue to survive, and when the traditional industry sees the bottom clearly, it will begin to thrive again. Keep jamming out and support your favorite artists until the ship rights itself.

Related Links:

• NIN.com
• Chris Anderson @ Wired Magazine
• Mix Magazine

When I was a kid, playing guitar, I always wanted the same guitar that my heroes were playing. At that time it was either a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson Les Paul, an Ibanez RG or a Jackson of some sort. Of course the ones my heroes were playing were high end custom shop models costing thousands of dollars, but I was always able to find a similar guitar, same brand, at the music store for a few hundred bucks that got me excited that I had the same kind of guitar that Steve Vai or Jimi Hendrix played.

Boy times have changed. As an adult player I am very unlikely to buy a signature guitar. I want something unique for myself, not to look like I am copying someone else. But what about my son, or all the other kids in the world that will grow up like me idolizing the guitar work of Eddie Van Halen. You are out of luck guys. The entry level to the Eddie Van Halen series guitars is just short of three thousand dollars.

I am not saying that these guitars are not worth that kind of money. Well, yes I am, but that’s not the point. I am saying that there are few things that kids grow up watching and dreaming to do professionally. There is sports of course, and the entry point to some Lebron James sneakers is about $140. There is golf, and you can buy a reasonable priced set of Nike clubs to dream that you are Tiger Woods when you tee off. These days the music world seems to have lost touch with the fans on so many levels.

I can’t say I blame Lars Ulrich for not wanting people to steal Metallica music, I can get his point. I am not saying that Eddie Van Halen doesn’t deserve to have a top of the line guitar that reflects his unique playing style. I am saying that it’s a shame that I can’t go buy Andy a guitar that looks like the one Eddie Van Halen plays for Christmas if he gets excited about guitar.

I am going to pre-warn my readers that this might be the most overly indulgent, completely butt kissing, over the top glowing review I have ever written. Recently I purchased Guitar Rig 3: Software Edition (*more on why that was a mistake later) and I have to admit to being completely and totally smitten by this little jewel of a software tool.

First what it does. Either standalone, or as a plug-in to your favorite Digital Audio Workstation software, Guitar Rig 3 is your complete bag of tricks as far as tone goes. I have built some of the most incredible amp monstrosities playing with it and have come to believe that there are very few sounds that you just can’t achieve with it. Your basic setup is an input and output module. In between these two modules, you can place a nearly infinite number of components. You have 12 amps with matching cabinets, mostly for guitar but a few for bass. You have a range of “Personal Guitar Assistants” including a tuner, metronome, loop recorder, splitters, mergers, and more. Finally you have a massive collection of stomp box and rack effects for pretty much any shredtastic need you might have.

Of course you can modify these sounds with a wide array of mics, adjust their placements and even tweak the room a bit. The big question you are probably asking is “How does it sound??” That my friends, is simply amazing. The models are dead on, the tone is sweet or biting, you have total control. The emulations of classic amps and stomboxes are truly faithful. This software is just simply fun.

So why do I suggest not getting the Software Edition? Well, the hardware edition comes with a foot controller/audio interface for a trite $100 more, and the control itself is $300 if you want to add it later. Easy decision as if you want wah or volume control, not to mention preset switching, it’s a no brainer, I regret buying the version I did, but not the software itself.

What’s that you say? Subscription sucks because you want to own your music? Here are some numbers for you.

What’s that you say? let me explain a little further. I pay $14.99 per month with my Zune Pass subscription. It gives me access to millions of songs to download, and I get to keep 10 songs DRM free per month. At iTunes prices, DRM free is $1.29, so that’s $12.99 worth if iTunes music per month, and I get to download unlimited DRM’d music to listen to for the additional $2 per month.

Basically, if you were to fill up your iPod Classic 120GB device with the cheaper DRM’d music at $0.69 per song, it would cost you roughly $11,000. I can download at will, all I want for $14.99 a month for the same songs at the same quality, also under DRM control. At the monthly rate, I would be 95 years old by the time it because more expensive than buying them from iTunes. That’s 61 years!

I have been a devoted Zune/Zune Pass user for about 3 months now, I have two iPods that I haven’t touched in that time. The device is awesome, great interface, built in FM Radio and Wifi that allows you to sync wirelessly and download new music wirelessly.

Why are you still using an iPod again?