Cake Vs Pie

It’s a question that has troubled man for hundreds of years. Which is better, Cake or Pie?

Now it seems that we might have the answer. A poll of almost 2,000 people has concluded that Cake is better than Pie. The internet never lies people.

Death of the Album?

At last months Isle of Wight festival, Ash announced that there upcoming album, “Twilight of the Innocents” was to be their last. However the band are not splitting up, they just don’t plan on releasing any more albums. Instead they intend to release individual songs available for download from now on.

Ash frontman Tim Wheeler reasoned that “the way people listen to music has changed. With the advent of the downloads, the emphasis has reverted to single tracks”. In a way I can understand his thinking. Downloads now command a major part of the music market, so it will no doubt be of benefit to the band (and the record company).

However, I really hope that this isn’t the way the music industry goes. I don’t know about other people, but I always look forward to new albums. An album is something you can physically buy, something you keep and in some cases something that defines a generation. An album has to be listened to the whole way through. You shouldn’t just think of it as individual songs, but one great piece of music. If we lose albums, we lose everything that goes with them and will no longer be able to have debates about “which is Muse’s best album?” or “why is Smells like Teen Spirit so iconic?”.

This change to downloading shouldn’t be blamed on technology. For advances in technology can surely only be a good thing. If albums do die out, the blame should be attributed to bands like the View, the Caesars and the Fray. These are bands who do one or two good songs which get released as singles. They get a lot of radio play, and everyone thinks “oh thats quite a good songs, i’d better download that”. The band scores highly in the charts and follow up this success by releasing a mediocre album and playing at one of the summers major festivals, where all the fans can sing along to “How to save a live”. This is all very well and good, but in a way its destroying the music industry and undermining bands who really work hard at their albums.

Manhunt 2

As you may have guessed this links in with my previous post regarding the effective banning of Manhunt 2. As things stand the BBFC are still standing by there decision, and Rockstar (the publishers of the game) don’t seem to have made any actions so far.

On the 10 Downing Street Website a petition has been set up in an attempt to fight the ban. Even if you have no interest in the game I would strongly encourage you to sign this petition. The banning of Manhunt 2 is clearly a breach of freedom of speech as well as being hypocritical and in no way democratic.

Thank you if you have taken the time to read this…