Loudness War
The phrase loudness war refers to the music industry’s tendency to record, produce and broadcast music at progressively increasing levels of loudness each year to create a sound that stands out from others and the previous year.
This phenomenon can be observed in many areas of the music industry, particularly broadcasting and albums released on CD and DVD. In the case of CDs, the war stems from artists and producers desires to create CDs that sound as loud as possible or louder than CDs from competing artists or recording labels.
However, as the maximum amplitude of a CD is at a fixed level, the overall loudness can only be increased by reducing the dynamic range. This is done by pushing the lower level program material higher while the loudest peak sounds are either destroyed or severely diminished. Certain extreme uses of compression can cause distorting or clipping the waveform of the recording.
Image: The trend of increasing loudness as shown by waveform images of the same song mastered on CD four times since 1983.
RIAA Certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the record label must pay a fee to have the sales of the recording audited. The audit is conducted against unit shipments (most often an artists’ royalty statement is used), which includes albums sold directly to retailers and one-stops, direct to consumer sales (music clubs & mail order) and other outlets. Shipments that could potentially be returned to the label can not be counted.
Currently, the normal RIAA certifications for albums are:
* 500,000 units: Gold album.
* 1,000,000 units: Platinum album.
* 2,000,000 units: Multi-Platinum album.
* 10,000,000 units: Diamond album.
Teen Spirit Deodorant
Teen Spirit is an anti-perspirant/deodorant, originally sold by Mennen until the company was acquired by Colgate-Palmolive in 1992. The Teen Spirit line of products has been steadily losing popularity since its peak in the early 1990s. However, this peak was largely due to its inadvertently being featured in the 1991 legendary Nirvana song “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Before this, the Teen Spirit line was much as it is now, small and relatively unheard of.
Teen Spirit was first released by Mennen early in 1991, and with heavy advertising campaigns, it had soon “established a market niche” with teen girls. However, one of its biggest boosts came from the grunge band Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” a song that was inspired by a friend of lead singer Kurt Cobain, Kathleen Hanna (lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill at the time), spray painting “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on his wall because Tobi Vail, Hanna’s band mate and Kurt’s then-girlfriend, wore Teen Spirit. At the time the song was released, Cobain had no idea that the brand even existed; when he did find out, he was rather upset that the song had been named after a line of deodorant.
Children’s Garage Band #N: 2nd Thought
So, basically, these guys rock. They played Summerfest in Millwaukee, and they have a bunch of videos on their youtube website:
Children’s Garage Band #5: Iron Man
Pint-size rock band, THE TOXIC MUFFIN, plays Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, complete with mini-solo at the end. Note the Blues Brothers shirt worn by the singer. Truly classic.
Children’s Garage Band #4: Blitzkrieg Bop
Drunk British dad gets his kids to play a Ramones classic.
Children’s Garage Band #3: Don’t Stop Believing
This kid has an amazing voice, but someone skilled is playing the piano part.
Children’s Garage Band #2: Life is a Highway
The bass player is basically as tall as his instrument. Rockin’ keyboards and guitar solo. These kids rock.
Children’s Garage Band #1: Freebird
I’m going to start posting a few awesome kids garage bands playing awesome classic rock songs. The first one is a band called 2nd Thought, playing Skynyrd’s Freebird at a middle school talent show. Yes, that’s right, they are between 11 and 13 years old. The singer is still waiting for that puberty thing to start, but the singing is strong, and the solo is pretty amazing.
Fillmore East
Fillmore East was promoter Bill Graham’s rock palace in the East Village area of New York City, USA.
Previously known as the Village Theater, it opened March 8, 1968, to give Graham an East Coast counterpart to his Fillmore West establishment in San Francisco, and quickly became “The Church of Rock and Roll,” with two-show concerts several nights a week. For most of its existence, the venue had been a mainstay of the Yiddish theatre circuit; it had also been a cinema and was falling into disrepair before Graham’s acquisition. Despite the deceptively small marquee and façade, the theater had a capacity of 3,664 seats.
The Allman Brothers Band played so many shows 5 at Fillmore East that they are sometimes called “Bill Grahams House Band”. Along with The Allman Brothers Band, Jefferson Airplane performed six shows and Taj Mahal performed eight shows at Fillmore East.
Many live albums were recorded at the Fillmore East, the most notable of them being At Fillmore East by The Allman Brothers Band, considered by many to be one of the best live albums of all time. Jimi Hendrix also recorded a live album at Fillmore East with the Band of Gypsies.