Because the most-popular songs now stay on the charts for months, the relative value of a hit has exploded.
The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn 77 percent of all revenue from recorded music, media researchers report. And even though the amount of digital music sold has surged, the 10 best-selling tracks command 82 percent more of the market than they did a decade ago.
The advent of do-it-yourself artists in the digital age may have grown music’s long tail, but its fat head keeps getting fatter.
The only explanation for the failure of the Twitter Left to protest against this concentration or of wealth and massive rise in ticket prices to the downtrodden young public that go to concerts is a mass kidnapping of the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Egypt is doing more work to set up a 13-mile buffer zone with the Gaza Strip, after it discovered hundreds more tunnels running from the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave into the Sinai Peninsula. The plan includes clearing 10,000 residents from some 800 houses. Egypt has already destroyed over 1600 smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip and is constantly on the lookout for more.
Where is the international protest is regarding this continued blockade of the Gaza Strip? Why haven’t the peace activists taken to the streets across the globe to protest at this blockading the Gaza Strip?
The only possible explanation as to why these principled peace activist are unavailable to take to the streets is mass kidnappings. This blockade by Egypt of the Gaza Strip and its intensive long-term dimensions has been regularly reported in the Guardian, so they must know of it. The Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip is so intense that Hamas has resumed trade with Israel.
Of course, once you start discussing the Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, you must discuss what Hamas is doing to remove it, which are well-known.
As the Guardian reported, Hamas’s decision to carry on fighting in in the recent war recent weeks despite catastrophic civilian losses owed as much to Egypt’s refusal to lift this blockade as it does to Israel’s. Egypt wanted Hamas to accept an immediate ceasefire without preconditions. Hamas wanted Egypt to spell out how it might ease the siege before it would agree to a ceasefire.
Even the Guardian occasionally mentions who was the real target of the Hamas missiles fired at Israel. Where are the peace activists? Kidnapped?
Man Booker Prize author Eleanor Catton from New Zealand managed in the same interview in India to denounce the neoliberalism of New Zealand’s current government and then denounce the tall poppy syndrome that cuts down artistic elites such as herself down to size when they become successful.
At the moment, New Zealand, like Australia and Canada, (is dominated by) these neo-liberal, profit-obsessed, very shallow, very money-hungry politicians who do not care about culture
This is tremendous a hypocrisy: to denounce a neoliberal philosophy that supposedly favours the elite over the working class and then complain about members of the elite such as herself are not supported sufficiently from the taxpayers’ tough:
We have this strange cultural phenomenon called “tall poppy syndrome”; if you stand out, you will be cut down…
If you get success overseas then very often the local population can suddenly be very hard on you. Or the other problem is that the local population can take ownership of that success in a way that is strangely proprietal.
Catton manages to denounce neoliberalism and the capitalist competition that entails but then gets quite annoyed over the fact the successful people aren’t rewarded and recognised by the country.
What hypocrisy. She denounces neoliberalism and then complains about been cut down because of her success. If you’re an opponent of neoliberalism, there is some obligation on you to argue for a levelling of income and wealth, including your own.
It betrays an attitude towards individual achievement which is very, uncomfortable. It has to belong to everybody or the country really doesn’t want to know about it…
I’ve really struggled with my identity as a New Zealand writer. I feel uncomfortable being an ambassador for my country when my country is not doing as much as it could, especially for the intellectual world.
Catton is particularly upset over the fact that New Zealand is expected to share her fame with them some way. Obviously, Catton believes in private profits, private fame at social losses and public subsidies for the arts. Having to share what she earns is not part of her opposition to neoliberalism.
From each in accordance with their ability, to each in according to their need is the heart of the anti-neoliberal philosophy, or is it Robert Nozick’s capitalistic acts between consenting adults where it is from each as they choose, to each as they are chosen, especially if you’re a successful artist.
Such is the price neoliberalism is Eleanor Catton, like every other able-bodied adult, is expected to earn a living for themselves by producing something that someone wants a profitable global for them rather than expect a hand-out from the government simply because of the desire of the recipients to receive the money. In her case, her claim for government hand-outs is because she happens to be artistic.
Jim Hacker: “So they insult me and then expect me to give them more money?”
Sir Humphrey: “Yes, I must say it’s a rather undignified posture. But it is what artists always do: crawling towards the government on their knees, shaking their fists.”
Jim Hacker: “Beating me over the head with their begging bowls.”
Bernard Woolley: “Oh, I am sorry to be pedantic, Prime Minister, but they can’t beat you over the head if they’re on their knees. Unless of course they’ve got very long arms.”
Where is the international protest movement? Once again, the only explanation is that they must have been kidnapped.
There is no other reason why they are not protesting against Egypt’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in the same way they protest against the breaches of international law involved in the Israeli blockade!
More homes face demolition as Egyptian security forces warn people a buffer zone with Gaza is to be extended.
‘Inside Story’, Al Jazeera, 5 December 2014
Egypt plans to double the size of a buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip.
The [Egyptian] government says the measure is intended to put an end to the movement of armed fighters and weapons from Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
The first phase of the operation began in October, days after 30 Egyptian soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on a checkpoint close to the Gaza border.
Thousands of people in northern Sinai were ordered to move out. Their homes were then bulldozed and bombed. The buffer zone runs for about 13km along Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip.
The first phase cleared an area 500 metres wide, destroying homes and tunnels used for smuggling. The security buffer is…
A more honest report would have squarely faced the arguments made by former CIA officials that key members of Congress were informed about interrogation practices and, far from objecting, condoned the very CIA activities we now judge to have been wrong.
“There’s great hypocrisy in politicians’ criticism of the CIA’s interrogation program,” wrote Jose Rodriguez, the CIA deputy director who oversaw it, in last weekend’s Washington Post.
That allegation deserves a serious response, rather than the stonewall it got from Feinstein.
“The CIA briefed Congress approximately 30 times” on interrogation,according to six former CIA directors or deputy directors in an article Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal. “The briefings were detailed and graphic and drew reactions that ranged from approval to no objection.”
…History (including the latest dark chapter on interrogation) suggests that members are for questionable activities when they’re politically popular, and against them when public opinion shifts.
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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