old-ish artists outselling new-ish artists

heisted wholesale from Marathonpacks, some retromania-supportive parsing of data from Amazon.com about its top selling albums of 2012:

• 7 artists released their first album in the 1960s: Bob Dylan (tribute album), Paul McCartney, Leonard Cohen, Dr. John, Jethro Tull (reissue), The Chieftains, Ringo Starr
• 6 artists released their first album in the 1970s: Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Richie, Bonnie Raitt, Van Halen (plus two repeats of Springsteen and Richie)
• 4 artists peaked in popularity and/or relevance in the 1980s or early 1990s: Madonna, Metallica, Wilson Phillips, Counting Crows
• 8 artists make music in styles popularized in the 1960s/early 1970s and earlier: Alabama Shakes, Norah Jones, Jack White, Lyle Lovett, Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Little Willies, Lana Del Rey, Rodrigo y Gabriela
• 4 artists perform music that is much older: Celtic Woman, Celtic Thunder, Chris Botti, and Il Volo
• 5 artists/releases were made famous via mass media (television or film): Fresh Beat Band, Carrie Underwood, the Hunger Games, Midnight in Paris, Joyful Noise soundtracks
• 3 releases are pop compilations: 2012 Grammy nominees, Kidz Bop, NOW 41
• 2 artists are Rascal Flatts, and Tim McGraw
• 9 artists are Gotye, Amaryllis, Jason Mraz, the David Crowder Band, One Direction, fun., Train, the Shins, and the Fray 
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• as repayment, a link to Eric Harvey's interview at Pitchfork with Jonathan Sterne about his MP3: the Meaning of A Format book - plus intw out-takes at Marathonpacks

sacre bleu ! / sacrilege?

Radiophonic Workshop to be reopened

"Yesterday it was announced the renamed New Radiophonic Workshop will compose fresh work as one of the highlights of The Space, a new freely-available digital arts service. Part of the London 2012 Festival, The Space will offer a platform for contemporary artists as well as historically important archive film, accessed on mobile and tablet devices and Freeview. The New Radiophonic Workshop (NRW) will be led by Matthew Herbert, the electronic composer who has collaborated with Björk and been nominated for an Ivor Novello award for his soundtrack work"

Matt H is great, but can this really be a good idea?

The Space are the outfit responsible for the archive-febrile idea of turning John Peel's home office and record collection into a virtual museum -- you can look but not listen to the records

(at Quietus David Stubbs reviews the discs under 'A' while  Everett True reviews the discs under 'C' )

(sweet that Peelie clung onto so many albums by Camel)

they also have some Peel shows, but not many


meanwhile at Pitchfork,  Eric Harvey has a think about what the Peel collection and Dilla's collection mean in this age of music as dematerialised data