The best work of Brian Joseph Burton, better known as DJ/produce par excellence Danger Mouse, is also best known for being illegal. Naturally, I refer to his Grey Album, which delicately mashed up Jay-Z's Black Album with the Beatles' White Album into a genre-twisting blast of mutant musical DNA. The end product ran seriously afoul of those who have traditionally - and zealously - guarded the Beatles' copyrights, but fans procured their copy of the record on the online black market.
Of course, the Grey Album added to Danger Mouse's acclaim, but didn't fill his wallet. And so, he's taking a chance on a new business model for his illicit wares. Yahoo's Tech blog reports:
Citing his ongoing feud with EMI over the prior album, Danger Mouse's new Dark Night of the Soul will be released and sold exclusively as -- get this -- a blank CD-R. It will be up to the buyer to find the music through other means and burn it onto the CD.
Per a statement from the Mouse:
Danger Mouse's new project Dark Night Of The Soul consists of an album length piece of music by Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and a host of guest vocalists, along with a collection of original David Lynch photography inspired by and based on the music. The photographs, which provide a visual narrative for the music, are compiled in a limited edition, hand numbered 100+ page book which will now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.'
But how will this play on iTunes?
Maybe One Day There'll Be A Photo Gallery Of Awesome High-Speed Rail Interchanges: Until then, via Boing Boing, enjoy the loopy beauty of the world's most freakdafied freeway interchanges, brought to you by the Infrastructurist.
Update Your Blogrolls (If You Are Still Using Blogrolls): We forgot to mention that former American Prospect blogger Ezra Klein's new Washington Post joint is live and already pushing out content. It's policy wonkism, but crunk. Plus, he cooks!
Never Too Late To Start Jumping To Conclusions: The latest AP article on the SCOTUS appointment begins: "Questions about abortion, gay rights, rights of suspected terrorists and the meaning of a new judicial buzz word - empathy - await President Barack Obama's eventual Supreme Court nominee. Just don't expect much in the way of answers." Let's see: there is NO nominee yet. Why, The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen hasn't even gotten around to doing a second half-assed preview of a candidate yet (any day now, I'm sure!). Isn't it a little soon to be declaring what the questions will be and whether they'll be answered? Probably not!
Daily Dose Of Delight: Here's the latest jam from those Auto Tune The News folks:
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