It's the story that has Britain in uproar*: Cliff Richard and General Franco: the 1968 Eurovision mystery. Did General Franco scupper the judging? Exhibit A: Cliff's UK entry, Congratulations. Exhibit 2: Spain's winning entry by Massiel, La la la. For added measure, exhibit iv: here's Cliff's 1973 entry, which believe it or not also did not win, Power to all our Friends (though Cliff's spectacular moves should not sway your opinion on the controversy* in any way). [*not really].
posted on May 12, 2008 - View this thread

On the cusp of DEVO's first tour of Europe since 1990 , it's become clear that, though largely cast aside after their 1980 hit "Whip It", DEVO's influence is finally being felt on modern audiences, around the world. DEVO has inspired tribute bands, some traditional, some not. They've also spawned new bands, domestic [MySpace link], and Foreign like Japan's POLYSICS [YouTube], and Germany's Mutate Now [YouTube]. With musical inspiration like this, can't we forgive such missteps as Devo 2.0?
posted on Jun 15, 2007 - View this thread

Tube Wars: A new front opens as the IFPI [think global RIAA] threatens imminent legal war with ISP's.
posted on Jan 17, 2007 - View this thread

The Memory of The Netherlands is an extensive digital collection of illustrations, photographs, texts, film and audio fragments from a large variety of Dutch cultural institutions. There are about 50 collections (in english).
posted on Feb 19, 2006 - View this thread

Everybody knows that gangsta rap promotes sexism, homophobia... and fascism. Take Bushido, for instance - the Berlin rapper of Tunisian descent that all the neo-Nazis love. Confused? (nyt) Well, so are the Germans. And then we're not even talking about Fler, whose "This is black-red-gold, hard and proud!" nationalist lyrics never fail to piss off the German papers (in German), and who likes to pose in his videos with a nice symbolic eagle. (Then again, Helmut Kohl didn't mind.) Still, Fler's flag-waving, eagle-loving rhymes are no match for Bushido's "Salute, stand to attention, I am the leader like 'A'". The A stands for Adolf, you know.
posted on Jan 12, 2006 - View this thread

The best bits (RealVideo) of the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest, complete with a sampling of UK's Terry Wogan's legendary commentary.
posted on May 16, 2004 - View this thread

European music copyrights from the '50s due to expire this year, and to grossly oversimplify things, RIAA is on the warpath, saying that imports from there would be acts of piracy. Considering that there's a gold mine's worth of material begging to be shown the light again (the Maria Callas material mentioned in the article, for example), no doubt there will be some great releases...but will EMI's actions be more the exception than the rule? (NYT link, yadayada)
posted on Jan 2, 2003 - View this thread

The Eurovision Song Contest is tonight. Being an American, I don't understand it one bit, especially since the grand prize seems to be a one-way ticket to eternal obscurity. But someone must like it. "I want to shower you with sugar lumps/and ride you over fences..."
posted on May 12, 2001 - View this thread

While we're still mulling over possible country-wide internet taxes in the states, the European Union is proposing a digital sales tax on any downloads of music, software, or videos from outside the Europe. It's just a proposal though, we'll have to wait and see if it actually goes through.
posted on Mar 2, 2000 - View this thread