NEGATIVLAND SINGS PRAISES TO
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT

My buddy Brian first introduced me to the experimental sound collage band Negativland years ago when he played me their song, "U2: Special Edit Radio Mix," a humorous mixing of dirty language outtakes from American Top 40's Casey Kasem trying to introduce U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" combined with a goofy looping of the song. I thought it was pretty funny, but not brilliant. Some years later, however, a mutual friend of ours handed me a copy of Negativland's album DisPepsi: a truly sublime collection of reworked Pepsi jingles and advertisements layered over cool music, ruthlessly attacking consumerism, it blew me away--it's worth listening to if only to hear how they use Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest saying to the Pepsi board of directors, "Don't fuck with me fellas!" I was definitely impressed.

I was further impressed to hear that their U2 appropriation roused the ire of Island Records so much that they were sued. I was even further impressed when I heard about a stunt pulled by the magazine Mondo 2000: they arranged for an interview with U2's guitar player, the Edge, but sent Negativland to ask the questions; the Irish sell-out was completely unaware that this was going to happen, and was left flapping his gums. It was ambush journalism at its finest.

I really love Negativland. Truly, they are the embodiment of what I believe constitutes Real Art: their work is political, funny, weird, and cool; it is also, at times, intensely poignant.

Anyway, on to the point of this post. They're working on a new album about downloading. From their site:

Here are two new tracks from the forthcoming full length Negativland CD/book project, "NO BUSINESS."

The "NO BUSINESS" project will come in a fancy shmancy die-cut sleeve package with a 14,000 word essay, a computer playable video, and 37 minutes of audio that are all about, and examples of, Negativland's current take on issues of file-sharing, downloading, appropriation, and the supposed collapse of the music business, circa 2004. We're looking at the ways things have changed in the last decade and the ways things have stayed the same. And yes, it's going to be funny. Really.

While the completed project wont be available from us for a number of months, we felt that these two tracks, both made from 100% appropriated material, were so timely in their content that we wanted to get them out right to you away....enjoy!

As the statement says, there are free downloads awaiting. They're great, especially the one with Ethel Merman repeatedly singing the word "stealing." Go get them.

THE PUNCHLINE: my buddy Brian, who originally introduced me to Negativland, is philosophically opposed to illegal file sharing; "it's stealing," he has reportedly said. My view? File sharing is kind of like underage drinking. Getting drunk was much more fun when it was illegal for me to do it.

Thanks to Illegal Art for "U2: Special Edit Radio Mix."

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