Napster Inc.

The Five Greatest South Park Musician Cameos

Last week I looked at some of the worst musical guests on The Simpsons, a show almost as well-known for the appearance of musicians as Saturday Night Live, though with a hit -or-miss success rate since they can't just have the musicians come on and perform their songs. Rewind: The Five Worst Music ... More >>

10 Music Films at SXSW That You Don't Wanna Miss

Well, it's SXSW time again, friends, and you know what that means: dashing around Austin all day, drinking until our eyebrows fall out and doing our best to stick to pre-planned schedules intended to maximize the amount of live music that we can cram into our ear canals before passing out on the flo ... More >>

2013: First Year of the Post-CD Era?

Things haven't been looking good for CDs for years now. Ever since the introduction of Napster and the first portable MP3 players, the format has pretty much felt doomed. Since the turn of the century, the CD has hung on valiantly, but its disappearance has remained a question of when, not if. 20 ... More >>

25 Million Drops In the Bucket: Why Adele's Continued Success Matters For All of Us

According to @chartnews, last week 27,772 people either visited their local record store or went online to purchase Adele's 21. Even though the album came out here in the states on February 22, 2011 there will still 27,772 people out there who decided last week was the week they were finally going t ... More >>

Rock vs. Rap: Who Really Ruled H-Town?

The early to mid-'90s were good times for underground music in Houston. At clubs like the Axiom, the Vatican and Fitzgerald's, an eclectic mix of punk, metal, funk and ska bands like deadhorse, Sprawl and more regularly played packed shows in front of 500 fans. Much has changed since, but those o ... More >>

The CD-R Turns 15 Years Old: A Blessing Or A Curse?

This year marks 15 years since recordable compact disc technology trickled down to the public at large. Before this, cassette tapes were all the rage for dubbing, recording, and other at-home use. The MiniDisc format made a go of it previously in the '90s, but it wasn't until companies like Memorex ... More >>

How Bizarre: How the Hell Are These Songs All 15 Years Old?

"Simple. Fifteen years have gone by." Nineteen ninety-seven may have been one of the most magical years in trash-pop history. You had the Spice Girls, Hanson, Shania Twain, Puff Daddy, Toni Braxton and Aqua burning up the radio as old-timers like David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and Elton John made retu ... More >>

Sig's Lagoon Keeping Sundance, Beloved San Marcos Store, Alive

A big part of Texas music history went dark this past weekend, when Sundance Records went out of buisness after 35 years. But thanks to the San Marcos record store's strong Houston connection, part of its legacy - in fact, a large part of its inventory - is coming here. Sig's Lagoon, the Midtown re ... More >>

Bill & Ted's Alex Winter Examines Napster's Fall In SXSW Doc Downloaded

Alex Winter (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Idiot Box) has spent the last decade trying to make a movie about Napster, the revolutionary peer-to-peer filesharing site that changed the music industry forever. Winter met Napster founder Shawn Fanning in 2002 and was instantly energized by the p ... More >>

Drum Kit From Hell: With Bill Ward Out, 5 Replacement Drummers For Black Sabbath

Drummer Bill Ward, furthest right, has left the band.​Black Sabbath's big reunion plans seem to be cursed. First, guitarist and the only consistent member of the band Tony Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma. Then they had to drop out of playing Coachella due to Iommi's diagnosis. The latest spe ... More >>

'90s Soundtrack Battle: Angus & Batman Forever Duke It Out

​The movies couldn't be any more different. One is about an obese, kindly high school guy with a heart of gold. The other is about an crime-fighting millionaire orphan inside a cartoonish world full of super-villains, cringe-worthy puns, and Jim Carrey at his muggiest. Obvious Angus is a bette ... More >>

In Memoriam: Megaupload (2005 - 2012)

Yesterday, one of our favorite file sharing sites was struck by a government takedown around the early portions of the morning. It was swift, it was brutal and it could have been blamed on Kim Kardashian. Losing MegaUpload was a giant blow to musicians who love uploading zip or rar files of thei ... More >>

Owner's Manual

E.S.G., never fully praised by history, is watching his legacy grow.

Watch the Throne: Jay-Z and Kanye West

5 Ways Apple Revolutionized the Music Industry

No other company has changed the music industry as much as Apple. For the better part of the last decade, the late Steve Jobs and his co-conspirators have empowered music consumers in ways no one would have ever imagined. The monstrous iTunes store made it possible for anybody to buy music without ... More >>

Invasion of Piracy

Illegal downloading costs the film industry billions of dollars per year. But does the legal strategy designed to recoup this lost bounty amount to extortion?

Who Are You? Songs Commonly Attributed To The Wrong Artists

​Last week, after the tragic, alcohol-fueled passing of Jackass hero Ryan Dunn, Rocks Off at Taco Cabana wearing a promotional shirt for The Hangover II that we stole borrowed from the office here at the Press. As we were loading our hands with condiment containers, a guy came up to us and sai ... More >>

Pop Rocks: The Case For Internet Piracy

Well, not always.​What follows is a more or less accurate transcript of a conversation I had yesterday: Me: Looks like that charity album for Japan raised $5 million. Not bad. They: Which one, Songs for Japan? I downloaded that last week. Me: You...downloaded a charity album? They: No! I mean ... More >>

10 Good Differences Between 2000 and 2010

​Note: This was written by Richard Connelly and Craig Hlavaty We take a look in the print edition this week at a decade most of us would just as soon forget, the period from 2000-2010. But we have to admit not everything was bad. Cell phones, for instance, got a hell of a lot better. So loo ... More >>

Who Needs Friends?

David Fincher commented on Mark Zuckerberg's status. With The Social Network, he invites you to join him.

Tejano Ain't Dead; Chingo Bling Puts On His "Lentes"; Flatline Rides For His Block; And The 210 Mic Pass

​How can something be claimed dead when it still has life, when it's still living in speakers, iPods, as well as the hearts and souls of red-blooded American music lovers across the country? When it's still being passed on to younger generations? In the track "Pimpin' Ain't No Illusion," Pimp ... More >>

Our Decade In iTunes, Ol' Dirty Bastard Through the Fleshtones and Good Ol' Morrissey

​Maybe the biggest evolution in music this decade has been the availability of online downloads, starting with Napster and ending with half a dozen legitimately - licensed venues for purchasing music over the tubes. Rocks Off will admit it. Back in the day, we were illegal downloaders. Waiting 20 ... More >>

Digital Domain

Prolific Houston songwriter Joe Mathlete empties his vaults (almost) onto the Web.

Artist of the Week: Debbie Forrest

Tapes 'N' Tapes

Bringing strangers together via the International Mixtape Project

No Phishing

Enter Pissman

A local musician/DJ tries to give a rock star a golden shower

Head Trip

Between hard rock and a safe place, Metallica finds itself

Wax Fantastic

Electro-phenom DJ Keoki spins by Numbers

Playbill

The Evolution Control Committee

Plagiarythm Nation (Creations/Seeland)

Safe, Cracked

The Italian Job, a remake better than the original, is a steal

Do the Math

The music industry says online piracy's killing the biz. A UTD prof says it ain't.

Damming the Streams

The major labels want the Internet to be as arid as the airwaves

When Online Got Off Base

Or: How Mark Cuban would have--and could have?--saved the music biz

Napster's Spawn

File-sharing copycats keep free music alive on the Net. The Big Five labels still call it theft.

Racket

Houston's Toe Jam watches quietly as its 15 minutes tick by

Revenge of the Nerds

Rainer Maria's twin solitudes protect and touch and greet each other

The Enforcers

Unlicensed jukebox music may be the downfall of feisty Sassy's

Bagging Its Own

Groceries doesn't plan to sell its produce to major distributors

Ransom Notes

Can one man convince millions of people to pay for their "free" music?

Dude Raunch

All-girl quartet Kittie has more balls than the rest of Ozzfest 2000