Posts by Simon Grigg
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It's a tough thing for the record companies to get their head around, but if the charts are actually to measure what people are listening to, then in real terms the p2p downloads would be factored in. How you do it, I don't know, but it's an odd situation where 90% of song acquisitions don't count for a chart which is supposed to measure popularity.
Robin, the singles chart has been a mix of radio and sales for years but when you were buying it was mostly sales. The old truism was that before the mid nineties the charts were controlled by by three retailers, and after that by three programmers, although common wisdom before radio came to dominate the mix (which was always a silly idea) was that in real terms the singles chart was determined in the cassingle rush in three hours on Thursday late night in Manukau City Centre.
That said, in the late eighties / early nineties, I often used to pass Friday mornings in Bassline Records in O'Connell St (who were a nominated chart shop but stocked virtually no local product) with the Auckland reps of Warners and Sony, who, over a cup of coffee would fill out ludicrously high sales for singles from a shop that didn't stock any of them.
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I drove around a bit of Bali last year. While crazy, I think the drivers are actually quite skilled at avoiding impact. Plus I guess the cost of a smash in typical hours worked is a great deal more than NZ?
I hope you weren't the crazy bule that almost drove me off the road in Ubud last Sept!.
The biggest danger here is the tourist on the road thinking they're bulletproof, but since the ockers have been scared off and the swarms are now largely European (Bali had it's biggest tourist month ever last month), it's improved out of sight...Italians understand motorised insanity. It is an artform, but is largely do-able if you get into the psyche. And there is no road rage...zip...it simply doesn't exist.
Car repairs are a fraction, even accounting for the the earning gap, of what they are in the west. A decent ding in a car is rarely more than US$20 to repair, and when one considers that the car owners are well off, it's not a lot.
Also, at Bali speeds I suspect more accidents are survivable.
true, but there seem to be substantially fewer minor dings too, which considering the density...
And you've perhaps not driven the new Sanur-Candidasa bypass. There is nothing like a grossly overladen truck coming around a blind corner on your side of the road at 120kmh to make one instantly reconsider one's probability of seeing the sun rise one more time.
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To be honest Finn, I don't quite understand what you are trying to say? No-one has the right to an opinion about music, apart from musicians? Is that it?
Maybe it's just me, its a freaking hot day, I've had two beers and I may be a bit slow on the pickup
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or a bunch of musically-illiterate snot-noses claiming that everything that has come before them isn't even worthy of the ink in their pens?
Frankly, much of my favourite music comes from people with that attitude
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but it's also lazy as fuck: it's very easy to claim that The Right Motown Songs and The Right Punk Songs are the only recordings you need ever own, but actually very hard to back up that statement with a solid argument if you know much about music.
they don't need to back it up...it was intended as an irreverent, over the top, one liner....that it was said was enough. It was not a profundity.
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BTW, road death rates in NZ are not way out of line with other countries. We're about the same per km as Germany or the USA. Given that we have pretty dodgy roads, I'd suggest that means that NZ driving behaviour isn't all that bad really.
Actually it's not much lower than the death rate on this island I'm on right now (last year 390 with some 4 million here), and you should see how they drive over here. I actually enjoy the roads here at times but they are complete mayhem, due to the failure of any party to enforce any rules. They exist, but are ignored (and you can drink and drive). Dodging 8 year olds on motorbikes is a daily routine.
Encounters with the traffic police are not uncommon but usually have little to do with the rules.....
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Nah, you gotta listen to the bassline on RR....
And it's Rupiah...But I know plenty of people who, in their rush to barter have inadvertently increased the price.
Finn...the thing is, as Russell implied too, these critics in this case were as integral to the punk explosion as any musician was.
I'm not that not being a musician excludes one from having any passion about music. I don't mind somebody telling me something may well be crap. Viva le critics I say, including the snarly ones.....
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NI...Ok fair enough, but quite a bit of the solo (and group) Jacko stuff from that era is pretty damn fantastic. Perhaps Jules had a soft spot for Rockin' Robin...at least it wasn't about a frigging Rat.
Rob...just to be picky...post Motown debut was The Jacksons on Philadelphia International, produced by the mighty Gamble & Huff, followed by Goin' Places, both mighty fine. Destiny was the third.
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No, you miss the subtlety in the statement....Tamla Motown was up to about 1977...after that it was just Motown....ie all Motown releases after that date are shite too
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The Burchill/Parsons etc raves about punk rock in the NME fired up kids all over the world
I used to love the dramatic overstatement....Julie Burchill: The only records worth owning are the first three Sex Pistols singles and everything ever released on Tamla Motown
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