Robin Grey – I Love Leonard Cohen
Robin is, I suspect, not the only one. I really liked his recent album Only the Missile, and this appears to a rather lovely little inbetweeny EP. There’s a gorgeous atmosphere to Robin’s stuff that I can’t quite put my finger on. He has a deep, reassuring voice and a calming, unhurried delivery which seems to bring a familiar ease to his sound.
Add a splash of female backing vocals and was simply really nice becomes bloody gorgeous. This is EP is patchy, but the title track is a lovely reminiscence on the transience of music taste, and the pleasant self-indulgence of nostalgia. The cover of the superb Kirsty MacColl song There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis is as good as the original, in an odd way. And then there’s Shakes & Shudders. Christ this is lovely. If I’ve heard a more intimate, weary song in ages I couldn’t name it: just fucking gorgeous.
I like the fact that he’s made this available under a Creative Commons license as well. It’s sort of brave, and far from clear-cut – I mean, where does this place blogs with ads? Presumably they can’t post it. I doubt Robin himself would have an issue with it of course, but it does highlight one of the inherent contradictions to which we in the blogosphere often turn a blind eye. So go here to download it, and to explore Jamendo, the Creative Commons-based music download site, which is a highly interesting idea in itself.
Robin Grey – Shakes & Shudders
And just because we all sincerely do love Leonard Cohen:
Leonard Cohen – Last Year’s Man
That IS fucking gorgeous, thanks! I’m adding yet another damn foreigner to my list of talented and no doubt handsome folksy male singers whom I will never hear live, alas. It’s worth it though, my ipod makes it all worth it. You’re an angel for digging all this up for me, muuuahhhh! (Next time it’d better be an American however!)
Well I’d go for the album before this EP. It’s also on that site for downloading and is well worth your time.
Just on the Creative Commons subject, the situation is actually more clear-cut than with traditional copyright. Usually, posting other people’s creative work without express written consent is generally against the rules.. “fair use” doesn’t really stretch to whole songs.
With Creative Commons, at least ad-free sites know that they’re absolutely on the right side of the law, because they can easily read their rights from the human readable version of the licence.
You can also use Creative Commons to allow commercial usage – it’s up to the copyright owner.
So with Creative Commons, copyright holders can be more explicit about the usage they’re happy with, and if they decide to prohibit commercial usage (as is normal), licences can be obtained through the usual channels (MCPS/PPL etc).
Here at River Rat Records (shameless plug) we’re kinda smug about setting some trends.. nice to see Robin sticking to his guns about CC, and hopefully others will join in too.
It’s perhaps worth adding – using Creative Commons licences doesn’t necessarily mean you have to publish your work on free download sites like Jamendo. You can choose to do that, if you’re interested in reaching some people that probably would never have bought the record anyway.. but Creative Commons doesn’t necessarily equal free (of cost) music.
James.
I read the fine print over at Jamendo and I am very impressed. It gives the casual listener an opportunity to donate funds to the artist. It gives the artist to decide exactly how they wish their work to be used. It’s brilliant! If an artist wants to give one song away per album and save the rest for sale only they may. I think this system is actually flawless. And it’s one used by flickr already. My only question is who enforces it’s use. Is it up to each artist to enforce?
[...] http://songbytoad.com/2008/11/19/robin-grey-i-love-leonard/ [...]
[...] a nice review of Robin’s latest EP, I Love Leonard Cohen, over on Matthew’s Song, by Toad. And you can download Robin Grey’s work on this really cool place called Jamendo, which offers [...]