Brad Sucks – “A one-man band with no fans” – was one of the pioneers of the open-source music movement. When he released his first album “I don’t know what I’m doing” in 2003 (for free), he also released the “source” of the songs to encourage remixing. It was the first time I’d ever seen an artist do such a thing. The album was of excellent quality, and people did indeed remix the songs… a lot.

This past summer, Brad [Sucks] released “Out of It“: 10 more excellent tracks with the full source available for download. Grab the album now and spread it around. Half the fun will be seeing what the remixers come up with, and hopefully we won’t have to wait 5 years for the next batch of songs.

Motionless Battle is a music project by a guy from Long Island that calls himself D-Bit. He describes the sound as “Nintendo-esque beats”, made with FL Studio. According to his MySpace blog, D-Bit is in the process of uploading his entire discography for his fans to download for free. That’s pretty thoughtful, isn’t it?

So far I’ve only heard Motionless Battle’s latest, called “The Fortress of Discord“, which I stumbled upon a while ago through a music blog which I won’t link to because of its quasi-legal status. When I saw that it was the artist himself who put the album online for free, I felt a little better about downloading it.

Motionless Battle on MySpace (download links are in the Bio section under “MOTIONLESS BATTLE DISCOGRAPHY”)

In other news, my 360 red-ringed tonight and I’m still looking for programming work. Holler!

MURS and producer 9th Wonder have released a collaboration album online as a free gift to their fans. All they ask in return is that you buy their upcoming albums. The 10-track album can be downloaded here, note that you don’t have to actually sign up for the newsletter (the giant download link is just placed confusingly close to the signup form).

This “Free Stuff” category is part of a new effort to make my blog a little more active/useful. Ideally I’d be posting other things in between, but either way you can get some stuff for free during the downtime.

The Reptilian Complex is a recently-disbanded metalcore band from New Jersey. They apparently decided to release their 2008 album “Anomaly” online for free. If you want a new album of decent metal, but don’t want to spend any money, I encourage you to download The Reptilian Complex – Anomaly here or preview the album on myspace.

Pittsburgh-based mashup DJ Girl Talk has released his new album, Feed the Animals as an online, pay-whatever-you-want downloadable zip. Fans can get 320 kbps mp3s for any price they choose (including free).  A FLAC version of the album is available for 5 or more dollars, and for $10+ dollars you can get the CD version when it’s released in September.

The album is complete fire.  On the first listen, I went crazy with each new sample that came up; Jay-Z, Daft Punk, Gorilla Zoe, and Kraftwerk to name a few.  My one complaint is that some of the samples are too fleeting, and at times it feels like he doesn’t let them play to their full potential, but fans of 2006’s Night Ripper won’t be disappointed. Animals features hundreds of (mostly) rap/hiphop samples, played over alternative and rock instrumentals and all lovingly strung together with a danceable beat.

Girl Talk is the latest in a growing list of popular artists to embrace the “pay what you want” online distribution model.  He joins acts like Radiohead, Saul Williams and Nine Inch Nails, all of whom put albums online and invited their fans to write their own price tag.  I’d previously thought this was a very unlikely idea, but it looks like it’s a trend that’s catching on (although all of the above examples appear to have been only limited time offers).  Despite criticism from record labels, distributing albums in this way allows artists to package their albums with whatever copyrights/credits they want, and it at least ensures that none of the money will go to bootleggers.  I’m excited to see what else will be released in this way.

Don’t underestimate the number of people who will buy anything for 5 dollars!

Download: Girl Talk – Feed the Animals

Girl Talk on Myspace

I made a thread at Pabook.net, inviting my friends to post their 10 favorite albums of 2006, mostly so I could see what I’ve missed. Link to the thread can be found below. Here’s my list:

EDIT: I neglected to mention here that the list is in no particular order.

Lady Sovereign – Public Warning
I first heard Lady Sovereign on a compilation called Chocolate Swim (which you can get from adultswim.com, by the way). It had a remix of “Hoodie” and I heard it and thought, “What the hell is this?” but somehow I wound up with the album, and it’s cool.

Teddybears STHLM – Soft Machine
It includes a couple tracks from their 2004 album “Fresh”, and neither of them are “Hey Boy”, but it’s got some darn fine tracks.

Dragonforce – Inhuman Rampage
8 tracks of “Extreme Power Metal” will be enough to make you want to lie down afterward… or maybe punch through a concrete wall.

Futuristic Sex Robotz – Hotel Coral Essex
Finely-crafted rap songs about the internet, sci-fi, pornography and bit torrent.

mc chris – Dungeon Master of Ceremonies
DMOC marks the return of mc’s skit interlude comedy things, wherein Jesus asks mc about his myspace friends and talks about sex with mythical creatures.

Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope
This and Lady Sovereign surprised me the most this year, because I didn’t think that much of the Regina Spektor tracks I’d heard from her pevious albums, then I got hooked on “Fidelity”

Machinae Supremacy – Redeemer (Underground Edition)
This was the album I was most hyped about, I waited months for its release, then more time after that until I could get my hands on a copy, watching their little teaser trailer video and listening to the previews from the website over and over.

Matisyahu – Youth
This one came out early in the year and I forgot about it, I had to bump Spearhead’s “Yell Fire” off the list to include this one.

Basshunter – LOL <(^^')>
Weird and catchy Swedish dance music to listen to in your car and freak out the squares.

Ratatat – Classics
The guitar duo’s second full-length album. Not to be confused with their hiphop remixes, this album is purely instrumental. Excellent to listen to while studying or working.

I didn’t pick up every album I was interested in this year, but those are the albums I listened to the most and/or liked the most. Honorable mentions go to Gnarls Barkley – St Elsewhere for being very smart and harnessing the power of myspace (users) to promote the album, and for having the very-awesome “Just a Thought” on it. Also Jay-Z – Kingdom Come, which I just got for Christmas, and haven’t listened to enough yet.

Cesar at TeamXbox has posted an update that has links to the Megadeth website, where they have uploaded an mp3 of the GoW song, as well as the lyrics.

basshunter.se has finally posted the new video that was originally scheduled for the 16th. It’s Basshunter’s remix of “Vifta med händerna” by Patrik och Lillen. Go watch it infinite times!

TV In Japan has a Youtube video of the schoolgirl from Polysics’ “I My Me Mine” PV pop-locking on live TV in Japan. All I gathered from the video is that she’s called “Strong Machine 2gou”.

Here’s her dancing with her father, who I guess is called Strong Machine. ..which is awesome.

TV In Japan looks like a pretty remarkable blog, with a theme like that you’re sure to always have lots of content. Check the videos out while you still can…

Jesse Dangerously, Nova Scotia’s own nerdcore hiphop sweetheart has posted a remarkably long LJ post about Weird Al’s new single. update! That last sentence was lies!! See the comments section; I guess he was blogging to us through some kind of helpful proxy-person. For those of you situated squarely beneath a rock, the video is all over Youtube, and you have no excuse. It sounds to me like Mr. Dangerously is a bit threatened that our treasured underground phenomenon is seeping into the mainstream like when your pancake syrup gets onto your hashbrowns. As long as your ‘browns don’t get soggy, it’s kind of a neat thing. Maybe they’ll taste a bit better for us nerds? I was afraid that analogy was going to be pure garbage but it turned out kind of apt; as long as your ‘browns don’t get soggy. Meanwhile, it’s no secret that Weird Al’s appeal has spiraled downward since Off the Deep End (or thereabouts), it depends on your age. I say that because I think we all listened to his stuff as kids and loved it, and we half-expected his music to mature with us. Now we’re all a bit sad that he’s stayed the course while our tastes have changed. I thought “All About the Pentiums” and “White and Nerdy” were really clever. “The Saga Begins” was excellent too, while we’re on the topic of geeky Weird Al songs. 2003’s “Poodle Hat” was completely forgettable, but what if I was eight years old again? Would I have liked it? There’s no way to tell.

I hope this doesn’t come off looking like I’m attacking Jesse Dangerously or anything, he seems like an awesome dude and I would not hesitate to get a pizza with him. The bottom line is Weird Al hasn’t changed his formula enough to keep his original fans… but how could he? Comedy and parody songs is a tough genre to re-shape…