The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
- French man fined for illegally downloading Rihanna songs
- Unlikely Korean pop star conquers the US - 'Gangnam Style'
- Bob Dylan says plagiarism charges made by 'wussies and pussies'
| French man fined for illegally downloading Rihanna songs Posted: 13 Sep 2012 07:32 AM PDT BESANCON, France: A French man Thursday became the first victim of a new law aimed at clamping down on film and music piracy when he was fined 150 euros ($193) for illegally downloading Rihanna songs. The Internet piracy enforcement agency Hadopi was mandated by the government in 2009 to send warning letters to ISP subscribers found to be downloading content without authorisation. The law forces ISPs to hand over personal details of offending IP addresses after sifting through them to hunt out those breaching piracy regulations. Hadopi was authorised to take legal action if a third warning was ignored. It has so far sued only 14 people since the law came into force in October 2010. A police court in the northeastern French city of Belfort fined the man for downloading songs of the Bardadian pop star Rihanna despite several warnings. He had risked a 1,500-euro fine. The man claimed it was his wife who had downloaded the music, Hadopi said, adding he was fined for "negligence". French President Francois Hollande has said he would like to replace Hadopi - an initiative of his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy - with "something else". -AFP |
| Unlikely Korean pop star conquers the US - 'Gangnam Style' Posted: 12 Sep 2012 08:14 PM PDT SEOUL: A chubby thirty-something with wacky dance moves, Park Jae-Sang falls far short of the prettified, teenage ideal embodied by the stars of South Korea's phenomenally successful K-pop industry. But Park, known as "Psy," has succeeded where the industry-manufactured girl and boy bands have tried and failed, making a huge splash on the mainstream US music scene thanks to a viral video and a rare sense of irony. Since being posted on YouTube in July, Psy's video for "Gangnam Style" - the title song of his sixth album - has racked up more than 150 million views and spawned a host of admiring parodies. The accompanying worldwide publicity has earned him a US contract with Justin Bieber's management agency, a guest appearance at last week's MTV awards in Los Angeles and a spot on NBC's flagship "Today" show. Earlier this week he was given the opportunity to school US pop diva Britney Spears on his increasingly famous signature dance moves on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". The breakout success of "Gangnam Style" has been viewed with a mixture of pride and surprise in Psy's home country, with industry analysts scrabbling to identify the magic ingredient that made it such a phenomenal success abroad. The Gangnam of the title is Seoul's wealthiest residential and shopping district, lined with luxury boutiques, top-end bars and restaurants frequented by celebrities and well-heeled, designer-clad socialites. The video pokes fun at the district's lifestyle, with Psy breezing through a world of speed boats, yoga classes and exclusive clubs - all the while performing an eccentric horse-riding dance accompanied by beautiful models. Humour, especially satirical humour, is rare in the mainstream Korean music scene, and that coupled with the 34-year-old's embrace of his anti-pop idol looks has helped set him apart. According to Simon Stawski, the Canadian co-founder of the popular "Eat Your Kimchi" blog on K-pop and Korean culture, Psy is the "antithesis of K-pop" and its stable of preening, sexualised, fashion-conscious young stars. "K-pop bands are exceptionally controlled by their management. Psy doesn't buy into that at all, and that's partly why he's such a breath of fresh air," Stawski told AFP. "Above all, Psy doesn't take himself seriously and uses irony and self-deprecation that are absent from K-pop," he said. This, Stawski adds, is what has allowed Psy to jump the English language barrier and find a wider audience for a song which, apart from its title, is almost entirely in Korean. In South Korea, "Gangnam Style" has won Psy a new fan base by appealing to those for whom the sanitised image of K-pop bears little resemblance to their actual lives. "His somewhat 'normal' appearance makes him feel familiar, and the comic dancing and wacky fashion style give off a friendly image, branding Psy as someone people would want to party with," the daily Munhwa Ilbo commented. Psy himself says he invites laughter, not ridicule. "My motto is to be funny, but not stupid," he said in an interview with the Yonhap news agency. "I want everyone who sees my performance to feel the efforts I've made so far as a singer rather than a lucky guy who got here without anything," he said. A relative veteran after 11 years on the Korean music scene, Psy has always had a small but loyal fan base that has stuck with him through numerous ups and downs, including an early brush with the law for smoking marijuana. In 2007, he was forced to serve a second period of compulsory military service after it was revealed that he had continued with his showbiz interests during his first two-year stint. His overnight leap from relative obscurity to global sensation came as a personal, if welcome, shock. "It's all so surreal to me," he told Yonhap. "I never thought such a day would come in my life as a singer." It remains to be seen if "Gangnam Style" will prove to be anything more than a one-hit wonder, but its success so far, especially in the United States, is likely to prompt a review of marketing strategies in the Korean music industry. "It's not going to be a revolution, but more of a baby-steps evolution," said Esther Oh, online news editor at CJ Entertainment, the country's largest media conglomerate. "Psy has shown you can be successful as a human, regular guy with a touch of humour. Other artists and management companies are going to look at that and maybe rethink their own styles and strategies," Oh said. - AFP |
| Bob Dylan says plagiarism charges made by 'wussies and pussies' Posted: 12 Sep 2012 07:43 PM PDT NEW YORK: Bob Dylan has angrily responded to charges he plagiarized some of his lyrics, calling critics "wussies and pussies" and saying musical appropriation is "part of the folk tradition." In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine for its Friday edition, the influential singer-songwriter made his first public comments on the accusations, saying that in folk and jazz music "quotation is a rich and enriching tradition." "Everyone else can do it but not me," he complained. "There are different rules for me." Rolling Stone released excerpts of the interview on Wednesday and Reuters obtained a complete transcript. In 2003, the Wall Street Journal reported that lyrics from Dylan's 2001 record "Love and Theft" were remarkably similar to phrases in an obscure 1995 biography of a Japanese mobster. A line from the biography, "I'm not as cool or forgiving as I might have sounded" was compared to Dylan's "I'm not quite as cool or forgiving as I sound." Twelve such similar phrasings have been identified. In 2006, the New York Times made similar claims about a Civil War era poet's phrasings and Dylan's 2006 record "Modern Times." "I'm working within my art form," the 71 year-old singer told Rolling Stone. "It's that simple. ... It's called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it." "These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me," Dylan added, referring to bitter 1960s folk fans who decried his move into electric guitar blues and famously compared the singer to the Biblical apostle who betrayed Jesus. "Judas - the most hated name in human history!" he exclaimed. "If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil ... can rot in hell," he said. ART DIFFERENT FROM WRITING Musical appropriation - using familiar cultural references or language in a new context - is different from non-fiction writing or journalism, said Sean Wilentz, a Princeton University professor of American history who has written extensively about Dylan. "Of course it's legitimate," Wilentz told Reuters on Wednesday of Dylan's use of others' material. "Dylan's frame of reference is so much larger than most songwriters' - more literary, historical and philosophical." Wilentz said crediting bits and pieces of another's work is scholarly tradition, not an artistic tradition. "Creating art is different, and always has been, especially the kind Dylan creates," he said. Dylan, who released "Tempest," his 35th studio album this week, has been scrutinized throughout his 50-year career, at least in part because he has proven so unpredictable and defied convention at virtually every turn. In 2006, he stunned fans when he appeared in a sensuous Victoria's Secret commercial. In 1990, he released an album made up largely of children's nursery rhymes. In the late 1970s, the Jewish-raised Dylan embraced Christianity and sang only religious-themed music for several years. In a 50-year career, he has won 11 Grammys, an Academy Award, a Pulitzer Prize, the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and numerous other awards. "I'm not like you," he told the Rolling Stone interviewer at one point. - Reuters |
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