In LA

Since discovering Freezepop, I’ve bought 3 of their albums and plan to go see them when they perform in Los Angeles next month. If I were a rational thinker (an indistinguishable quality from naïvete when considering the music industry) I’d expect that the powers that be would notice the promotional power of streaming internet radio, and would want it to let it grow and develop.

But of course that is not the case, and the golden goose is on the chopping block. Pandora and many other internet radio stations will probably disappear soon because SoundExchange, the organization that represents performers and record companies, has successfully lobbied for high royalties for internet streaming music -higher royalties than are paid by traditional and satellite radio broadcasters. Here’s a good Washington Post article on the problem. According to the article, “Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies. Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.”

Now that I’ve gotten that hopefully-premature mourners’ kaddish for net radio out of the way, here’s a Freezepop track. If I didn’t know better I’d swear this song was evidence of a recent collaboration between The Human League and Berlin.