When artists yearn for creative freedom, even the riches that come in the form of dollars only go so far. The pressure to be creative grows and grows until it blows, and for the recording industry, it is starting to blow.

Witness the following events:

• Radiohead, currently not under contract with a record label, announced that the price for the all digital version of its latest album was going to be whatever you wanted to pay. September 30, ‘07.
• Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Rezner wrote on October 8, ‘07, “I’ve waited a LONG time to be able to make the following announcement: as of right now Nine Inch Nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label.” 
• Madonna is not renewing her contract with Warner Brothers, instead opting to go with a concert promotion company, Live Nation (NYSE: LVY). This according to the Wall Street Journal on October 10, ‘07.

These and other artists are leading the movement to be free from oppressive record companies. Free from oxymorons like inspiration schedules and formula forced creations. Like many other industries where the Internet has played a role in removing barriers, the recording industry will never be the same. It will be better. Both for artists who want to be free and for consumers who will pay for their freedom.

Seth Godin has an interesting perspecitve on this.

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Fully packaged and refurbished Microsoft Zune 30GB on Woot.com for $99 + $5 shipping via a super secret link.

audio gadgets Microsoft mp3 music Zune

From the first 8 guitar notes of “Sweet Child ‘o Mine” to the haunting calls of the howler monkey on your trip to Belize to the light and airey strums of the ukulele band on Kauai, music and sounds have a uniqe ability to take us away to that special place. Capturing these sounds and the music has been possible for a long time, but not until the introduction of the Zoom H2 hand held surround-sound recorder has it been so easy and so inexpensive with such a professional level of quality.

Here are the details:

• 4 track surround-sound recording via 4 microphones
• MP3: 64-320 kbps, Wav: To 24 bit/96 KHz
• SD card storage (4 GB stores 377 minutes at 16 bit 44.1 kHz - CD quality)
• Mini-jack phone/line level output, external mic input, line level input, and USB
• About the size of a hand held razor
• $199

Indepth reviews and specs at Zoom, O’Reilly and Cnet.

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Very simple.
Sign up at Anywhere.FM.
Upload your music (MP3’s only).
Access your music from anywhere on the net.

More info and a screenshot at Lifehacker.

audio music sound Website

The concept is simple; a radio that uses a WiFi connection to tune in to more than 5,000 Internet radio stations from all over the world. No computer required.

A small number of manufacturers have been producing WiFi radios for a couple of years, but $300 was more than most people were willing to pay. Now, new offerings like the Freecom MusicPal, $140 and the Logik IR 100, $50 from Currys, have broken the price barrier. It just might be time to tune in to Jazz from Venezuela or news from France.  

A whole lot more about WiFi radios can be found at WiFiRadioReview.com.

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RaimaRadio has released an awesome Internet radio tool that moves it up. Here are the bullets:

• Record Internet radio, and where available, have the songs saved individually and labeled with title, artist and album information.
• Record and/or listen to multipe radio stations at once.
• Record on a schedule. Just set the date and time.

RaimaRadio offers many other useful featues. The entire review can be found at gHacks.net. I have to agree with them that this is probably the best Internet radio tool out there.

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