In defense of Myspace

Joe is a friend of mine, that has a blog. Recently on said blog he wrote this:

Myspace My Arse 17/09/06

I hate Myspace. I hate almost everything about it. Firstly, I hate the way it looks. Fact: no matter how much you customise what little HTML they let you play around with, your Myspace page looks like shite. It offends my eyes. Secondly, you listen to music when you're on the net, right? Yeah, me too. So why on earth did Myspace have the bright idea of resurrecting the ghost of embedded audio? Thirdly, there are as many people on Myspace as there are living in Mexico. And Rupert Murdoch owns all their personal profiles. Does that not creep anyone else out a little? The man's a lizard.
If you hate Myspace as much as I hate you- sorry, as much as I hate Myspace, then join the Myspace Kills Webring. We're going to take the fuckers down.



Now Myspace sure has it's critics, but I think a lot of what's thrown at it is a tad unfair. A simple but overlooked fact to begin with: if you don't like the embedded audio on the site, there's an option within Myspace's settings menu to stop it from playing when you open a page. Now that's fair enough for Joe, as he's not (I presume) a member, so he wouldn't of known that.

But I don't necessarily buy into this "OMFG Rupert Murdoch ownz me!!!11" stuff either. I don't recall everybody being so hesitant to open up a hotmail account back when every man and his filthy dog was doing so. What's the difference, guy? From where I'm standing Myspace is just the easiest and most enjoyable way of keeping in contact with all my favourite people.

Meanwhile, you can read the lewd ramblings of the usually very logical and interesting Joe here.


Gig Review: Liam Frost & The Slowdown Family, Manchester Academy 2

This gig review is a bit special, as right this second it is on air as the gig review of the week on Teletext's Planet Sound, netting me a crisp £10 prize for my efforts. Read hither:



It's unnerving, you see Frost & Co in any other city, they'll be lucky to garner an audience bigger than 70.

Set the gig in his home city of Manchester though, and it'll be pull in 700.

Playing like it's all he ever wanted to do, there's a rich jovial talent here that seems wasted on smaller venues. Surely it's only a matter of time before the rest of the country catches up? 9/10.