MySpace Music Already Facing Anti-Trust Allegations

Before the service has even launched, MySpace Music is already facing possible legal woes, as anti-trust allegations have emerged. MySpace Music, a music retailer that hopes to become "the internet's MTV," will boast both the backing of its parent company News Corp and three of the four major music labels, thus encompassing about 70% of the recorded music industry. This has independent labels crying foul after being frozen out of the new site. It wouldn't be the first time the indies impeded on potential blockbuster mergers: Both Sony/BMG and Warner/EMI mergers were interfered by those menacing indies. MySpace Music does offer a service where indie labels could upload their music, but thus far labels have found themselves either unable or blocked from uploading their catalogues. Thus, the indies are asking the European Commission to look into MySpace's worldwide venture.

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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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