Portishead, and MySpace Music Publishing.

I've personally been a fan of Portishead for a long time, though they haven't released any new music in about ten years. According to this article on Pitchfork, they've released two new tracks -- on their MySpace page. I'll be very excited to see the day when a band makes a splash (or a comeback) solely online, and cuts out the distributors/licensors of today. Don't get me wrong; there's still a necessity for middlemen. They're just going to be less controlling, less expensive, and more infrastructure than the music publishers currently in danger of fading into yesteryear.

And as much as it pains me, last night I found a Paris Hilton making-of-the-music-videos short posted on YouTube roaring to the top of the most-viewed list. She may be a harlot, she may not be able to sing without a vocoder, but she's got some savvy PR folks. Congratulations, Paris, for (surely unwittingly) embracing the future of content distribution.