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.

M. Ward, Likely New Only To Me.

Presumably some of the rest of you have heard of M. Ward, considering they've already been on Letterman and released four albums. They're a fun band that remind me quite a bit of Wilco (more here). Me, I'm behind the times (and still don't have a television), so I was introduced to the band by Fred Wilson's blog this evening. There's a great YouTube video of them playing on the Late Show. Interestingly, their new album, Post-War, was released on vinyl and iTunes on August 22nd, though the CDs don't hit stores until Tuesday the 29th. That's one way to drive down distribution costs, and it certainly worked on me. Check out M. Ward: