Writer Rich Woodall on the financialization of music catalogues and the future of the music economy - for listeners and artists and profiteers, and his new article Mass Hipgnosis for The Baffler.

https://thebaffler.com/latest/mass-hipgnosis-woodall

IP Tunes: On the financialization of the music economy.

In 1997, John Silveira wrote a joke classified ad in a tiny publication called Backwoods Home Magazine asking if anyone wanted to travel back in time with him. A lot of people took him seriously. What do you do when everyone wants you to fix the worst mistakes they've ever made.

#17 The Time Traveler And The Hitman

“Building a wall won't save America's crumbling middle class,” Elizabeth Warren tells us. “Sanders healthcare will raise taxes on the middle class,” a CNN headline reads. “There’ war on the middle class,” a Boston Globe editorial laments.   

The term “middle class” is used so much by pundits and politicians, it could easily be the Free Space in any political rhetoric Bingo card. After all, who’s opposed to strengthening, widening, and protecting the “middle class”? Like “democracy,” “freedom,” and “human rights”, “middle class” is an unimpeachable, unassailable label that evokes warm feelings and a sense of collective morality.

But the term itself, always slippery and changing based on context, has evolved from a vague aspiration marked by safety, a nice home, and a white picket fence into something more sinister, racially-coded, and deliberately obscuring. The middle class isn’t about concrete, material positive rights of good housing and economic security––it’s a capitalist carrot hovering over our heads telling us such things are possible if we Only Work Harder. More than anything, it's a way for politicians to gesture towards populism without the messiness of mentioning––much less centering––the poor and poverty.

This week we are joined by Jane McAlevey, a union organizer, scholar and Senior Policy Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center.

Episode 91: It's Time to Retire the Term "Middle Class"

A lot of you have some body pillows to throw away that's all I'm saying SMDH

Z 023 - The Claspers of Fate

Another Summer

Filmmaker and Twitter personality Rob Reiner looked back at the Kennedy/Johnson era through the lens of the Obama era in LBJ (2016), the story of how an idealist's vision can only be achieved by a pragmatism... and how the pragmatist's centrism may or may not have actually camouflaged an idealist the whole time. A piece of Boomer-porn, this movie is unmistakably the vision of a Joe Biden primary voter. PLUS: fiery hot thoughts on the Canadian Conservative Party leadership race, the Ed Markey/Joe Kennedy III battle, and the controversial release of TENET.

Michael and Us

#168 - The Centrist Manifesto

This week, PJ looks into a theory circling the internet about who might be behind QAnon. The investigation takes him back to the beginning of the QAnon scam, and to the message board trolls who started it.

Reply All

#166 Country of Liars

Z 038 - Frieza's Juicing w/ Chad Vigorous

Z 044 - The Todd Glass Situation Out Now On Paperback For $62.74

Alex Goldman tackles his newest job: prophet of doom.

#170 A Song of Impotent Rage

That was too close! We were almost a Podcast sandwich!

This is the real wrap up to our Resident Evil mini-series! We talk about the Resident Evil gaming experience with Kyle and Kay from All Gamers are Bastards. If you want to check out part one fo this conversation, you can catch it on their podcast!

History may be over, but discussing Resident Evil with us on Twitter never is! twitter.com/HorrorVanguard

You can support the show for less than the cost of replacing all podcasting infrastructure with a complicated network of psychic mold on our Patreon page: www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard

133 - Resident Evil Video Games With All Gamers Are Bastards

A show about the internet, hosted by PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman.  From Gimlet.