Music company notes

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The New York Times notes, following an article in the Los Angeles Times, that there's a rumor going around that Apple might buy Universal Music Group, "the world's largest record company," from Vivendi Universal, which is trying to raise money by selling assets.

Meanwhile, a Canadian band called Godspeed You! Black Emperor provides, with their album Yanqui U.X.O., a chart (web version is full of clickable links) showing the (mostly indirect/roundabout) connections between the major record labels and various defense-oriented companies. The text version is a lot easier to read. In a separate note, they explain that they did make one mistake: EMI is a fifth major record label, not (as they'd originally claimed) a subsidiary of AOL Time-Warner.

(Not mentioned on that chart is the Guardian's report that Sony is planning to come out with a computer game called "Shock and Awe." (The evidence for this is somewhat roundabout; Sony hasn't outright said that that's what they're doing with the phrase.) The article notes that "the company might not stock the game in Britain and Europe owing to political sensitivities.")

Of course, this kind of six-degrees-of-separation graph could probably be created for any industry. There are a lot of megaconglomerates out there, and they're all invested in all sorts of things. And some of the connections on the graph are quite indirect.

Still thought it made an interesting set of links, though.

In unrelated news, the motorcycle wasn't around this morning, but a car woke me up at 6:30. (Other cars leave that early and don't wake me up; I think he was sitting in the parking lot idling and/or revving, just like with the motorcycle.) Indirect evidence suggests that it was the same guy, having switched to a different vehicle. Also that he doesn't live in the apartment that that parking space belongs to. Also that he hasn't received any of my notes and that there's no way for me to contact him short of sitting out in the parking lot at 6:30 in the morning. Time for me to contact the apartment managers.

3 Responses to “Music company notes”

  1. Heather Shaw

    Or maybe Mr. Rev-me-up *has* received your notes and is just a jerk. I can tell you live somewhere nice, as you can assume that something will be done about this noise so early in the morning. Our neighborhood is full of folks who don’t think twice about idling on the street (not in a parking space, but in the middle of the street) and laying on the horn until whomever they’re picking up (or, in many cases, whomever it is they wish to come out and lean in their car window to talk to for awhile because the driver is too lazy to park and come in the house) comes out of the door (usually shouting) and joins them.

    Ahem.

    I also got woken up once at 5:30 in the morning by a big black helicopter that was hovering very low over our neighborhood. I could see it from my window and it was very very loud and very ominous looking. Not sure what can be done about loud helicopters, though; couldn’t tell whether it was a traffic copter or a police copter (probably the latter at that altitude and that time of the morning) but even if I could, I doubt the cops would’ve moved because of a noise complaint. Oh well.

    Ahem. As you can probably tell, I have great empathy for you and the noises that keep you from a full night’s sleep.

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  2. Jed

    I’m pretty sure he hasn’t received my notes—I’ve been leaving them in the mailbox and on the door of the apartment associated with that parking space, but that apartment turns out to be currently vacant.

    I talked to the apartment managers this morning; they said they would put a notice on the car saying it would be towed if it wasn’t moved. Nobody’s supposed to be parking in that space.

    Yeah, I do live in a pretty quiet area—it’s definitely suburbia. I have great sympathy for city-dwellers with noise problems (not to mention, say, people living in war zones); one of the many reasons I’m not fond of cities is that I can’t deal with the noise levels. Though earplugs help a great deal.

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  3. Greg van Eekhout

    Well, Jed, I respect the fact that you want to be a good neighbor and try to deal with the situation person-to-person rather than narc on the guy. Hope you can resolve the problem.

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