- Michael Jackson's UK Hall Of Fame concert + unfettered access to photo archives = so many hours of distraction. [Photo: Getty Images]
- Unlikely couple of the year: The hot chick from Gilmore Girls and the ugly chick from Nickelback.
- Everyone on the internet is looking for a certain bear--no, not that kind of bear.
- Let's see how the music-mag world's most consistent upwards-failer manages to spin this embarrassing recent development.
- Lily Allen resorts to dirty tricks in order to replace Jenny Lewis as the music-blogger crush object.
- Speaking of music bloggers, we must again ask: Who knew they were so opinionated?
- If you guys hate the Killers so much, how come you won't stop talking about them?
- Hip-hop started out in the heart; now everybody's trying to chart. And they're all failing.
- It cost us 30 bucks and took three hours, but we still think this post was worth it.
- How did you celebrate Zune week? We spent the whole time trying to find up new ways of saying "shiny," "brown" and "turd."
- Guns N' Roses fans keep Jersey proud.
- And one more time, for old time's sake: Hairdresser!

This totally charming clip for France Gall's bubbly "La Cloche" was made for the French music-film jukebox known as the Scopitone. The exhaustive Scopitone reference Scopitones.com has many gigabytes' worth of these music-video prototypes, and you can even see Julie London and Petula Clark mime a few bars.

France Gall "La Cloche" [YouTube]
Scopitones.com [scopitones.blogs.com]

PICK TO CLICK: Ghostface - God To God (featuring Sun God) [more info]
Girl Talk - Pure Magic [more info]
Idlewild - American English [more info]
Jonzun Crew - Electro Boogie Encounter / Space Cowboy [more info]
Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas / Un Gars Fragile [more info]

Copyright expert Tim Wu's look at Bridgeport Publishing, the Armen Boladian-owned music company that won a $4 million illegal-sampling suit against the Notorious B.I.G.'s estate earlier this year, lets readers in on its less-than-savory business practices:

In the 1970s, Boladian and Bridgeport managed to seize most of the copyrights to [George] Clinton's songs. How exactly they did so is highly disputed. However, in at least a few cases, Boladian assigned the copyrights to Bridgeport by writing a contract and then faking Clinton's signature (as described here). As Clinton put it in this interview, "he just stole 'em." ...

The company, suing in Nashville, Tenn., located every sample of Clinton or other owned copyrights it could find. It took the legal position that any sampling of a sound recording, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable, is still a violation of federal law. Imagine that the copyright owner of The Lord of the Rings had sued every fantasy book or magazine that dared used the words elf, orc, or troll. That gives you an idea of the magnitude of Bridgeport's campaign.

As you may have suspected from the manner in which Boladian got the rights to these songs, the company isn't giving the money won in these judgements to the original copyright owners, like the sampling-positive Clinton; instead, those funds are being plowed back into Bridgeport's coffers, to no doubt pay for more lawsuits. With one appellate court already on Bridgeport's side, things may look grim for sample-happy artists unless, as Wu suggests, Congress intervenes, and adds a "sample code" to the country's law books.

The shady one-man corporation that's destroying hip-hop. [Slate]

First place in this week's Pick Of The 'Fork was a nail-biter until the very end. But in our just-shuttered poll, 34% of you thought that " ... [he] warns us that he's got 'magic crying out my ass'; let's hope he invests in a filter for gold and not a buttplug." was the fake. But alas, it wasn't; that sentence came out of William Bowers' 7.8 review of Annuals' Be He Me.

And that 34% tally was only a hair ahead of No. 2, "... boy sees girl, girl snaps thong, boy's eyes go 'awooga!' and tongue rolls out into a red carpet.". Was that our decoy? No, it came from Ryan Dombal's 3 1/2-star take on Akon's "I Wanna Love/Fuck You [ft. Snoop Dogg]"; 33% of you thought it was written by your Idolators, even though we spell "awoooga!" with three o's, not two.

Our fake sentence? "Never mind the verse-chorus-verse paradigm--here's the ringtone." It came in last, garnering a mere 16% of the vote. Clearly, we need to use "paradigm" more often when we're writing these things.

The final contestant:
"This would have been the perfect opportunity for a concept review. The situation almost demands it.": Rock Plaza Central, Are We Not Horses? (8.4 from Stephen M. Deusner, and 18% of the vote)

Pitchfork

We'll be honest: We really thought the seemingly bottomless supply of YouTube-archived public access shows was about to run out. But this week, we entered such search terms as "oversized pants," "white rap" and "persian gulf war," and yet another goldmine of absurdity was unearthed (we also had help from some tipsters, and for that we thank them--we think). After the click-through, just enough homegrown looniness to get you through the weekend. And for those of you just catching up, the archives are open 24-7.

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Time for another edition of Track Marks, where your Idolators look at the making of the latest MP3-blog sensation.

Artist: Prototypes
Hometown: Paris, France
Album: Prototypes
First blog mention: A May '06 concert listing on Rock Insider.
The Build-Up: From May through July, this Francophone trio got a ton of blog love, including raves on Fluxblog, Planeta Pop, Said the Gramophone, Gorilla Vs. Bear, and You Ain't No Picasso.
The Dam-Break: Just in time for bloggers to polish their "best of '06" lists, Prototypes' label, Minty Fresh, posted a free five-track EP that rekindled the Prototypes-adoring fire in heavy hitters Gorilla Vs. Bear and You Ain't No Picasso.
Odds of Backlash: 6-1. They have a lead singer who looks like Karen O and they aren't afraid to have a song title that translates, roughly, to "Dance On The Shit"--what's not to love?
Are They Worthy?: Sure. "Un Gars Fragile" may be a direct rip-off of "Girl U Want" by Devo, but there are about 3,344 worse bands to emulate out there. Prototypes are punchy and fun, and lord knows that the indie-rock world needs a little more of that in these mewlier-than-ever days.

Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas [MP3]
Prototypes - Un Gars Fragile [MP3]
Prototypes [MySpace]

The consensus on Pittsburgh's Girl Talk (pictured here with the Cowardly Lion) appears to be split into two camps: Either he's a sublime mash-up artist, or an overrated sample-hack. Thepunkguy has a somewhat-newish GT track up today, and while we never turn up our noses at a Phil Collins sample, we can't help but wonder if the market for ironically reworked '80s pop is all but dried up. Seeing as GT's Night Ripper will likely find its way on some year-end lists, we ask for a sampling of your thoughts.

Girl Talk - Pure Magic [MP3, via Thepunkguy]
Girl Talk [MySpace]