Today's Hotness: Juana Molina, J. Church, Sony BMG Settlement

>> On Tuesday The New York Times ran this compelling profile of Argentinian electroacoustic luminary Juana Molina. The piece gives an informative overview of Ms. Molina's career, which is substantially longer than the several years we've known about her. Her first solo record Rara was issued 10 years ago -- we had no idea it was that old. The section of the article describing Molina's struggle for musical acceptance after a very successful television career is particularly notable. Juana Molina's most recent record Son was released by Domino in June. [photo credit]

“The apathy or even hostility of the crowds was terrible, with people walking out all the time,” recalled Fernando Kabusacki, a guitarist who accompanied Ms. Molina through 2003. “They would tell her to go back to comedy, and backstage afterwards she would be in tears."

>> As we've previously reported on the health problems dogging J. Church's Lance Hahn recently we think it is worth pointing out news of the pop-punk band's forthcoming set. PunkNews reports here that No Idea has posted an MP3 of the song "Vampire Girl" [right click and save as]. The tune is from the forthcoming record The Horror Of Life, which currently has no release date.

>> KoomDogg pointed us toward this page laying out the endgame of the Sony BMG rootkit debacle. We don't imagine many of our readers were affected, since the technology was generally deployed on CDs we wouldn't make our dog listen to, but the economics and mechanics of the settlement offer is interesting (ironically, just clicking on the .pdf link to the page listing the affected CDs froze our browser). One proposed remedy is an offer of MP3 files of the relevant music -- there is no mention of the files being copy protected. It's another rare instance of a major label embracing uprotected MP3s. We guess that when you messed up as bad as they did, you have to give stuff away. Anyhoo, here are the settlement offer basics:

You get a benefit if you have a SONY BMG CD with XCP content protection software, or have already returned such a CD to Sony BMG or to the place of purchase...

[Y]ou may receive a replacement CD, a free download of the music on the CD, and software fixes for known security vulnerabilities. In addition, you may choose to receive either (i) a cash payment of $7.50 and one (1) free album download from CONNECT Music, f.y.e., iTunes, or Wal-Mart; or (ii) three (3) free album downloads from CONNECT Music, f.y.e., iTunes, or Wal-Mart.

You get a benefit if you bought or have a SONY BMG CD with MediaMax content protection software... Your benefit differs depending on the version.

For Version 3.0: you may receive free downloads of the music on the CD and software fixes for known security vulnerabilities. For Version 5.0: you may receive free downloads of the music on the CD and software fixes for known security vulnerabilities, plus one (1) free album download from CONNECT Music, f.y.e., iTunes, or Wal-Mart.

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