r/todayilearned • u/ThisSchmitter • 6h ago
TIL that Madonna once leaked her own album on file sharing services but every track was a loop of her swearing at the downloaders. Hackers then took over her official site and posted the actual album.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/2962475.stm521
u/RamenJunkie 6h ago
If there a place to get this album of Madonna swearing at me?
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u/JakeRidesAgain 5h ago
It was basically this on a loop https://youtu.be/jJOVIKTGDKc?si=_eUnmCgGRXKcKD8A
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u/FlowersForMegatron 5h ago
It was effective for about a day because users on Napster or Limewire could see the file size of the fake tracks and filter them out. It was dumb.
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u/ihaxr 3h ago
Limewire and Kazaa used file hashes so they wouldn't even let you download the other tracks because it detected they were a duplicate download. Internet was expensive and slow back then lol
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u/insomniacpyro 58m ago
I was terminally online before it was cool /s
But back then of course it was worth the time to get free music, spend the afternoon (or weekend) online and get a CD's worth of music and not pay for it? Hell yeah.
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u/Icommentwhenhigh 1h ago
Napster was amazing, suddenly having access to just about any music you could imagine.
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u/numanoid 4h ago
She didn't even get the line-read correct. Should have emphasized "doing", not "you're".
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u/JohnnyEnzyme 1h ago
That's a good point, and maybe emphasizes something fundamental about fame-- i.e, you can 'make it' in this or that field, and/or be an absolute master of your craft, but that doesn't mean you understand shizzle about anything else, end of the day.
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u/forgot_my_useragain 5h ago
For "research" right?
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u/imfuckinglying2u 4h ago
Yes. I promise I won't do a naughty to younger Madonna talking dirty at me. Just scientific curiosity.
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u/HotHits630 6h ago
I remember that.
It wasn't the greatest album anyway.
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u/Thirty_Helens_Agree 5h ago
“What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you doing? What the fuck are you doing?”
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u/Bowgs 6h ago
Probably her worst non-soundtrack album
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u/TopShelfFlower55420 3h ago
Man I just remembered that the only place to find her "Vogue" song was on the Dick Tracy album and now I'm pissed all over again.
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u/mtaw 3h ago
Ah, Dick Tracy. Say what you will about it - not a great film, not a horrible one. Above all a damn original one in its style and art design, truly a unique film among comic-book adaptations. It's weird it just evaporated and seems forgotten.
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u/wildistherewind 3h ago
But “Vogue” was included on The Immaculate Collection which came out less than six months after I’m Breathless. There was only a window of a few months where anybody would have to buy I’m Breathless.
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u/me_like_stonk 5h ago edited 4h ago
When was the last time Madonna put out a good song, was that even in this millenium?
Edit: I stand corrected
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u/Davidiscool222 5h ago
Hung Up :)
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u/Umbra427 3h ago
Absolute BANGER.
But I’m pretty sure the riff is sampled from an ABBA song
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u/MalteseFarrell 3h ago
To be fair, I read a bit about it once and apparently ABBA is strict about not giving permission for other artists to sample their songs. So it was a pretty big deal when the ABBA guy was like ey yknow what this Madonna chick song is pretty good ey she can use our music ey (Scandinavian accent)
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u/Umbra427 3h ago
Absolutely, I heard the exact same thing. If I recall it was like one out of two times ever that they had granted the rights to use a sample of their music
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u/MalteseFarrell 3h ago
Yeah I’m not a big Madonna fan but Hung Up is absolutely cracked as a song, so it gives credit to her that one of the all time greatest music groups thought it was good enough to loan their sound over.
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u/FalmerEldritch 1h ago
I believe she personally flew out to Sweden to make her case directly to ABBA. (probably specifically Björn & Benny, given that they were the songwriter-producer-arrangers?)
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u/MalteseFarrell 1h ago
It was definitely at least one of the lads, but likely both. I’m mainly going off memory of something I read over a year ago but sounds about right.
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u/Alpha_Majoris 5h ago
Confessions on a dance floor was a real good album. I can play it on repeat all day. Ray of Light, Music and American Life were good as well.
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u/Charnathan 4h ago
The Ray of Light album was released in '98. But yeah, I randomly blasted that song on a whim in my car this week.
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u/G_Liddell 4h ago
I like American Life a lot too. And Rebel Heart. American Life is the album this is referring to though
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u/G_Liddell 4h ago
Two of her best albums, Confessions on a Dance Floor, & Rebel Heart, are both post-2000.
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u/edwinstone 5h ago
I can name many. One of her most acclaimed and commercially successful albums was the one after this.
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u/grower_thrower 4h ago
I saw her at Coachella in 06 for shits and giggles. She showed up late and only performed for like 45 minutes. I think she may have had a new album at the time. I also saw Kanye and Matisyahu at the same festival, followed by Sígur Ros. It was eclectic lol.
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u/red286 5h ago
Hard to say the last time she put out a good song, but the last time she put out a song that charted was only 2023, mind you, it featured both The Weeknd and Playboi Carti, and it still didn't crack the top 40.
The last time she actually cracked the top 40 was 2012, but again, a track featuring both Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.
The last time she cracked the top 40 without guests was waaaay back in 2005, with the song "Hung Up", which I've never heard before.
The last time she had a song that I would consider good (keep in mind, I'm old enough that her music was all over my childhood) was 1994 (Take a Bow), although 1998's "Frozen" wasn't terrible, but I also wouldn't call it "good", myself.
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u/yanderia 5h ago
I wanted to question you how on earth you have never heard of Hung Up...and then I remembered being a kid and hearing that iconic intro on the radio and being all "yay, Madonna!" and then being disappointed that it's some other women singing a different song. It's ABBA's Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight).
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u/theproudprodigy 3h ago
I dont frozen was meant to be that much of a radio si gle anyways, its good but it's just not designed for radio, and that's okay
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u/Best_Vehicle9859 3h ago
“Popular”, the song with Weeknd and Playboi Carti, got platinum and has over one billion streams on Spotify making it her most streamed song. And if you didn’t hear “Hung Up”, which was sampling ABBA, then you either spend the 2000s under some rock or you don’t know much about pop music, because the song was everywhere, got the Guinness book world record for topping the charts of the most countries back then and sold over 5 million copies.
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u/Agitated_Reveal_6211 4h ago
She keeps trying the shock things that worked at the top of her fame, and now it just doesnt seem to work.
Plus, her music is eh now.
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u/VastJuice2949 6h ago
Never piss off internet nerds
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u/tuxedo_jack 5h ago
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this.
"Never piss off a neurodivergent hacker with prescription amphetamines and a petty vengeance fetish!"
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u/calexil 4h ago
Ah but you see my friend it is you who have faltered, for I have developed a tolerance to said neurodivergent hackers by becoming one myself...
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u/Technical-Outside408 6h ago
Or what, they'll generate free advertising for you and your album? Oh no!
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u/DrakkoZW 6h ago
It's not advertisement if you're giving the product away for free with no reason to ever come back for more.
This happened in 2003. Back when artists still needed to sell CDs/music downloads. Also it's fucking Madonna - she wasn't exactly an unknown artist who needed exposure.
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u/SEND-MARS-ROVER-PICS 6h ago
American Life reached number one in 14 countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, and also charted within the top-five of most markets. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) both certified the album Platinum in recognition of one million shipments in the United States, and 300,000 shipments in the United Kingdom, respectively. It became the 32nd best-selling album of 2003 and has sold five million copies worldwide.
The album did perfectly fine.
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u/External-Cash-3880 6h ago
Because piracy doesn't actually hurt sales at all
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u/Inevitable-Ad6647 4h ago edited 4h ago
This is the dumbest of dumb takes to ever be typed into a dumb keyboard by a dumby.
As an occasional pirate I don't know why pirates latched onto it as if they care that creators get paid. Yes some people wouldnt have paid for it, some would it's really not that complicated.
Are you really that insecure with your own behavior you have to make up some horse shit about how you're helping market it or some shit? Look inwardly for a quarter fucking second.
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u/jl2352 5h ago edited 3h ago
It has, but I’m fine with it.
Piracy sped up digital downloads and streaming of music. That has decimated profits for the music companies.
They made a killing selling CDs with huge markups. They also made a killing forcing people to pay for a whole album, when only a few tracks were decent and would get listened to.
I am fine with that, and I’d imagine most others would agree that was a good thing. It did absolutely destroy profits for the big music companies.
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 5h ago
Piracy sped up digital downloads and streaming of music. That has decimated profits for the music companies.
Not true at all. The major labels love streaming because they make awesome money by not producing physical copies. You can collect money for doing nothing at all.
When CDs were popular, they were massively overpriced. Like $20 a disc. And then CD burners came out and people figured out that the actual disc costs like $0.50.
It did absolutely destroy profits for the big music companies.
It didn't though. The whole Napster/Metallica thing was a scam by the RIAA to control online music distribution by creating online stores like apple, amazon, etc.
Napster was actually really good for underground indie musicians who could build up a fan base by releasing music for free.
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u/drthrax1 5h ago
Yup it was a thing in japan for a long time where you could rent expensive new CD's from a store and they would sell you blank CD's for cheap. people then would go home and RIP the rented CD to their blank. then they went back and returned the rented CD and now they have a cheap personal CD without having to spend tons for new releases.
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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 5h ago
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537
Tl;dr People who pirate are people who never would have purchased the product in the first place.
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u/DrakkoZW 6h ago
Yes, it's still Madonna. That doesn't mean this "advertisement" is the reason the album did well.
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u/Cormophyte 5h ago
within the top-five of most markets
became the 32nd best-selling album of 2003
The album did perfectly fine.
Sounds like it did just okay, like everything Madonna's done since the 90's.
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u/Individual-Tea1179 4h ago
That's the one she rapped on. How her lattes go through her boddeh.
Todd in the Shadows has a couple of points to make about it.
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u/Comrade_Cosmo 5h ago
Eh. Her profits can go fuck themselves. Her complaining about piracy is complete hypocrisy since she rips off other people’s music so much that me saying she does is a verifiable matter of legal record.
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u/DrakkoZW 5h ago
If you want to say "screw her she's already rich" you won't hear an argument from me.
My issue is people having this idea that somehow piracy benefits the person being pirated from, which to me is pure delusion.
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u/Comrade_Cosmo 5h ago
They’re probably getting that from the fact that multiple anti piracy funded studies keep on going to the conclusion that piracy does almost nothing or actually helps make people buy more.
Think of it as similar to how we learn about books. Somebody read it and shares (pirates) it with another person for a bit. Now you have a decent shot of ending up with two books sold as word about the book continues to spread with each iteration of it being shared. The book industry didn’t collapse from this massive and normalized piracy.
The general exception seems to be the movie industry from a quick glance.
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u/drthrax1 4h ago
its also engagement too. If I never watched lord of the rings, ill never engage with their property's. But if I pirated it in 2014 and Liked it, now im familiar with your IP's and there's a greater chance ill legit buy a Lotr Game,book or other good. If i had never pirated it and became familiar there less of a chance of me later on spending money on their IP and goods. Letting me watch a $15 movie(price on amazon streaming) for free will net them more money/engagement in the long run.
Same thing happens with Anime, majority of westerners pirate but they still spend billions on merch and goods from japan because now they are familiar with the IP.
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u/alexjaness 5h ago
its the same way people ask for work to be done for free if they offer exposure on twitter.
cunts the lot of them. (don't get me wrong, I'm a thieving cunt myself, but I don't try to make it seem like I'm doing anyone any favors)
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u/VoidOmatic 5h ago
Like those people who fucked with cats and tossed them into the garbage. Before the end of the month they knew everything about them.
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u/ummnothankyou_ 6h ago
Such a primadonna
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u/Smart-Response9881 6h ago
Just like the good ol days of the RT Podcast, but now with Morning somewhere. Burnie discusses something interesting on the podcast, and it will inevitably end up on this sub later that day.
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u/TheMoonIsLonely 5h ago
First thought that occurred to me was “seems like someone listened to Morning Somewhere today”
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u/mortalkai 3h ago
No joke. As an old RT fan, I've been eating well. So many references to old things in most new content that I feel like I'm in the good old days lol
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u/sup34dog 5h ago
I downloaded them just to hear the voiceover. I remember it just being a simple "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
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u/LateEarlySpring 4h ago
The band Guster did the same thing but instead of talking, the lead audio engineer sang meows as the vocal lead. They later released it because people liked it too.
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u/Kapitano72 5h ago
"American Life"
The album where Madge tried to do anti-war protest music, but it came out as a rich teen whining about 1st world ennui.
Also, the stand-out track was the stutter-glitch James Bond theme that didn't fit with the rest.
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u/lo1l10l101l10o1l10ol 6h ago
Hackers had very little respect in the 80's and 90's. They were thought of as more like vandals spray painting your neighborhood.
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u/kirby056 4h ago
There was literally a movie that came out in 1995 called Hackers. It should have won every award that year; I will not be taking notes.
MESS WITH THE BEST/DIE LIKE THE REST
I had that as my work signature for a hot minute until HR found it offensive and I relented.
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u/lo1l10l101l10o1l10ol 3h ago
It's my favorite movie. I've shown it to my wife and kids. Hard agree.
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u/ReadWriteHexecute 6h ago
she could have been punk and leaned into it to be a legend
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u/Eddieslabb 6h ago
Madonna can never be punk, she's always been about her bottom line. Greed is not punk.
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u/miguk 5h ago edited 4h ago
Funny you mention it, but she actually started on the New York punk scene. That's why she went with the wannabe Cindy Lauper look early in her career: not just to rip off the better established act, but to reference where she started.
Edit: I meant that she started on the same scene as punk bands, not as a punk rocker herself.
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 5h ago
but she actually started on the New York punk scene.
Not really. Her style was just new wave which was the corporate knock off of the 70s punk scene.
Blondie started in the 70s punk scene. Madonna was a few years later.
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u/miguk 4h ago
New wave wasn't originally corporate rock. Bands like the Talking Heads and Television got the genre started in the 70s back when punk hadn't yet spilled out of the CBGB and the like. Even Blondie could arguably be considered New Wave (though they dipped into everything from punk to disco to hip hop). It was only later on in the 80s that the radio and MTV picked up New Wave fused with synth pop. (And note that synth pop didn't start as corporate music either; Gary Numan's first single, "Down in the Park", was banned from radio for being obscene, and "Are Friends Electric" got minimal airplay in the US.)
As for Madonna, she was on the scene before New Wave went mainstream. Argue about the quality of her output back then if you like, but it wasn't literally major label stuff until after she went solo.
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u/Rocky_Vigoda 3h ago
Are Friends Electric
That's such a good song.
https://youtu.be/7rKJf_DWecU?si=7NkxfzqgtnMkvqzx
This is my favourite song about new wave.
https://youtu.be/oQ9IF5AFiYQ?si=upekQ8GBvfGpQryP
I was a teen in the 80s. My first experience with new wave was Devo who was on the Heavy Metal soundtrack. Then stuff like B-52s, Go-Gos, the Cars, etc..
As for Madonna, she was on the scene before New Wave went mainstream.
Her first album is straight up funk/disco. She came up in the tail end of the disco era which went back underground to gay clubs which is why she's so iconic in the gay scene.
Madonna was way more iconic than just new wave. I'm not much a fan of her music but she was really influential.
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u/McRib_Warrior 5h ago
Hey I listened to the it’s morning somewhere podcast too!!!!!
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u/EkriirkE 5h ago
I have this in my playlist. Its fun to randomly get a "What the fuck to you think you're doing?" madonna clip.
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u/edfitz83 6h ago
Imagine trying to marry Vanilla Ice to revive your career, and being turned down because you aren’t wholesome enough.
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u/LordGraygem 5h ago
Proving that, whatever other claims could honestly be made about Vanilla Ice, he still had better taste than to mess with that.
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u/steepleton 6h ago
I remember no doubt posting loops of hella good’s chorus on limewire
As an aside, fuck present day Gwen Stefani
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u/endlesscartwheels 5h ago
Lol, I remember downloading that! I didn't realize it was a fake at first, just thought No Doubt's latest song sucked.
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u/Donkeydonkeydonk 5h ago
A bunch of '90s artists were doing this. I think they thought if they got enough of them out there, it would bury the actual leaked versions. But we had time stamps, even back then.
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u/steepleton 5h ago
I can’t be mad, it was all in the game.
These days Ripping it off youtube is hardly worth the effort
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u/alexjaness 4h ago
if it makes you feel any better/worse, apparently she was always like this. her whole career was just cosplaying the popular races/trends.
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u/TheModWhoShaggedMe 6h ago
Does anyone possess samples or originals of the cursing tracks? Would love to hear a song.
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u/JefftheBaptist 5h ago
In comparison, Fiona Apple leaked portions of her third album Extraordinary Machine to force her record label to release the damn thing. That album's release was such a clusterfuck that she recorded her fourth album in secret without even telling her label she was doing it.
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u/Occams_Razor42 4h ago
Someone should've remixed the cursing tracks. Never pass up a good sample y'all!
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u/JeromeKB 1h ago
They did. There was a whole rash of songs using the sample in the weeks that followed. Yes, I'm old enough to remember that.
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u/pilzenschwanzmeister 3h ago
Fair play to her for trying something.
She lost, but she fought, and there's honour in that.
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u/movezig123 3h ago
Anyone remember when a hacker stole the code for the Source engine. then Valve offered them a job. then arrested them.
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u/IntellegentIdiot 5h ago
She was a little late to the party. Barenaked Ladies did a humorous fake version Pinch Me, the lead single from Maroon (2000)
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u/ChillingChutney 5h ago edited 5h ago
'The gibe is part of a campaign by Madonna and Warner Brothers Records to prevent tracks from her American Life from being copied on online file-sharing services before goes on sale this week.
It comes in part due to the problems that plagued her last album, Music, when unfinished snippets of the title track showed up on services like Napster before the album's official launch.
The American rapper Eminem used a similar tactic last year, with tracks appearing in file-sharing networks that only contained snippets of songs looped over and over.' -- 22 April, 2003, BBC news (Article linked to this TIL)
I guess this might have been Warner Brothers Records' idea.
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u/sometimes_interested 5h ago
As if it wasn't going to posted up before it was released anyway.
There's a doco that showed that most of the leaks were coming from factory workers on the floor of the CD printing factories.
This was just her letting off some frustration.
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u/TheAlmightyMojo 4h ago
I only knew about that because Beatallica used it in the fade out to their song "Leper Madonna".
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u/shanster925 6h ago
Nerds are undefeated.
Anyone remember when 4chan "hacked" the Time person of the year vote so the first names of the entrants spelled "ALSO THE GAME." Because I remember.
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u/daniboyoh 6h ago
Never give a hacker an excuse to show you how good they are at it