Customer Reviews

The Dead 60s

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I guess they figure I'm some sort of criminal for wanting to listen to the CD on my computer because they placed some lame copy protection on this disk. I've wasted the last half hour of my life trying to play it on iTunes and I can't. That's where I listen to my music. If I can't play it in the player of my choice it is useless to me.

I don't know why these record companies don't get it; I bought the music, let me consume it. So, guess what guys, I've learned my lesson: Never buy a CD from Epic again.

I'm returning it today. And I am so angry I might just scream.

Good tunes, but not being allowed to put them onto iTunes? Sorry guys, but you're staying out of my collection.
A solid 4.0 stars for the music, but you only get 2.0 because your label talked you into releasing a copy-protected CD. (I'm trusting this rookie mistake wasn't ALL your idea!)

This CD contains compromising a DRM rootkit which can greatly affect the Windows operating system. Do not buy.

I too bought the Dead 60's CD and tried to load it into my ipod along with ALL my other music that I've purchased. Because the CD is copy protected it won't show up in itunes. Becuase such a large % of the population uses itunes these days, I feel the label should be forced to disclose that the CD will not play on one of the most popular music players. It's like buying a DVD only to find it won't play on a Sony TV!! I suppose I can only listen to the CD in my car now which doesn't make me very happy about buying it. Epic should either consider putting a warning on the CD or their artists will start to see sales decline.

HINT - Don't buy this CD if you own an ipod and use itunes.

It's good to hear new bands like the Dead 60s on bigger labels. The music sounds deeply rooted in the two-tone era, especially bands like The Specials. There's no horns, but the ska upbeat and the premise for many of their songs are all familiar to this genre (Riot on my radio / "You're Not The Law!"). The band is a little rough around the edges, but it's part of their charm. Took a few listens to really "get" the record.

The bad news is that all the DRM stuff is true. I tried to rip this CD to my Windows 2000 PC and it forced me to use a protected .WMA format. It would eject the disc if I started any other ripping programs (Itunes, Cd-Ex, etc.). Their proprietary ripping program is slow, slow, slow. I couldn't convert the .WMA files either.

I went through many web pages at Sony, looking for troubleshooting answers, and finally found my way to a "backdoor" workaround that would allow me to get the songs into iTunes and on my iPod. The catch, however, to access this workaround was that I had to send a hate mail petition to Apple encouraging them to work with Sony on pricing. Unbelievable! I sent the petition believing that there's no way this would have any affect on Apple. The workaround involves burning 1 of 3 possible copies to a blank CD-R, then reripping with iTunes or whatever ripper you prefer. Worked, but what a pain, and I was out a CD-R.

Then my computer started having boot up problems. I would get a blue screen referencing a certain aries.sys file. I had no idea what it was--I'm pretty tech savvy, so I was surprised. I searched my computer for the aries.sys file, and even googled it. Nothing. Not a trace. It wasn't until sysinternals.com posted the blog regarding the Sony DRM issues that I realized what had happened. Never did I think that putting an audio CD in my PC would cause it to stop booting up.

The problem seems to have corrected itself recently, so I'm not sure what happened, but for weeks I had to try booting my PC several times each day before it would load.

Still, it's not the band's fault--hopefully the CD will be rereleased without the DRM. The music is recommended.

So almost every indie band we listen to these days reminds us of some band we were enamored with in our twenties. Back in the 1980's when everything was new, exciting and fresh. Whether they're from my hometown of Detroit or yours, somewhere in the UK. Is any young band completely new and original? Interpol sounds like a Joy Division tribute band. But that's not such a bad thing. Most of the current Detroit bands ( like the Von Bondies, the Go and the Detroit Cobras ) sound like the Bookies Club 870 bands of my youth. The above could very well be Coldcock, Cynecide and Nikki and the Corvettes. But that's OK, isn't it?
The Dead 60's do sound a lot like the Clash at times but more often sound much more like Gang Of Four. In fact, guitar-wise, a lot like Gang Of Four. And that's cool. Because young rock bands are not recording for fogeys like us over 40. And the average twenty-something has never heard of the Gang Of Four. Blink 182 fans think Rancid invented their own sound.
No sweat. When I was a kid I thought Led Zeppelin wrote "You Shook Me" and "I Can't Quit You Baby". The ( borrowed ) Beat goes on.
Buy this CD, it's quite good. And play it for your nephew or neighbor or kid who cuts your lawn and tell them stories of how cool Joe Strummer used to be. That's Rock and Roll geezer.

There are some catchy tracks on this disc and I would very much like to recommend it, but I have to warn anybody who owns an IPOD: YOU CANNOT ADD THIS TO YOUR IPOD OR ITUNES! The powers that be must be idiots at Epic records. They have designed the cd to protect the copyright thus screwing over we the music lover. Purchase at your own risk.

If your into the old ska or the old school punk scene you will really enjoy this album. Call me crazy but I even got a hint of old Duran Duran from this album. My favorite track on the album is " Your not the Law ". Reminds me alot of "Gangsta" by the Specials. I don't think this album is really gonna dent the charts but I do see alot of potential and dig their style. I did think they lacked depth in their lyrics but they are young and have time to grow. Overall buy this album if your into cool drinking material.

The Dead 60's debut cd has a mix of influences. Most prevalent is the Clash. Throw in some Specials and sprinkle some dub on top. This all makes for one terrific cd. "Riot Radio" is the first single and the lead off track. It's a great indication of what this band is all about. A punchy song with a driving beat. That continues with "A Different Age". They change gears with "Nowhere" and head down a more reggae/dub trail with a little spaghetti western thrown in for good measure. Very catchy. As are "Control This" and "You're Not The Law". Both great reggae songs, the latter which wears its Clash influences on its sleeve. Other standout tracks include "Just Another Love Song", "Horizontal" and "The Last Resort". On "Nationwide", the singer sounds like Joe Jackson fronting The Clash on a track that could have come straight off of "Sandinista".

These guys have a lot of potential. If this is just the beginning, I can't wait to hear where these guys go next. They're great songwriters and their sound is really tight.

As many people may know by now, Sony was recently caught with egg on their face when a security specialist found out that a recently purchased CD (Van Zant: Get Right With The Man) from Sony music not only installed DRM software (digital rights management, to limit and outright prevent copying music to certain devices), but it did so in such a sneaky way that it hid itself entirely from Windows, and opened the system up to security issues such as viruses.

This CD has the same copyright protection, called XCP. When installed, Sony hijacks your computer and installs custom software which:

1) Hides itself entirely from Windows by installing as a rootkit
2) Hides itself in such a manner that any files begining with $sys$ are also hidden. For example, if you install the XCP copy protection software on your machine, and rename "document.doc" to "$sys$document.doc" it then becomes invivisble to you forever.
3) Installs its own custom CD-Rom drivers to hijack your system. It also sneakily names these drivers "Plug and Play Device Manager" to seem as if it's a part of Windows. Trying to delete these drivers manually will disable your CD-Rom drive entirely.
4) Offers no uninstall option until you manually contact Sony

As of my writing this review, Sony has "apologized" for this incident, and claims they will "re-evaluate" this copyright protection software on their CDs in the future.

In the meantime, a virus is currently running wild, which names itself begining with $sys$ in an attempt to hide from the user and virus scanners.

Several class action lawsuits are also pending against Sony right now.

In summary, as you can tell from above, Sony's actions here are absolutely horrible. This is your music. You purchased it, and they should not have any right to dictate how you can use it, let alone install software which compromises your system security.

This is one of the CDs with Sony's XCP copyright protection software on it, and as a result, you should not buy it to send a message to Sony that this will NOT be tolerated in the future.