Negativland: No Business

Negativland in theory is almost always better than Negativland on disc, and the California collagists may be acknowledging that idea with No Business, a bustling package whose musical component (such as it is) feels far less important than the information it's bundled with. The group's early-'90s copyright battle over its "U2" single awakened Negativland to the strangely unjust application of intellectual property law, which is examined at length in Two Relationships In A Cultural Public Domain, the oversized booklet that accompanies No Business–and which feels like it contains more thought and consideration than the disc's found-sound symphonies.

The bulky essay finds its feet in its third section, after spending some time examining the relationship between music, commerce, and the Internet. (To sum up: The music business is more interested in profit than in art. Full stop. Duh.) The third section, "Expanding Fair Use," applies more directly to Negativland's music, but the bridge between the cut-and-pastiche "songs" and civilization's reliance on the expansion of others' works (Isaac Newton's "standing on the shoulders of giants" quote is referenced) is tenuous. But Negativland makes one clear and valid point: It seems ridiculous that an artist should fear a crippling lawsuit over a work so completely recontextualized that it couldn't possibly be mistaken for the original. The book points out that the record industry faces a bigger pocketbook worry in file-sharing, and notes that most music-biz lawyers are chomping in that direction, and have become less likely to sue over something as minor as a group of marginalized culture-jammers snippeting Beatles songs.

With No Business, Negativland tries to push the envelope right from the start, looking to rankle some feathers (or at least stir debate) by scrambling The Beatles' "Because" into an "old is new" statement. Most of No Business' tracks make similarly blunt points via collage: Ethel Merman sings about the delights of stealing, while "Downloading" uses a music exec's own hyperbole to hang the industry. Better than the audio tracks is the "Gimme The Mermaid" video, which features The Little Mermaid's Ariel as a greedy corporate lawyer. Like most of Negativland's oeuvre, No Business makes valid points via sometimes-annoying sounds. The particularly narrow points probably won't start a riot, but they could stimulate debate on heady issues of fair use and art-as-commerce.