by SHANE SINNOTT

It’s probably just me, but I feel like record labels have been getting a better handle on leaks lately. Back in the day, albums like Spoon’s Gimme Fiction or Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods were leaking months before their release date (and in the latter case, to the public annoyance of the band). Now I think the labels have realized that mastering an album, waiting eight months and then releasing it is taking the wind out of the sails of the promotion teams. You don’t see nearly as many leaks more than six weeks in advance lately, and so I was surprised to see something as high-profile as 50 Cent’s new album, Before I Self Destruct, leak a month before its release. As for the album, Amos Barshad, blogging for nymag.com, puts it best when he says, “There are three types of 50 Cent songs: the ‘I’ll satisfy you physically’ song, the ‘I have lots of money song’ and the ‘I’ll kill you’ song,” and that this album is mostly the third. Cases in point are “Psycho” (feat. Eminem) and “Crime Wave,” which you can get at tinyurl.com/yfqzvy8 and tinyurl.com/yllz2hk.

Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed “best rapper alive,” Lil Wayne, has released a mixtape online, the first “official” mixtape release from him in awhile. Called No Ceilings, it has about an hour of Wayne working over tracks from Jay-Z, Kid Cudi and Black Eyed Peas. You can download the whole thing over at tinyurl.com/yj6669l. Wayne pleaded guilty to gun possession a couple of weeks ago.

It was a little over two years ago that the beloved Oink torrent site, the best music p2p site the world had ever known, was shut down. One of the sites that rose in its place, what.cd, is hosted here in Canada and has posted a history of itself and its legal wrangles with the CRIA. It’s a defiant stance and an interesting read, though I can’t help thinking, if the author truly believed he was violating no laws, why does he feel he has to use a fake name in his legal letters? If you don’t have a (free) account, Google “what.cd invite” to go about getting one.