Never did I once contemplate the fate of the man who wrote “The Monster Mash.”

The Memory Palace is an incredible podcast, and they did a wonderful job telling this man’s story.

This is a tremendous piece of reporting by Jody Rosen. I have never had many kind words for the big record labels, but this just takes my distain to a whole new level.

As mentioned in the article, I understand how costly it is to maintain an archive of content as large as this. It’s not economical, and it is likely never to be a profit center.

But one could argue that if your entire business model is to leech the intellectual property of artists, you would at least have a moral imperative to keep that IP in as pristine of a condition that you could.

Of course, though, we are talking about the music industry. Why do something altruistic and beneficial to society with the gobs and gobs of money they make when, instead, they can hire more lawyers?

Here’s a small list of artists mentioned in the article, just to leave you with a taste of what we, as a society, have collectively lost:

Virtually all of Buddy Holly’s masters were lost in the fire. Most of John Coltrane’s Impulse masters were lost, as were masters for treasured Impulse releases by Ellington, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Pharoah Sanders and other jazz greats. Also apparently destroyed were the masters for dozens of canonical hit singles, including Bill Haley and His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock,” Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88,” Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddley/I’m A Man,” Etta James’s “At Last,” the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” and the Impressions’ “People Get Ready.”

The list of destroyed single and album masters takes in titles by dozens of legendary artists, a genre-spanning who’s who of 20th- and 21st-century popular music. It includes recordings by Benny Goodman, Cab Calloway, the Andrews Sisters, the Ink Spots, the Mills Brothers, Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Clara Ward, Sammy Davis Jr., Les Paul, Fats Domino, Big Mama Thornton, Burl Ives, the Weavers, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, Lefty Frizzell, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Bobby (Blue) Bland, B.B. King, Ike Turner, the Four Tops, Quincy Jones, Burt Bacharach, Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Sonny and Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, Joni Mitchell, Captain Beefheart, Cat Stevens, the Carpenters, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Al Green, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Buffett, the Eagles, Don Henley, Aerosmith, Steely Dan, Iggy Pop, Rufus and Chaka Khan, Barry White, Patti LaBelle, Yoko Ono, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Police, Sting, George Strait, Steve Earle, R.E.M., Janet Jackson, Eric B. and Rakim, New Edition, Bobby Brown, Guns N’ Roses, Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Sonic Youth, No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Hole, Beck, Sheryl Crow, Tupac Shakur, Eminem, 50 Cent and the Roots.

Where does Neutral Milk Hotel fit on this spectrum?

Artists whose fans are most correlated to Republican

1. Kenny Chesney
2. George Strait
3. Reba McEntire
4. Tim McGraw
5. Jason Aldean
6. Blake Shelton
7. Shania Twain
8. Kelly Clarkson
9. Pink Floyd
10. Elvis Presley

Artists whose fans are most correlated to Democrat

1. Rihanna
2. Jay-Z
3. Madonna
4. Lady Gaga
5. Katy Perry
6. Snoop Dogg
7. Chris Brown
8. Usher
9. Eminem
10. Bob Marley

A really great video about a woman who wants to get rid of an old accordion she has been holding onto for a long time. Instead of simply selling it on craigslist, however, she puts an ad up with an interesting proposal: you come to a dinner party that she's hosting and perform in front of her guests (and judges a la "America Idol"). The winner receives the accordion for free.

I think my favorite part about this video, however, is the guy you see in the bottom corner at 3:24. Keep looking for him throughout the video, because his reactions are simply amazing (I just about spit my water all over my iPad when I first saw his annoyed/apathetic reaction).

We’re not talking about one of those “RIAA sues deaf Buddhist nun in monastery with no electricity for $9.8 million” cases here. And while I don’t doubt that thousands of legitimate users of Megaupload are genuinely shafted by this outcome, if the best restaurant in town turns out to be a mob front, hundreds of innocent diners are going to be denied that terrific Penne Arrabiata. So it goes.

I must admit, my initial reaction to the Megaupload shut down was that of slight outrage and "down with The Man"-itis.

But after taking a deep breath and thinking about it for a minute, it's pretty clear that these guys got what they deserved.

And look at it this way: if the copyright holders can shut down these sites now, then why do they need SOPA/PIPA?