Busta Rhymes, All the Time . . .

But, in one of the more bizarre developments of the late 20th century, these words have been removed from their original political context to become an everyday feature of corporate rhetoric. As part of the same movement by which politically and aesthetically provocative pop music morphed into the clawless marketing category known as “alternative” (very well represented at Scour.Net), an entire generation of Americans learned the word revolution from an old MTV logo.

It is thus not out of cynicism that Travis can claim that Scour is “revolutionary -- we‘re changing the way people consume entertainment.” But how this revolution of sorts -- which could send radios and televisions the way of the 8-track and the Betamax -- might play out is another question. Will music, film and television become even more market-driven than they are today? Will anything sneak through that aspires to be more than just product?

The answers to these questions depend at least in part on whether Scour and its competitors allow the much-heralded democracy of the Net to flourish, or let their corporate partners rig the results. The site currently features plenty of material well outside the mainstream: Smack Patsy’s “(I Wanna Be Shania Twain‘s) Leather Pants” and Bad Samaritan’s “(Jesus Was a) Leather Fag” stand out. But Travis‘ own take on the subject doesn’t inspire optimism. “We want to be content and technology agnostic, meaning we don‘t favor one piece of content over another. A search engine has no bias. It goes out there and finds everything,” he says. “But it’s pretty obvious . . . that there are certain record labels you‘re going to want to do deals with before others . . .”