I forgot to touch on another important point regarding the "No Sympathy For the Record Industry" piece. The price of CD's. Why are they so expensive? Does HMV really think that I'll pay $23.99 for the new Arab Strap? But all belittling aside, prices can't continue to rise like this because there is no longer any consumer mystique associated with a CD.
New technology always comes packaged with a certain "wowness", for the CD it was "Wow! What big sound coming from that little disk! And it's shiny! How does it work? This is just the coolest thing ever!". The CD, the five-inch mini-wonder that reads with a laser, was as much an attraction as the music burned onto it. But these days, CD burners are standard computer items and everybody knows that you can buy a couple dozen blank ones for about fifty cents each and burn hours of mp3's in two minutes. Free promo CD's from internet providers appear regularly in our mailboxes, and free CD games are given away in cereal boxes. Hence, the knowledge that CD's are incredibly cheap to manufacture isn't just well known, it's outwardly flaunted. And yet the music industry wants the whole world to forget that when the the new Britney Spears CD comes out and pay $19.99, thus giving an extra $19.49 to a variety of unknown recipients. To continue with the sports analogy, when a team opens a new ballpark, the fans flock to see the swanky ballpark as well as the team, but once that novelty wears off, they'll find themselves in a swanky empty ballpark if there isn't a quality team on the field.
Computers keep getting cheaper, why not CD's? How many more discs would be sold if a new CD cost ten bucks instead of twenty? Obviously the entire financial structure of the industry would change. It would no longer be very profitable to sign artists to $80 million contracts, spend several hundred thousand on recording an album, or a cool million on a new video with flashy computerized special effects and a hoochie cast of hundreds.
I'm actually sitting here today to make fun of eye magazine reviewer Kevin Hainey. Poorly written reviews, smelly dudes on subways, and watery beer are usually tolerated by the gentle public without raising a huge fuss. But sometimes you've got dissect a review line by line to demonstrate the folly, move to the other end of the car, and politely drink your beer. Here is Mr. Hainey's review of Tim Hecker's "Radio Amor".
"Ever wondered what a deteriorating mainframe might sound like after someone slipped you a heavy dose of Valium"? Last I checked, the year is 2003, which means it's no longer necessary to invoke images of 2001's HAL when presented with a record that wasn't made with drums and guitars.
"Radio Amor, mon amie!". Yes, Tim Hecker is from Montreal. Some people speak French there. The album title is French. Ha ha, I get it. Mon amie. That's funny.
"Montreal's hottest ticket in electronic sound deconstruction has crafted his latest in a successive string of releases to lull listeners into a dreamless cybersleep". In other words, he's been hyped, so it's KH's duty to inform you to not believe said hype. And how the Van Halen riffing on "My Love Is Rotten to the Core" possibly constitutes "lulling" music is beyond me. And the prefix "cyber-" lost all its remaining hipness once Billy Idol started dressing like a cyborg. But I do like the term "electronic sound deconstruction".
"Much along the same lines as what ambient static sculptors Gas, Oval, Pole and Fennesz were doing years ago, "Radio Amor" is a trance-inducing effort that's devoid of discernible melody and chock full of scratchy soundscapes and repetitive structure". These types of comments clearly reveal the reviewers' lack of understanding of this field of music. Step one: cover up the lack of understanding by attempting to namedrop known artists. The trouble is, none of these artists sound very much alike. Their fans wouldn't mistake a Gas track for an Oval, Pole or Fennesz track. I wouldn't review, for instance, a Matchbox Twenty album with the words "much along the same lines as what MOR rockers Hootie and the Blowfish, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Gino Vanelli and Bon Jovi were doing years ago ..." because none of these artists have much in common besides falling under the same (extremely) loose umbrella of musical genre, and thus, they will tend to share some of their fans. Gas, Oval, Pole and Fennesz don't appear on the electronic equivalent of a VH1 Divas special where one's meant to believe completely unrelated artists are merely different branches of a Diva tree. Just because Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey's prissy appearances and preened hair recall Diana Ross and Chaka Khan doesn't mean they should be thrown onto a one-off special for 21st century working moms.
KH also can't understand that lack of what he terms melody and the presence of repetitive structure are common components in ambient music. You can't criticize an AC/DC record for having too many guitar riffs on it.
"So, what's the problem? Every track ebbs and flows the same as the last, which makes "Radio Amor" as boring as downloading. Overtly dreary, Amor could use a little lovin". True, it isn't as varied as "Haunt Me", if one wishes to compare. But it's supposed to ebb and flow in familiar patterns, it's supposed to revisit the same themes, it's supposed to be dreary, it's supposed to lull some listeners to sleep, just as an AC/DC album is supposed to rock, and thus can't be criticized for doing so. Strangely enough, in complaining about some of the most basic tenets of Tim Hecker's music, KH has actually provided a helpful advertising service for those who enjoy dreary, trance-like ambiance. Too bad he couldn't enjoy it as well.
