Berry Sakharof, Mosh Ben Arie (live by the water in Rosh Haayin, July 18)

I'm not familiar with many of Mosh Ben Arie's songs, but I did learn that he's an excellent guitarist, much better than I was expecting.  But this is really a post about Berry Sakharof, who was essentially my gateway into modern Israeli rock.  Growing up in the 80's, Israeli music meant Ofra Haza, Nomi Shemer, and many interchangeable folksy ditties in the Peter, Paul and Mary style.  About eighteen years ago, Sakharof's album "Negiot" was recommended to me as a prime example of a maverick talent who had seamlessly adapted his style across different eras, and whose lyrics were thoughtful and edgy.  Indeed, he was as good as advertised.  David Bowie and Eric Clapton went through their electronica phases in the late 90's, so too did Berry Sakharof.  But Clapton and Bowie wanted to capitalize on contemporary trends in the short term, and quickly moved back into styles they were more comfortable with, with the collaborators they were accustomed to working with.  Sakharof's electronica and d'n'b-tinged songs became some of his most beloved and enduring hits. He continued to evolve, working with unexpected collaborators and releasing music in hybrid rock-adjacent genres.

On this night, Sakharof plays a trim 50-minute set of highlights from his deep catalog.  His deep baritone is a bit weathered as he moves into his late 60's, but each performance is impeccable.  You never know how long these great artists will stick around, and it's never too late to see them.     

Max Oleartchik

Yesterday I randomly happened to think about Max and Big Thief (a band whose music I have admittedly never heard).  I believe I was reading about the suspended Harvard and Columbia college students getting their suspensions lifted without any consequences or further punishments.  The naive (or perhaps delusional) university administrators behind these decisions clearly want the whole controversy to blow over, but they don't understand that the next time will be far more tragic.  The next time, rather than merely threatening violence, these perpetrators will be prepared to use it.  When actions carry consequences, escalation is sure to follow.  Then my mind jumped to Big Thief's silly decision to cancel their Tel Aviv concerts in 2022.  Their explanations made no sense -- they had played in Israel a number of times previously but those gigs flew under the radar because they presumably weren't a big enough deal in the US -- and those actions didn't defuse the situation, they escalated it. 

I was thinking about those things yesterday.  Today, uncannily, we learned that Max Oleartchik (son of Israeli classic rock legend Alon Oleartchik) has left Big Thief, or was fired, we don't really know because the band's official statement was impossible to parse and filled with bullshit about infinite love and mutual respect.  Funny, I thought that mutual respect meant having due consideration for the roots and ethnicity of others, and that infinite love would trump selfish careerism and virtue signaling.  Clearly Big Thief's Adrianne Lenker has chosen her side.  Truly, there are many things in her world that are "naive and not thought out", but playing shows in her bandmate's hometown should not have been one of them.  

Big Thief haven't played live in almost a year but have a string of high profile festival dates lined up next month.  Obviously they're not going to bring in a new bassist this late in the game, so clearly Oleartchik's departure happened some time ago and they've managed to keep it secret until now.  

Giving in to the mob has never worked and never will.  I have watched this from up close for nearly two decades.  Artists who refuse to be bullied or threatened are left alone.  Those who give in may think they're promoting peace and understanding, but they're actually inviting more hate.  Big Thief should understand that this isn't over. Max's departure will be the subject of every interview and every in-depth profile for years.  Oh, and do you think that the hordes will go back to adoring you now that the "zionist" is out of the band?  No, they'll excoriate you for associating with him, for playing Tel Aviv in the past, for reaping profits on songs shaped by their former bassist.  It won't end, and your shame hasn't come close to peaking.  

PJ Harvey, "Let England Shake - Demos"

I haven't heard any of the demos or B-sides/rarities collections that PJ Harvey has released over the past few years.  Why not start with demos of one of the best albums of the past thirty years?

These recordings were made at her home in Dorset in 2008.  Remarkably, the melodies and lyrics are nearly identical to those on the proper recording, which was released some three years later.  These kinds of recording usually invite discussion over which demos might be better than the studio versions, but I don't think there is any point in discussing that.  The short answer is that the studio recording is far better because the instrumentation, arrangements, and vocals are immeasurably richer and more innovative.  But the demos offer a fascinating glimpse into what a PJ Harvey solo tour might sound like.  On that basis alone, the demo album rewards repeated listens.  

Sonically, it also offers a number of interesting ideas and gives insights into her creative process.  I had no idea that the opening melody in the title track was a twisted, macabre take on the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)".  It's much better that the sample was left out of the studio recording, but the connection is obvious when you hear them together.  Same for the Eddie Cochran sample on "The Words That Maketh Murder" -- the lyric works much better as the surprise ending of sorts, rather than telegraphing it from the start using the sample.  Elsewhere, the lo-fi nature of the demo adds a gritty intensity to songs like "Bitter Branches".  The echo and reverb on many tracks gives a cathedral-like quality and gravitas to many of the songs, despite the sparse instrumentation. 

"The Colour of the Earth" presents probably the biggest contrast between the studio and demo versions.  A big part of that is Polly's vocal, rather than the Mick Harvey lead on the album.  I find Polly's version crushingly sad, it communicates the pity and tragedy of war better (arguably) than any song on either the studio or demo recordings.  The Mick Harvey vocal conveys a sense of pride for the necessary sacrifice, while still placing the song's emphasis on solemnly mourning the dead.  But Polly's vocal strips away any semblance of the heroism involved, only the grotesque sight of dried blood and anguished cries of the soldiers remain.        

One Dove, "Morning Dove White"

I was happy to see this album featured in the Pitchfork Review because it's been largely forgotten by anyone who wasn't around in '93.  And even then it was very much an underground cult hit.  I didn't hear the full album until about fifteen years later, at the time, it because a fave go-to for some of my early podcast mixes, or for fresh all over again downtempo listening in general.  When Andrew Weatherall passed away, I remarked that I'd come to like "Morning Dove White" more than "Screamadelica".  I think the Primal Scream album is a better production achievement, considering that he essentially invented a new genre out of nothing (the dance-rock makeover), but the One Dove record is the superior album.  

Pitchfork got the setting wrong though.  One Dove were not a rock band dabbling in dance, when I listen to them I don't hear a rock band first and foremost.  The suggestion is fairly ridiculous -- they were a rock band because certain songs have guitar solos?  So did Underworld at around the same time, and they weren't a rock band by any means.   I think the One Dove/rock association gets retroactively added because of the Weatherall-Primal Scream connection.  Primal Scream were undoubtedly a rock band whose career was transformed by working with Weatherall, who worked with One Dove around the same time, ergo, the situations for the two bands are similar.  But in my opinion that comparison is incorrect.  

For a few years in the 1990's, "ambient" was a catch-all buzzword to describe all sorts of non-rave dance music and downtempo pseudo-chill out stuff, and even rock/post-rock bands that dabbled in dance or dub (e.g. Seefeel) or lounge/lo-fi (Stereolab).  People were actively seeking out alternatives to the ecstasy/smashed off one's face club scene while still keeping their finger on the pulse of club music.  One Dove fit perfectly into this lazily defined category.  Yes, it was silly and confusing and non-sensical to lump so many disparate acts under the "ambient" umbrella and everyone knew it.  The moniker was openly mocked, even on the scale of expected mockery of absurdly concocted "scenes", but the name was used and used regularly.  well as and people actively sought out mellower downtempo stuff.  Listen to the first "Excursions In Ambience" compilation and you'll hear nothing resembling the beatless extended drone that was associated with the term "ambient" by 1994-5.   One Dove fit nicely into that early 90's "ambient" genre, alongside acts that nobody would possibly confuse with rock music.  

Like with many "forgotten" albums, "Morning Dove White" came around at the wrong time.   Years later, St Germain's "Tourist" became the coffee shop downtempo house album of choice for people who hate dancing.   In an alternative universe, "MDW" could have been that soundtrack. 

"All Yesterday's Parties: The Velvet Underground in Print 1966-1971", ed. Clinton Heylin

I bought this book several years ago with high expectations.  But every time I opened it and began to read, I quickly became bored.  Now, after finally slogging through the entire book after a number of false starts and lengthy breaks, I can't really recommend it unless you're doing research for a VU article.  Nevertheless, it does feel like an important work because almost everything about the VU was written after they split up.  Their massive influence on generations of bands is unimpeachable, but over the years I'd heard conflicting accounts about what people thought of them while they were active.  The basic story stated that they were widely shunned and even hated, outside of the rare visionary such as Lester Bangs who appreciated their genius.   The truth seemed to be more nuanced.  For most of their existence, people simply didn't know who the VU were, and you can't hate what you've never heard of.

This articles in this collection provide a mirror into the development of the music press itself.  In 1966 the coverage was done by entertainment reporters with some general knowledge about music, many of whom feigned curiosity in a band like the VU thanks to the Warhol association.  Half of the book covers the 1970-1971 period, by which point the writing takes on the tone of the modern music press, with music-only specialist writers offering insightful criticism and context.  

Clinton Heylin's introductory essay is nearly unreadable.  Filled with cryptic prose and long, scene-setting description that made little sense, it did nothing to explain or enlighten anything about the articles that follow. 

Given the dearth of  audio and video recordings from the Warhol years, a first-hand, insider's view of the band would be welcome.  But the first person accounts of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable shows are mainly short (less than a thousand words and often not more than a couple hundred) descriptions by baffled and overwhelmed writers.  Although if you've heard the audio of a concert from the time, in order to have a reference point (my first exposure was a bootleg of Columbus from November 4, 1966), you can read the account by Larry Mccombs from Chicago July 1966, close your eyes and almost imagine being there. 

There's an intolerable Lou Reed interview from 1969  in Open City (Reed at his absolute worst) which is balanced by a charming 1970 interview with Sterling Morrison for Fusion.  I didn't know anything about Fusion, but judging by the articles in this anthology, they had consistently good coverage of the VU.

The best material is from the last two years 1970-1971, with contributions from many excellent writers who report on the upcoming release of Loaded, the Max's Kansas City residency in New York in the summer of '70, and its aftermath with Lou Reed quitting the group.  This is where the narrative formed about the VU as an underrated entity that deserved a wider audience.  One even gets the impression that "Loaded" might have been a breakthrough album for them, given its radio friendly sensibilities and a seeming willingness by Atlantic to promote the album properly.  

Reading the 1970-1971 material got me thinking about which VU member "won" their early 90's reunion. Cale's recollections in his autobiography "What's Welsh For Zen" were mostly negative.  He wrote that Reed and his management team took over everything, presenting the reunion as a vehicle for Reed.  Cale didn't like the sound mixing on stage, and felt that the band didn't sound daring or adventurous enough. Cale also insisted that he wouldn't do the reunion without new material, and "Coyote" was written to placate him.  This surely wasn't what Cale had in mind -- a jukebox of their old songs and a single, new song (a substandard composition for either man) as a perfunctory nod toward being a living, contemporary band.  The VU split up only a couple of months into what could have been a creatively and financially successful reunion tour, they didn't play a single concert in the US.  

I have little doubt that the failure of the reunion was mostly due to Reed.  He wanted to rebrand himself as an alt-rock pioneer and get the acclaim that the likes of Neil Young did once grunge took off in 1991.  The VU were the expendable backing band in that pursuit.  But in the long run, Cale "won" the reunion  by successfully repackaging the VU as the Reed/Cale experimental drone rock version, rather than the FM radio friendly Reed/Yule version.  Their insistence at excluding Doug Yule meant that the live sets were heavy on the first two albums and the "V.U."/"Another View" material that Cale contributed to in '68 and '69.  Thus, Cale emerged from the reunion as the irreplaceable soul of the VU, who quietly faded into obscurity when he left.  But "All Yesterday's Parties" (and live documents such as the Quine Tapes) clearly show that the VU's best days as a touring band, and their best shot at national stardom came in the Yule era.  The advance press for "Loaded" was glowing and receptive. There was actual anticipation surrounding the record, and considering its accessibility, they had a finite shot at a breakthrough that would have been impossible with Cale in the band.  

Is Taylor bigger than the Beatles?

This is a reaction to Rick Beato reacting to the NYT's interactive piece about Taylor Swift.  

The charts are simply too different now and any attempt at statistical comparisons feels misguided.  How can we compare physical single and album sales from the 1960's with the mosaic of metrics that contribute to chart rankings these days?  Among other things, as noted by the NYT, in today's market anything on the radio can contribute to a chart ranking, regardless of whether it is officially released as a single.  When Taylor Swift releases an album, nearly every song on it will appear on the Hot 100.  But The Beatles would have done the same had those rules been in effect in their prime. Considering the amount of airplay that even the Beatles' deep cuts receive over the decades, it's not a stretch to suppose that under the current rules, they could have had double or triple the Number Ones or Top Tens that they actually did.  

As you'd expect, Beato tackles the issue from the songwriter and producer's perspectives.  All the Beatles' Number Ones were written by one of three people.  All their best-known records were produced by the same person.  Taylor Swift has collaborated with about ten producers and creative partners.  The claim is that her hits are an amalgamation of styles and ideas (Aaron Dessner/Taylor Swift tracks sound like Aaron Dessner, Max Martin/Taylor Swift tracks sound like Max Martin, etc.), as opposed to the Beatles essentially coming up with all their ideas themselves.  On one hand, producers have been getting the upper hand, credit and fame-wise, for at least the past twenty years in pop music.  Max Martin, Ryan Tedder, and Timbaland are household names who have often overshadowed the artists they collaborated with or produced.  On the other hand, Taylor Swift may have worked with the best, but what was the common thread joining all those disparate elements?  It's too easy to dismiss her achievements by claiming that she had lots of help.  But most artists are lucky to find even two or three outside collaborators who really "get" them, that they can have a deep, creative rapport with.  Swift has found a way to adapt her songwriting to an incredible variety of styles, spanning well over a decade of phenomenal success, while working with an amazing bunch of people who all have precisely one thing in common: her.   Madonna's career could be characterized in much the same way.  When you're the common thread connecting Jellybean Benitez, Lenny Kravitz, Shep Pettibone, William Orbit, and Mirwais, then you're the secret ingredient more so than any single person on that impressive list. 

Personally, at the moment I'm more interested in the legacies of these artists.  When I was growing up, it was practically a given that the Beatles were the biggest band of all time, with a popularity and cultural impact that was unlikely to ever be surpassed.  And now, more than sixty years after their debut record, people are still talking about them.  Will people be talking about Taylor Swift in sixty years?  I think that with the shrinking pool of current pop stars and the startling rise in catalog sales, it's never been harder to predict an artist's future legacy.  Has there even been less of a consensus about which contemporary albums are entering the canon?  Which albums will be most valued going forward, listened to even by people outside of their fan base, simply because that music is considered a necessary part of any serious music fan's vocabulary?  Perhaps that's an ignorant question, considering I don't really listen to new albums anymore.  

In today's climate, you simply never know when a chance meme can boost Fleetwood Mac's popularity thanks to its discovery by a new generation of listeners, or when "Running Up That Hill" can become a megahit after nearly forty years following a placement in a popular TV show.  I happened to listen to some Neil Young this week.  Is Neil Young's legacy on the rise, or in decline?  I have no idea. I feel his critical peak was reached in the early 90's, when he was hailed as the godfather of grunge and lo-fi rock.  But he's released another twenty five albums since "Ragged Glory"!  His career wasn't even at its midpoint in 1990!  Is he becoming more legendary as a timeless elder statesman of rock, or is he watering down his legacy with each passing year and each album that goes nearly unnoticed?  One can list off countless artists in this vein.  Fifteen years ago, it felt like Lady Gaga was a generational phenomenon who would dominate the charts and the tabloids for as long as she wanted.  She's great and hasn't even hit the age of 40 yet ... but it already feels like she's well into the post Superbowl halftime show legacy artist phase of her career.  She hasn't had a non-duet Number One hit since 2011 ("Born This Way").  Will her music be recognizable in 2040 to people born this year?  I really have no clue and am not sure how to even search for the answer.    

Steve Albini RIP

Albini leaves behind an incredible legacy.  From his own music, to the thousands of artists he recorded, to his still on-point essay "The Problem With Music", his passing is a huge blow to the music industry.

There are far too many Albini-engineered records that I have never heard but really should (Breeders "Pod", the Cheap Trick stuff, the Manics record he worked on).  In chronological order, here is a sampling of my favourite and most memorable Albini-engineered records over the years.

PJ Harvey, "Rid of Me" (1993)

Nirvana, "In Utero" (1993)

Two landmark 90's rock albums, released in the same year.  They both represented an extreme from which there was no other way forward but to scale back.  PJ Harvey couldn't possibly have made music more raw, scathing, or caustic than this, so she didn't bother trying.  Similarly, "Unplugged In New York" suggested that Nirvana would have also taken their music in a very different direction had Kurt Cobain lived.  

Labradford, "Fixed:Context" (2001)

Low, "Things We Lost in the Fire" (2001)

Two of my favourite albums of 2001 that I regularly revisit to this day.  These albums are raw in a completely different sort of way.  They're sparse, lonely, tragic, with every note hanging in the air for what seems like forever.  Albini lets you hear everything -- every breath by the performers, the scrape of the guitar pick on the strings, the heavy air cloaking each note in the studio.  

Mogwai, "My Father, My King" (2001)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor, "Yanqui U.X.O." (2002)

These were released at the absolute peak of my fandom for both bands, I ravenously anticipated them both.  However, they turned out to be underwhelming for much the same reasons.  Music this dense, unabating, and expansive simply needs to be felt in the concert hall, not listened to at home.  If Albini couldn't replicate the live experience of these songs on record then nobody could.   

The Ex, "Turn" (2004)

I saw The Ex live around this time and they were a mini-revelation.  They were confrontational but had catchy, swingable rhythms.  They confirmed my Two Drummer Rule for bands.  The album was overly long but that wasn't Albini's fault.  

Sunn 0))), "Life Metal" (2018)

Albini working with Sunn 0))) just made sense.  I think their albums were always superbly recorded, but did anyone do a better job of mixing vocals with their music?

"His 'n' Hers" at 30

Matty Pywell published a great retrospective review of Pulp's finest long player for Paste.  It's an intensely personal look back at how the album influenced his life, and I found myself relating to so many of his sentiments.  Interestingly, Pywell discovered it some twenty years after its original release, which speaks to Pulp's cross-generational staying power.  

He naturally compares Pulp with their then-contemporaries Blur and Oasis, who will be forever linked in any cursory mention of 90's Britpop even though the three bands sound nothing alike and hailed from completely different areas of Britain.  All three bands have been endlessly analyzed, but it bears repeating -- Blur were the most inauthentic of the three, as noted by Pywell, they were "a middle class band who used working class tropes in their songs".  On record, they were content to drift along as sound tourists rather than reveal who they really were, a stigma which they began to shake only around the time of "13".  At the time, I referred to Blur as the "band I liked the most without really loving them", and the standoffish duplicity of their music was the key to the problem.  Say what you will about Oasis, but this was never the issue with them -- what you saw was what you got.  But Oasis were almost a parody of a laddish band, and despite a number of great songs, they were rarely capable of that gut punch emotional rush, or anything beyond an AI-enhanced football chanting singalong.  There has been plenty of talk of an Oasis reunion yet again this year, seeing as it's the 30th anniversary of "Definitely Maybe" (Liam Gallagher plans to perform it on a solo tour), not to mention the regular Blur and Pulp comebacks over the past fifteen years.  But barring the excitement of hearing the hits from the first two Oasis albums played in a massive field by the original creators, does a prospective Oasis reunion really matter to anyone?  To revisit a phrase, was this band ever anybody's life, or is the anticipation more a sort of Knebworth revivalism than anything approaching cultural importance?

Pulp were entirely authentic and were led by the greatest visionary of the Britpop era.  In Brett Anderson's autobiography, he urged fans to not seek out early Suede recordings, insisting that there were no hidden gems in there.  Early Suede, he wrote, was the sound of a band taking the time to find themselves, stumbling their way through any number of lineup changes and recording mishaps and embarrassing gigs and awkward lyrics in order to develop their potential and eventually settle into who they envisioned themselves to be.   Pulp recorded some good songs in the mid-80's, but it took Jarvis Cocker some fifteen years to realize his vision.  Pulp had a sound that was entirely their own (part musical cabaret, part 80's new-wave discotheque) and a master communicator as their frontman and lyricist, who could encapsulate any year in your teenage life in a single line.  

Pywell writes about feeling like an outsider (a common theme in many Pulp songs), expectations of "masculinity" and how Jarvis served as a role model in that regard, and so many more themes that I entirely relate to because I also thought about them in my late teens and early twenties when I was the same as him when he discovered "His 'n' Hers".  He highlights a line from "Someone Like the Moon" (my least favorite song on the record) as the album's most heartbreaking moment, and gave me an appreciation for that song that I has never internalized before.  It shows that we still have plenty to learn about this album, although my basic opinions on it haven't changed much in thirty years:

1) "His 'n' Hers" is a musical waiting to happen, based upon the adventures of a faux-tough guy gang of high schoolers ("Joyriders") in a working class town, and their diverse cast of individual crushes, taking in every variety of uncertainty, angst, and teenage anguish along the way.

2) The high point of the album is "Pink Glove", a five minute pulverization of the heart that has rarely been equaled in terms of pure, chest-crushing emotion.  Note that Jarvis barely takes a breath throughout -- there is hardly a moment in the song without vocals.     

Klaus Mäkelä in Chicago

 This story has been making waves in the classical community, as Makela lands a job with yet another top orchestra.  For a conductor who hasn't even turned 30, the amount of praise and responsibility that has been heaped on him is nearly unprecedented.  But as Alex Ross has noted in his piece for the New Yorker, it's become all too fashionable for conductors to rack up multiple appointments -- a trend that Ross and many other critics find indulgent and counterproductive to the quality of the music.  And with conductors having to jet around the world to fulfill so many engagements, they don't have time to connect with their host cities and build connections to their communities.  That doesn't make sense socially, or financially.

David Hurwitz says that there's no way that Makela understands the music he's conducting better than the orchestras themselves.  But in every profile of Makela (the latest being a prominent feature in the NYT last week), the emphasis is on the blazing first impression he makes on every orchestra he visits.  He wins them over immediately, and the musicians enthusiastically vote to recruit him.  I have little doubt that both takes are correct, so what gives?  Why are orchestras lining up to work with someone less experienced than they are? 

I think the era of the superstar conductor is mostly over.  That is, we no longer see the larger-than-life svengali figure/strict disciplinarian/artistic prophet who molds the orchestra in his image (the use of "his" is intentional, superstar conductors in this vein from prior generations were exclusively male).  In those days, the quality of the orchestra was more closely linked to the conductor's talent and name value, and thus, the conductor was the single biggest factor in drawing money to the concerts.  Now, it's not the conductor who draws the money, it's the orchestra (and star soloists, and occasionally a name guest conductor).  In that sense, the CSO doesn't expect Makela to teach them anything profound, they simply need a conductor who has a few decent ideas about concert programming and some charismatic marketability.  And it's always nice to work with people you really like.  

Post-pandemic, I don't feel that the aging (and aged) audiences for classical music were clamoring to get back to the concert hall, much unlike other forms of entertainment.  The pandemic led to catastrophic financial losses to the industry, and many orchestras has to shut down or make severe budget cuts.  Now is the time to change the presentation of the product, it's the perfect time to take risks and give the public something new while smashing the older stereotypes.  

Or maybe it's like the situation with baseball managers, who also used to be cagey veterans who had paid their dues managing lesser clubs for decades.  They were brought in to mold the team into an extension of the manger's personality and philosophy toward the game.  These days, roster construction and organizational strategy are handled in other rungs of the management ladder, and it's quite common for teams to hire an unproven young ex-player to be their on-field manager.  That's not a knock on managers, or on Makela, it's just that they're not expected to bring the same skills and intangibles to their positions that their predecessors of a generation ago needed to bring.  

It's all about the content, the decline of the album, how to make money off music part XXVII, and a million other things

The title of this post is a twenty word summary of a recent article in musicradar, which tries to cover far too much ground and comes off rather unfocused IMO, but still curates a number of important issues that I often think about.  There's nothing particularly surprising in there (besides, perhaps, the lead singer of the Soup Dragons having a second career as a successful DJ), but consider the following:

1)  I disagree with this quote from the decidedly old-school Cinthie: "Back in the day you could really tour with a good album for two years. At the moment it feels like you only get the attention for two weeks and then the crowd is screaming for new music." 

In the sense that an overarching music press doesn't really exist anymore, and that no album can generate critical discourse much beyond the week before and week after its release, this is correct.  But to a band's fans, the tour is the thing and critical attention is just one hub in the giant PR release to promote their brand, potential licensing opportunities, and any upcoming tours.  There is still plenty of money to be made in touring, especially with the cost of live events being sky high across so many avenues of entertainment (and yet not sky high because demand is through the roof and people are happy to pay the asking price)

2) One of the reasons I have all but given up on new album releases is the sense that the album doesn't need to exist anymore.  Many artists can get by with drips of new singles, EP's and miscellaneous content.  Playlists are omnipresent, many people don't even listen to a specific artist for more than a track or two, let alone listen to albums from start to finish.  You don't need a new album to go on tour if the fan base is up for it.  The album isn't the once every few years grand statement that it once was.  

3) The article correctly laments the notion that music is a basic commodity that one can, and should, get for free.  The demand for vinyl is a reaction to this -- a need to prescribe value to music by people who still value their music collections.  

4) In the 90's the business model for the music industry was simple because for all intents and purposes, there was only one product on sale.  The CD album was sold for exorbitant prices, and those sales could be milked for over two years by staggered releases of singles and music videos to the relevant outlets.  Some major artists didn't even have to tour because their album sales kept them happy, rich, and relevant.  I think many of the lamentations about the lack of a new model come from people who built their careers on the old model.  They don't want to go back to the way things were, but they miss the old sentiments.  Selling music was more straightforward, and you knew what needed to be done to make a living.  Now the business is too fractured, and disproportionate power is held by streaming giants that perpetuate a compensation model that is horrible for the artists.  I don't know the way out of it, but I don't think there's much hope in returning to a simple solution again.  In the same way that I enjoy consuming music in many forms (CD, vinyl, streaming, downloads, social media, at home, at work, in the car, and in various combinations of the above), artists will also need to navigate a complex web of options, and it's quite possible that no "winning" model will ever emerge again.