I was happy to see Attack Magazine tackle the issue of shifting trends in live techno music, not least because it's a woefully underreported subject. There have always been plenty of articles about how the music sounds, and the thought processes of the artists, but very little about how the music is made. I'd wager that the process of recording and performing electronic music is still something of a mystery even for devoted fans and clubgoers. Any novice can look at a guitar, or watch someone playing a guitar, and connect the dots between the shape and feel of the instrument and the sound that emanate from it. Almost nobody can understand what to do with hardware sequencer just by looking at it, or intuitively decipher digital waveform synthesis programs on a computer. The way that the music gets made is still very much in the domain of the artists who actually make it.
I've long since defended laptop techno as a performance art, or at least defended the idea that a laptop (and the lack of animation from the person clicking the mouse) should never be an obstacle to enjoying the music.On the other hand, using live, physical instruments (including electronic music hardware) does add something tangible to a gig, after all, the music can and should be enough but concerts are also performances and fans love to see musicians in the more physical act of performing. As I noted in my MUTEK 2010 wrap-up: "In 2003, nearly all the performances were centred around laptops. Almost every performer in 2010 incorporated a laptop into their setup, but in plenty of cases, the laptop was nowhere near the centre of the spectacle."
As for why performers are switching from software back to hardware, well, it's very much an open question and the article doesn't offer many answers beyond the fairly obvious "people got bored and tastes changed". A hardware setup certainly creates a more unique visual effect onstage. No matter what programs you use or how much effort you've put into trying to sound different from everybody else, a guy sitting in a chair in front of a laptop is just a guy sitting in a chair in front of a laptop, every time. Even after more than 20 years, the idea of "live techno" is still something of a misnomer in the eyes of many people, which has led musicians to become more dynamic performers. As fans became more conditioned to live sets, it became more acceptable for artists to break with blank-faced stoicism of the past.
Most of all, I'd say that the sound of techno in the '10's deserves most of the credit. The days of "plip-plop" laptop techno and minimal are long gone, techno is deeper, groovier, and heavier than it was a decade ago. Unless you were Ricardo Villalobos, you weren't about to get too animated while endlessly flat plains of minimal crept from the speakers, but the newer styles are far more energetic and therefore more conducive to more visually arresting, hardware-based live performances.
It's interesting to see (p. 2 of the article) that classical training is becoming more common in techno. I think this would be a first -- I can't recall every reading something by techno artists who stress the benefits of having classical music training.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Sunday, October 27, 2013
RIP Lou Reed
Didn't he always seem like he'd be one of the immortal ones who would never die? As the joke goes, I thought he'd be around until the very end, with Keith Richards and cockroaches once every other sign of life on earth had burned itself out. Lou Reed was the legendary Velvet Underground frontman in the 60's, a successful solo artist, unpredictable shit disturber, and near drug casualty in the 70's, and a comeback kid by the late 80's and early 90's with some of his most critically acclaimed work. He solidified his legacy throughout the 90's with the VU reunion and a handful of almost classic albums, and settled into an elder stateman of rock role in the 00's and 10's, collaborating with whoever he damn well pleased, critics be damned (which he did quite frequently, Reed was a notoriously difficult interview subject). He never compromised right up until the end, always tried to stay ahead of the curve, never went on a comfortable money grabbing greatest hits tour, he was too busy staging "Metal Machine Music" and "Berlin" and acting grumpy in photo shoots with Metallica.
Lou Reed's influence on rock and alternative music was so pervasive, it's practically incalculable. People who don't know they were influenced by Lou Reed were influenced by Lou Reed. The fact that labels like "alternative" have grown so large that they are almost meaningless is largely thanks to Lou Reed. Perhaps only Dylan can rival him in terms of helping to shape so many different genres of music across so many generations of fans and musicians.
The height of my Lou Reed/VU fandom was in 1998, I bought all the VU albums, moped around to "Berlin", devoured the "VU Companion" almost daily. That was the same year American Masters produced a documentary on his life, and the closing moments of the film contain my favourite Lou Reed lines which remained as clear and sharp in my mind over the past fifteen years as they were on the night I first heard them. At around the 71-minute mark:
Interviewer: How long can you be a rock and roller?
Reed: You see, that problem disappears if we don't call it rock and roll.
Interviewer: How long can you be a musician?
Reed: Right. What would the answer to that be?
Interviewer: Until you die.
Reed. There you go.
The self assured attitude he displays there, the mix of confidence and snideness (even in his more politely mannered moments), has always been my quintessential memory of Lou Reed, and I don't see that changing now that he's fulfilled his prophecy.
And what would this post be without a few more links:
A Night With Lou Reed (1982). Reed goes all leather jacket supper club, playing hits and songs from "The Blue Mask". So great to see him and Quine together in their better days.
Dirty Boulevard (1989). Squeezed among Roxette and Janet Jackson on weekly Much Music countdowns in 1989, needless to say I'd never heard anything remotely like this before.
The Kids (1973). Still might be the most devastating song ever recorded if you hear it in a certain mood.
Heroin (live 2012). Imagine still getting to play rock and roll like this when you're 70.
Stephanie Says (1967). Maybe the prettiest song the VU ever did, a prelude to the softer side he displayed on some of his mid-70's albums, but never bettered.
Lou Reed's influence on rock and alternative music was so pervasive, it's practically incalculable. People who don't know they were influenced by Lou Reed were influenced by Lou Reed. The fact that labels like "alternative" have grown so large that they are almost meaningless is largely thanks to Lou Reed. Perhaps only Dylan can rival him in terms of helping to shape so many different genres of music across so many generations of fans and musicians.
The height of my Lou Reed/VU fandom was in 1998, I bought all the VU albums, moped around to "Berlin", devoured the "VU Companion" almost daily. That was the same year American Masters produced a documentary on his life, and the closing moments of the film contain my favourite Lou Reed lines which remained as clear and sharp in my mind over the past fifteen years as they were on the night I first heard them. At around the 71-minute mark:
Interviewer: How long can you be a rock and roller?
Reed: You see, that problem disappears if we don't call it rock and roll.
Interviewer: How long can you be a musician?
Reed: Right. What would the answer to that be?
Interviewer: Until you die.
Reed. There you go.
The self assured attitude he displays there, the mix of confidence and snideness (even in his more politely mannered moments), has always been my quintessential memory of Lou Reed, and I don't see that changing now that he's fulfilled his prophecy.
And what would this post be without a few more links:
A Night With Lou Reed (1982). Reed goes all leather jacket supper club, playing hits and songs from "The Blue Mask". So great to see him and Quine together in their better days.
Dirty Boulevard (1989). Squeezed among Roxette and Janet Jackson on weekly Much Music countdowns in 1989, needless to say I'd never heard anything remotely like this before.
The Kids (1973). Still might be the most devastating song ever recorded if you hear it in a certain mood.
Heroin (live 2012). Imagine still getting to play rock and roll like this when you're 70.
Stephanie Says (1967). Maybe the prettiest song the VU ever did, a prelude to the softer side he displayed on some of his mid-70's albums, but never bettered.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 15
Six months between mixes is inexcusable!
I was aiming for a midtempo rarities mix, but of course things rarely turn out the way I want. I was also determined to squeeze some Glenn Branca into a mix, and now I'm not sure whether it really fits. Judge for yourself.
I ended up with a mix that was more of a 2013 favourites mix, although there is a bit of quality cratedigging too. And how long had it been since I'd heard that Delerium track? So don't expect much in the way of a 2013 year-end mix ...
https://soundcloud.com/bruiserfs/the-oh-mix-has-been-observed
“The OH mix has been observed in interstellar space”
94 minutes
tracklist in the comments ...
I was aiming for a midtempo rarities mix, but of course things rarely turn out the way I want. I was also determined to squeeze some Glenn Branca into a mix, and now I'm not sure whether it really fits. Judge for yourself.
I ended up with a mix that was more of a 2013 favourites mix, although there is a bit of quality cratedigging too. And how long had it been since I'd heard that Delerium track? So don't expect much in the way of a 2013 year-end mix ...
https://soundcloud.com/bruiserfs/the-oh-mix-has-been-observed
“The OH mix has been observed in interstellar space”
tracklist in the comments ...
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Clubbing in Damascus
This remarkable article about the barely alive and kicking club scene in Damascus was published in the UK Daily Mail about a month ago. The highlights are the pictures, and in fact I'd probably recommend just looking at the pictures and skipping the text entirely. The most striking thing about them is how normal everything looks -- people are smoking, dancing, and enjoying themselves in scenes that could be almost be taking place in most Western countries.
As for the text, let's just say there's nothing approaching investigative journalism here. It's the fluffiest of fluff pieces, and perhaps that was all the author and photographers were aiming for (N.B. it's difficult to tell which ones are stock photos and which ones were places visited by the reporter, the article is very vague about specific names and places for reasons we'll get to later). But considering the very real horrors of the war that has torn apart most of Syria, and the wealth of misinformation coming out of there, the Daily Mail had an opportunity to dig beneath the surface and tell the story of a truly unique scene, far different from the usual narrative of club owners struggling to keep their doors open despite countless obstacles that we've seen told in a million other cities. Even a one-dimensional depiction of "downtown Damascus is a bubble where people can have fun and remain callously oblivious to the carnage in the rest of the country" would have been a story worth telling, and a lot better than the rather colourless reporting that was actually done.
The main question that is never asked or even implied is this: how did they find all these clubs? The club owners don't want their names or locations publicized for fear of "reprisals", so if we take those comments at face value, how does one get into these clubs? Who was the insider with knowledge of the scene?
The political partisanship of the characters in the piece is hardly subtle. In the midst of a civil war, where making your friends and supporters known to all is a matter of life and death, we see normal goings on in the centre of Damascus (an Assad stronghold), in venues that display pictures of Assad, and hear about music that's popular with Assad's supporters. Dancing, drinking, Western-style clothes, and intersex mingling are obviously not popular with the rebel groups, so in that aspect the clubbers would strongly favour Assad. But there's so much we don't know. Have the businesses that refused, for whatever reasons, to show their loyalty to the regime been shut down? Does the regime support or merely tolerate these kinds of establishments? We can't even assume that the entire photo-op wasn't set up by people with business or personal links to the regime as a way to project a sense of normalcy in the capital. Judging by many of the comments on the article ("Assad allows clubbing so he can't be all that bad!"), there are plenty of people ready to buy into just about any positive spin about Syria.
As for the text, let's just say there's nothing approaching investigative journalism here. It's the fluffiest of fluff pieces, and perhaps that was all the author and photographers were aiming for (N.B. it's difficult to tell which ones are stock photos and which ones were places visited by the reporter, the article is very vague about specific names and places for reasons we'll get to later). But considering the very real horrors of the war that has torn apart most of Syria, and the wealth of misinformation coming out of there, the Daily Mail had an opportunity to dig beneath the surface and tell the story of a truly unique scene, far different from the usual narrative of club owners struggling to keep their doors open despite countless obstacles that we've seen told in a million other cities. Even a one-dimensional depiction of "downtown Damascus is a bubble where people can have fun and remain callously oblivious to the carnage in the rest of the country" would have been a story worth telling, and a lot better than the rather colourless reporting that was actually done.
The main question that is never asked or even implied is this: how did they find all these clubs? The club owners don't want their names or locations publicized for fear of "reprisals", so if we take those comments at face value, how does one get into these clubs? Who was the insider with knowledge of the scene?
The political partisanship of the characters in the piece is hardly subtle. In the midst of a civil war, where making your friends and supporters known to all is a matter of life and death, we see normal goings on in the centre of Damascus (an Assad stronghold), in venues that display pictures of Assad, and hear about music that's popular with Assad's supporters. Dancing, drinking, Western-style clothes, and intersex mingling are obviously not popular with the rebel groups, so in that aspect the clubbers would strongly favour Assad. But there's so much we don't know. Have the businesses that refused, for whatever reasons, to show their loyalty to the regime been shut down? Does the regime support or merely tolerate these kinds of establishments? We can't even assume that the entire photo-op wasn't set up by people with business or personal links to the regime as a way to project a sense of normalcy in the capital. Judging by many of the comments on the article ("Assad allows clubbing so he can't be all that bad!"), there are plenty of people ready to buy into just about any positive spin about Syria.
Saturday, October 05, 2013
The Miley Cyrus, Sinead O'Connor, Amanda Palmer spat
We've seen this movie a million times already, haven't we? I think this is my standard reaction to 99% of music "scandals" these days, so at the risk of adding to the redundance ...
First, it's a bad idea in general to take life advice from Sinead O'Connor. Brilliant musician, well-meaning person, a wealth of experience worth listening to, hell yes. The voice of reason in a debate about the "evils" of the music industry? Pass.
Second, if Miley was really so deeply inspired by Sinead and her iconic song and video, you'd think she'd react more along the lines of "thanks but no thanks for your two cents" rather than treating Sinead like dirt and ridiculing her past behaviour.
Third, what kind of apocalypse is upon us when Amanda Palmer comes across as the most sane person in a Twitter war/war of letters? Even so, her portrayal of Cyrus as a shrewd personality who carefully manoeuvers herself through the music industry is exaggerated (to be fair, Palmer is hardly the first to make that characterization and claim that Miley is a lot smarter than the average pop star). To me, it looks like Cyrus thought it would be a good idea to shed a few real tears in her new video (thx Sinead!!) and that's roughly where the inspiration begins and ends, i.e. hardly the work of someone who carefully maps out her every move.
Fourth, although she has every right to be pissed off about Miley's response(s), Sinead is embarassing herself by stooping to Miley's level because there's almost no way for a 47-year old to come out looking good in a flame war with a 20-year old, especially given the subject matter of Sinead's original letter. Again, see #1.
Fifth, child stars will grow up and rebel and do crazy stuff to get attention and there's really no reason to get upset about it because it's happened over and over in the past sixty years of rock and roll history and will continue to happen from now until approximately forever. Next!
First, it's a bad idea in general to take life advice from Sinead O'Connor. Brilliant musician, well-meaning person, a wealth of experience worth listening to, hell yes. The voice of reason in a debate about the "evils" of the music industry? Pass.
Second, if Miley was really so deeply inspired by Sinead and her iconic song and video, you'd think she'd react more along the lines of "thanks but no thanks for your two cents" rather than treating Sinead like dirt and ridiculing her past behaviour.
Third, what kind of apocalypse is upon us when Amanda Palmer comes across as the most sane person in a Twitter war/war of letters? Even so, her portrayal of Cyrus as a shrewd personality who carefully manoeuvers herself through the music industry is exaggerated (to be fair, Palmer is hardly the first to make that characterization and claim that Miley is a lot smarter than the average pop star). To me, it looks like Cyrus thought it would be a good idea to shed a few real tears in her new video (thx Sinead!!) and that's roughly where the inspiration begins and ends, i.e. hardly the work of someone who carefully maps out her every move.
Fourth, although she has every right to be pissed off about Miley's response(s), Sinead is embarassing herself by stooping to Miley's level because there's almost no way for a 47-year old to come out looking good in a flame war with a 20-year old, especially given the subject matter of Sinead's original letter. Again, see #1.
Fifth, child stars will grow up and rebel and do crazy stuff to get attention and there's really no reason to get upset about it because it's happened over and over in the past sixty years of rock and roll history and will continue to happen from now until approximately forever. Next!
Monday, September 30, 2013
GY!BE meets Weird Al Yankovic
Nothing will ever break my brain like the Dave Ogilvie/NIN/Carly Rae Jepsen mutual admiration society did, but this story comes close.
What's more surprising, the fact that Godspeed like Weird Al's music and hand picked him for ATP, or that Weird Al sometimes listens to Godspeed's music? It's truly the chicken vs egg debate of our time. And it's hard to believe that he'd never played a single show in Europe over a career spanning more than thirty years, and after all this time, who finally stepped forward to make it happen? Did anyone guess Godspeed You! Black Emperor?
You have to respect GY!BE for staying true to their principles after all these years. Alternative icons like Trent Reznor, Metallica, and Red Hot Chili Peppers got nice haircuts and became mainstream (even Oscar winning!) superstars a long time ago, but GY!BE won't compromise or tone themselves down even just a little bit, even after more than fifteen years, even long after indie bands "selling out" became as routine as breathing. Most indie rock fans couldn't care less about these sorts of outdated "principles", and yet here they are more or less telling the Polaris Prize organizers to go fuck themselves. Railing against billion dollar companies on one hand, curating major music festivals featuring Weird Al Yankovic on the other, you can't say that GY!BE don't control their own destinies and do precisely what they want to do, when they want to do it, this time and for all time. And that's something I'll always respect about them.
What's more surprising, the fact that Godspeed like Weird Al's music and hand picked him for ATP, or that Weird Al sometimes listens to Godspeed's music? It's truly the chicken vs egg debate of our time. And it's hard to believe that he'd never played a single show in Europe over a career spanning more than thirty years, and after all this time, who finally stepped forward to make it happen? Did anyone guess Godspeed You! Black Emperor?
You have to respect GY!BE for staying true to their principles after all these years. Alternative icons like Trent Reznor, Metallica, and Red Hot Chili Peppers got nice haircuts and became mainstream (even Oscar winning!) superstars a long time ago, but GY!BE won't compromise or tone themselves down even just a little bit, even after more than fifteen years, even long after indie bands "selling out" became as routine as breathing. Most indie rock fans couldn't care less about these sorts of outdated "principles", and yet here they are more or less telling the Polaris Prize organizers to go fuck themselves. Railing against billion dollar companies on one hand, curating major music festivals featuring Weird Al Yankovic on the other, you can't say that GY!BE don't control their own destinies and do precisely what they want to do, when they want to do it, this time and for all time. And that's something I'll always respect about them.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
25th anniversary of the Billboard Modern Rock Chart
Chris Molanphy's article commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Billboard Modern Rock/Alternative chart is tremendous and an essential read for anyone who grew up on the version of "alternative" music as defined by that Siouxsie and the Banshees-topping first chart back in 1988. We're basically talking about people born between 1968 and 1976 who remember "alternative" music when it was a catch-all phrase for a genre-spanning (but mostly rock-based) collection of countercultural music that rarely found a way to sniff the "real" charts, rather than a genre unto itself (i.e. a euphemism for grunge and everyone who rode grunge's coattails to stardom).
Molanphy's breakdown of the chart into six "eras" is spot on. Anyone who was listening in the "British Empire" era (1988-1993 according to Molanphy) but still paid attention after that to the general happenings in the pop charts probably had a moment around era number four or five (2000-2008 or so) where they were surprised to see that the chart was still around. Like me, they probably glanced at Billboard, saw RCHP or Foo Fighters topping the chart in the middle of one of their many 10+ week runs at the top, and wondered what the hell happened and what was even the point of this chart anymore.
Three comments related tangentially to Molanphy's article:
1) Although the article gamely attempts to accord some kind of overall historical meaning to the chart, the fact is that nobody, probably including musical artists, has ever given a crap about the Modern Rock chart. Molanphy is certainly not blind to this -- he more or less defines it as "a chart to track music loved by an audience that didn't want to be charted -- but I'm hard pressed to think of a major national music chart that has had less impact or sense of worth to the artists and fans involved.
2) The "coming full circle" narrative of the article, where the awful rap-metal and rock of the 00's is symbolically phased out and a woman reaches #1 again on the chart, is a bit forced and artificial. It's been a male-dominated chart for the past fifteen years, no doubt, but Evanescence, Hole, Chumbawamba, and The White Stripes have all been to #1 for multiple weeks since then, and all feature female members in prominent roles (including lead singing roles, with the exception of The White Stripes). True, none of them were solo female artists, but it wasn't a total dead zone for female artists as the article implies (not even mentioning Gotye f. Kimbra from just last year). And in the two years prior to Tracy Bonham having the last #1 by a solo female artist until Lorde earlier this month, Tori Amos, The Cranberries, and Alanis Morissette had #1 hits and sold zillions of records at the height of alternative music's commercial peak.
"Somebody That I Used To Know" being recognized as the Billboard Hot 100 song of the year and Alternative song of the year is impressive, but not as impressive at it would seem considering that the music industry virtually killed off the single in the early 90's. Albums were what counted in the 90's unless you were Mariah Carey or a friend/collaborator of Mariah Carey. In 2013, the balance is tipped in favour of songs again, there are no more Cakes and Smashmouths having minor hits and selling millions of albums. Now, if your album went platinum then you almost certainly had a huge hit on the Hot 100. Alanis Morissette's songs were everywhere in '95-'96, and as it stands she had arguably the biggest album of the 90's. In the current climate she almost certainly would have had a few #1's on the Hot 100 as well.
To me, the most amazing thing about Gotye's success is that for more than a decade, there wasn't a single #1 on the Hot 100 that could even be remotely considered as an alternative crossover hit. Nobody fluked into a #1 until Owl City managed it in 2009, and since then the #1 spot on the Hot 100 has been more or less a steady stream of proven singles heavyweights. Nobody paved the way for "Somebody That I Used To Know" to break through, it was a truly unprecedented smash hit. The previous Hot 100/Alternative crossover smash hit was probably Barenaked Ladies' "One Week", which hit #1 on the Modern Rock and Hot 100 in 1998 (but not simultaneously, strangely enough).
3) Perhaps the most glaring omission in the article is any mention of the Hot 100 changing from a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart in 1998. For instance, Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" was inescapable in 1998, but wasn't eligible to chart on the Hot 100 because it wasn't originally released as a single. But the time it finally received a single release, the song had peaked in real, popularity terms with five weeks at the top of the Modern Rock chart and eighteen weeks (still a record) at the top of the Hot 100 Airplay charts. So for all intents and purposes, Goo Goo Dolls should have had a smash crossover #1 hit, and you could say the same for No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and many other songs during the mid-90's. Molanphy's 1997-1999 "faux-ternative" era comes off as a tepid placeholder between the decline of the grunge giants and the resurgence of the 2000's brand of cock rock. Like them or not, the faux-ternative bands were a hugely successful brand of pop music, more so than any "alternative" bands that came before or since.
Molanphy's breakdown of the chart into six "eras" is spot on. Anyone who was listening in the "British Empire" era (1988-1993 according to Molanphy) but still paid attention after that to the general happenings in the pop charts probably had a moment around era number four or five (2000-2008 or so) where they were surprised to see that the chart was still around. Like me, they probably glanced at Billboard, saw RCHP or Foo Fighters topping the chart in the middle of one of their many 10+ week runs at the top, and wondered what the hell happened and what was even the point of this chart anymore.
Three comments related tangentially to Molanphy's article:
1) Although the article gamely attempts to accord some kind of overall historical meaning to the chart, the fact is that nobody, probably including musical artists, has ever given a crap about the Modern Rock chart. Molanphy is certainly not blind to this -- he more or less defines it as "a chart to track music loved by an audience that didn't want to be charted -- but I'm hard pressed to think of a major national music chart that has had less impact or sense of worth to the artists and fans involved.
2) The "coming full circle" narrative of the article, where the awful rap-metal and rock of the 00's is symbolically phased out and a woman reaches #1 again on the chart, is a bit forced and artificial. It's been a male-dominated chart for the past fifteen years, no doubt, but Evanescence, Hole, Chumbawamba, and The White Stripes have all been to #1 for multiple weeks since then, and all feature female members in prominent roles (including lead singing roles, with the exception of The White Stripes). True, none of them were solo female artists, but it wasn't a total dead zone for female artists as the article implies (not even mentioning Gotye f. Kimbra from just last year). And in the two years prior to Tracy Bonham having the last #1 by a solo female artist until Lorde earlier this month, Tori Amos, The Cranberries, and Alanis Morissette had #1 hits and sold zillions of records at the height of alternative music's commercial peak.
"Somebody That I Used To Know" being recognized as the Billboard Hot 100 song of the year and Alternative song of the year is impressive, but not as impressive at it would seem considering that the music industry virtually killed off the single in the early 90's. Albums were what counted in the 90's unless you were Mariah Carey or a friend/collaborator of Mariah Carey. In 2013, the balance is tipped in favour of songs again, there are no more Cakes and Smashmouths having minor hits and selling millions of albums. Now, if your album went platinum then you almost certainly had a huge hit on the Hot 100. Alanis Morissette's songs were everywhere in '95-'96, and as it stands she had arguably the biggest album of the 90's. In the current climate she almost certainly would have had a few #1's on the Hot 100 as well.
To me, the most amazing thing about Gotye's success is that for more than a decade, there wasn't a single #1 on the Hot 100 that could even be remotely considered as an alternative crossover hit. Nobody fluked into a #1 until Owl City managed it in 2009, and since then the #1 spot on the Hot 100 has been more or less a steady stream of proven singles heavyweights. Nobody paved the way for "Somebody That I Used To Know" to break through, it was a truly unprecedented smash hit. The previous Hot 100/Alternative crossover smash hit was probably Barenaked Ladies' "One Week", which hit #1 on the Modern Rock and Hot 100 in 1998 (but not simultaneously, strangely enough).
3) Perhaps the most glaring omission in the article is any mention of the Hot 100 changing from a "singles" chart to a "songs" chart in 1998. For instance, Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" was inescapable in 1998, but wasn't eligible to chart on the Hot 100 because it wasn't originally released as a single. But the time it finally received a single release, the song had peaked in real, popularity terms with five weeks at the top of the Modern Rock chart and eighteen weeks (still a record) at the top of the Hot 100 Airplay charts. So for all intents and purposes, Goo Goo Dolls should have had a smash crossover #1 hit, and you could say the same for No Doubt's "Don't Speak" and many other songs during the mid-90's. Molanphy's 1997-1999 "faux-ternative" era comes off as a tepid placeholder between the decline of the grunge giants and the resurgence of the 2000's brand of cock rock. Like them or not, the faux-ternative bands were a hugely successful brand of pop music, more so than any "alternative" bands that came before or since.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Electronic music in the 80's in East Germany
Most unique and outright fascinating oral history of the year? http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/magazine/east-german-electronic-music-oral-history
I'm not even sure what I can add to this, since the subject matter is so far removed from my personal experience, but this is essential reading. Cold War era Eastern European music history is sitting on a gold mine of great stories and important music criticism just waiting to happen (at least in English). For the longest time, these stories literally couldn't be spread outside of their extremely well guarded borders. The press and other forms of written communication were subject to crackdowns, and so the best way to perpetuate a music scene (and preserve its memory) had to be through word of mouth and personal experiences of those involved. Thus, for retelling the story today, the oral history is completely appropriate and not simply the fashionable thing to do.
This really turns the American version of DIY on its head. In New York there were countless stories of art school dropouts forming bands because they were bored. They didn't know how to play instruments but it hardly mattered -- in fact, it was almost a badge of honour -- and they would stumble into regular gigs without even trying But in East Berlin in the 80's, you had talented musicians who were heavily devoted to their craft who had to jump through a labyrinth of hoops just to get their instruments smuggled into the country, let alone find gigs. Building a fan base without getting the secret police on your case was a challenge, and you practically had to know somebody in the ruling communist party to sniff the inside of a recording studio. There's no doubt it was DIY, but it couldn't be more different from the oft-told American version.
Hopefully this and anthologies like Depeche Mode's Monument are just the tip of the iceberg.
I'm not even sure what I can add to this, since the subject matter is so far removed from my personal experience, but this is essential reading. Cold War era Eastern European music history is sitting on a gold mine of great stories and important music criticism just waiting to happen (at least in English). For the longest time, these stories literally couldn't be spread outside of their extremely well guarded borders. The press and other forms of written communication were subject to crackdowns, and so the best way to perpetuate a music scene (and preserve its memory) had to be through word of mouth and personal experiences of those involved. Thus, for retelling the story today, the oral history is completely appropriate and not simply the fashionable thing to do.
This really turns the American version of DIY on its head. In New York there were countless stories of art school dropouts forming bands because they were bored. They didn't know how to play instruments but it hardly mattered -- in fact, it was almost a badge of honour -- and they would stumble into regular gigs without even trying But in East Berlin in the 80's, you had talented musicians who were heavily devoted to their craft who had to jump through a labyrinth of hoops just to get their instruments smuggled into the country, let alone find gigs. Building a fan base without getting the secret police on your case was a challenge, and you practically had to know somebody in the ruling communist party to sniff the inside of a recording studio. There's no doubt it was DIY, but it couldn't be more different from the oft-told American version.
Hopefully this and anthologies like Depeche Mode's Monument are just the tip of the iceberg.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Kanye West, "Yeezus"; Nine Inch Nails, "Hesitation Marks"
"On Sight", the first track on "Yeezus", explodes out of the blocks with abrasive industrial noise that I never would have expected from on a Kanye West album. And that's taking into account his past and current collaborations with Daft Punk. This isn't like Darren Price producing a Madonna record in his own image, this is something funkier and meaner than anything Daft Punk would have conceived on their own. "On Sight" shocks you to attention and forces you to notice it from its first moments onward, which is something I haven't been able to say about a Nine Inch Nails record since "Broken".
And yet, despite the obvious nods and outright theft from industrial music (NIN included), "Yeezus" isn't the kind of album that makes you want to play a game of spot the influences. He's captured the mood of the genre, twisted it in new shapes, and forced it to conform to something resembling a Kanye West album. Sure, "I'm In It" makes me think of "Down In It" (especially the intro), but as a whole, I don't find myself wondering which Skinny Puppy album inspired a certain bassline or what have you. Techno producers have plenty to be jealous about here too. "I'm a God", with it's layers of echo, oddly processed guitar sounds, and stomach churning, cavernous bass, could be credited as a Dubfire track featuring Kanye West and nobody would doubt it for a moment. "Send It Up" brings back 80's industrial thudding and OTT rave sirens to contemporary music, and not a moment too soon. West's attempts at connecting industrial, EDM, and hip hop don't always fit together so smoothly, for instance, the bruising robofunk bridge on "Bound 2" seems unnecessary, a complete non sequiteur in the midst of a mellow 70's soul number. But for the most part, this is another startlingly creative home run for Kanye West.
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"With Teeth" is clearly the album that kicked open the door for the second act of Trent Reznor's career. "Hesitation Marks" probably could have been made at any time in the past ten years, there's nothing particularly contemporary about it and that's the entire point of it (i.e. it's the album where he returns to his late 80's/early 90's heyday, except older, wiser, and mellower). But if this album is released in 2003 then he's likely labeled as a 90's burnout trying to hang on and stay relevant. Instead, Reznor disappeared for a long time following "The Fragile", returned with an armful of stories about how he'd been to the brink and lived to tell about it (who can resist that narrative in music?), and an album that sounded nothing like his earlier work. It was different enough not to draw too many comparisons to anything on "The Downward Spiral", but still recognizable as a NIN album. Gone was the pressure of having to make each record more shocking and more extreme than the one before it, and so much of "With Teeth" and its more rock-influenced tracks fit in well with alternative radio of the time, without rocking the boat too much. He was now a Reliable Artist -- no longer representing the vanguard of new music, but someone who could be counted on for a decent slate of songs and an energetic tour every few years. And for artists who sold millions in the sales inflated 90's, that's a recipe for doing healthy arena tours from now until retirement age.
The success of "With Teeth" also left room for Reznor to escape his 90's image, an image that easily could have been turned into a caricature like with so many 80's hair metal bands. It left him free to do what he wanted without feeling pressed to make a Nine Inch Nails (TM) album each time out. Not five years later, this former junkie and 90's relic, best known in mainstream circles for singing "I want to fuck you like an animal" in heavy rotation on MTV (bleeped during the daytime of course) and performing at Woodstock '94, was a respected Oscar winning soundtrack composer. It boggles the mind just thinking about it.
I do play a lot of spot the influences when I listen to "Hesitation Marks". "Copy of A" sounds like the new "Sin", although a better comparison might be the style of electronic blues that Depeche Mode have been doing (and doing better that Reznor) on their last two albums. "Find My Way" contains elements of "Something I Can Never Have", ditto "Running" and "Ringfinger". In many ways it's a very safe album for Reznor to make, although I can't fault his timing in wanting to get back to writing the kinds of songs he does best and recalling his glory years a bit. Parts of "Hesistation Marks" are great, but mostly it's just reliably good NIN music, and honestly, that's enough.
And yet, despite the obvious nods and outright theft from industrial music (NIN included), "Yeezus" isn't the kind of album that makes you want to play a game of spot the influences. He's captured the mood of the genre, twisted it in new shapes, and forced it to conform to something resembling a Kanye West album. Sure, "I'm In It" makes me think of "Down In It" (especially the intro), but as a whole, I don't find myself wondering which Skinny Puppy album inspired a certain bassline or what have you. Techno producers have plenty to be jealous about here too. "I'm a God", with it's layers of echo, oddly processed guitar sounds, and stomach churning, cavernous bass, could be credited as a Dubfire track featuring Kanye West and nobody would doubt it for a moment. "Send It Up" brings back 80's industrial thudding and OTT rave sirens to contemporary music, and not a moment too soon. West's attempts at connecting industrial, EDM, and hip hop don't always fit together so smoothly, for instance, the bruising robofunk bridge on "Bound 2" seems unnecessary, a complete non sequiteur in the midst of a mellow 70's soul number. But for the most part, this is another startlingly creative home run for Kanye West.
-----------------------
"With Teeth" is clearly the album that kicked open the door for the second act of Trent Reznor's career. "Hesitation Marks" probably could have been made at any time in the past ten years, there's nothing particularly contemporary about it and that's the entire point of it (i.e. it's the album where he returns to his late 80's/early 90's heyday, except older, wiser, and mellower). But if this album is released in 2003 then he's likely labeled as a 90's burnout trying to hang on and stay relevant. Instead, Reznor disappeared for a long time following "The Fragile", returned with an armful of stories about how he'd been to the brink and lived to tell about it (who can resist that narrative in music?), and an album that sounded nothing like his earlier work. It was different enough not to draw too many comparisons to anything on "The Downward Spiral", but still recognizable as a NIN album. Gone was the pressure of having to make each record more shocking and more extreme than the one before it, and so much of "With Teeth" and its more rock-influenced tracks fit in well with alternative radio of the time, without rocking the boat too much. He was now a Reliable Artist -- no longer representing the vanguard of new music, but someone who could be counted on for a decent slate of songs and an energetic tour every few years. And for artists who sold millions in the sales inflated 90's, that's a recipe for doing healthy arena tours from now until retirement age.
The success of "With Teeth" also left room for Reznor to escape his 90's image, an image that easily could have been turned into a caricature like with so many 80's hair metal bands. It left him free to do what he wanted without feeling pressed to make a Nine Inch Nails (TM) album each time out. Not five years later, this former junkie and 90's relic, best known in mainstream circles for singing "I want to fuck you like an animal" in heavy rotation on MTV (bleeped during the daytime of course) and performing at Woodstock '94, was a respected Oscar winning soundtrack composer. It boggles the mind just thinking about it.
I do play a lot of spot the influences when I listen to "Hesitation Marks". "Copy of A" sounds like the new "Sin", although a better comparison might be the style of electronic blues that Depeche Mode have been doing (and doing better that Reznor) on their last two albums. "Find My Way" contains elements of "Something I Can Never Have", ditto "Running" and "Ringfinger". In many ways it's a very safe album for Reznor to make, although I can't fault his timing in wanting to get back to writing the kinds of songs he does best and recalling his glory years a bit. Parts of "Hesistation Marks" are great, but mostly it's just reliably good NIN music, and honestly, that's enough.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Beautiful pictures of the week -- the DJ Diner and record stores to die for
A couple of gems courtesy of the RA news feed ...
DJ Diner episode 6 featuring Ruede Hagelstein and his shnitzel recipe. Why was the "DJ's and their living rooms" photo series such a hit a few years ago? As much as people try to pretend that the club scene is all about the music, or all about setting a mood in the club, or the interaction between DJ and audience in the club, or about the DJ showcasing his or her personality using only music, we all want to peek behind the curtain at some point. It's precisely because DJ's usually are, or were so reclusive (or altogether faceless) that we'd jump at the chance to be a fly on the wall and learn more about them, for example, by sneaking into their houses and photographing their living rooms when they weren't at home. Or at least that's what it feels like to browse through those pictures. Of course you can learn a lot about someone just by seeing how they live -- who's unexpectedly a slob, who's the most tech savvy, who has the rig or music collection you'd give your right arm to have.
That was seven years ago, before the widespead use of social media and before podcasts accompanied by extended interviews with DJ's became commonplace. Reclusiveness is fading into the past and openness is the new, expected norm. The EDM explosion has probably contributed to the willingness of DJ's to advertise their personalities a bit more, although perhaps many of them would not want to admit this. Resentment toward "superstar DJ's" of the 90's like Sasha and Sven Vath is still reasonably fresh -- in the not so recent past, the backlash was fierce and destructive if a DJ got too big. But the mainstream attention given to the club culture of cities like Berlin is likely a huge factor too. Clubbing is no longer the exclusive domain of select individuals who are in the know, worldwide, it's probably never been as socially acceptable to be a club kid or a DJ than right now.
So what's the next logical step in the "DJ as pop star" series? Maybe it's DJ's sharing home cooking recipes while playing your tracks in the background. I mean sure, why not? I love shnitzel and Ruede Hagelstein's tracks are exactly the kind of stuff I like to play while I'm in the kitchen too.
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Just when you thought you couldn't take any more stories about record store or concert club closures, an article such as this one pops up -- 27 breathtaking record stores you need to shop at before you die. I've only been to five of them (1, 3, 5, 6, 26) and they are all worth the plane fare to get there with the exception of the last one. Seriously, is there anything better in music photography than pictures of beautiful record stores or of a person's sprawling music collection?
DJ Diner episode 6 featuring Ruede Hagelstein and his shnitzel recipe. Why was the "DJ's and their living rooms" photo series such a hit a few years ago? As much as people try to pretend that the club scene is all about the music, or all about setting a mood in the club, or the interaction between DJ and audience in the club, or about the DJ showcasing his or her personality using only music, we all want to peek behind the curtain at some point. It's precisely because DJ's usually are, or were so reclusive (or altogether faceless) that we'd jump at the chance to be a fly on the wall and learn more about them, for example, by sneaking into their houses and photographing their living rooms when they weren't at home. Or at least that's what it feels like to browse through those pictures. Of course you can learn a lot about someone just by seeing how they live -- who's unexpectedly a slob, who's the most tech savvy, who has the rig or music collection you'd give your right arm to have.
That was seven years ago, before the widespead use of social media and before podcasts accompanied by extended interviews with DJ's became commonplace. Reclusiveness is fading into the past and openness is the new, expected norm. The EDM explosion has probably contributed to the willingness of DJ's to advertise their personalities a bit more, although perhaps many of them would not want to admit this. Resentment toward "superstar DJ's" of the 90's like Sasha and Sven Vath is still reasonably fresh -- in the not so recent past, the backlash was fierce and destructive if a DJ got too big. But the mainstream attention given to the club culture of cities like Berlin is likely a huge factor too. Clubbing is no longer the exclusive domain of select individuals who are in the know, worldwide, it's probably never been as socially acceptable to be a club kid or a DJ than right now.
So what's the next logical step in the "DJ as pop star" series? Maybe it's DJ's sharing home cooking recipes while playing your tracks in the background. I mean sure, why not? I love shnitzel and Ruede Hagelstein's tracks are exactly the kind of stuff I like to play while I'm in the kitchen too.
--------------------------
Just when you thought you couldn't take any more stories about record store or concert club closures, an article such as this one pops up -- 27 breathtaking record stores you need to shop at before you die. I've only been to five of them (1, 3, 5, 6, 26) and they are all worth the plane fare to get there with the exception of the last one. Seriously, is there anything better in music photography than pictures of beautiful record stores or of a person's sprawling music collection?
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