Passenger must verifty and reconfirm the mix (short songs mix) -- 53 minutes
The original idea was for a mix of short, bizarre songs crammed together into a blitz of sensory overload. After discovering that I didn't have enough music for that sort of mix (where did I leave that "45 Seconds Of..." compilation again??) it turned into a mix of noise, ambient and off-kilter funky electronic tracks, with an emphasis on short running times and fast transitions.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Sunday, June 19, 2016
"Islamists" attack Radiohead fans in Istanbul
An unusual incident occured in an Istanbul record shop this past Friday, where a number of loud and opinionated individuals, assumed to be young men in their 20's, 30's, 40's, or 50's, caused a disturbance during a listening party for Radiohead's newest album.
Major media outlets were quick to condemn their behaviour as a violent attack by "Islamists". The event even captured the attention of the members of Radiohead, who were quick to criticize the incident by labeling it as an "act of violent intolerance" and stating that "our hearts go out to those attacked". Fortunately, not every media outlet fell into the far too easy trap of blaming "Islamists" for the incident,but the overall journalistic trend was still, as a whole, somewhat disturbing.
In the immediate aftermath of such episodes, we have come to expect the usual gamut of reflexive, ill-thought out reactions, which often tend towards outright prejudice toward those accused of perpetrating the event. But more recently, careful and reasoned analysis is becoming more common. Following the horrible mass shooting in Orlando one week ago, many commentators were correct to discount the purported influence of the shooter's religion. It is now widely seen as a purely homegrown American type of crime, seeing how it was carried out by a hateful, racist thug obsessed with guns and violence -- values that have become all too prevalent in American society. Likewise, the recent mass shooting in Tel Aviv can be best explained via similarly relatable concepts that have become quotable buzzwords among the enlightened -- "frustration", "justice", "occupation", etc. -- instead of resorting to attacks on the suspects' ideologies or religion.
That is why the reporting on the incident in Istanbul represents a disappointing step backwards in journalistic ethics. Reporters were quick to condemn the actions of "Islamists" rather than a far more obvious culprit -- indie music fans. Much like the discourse surrounding the Pulse nightclub shooting was quickly steered away from allegations of radicalism and toward the never more essential debate on gun laws in America, discussion about the Radiohead listening party incident has veered toward a condemnation of "Islamists" rather than a more timely debate about behaviour of entitled indie music fans.
It is no secret that indie music fans have been known to express their opinions often in a rude, condescending, and even forceful manner. In the same way that mass shootings have become as American as apple pie and college football, heated objection to the musical tastes of the "other" are as indie as ironic "I hate Pink Floyd" t-shirts and pretending to have lived in Brooklyn before it was cool. Property damage, screamed threats, and broken merchandise at Istanbul's Velvet IndieGround shop should not be taken lightly, although one must keep in mind that the video footage available on the internet is of low quality and makes it difficult to discern exactly who or what instigated the incident. This is not to excuse the means of expression by certain indie music fans, which can undoubtedly be boorish and annoying at times, and possibly even threatening. But one should also appreciate that incidents like these are a natural reaction by an often marginalized sector of indie fans, born out of the frustration of seeing yet another overrated Radiohead album get fawned over by an adoring and insufficiently critical mainstream music press.
The situation is complex, with plenty of blame to be placed on both sides. It is true that the rhetoric spread by some indie fans is not conducive to constructive discourse, and can, on occasion, result in destructive behaviour that nonetheless recalls the DIY smash-the-system punk roots of many strains of indie rock. However, we also cannot ignore the blatant provocations of indie music shops, with their listening parties dedicated to horrifically boring musical sacred cows who were never any good to begin with, who divert needed attention from more deserving artists.
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Autechre, "elseq 1-5"
Joe Muggs' interview for RA is hands down the best Autechre interview I've ever read. Hell, it's the best article of any kind about Autechre that I've read. And their new album "elseq 1-5" is up there with the best work of their career.
Rather than delving into intense theoretical discussions about the duo's "aesthetic" or delving into the minutiae of how their album was made, the interview turns into the long awaited oral history of the mid-90's "Artificial Intelligence" scene, or rather, the complete lack of a cohesive scene (this is discussed in detail in the interview).
They talk about the old days (not always in a positive light), how programming their music is like a form of artificial intelligence (where the computer runs smart algorithms that predict what their creator wants -- Markov chains make a cameo appearance here), the concept behind releasing a four hour album (you can't exactly plop 20-minute tracks into the middle of a single album without ruining the flow), the possibility working with hip-hop artists (never say never, but it's almost inconceivable that it hasn't happened by now, "Envane" was almost twenty (!) years ago, and I guess their remix of Sensational Meets Kouhei doesn't count?) and so much more, and it's all a must-read.
Before discussing the new album, let's revisit the 90's, with Sean Booth quoted at length:
The last time we did that [making music aimed at Warp] was Amber [1994]. We thought we'd be a pure fringe act when we signed, but Incunabula [1993] sold like hot cakes, went to indie number one, and Warp were like, "You've got to follow that up, you need to do another album in six months." We went, [shrugs], "Oh, OK," and did this very Warp record for them. Then we never did that again. When we gave them Tri Rep I had half a mind that they were going to say, "Oh, it's not the same, we can't have this." But they went for it, and that gave us the confidence to do what we really wanted, so on Chiastic [Chiastic Slide, 1997] we went all out to be as weird as possible. I think that's when quite a few people jumped ship.
This is the kind of information we'd have killed to have in the 90's (or even five years ago), it might have settled a whole load of debates a lot more quickly. I've never heard "Amber" as a Warp album, for me it's a lush, encapsulating listen in a way that none of the Artificial Intelligence albums were. But the process of gaining their record label's confidence and trust was all leading to something, and that something was "Chiastic Slide", i.e. Autechre doing what they really wanted to do.
The people who jumped ship with "Chiastic Slide" were back on in time for "LP5" and the peak of IDM's highbrow popularity, but that's for another time. But "Chiastic Slide" was a challenging album because it relied more heavily on repetition than anything else they'd done to that point. But that was precisely the reason why I loved it so much (and still do).
Without having to worry about fitting their ideas into a semi-palatable album type of format, Autechre have finally come back around to making another "Chiastic Slide". Five of them in fact. For much of the past decade plus, Autechre records were etudes in rhythmic construction. Repetition was largely replaced by intricacy. But on "elseq 1-5", the repetition is finally back in earnest. Melodically, it's full of echoes from the past -- the heavy reverb of "Quaristice" and "Oversteps", the robotic funk of "Tri Repetae", the ghostly ambience of "Amber", and too many more to mention. There is no fear of recycling sounds from the past. Any and all backtracking is sacrificed at the altar of repetition, stretching their ideas well past the ten and even the twenty minute mark in a number of instances. It's dense, hypnotic, and immersive. Somehow it seems to fly by much faster than a four hour album should. Only the second part, dominated by the longest track in the collection (the 27-minute "elyc6 0nset") could use some serious editing, but just about everything else is unmissable.
Saturday, June 04, 2016
Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 30
"The single mode mixes reviewed in Chapter 1 were relatively simple" -- 66 minutes
There was no particular grand theme to this mix, just a set of relaxing, late night listening across various genres. There are some acoustic, unplugged style songs, epic remixes of mid-90's electronica, and one of my very favourite Leonard Cohen songs. Nothing was planned in advance.
Friday, May 20, 2016
The weird, weird 90's -- Len and Prince
Stereogum spent their week digging through the strange idiosyncrasies of the 90's. As time passes, the 90's look more and more like the biggest outlier in music industry history. Sales and profits were at a never to be repeated all time high, thanks to overpriced CD's nearly monopolizing the format and consumption of music. Artists that sold out arenas in the 70's and 80's took the decade off (with few exceptions such as the Rolling Stones and U2), reformed or reconnected with their audience in the 00's and went right back to selling out arenas and stadiums again. The list goes on.
This conversation with Len's Marc Costanzo is the most honest and refreshing interviews I've seen in a while. We like to think of musicians as creative geniuses who go to great lengths to cultivate their art. But sometimes great songs just happen by complete fluke. Constanzo gets it, he's under absolutely no illusions about his place in the music business. He's an ordinary guy who liked writing music and getting wasted with his friends, and not necessarily in that order. He wrote "Steal My Sunshine" (helped by one of the best ever uses of sampling to really make a pop hit click) and couldn't be more humble about the complete unpredictability of it all. No marketing strategist could have come up with this path to success. Nothing could have been planned, not the inspiration for the song (the atmosphere at a rave), not the unthinkable sums of money given to them for filming the video (most of it spent on flying himself and his friends to Daytona to wreck shit while also wrecking their brain cells, filming everything as they went), and not the bonkers (but commendable) decision to fuck off and head home in the middle of their 200-date world tour because they were tired of being stars.
He doesn't complain about getting labeled a one hit wonder whose art wasn't appreciated in its time. In fact it's the opposite -- "when it goes that fast off one single, and you have no other singles -- we knew there was no other single. We were surprised there was even one single." It feels like almost anybody could have written this, one of the best singles of the past 25 years. Maybe anybody could have, but Constanzo actually did it. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it's not about being the most talented, or the most consistent, or the most business savvy, it's about dumb luck timing and doing one good thing before anyone else thinks of it.
--------------------
So how did Len fall ass backwards into one of the most fondly remembered singles of the decade, and the infinitely more ... everything really ... Prince struggle to sell records after 1991?
I've been thinking about this a lot since Prince's death last month. I'd long since assumed that Prince's commercial appeal went downhill for the same reasons that other 80's mega-icons' careers did -- failure to adapt his music to the changing tastes of music fans. Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna all remained superstars until 1991-1992. Each new music video was an event, and their albums still sold well. By 1995, they all seemed like relics from a long forgotten time. In Prince's case, he lost the rock crowd because his glitzy persona and outlandish costumes and stage performances seemed shallow next to the dour seriousness of 90's grunge and alt-rock. He lost the hip-hip and R&B crowds because he never really embraced hip hop, and insisted on forcing 20 minute funk jams down people's throats rather than court the R&B fans that adored him in the 80's.
Is that really correct however? Listening again to "Gett Off", "Cream", and "Diamonds and Pearls", I was reminded of not only how massive those songs were on video music channels and radio, but also of how much they sounded like the R&B and New Jack Swing that remained popular well into the mid-90's. He recorded plenty of R&B cuts later in the decade that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Boyz II Men album. Prince was one of the most versatile superstars ever -- could he really have failed to recognize and adapt to the changing tastes of his fans?
This 1998 interview with Prince (in his "The Artist" phase) from BET finds him speaking with a clear head about his problems with Warners, in language that sounds far more reasonable today than it did then. He spoke of wanting to market his music directly to his fans via the internet. Who else had that kind of foresight in the 90's? He spoke passionately about corporations increasing their control over him and his art, and needing to break with his record company (and his past identity!) in order to harness his creative potential. At the time many people thought he was setting fire to his career and biting the hand that fed him, but in a post-Occupy world, his sentiments would be met with a lot more sympathy.
This wonderful oral history of Prince in the 90's, from David Brown writing in Rolling Stone, gets closest to the truth. Prince's fans didn't get bored of him and start listening to G-funk instead. Rather, he stopped trying to market himself (and cut off contact with record companies and managers that would have been happy to do it for him) and dared his fans to follow his lead. He recorded albums with women he picked up at clubs. He eschewed most of his best known hits and channeled his inner James Brown, becoming a ruthlessly strict bandleader. Writing "SLAVE" on his forehead and changing his name to a symbol was kind of the last straw. He could have been ghostwriting slow jams for every major R&B act in the 90's, but he no longer wanted that kind of career. His anti-corporate actions prevented people from appreciating his music based on its merit alone. Casual fans could have taken to his new material, but Prince the man had become too much of an oddball to take seriously. It would actually be another ten years before he became comfortable with his legacy and went back to playing all his old hits again.
This conversation with Len's Marc Costanzo is the most honest and refreshing interviews I've seen in a while. We like to think of musicians as creative geniuses who go to great lengths to cultivate their art. But sometimes great songs just happen by complete fluke. Constanzo gets it, he's under absolutely no illusions about his place in the music business. He's an ordinary guy who liked writing music and getting wasted with his friends, and not necessarily in that order. He wrote "Steal My Sunshine" (helped by one of the best ever uses of sampling to really make a pop hit click) and couldn't be more humble about the complete unpredictability of it all. No marketing strategist could have come up with this path to success. Nothing could have been planned, not the inspiration for the song (the atmosphere at a rave), not the unthinkable sums of money given to them for filming the video (most of it spent on flying himself and his friends to Daytona to wreck shit while also wrecking their brain cells, filming everything as they went), and not the bonkers (but commendable) decision to fuck off and head home in the middle of their 200-date world tour because they were tired of being stars.
He doesn't complain about getting labeled a one hit wonder whose art wasn't appreciated in its time. In fact it's the opposite -- "when it goes that fast off one single, and you have no other singles -- we knew there was no other single. We were surprised there was even one single." It feels like almost anybody could have written this, one of the best singles of the past 25 years. Maybe anybody could have, but Constanzo actually did it. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it's not about being the most talented, or the most consistent, or the most business savvy, it's about dumb luck timing and doing one good thing before anyone else thinks of it.
--------------------
So how did Len fall ass backwards into one of the most fondly remembered singles of the decade, and the infinitely more ... everything really ... Prince struggle to sell records after 1991?
I've been thinking about this a lot since Prince's death last month. I'd long since assumed that Prince's commercial appeal went downhill for the same reasons that other 80's mega-icons' careers did -- failure to adapt his music to the changing tastes of music fans. Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna all remained superstars until 1991-1992. Each new music video was an event, and their albums still sold well. By 1995, they all seemed like relics from a long forgotten time. In Prince's case, he lost the rock crowd because his glitzy persona and outlandish costumes and stage performances seemed shallow next to the dour seriousness of 90's grunge and alt-rock. He lost the hip-hip and R&B crowds because he never really embraced hip hop, and insisted on forcing 20 minute funk jams down people's throats rather than court the R&B fans that adored him in the 80's.
Is that really correct however? Listening again to "Gett Off", "Cream", and "Diamonds and Pearls", I was reminded of not only how massive those songs were on video music channels and radio, but also of how much they sounded like the R&B and New Jack Swing that remained popular well into the mid-90's. He recorded plenty of R&B cuts later in the decade that wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Boyz II Men album. Prince was one of the most versatile superstars ever -- could he really have failed to recognize and adapt to the changing tastes of his fans?
This 1998 interview with Prince (in his "The Artist" phase) from BET finds him speaking with a clear head about his problems with Warners, in language that sounds far more reasonable today than it did then. He spoke of wanting to market his music directly to his fans via the internet. Who else had that kind of foresight in the 90's? He spoke passionately about corporations increasing their control over him and his art, and needing to break with his record company (and his past identity!) in order to harness his creative potential. At the time many people thought he was setting fire to his career and biting the hand that fed him, but in a post-Occupy world, his sentiments would be met with a lot more sympathy.
This wonderful oral history of Prince in the 90's, from David Brown writing in Rolling Stone, gets closest to the truth. Prince's fans didn't get bored of him and start listening to G-funk instead. Rather, he stopped trying to market himself (and cut off contact with record companies and managers that would have been happy to do it for him) and dared his fans to follow his lead. He recorded albums with women he picked up at clubs. He eschewed most of his best known hits and channeled his inner James Brown, becoming a ruthlessly strict bandleader. Writing "SLAVE" on his forehead and changing his name to a symbol was kind of the last straw. He could have been ghostwriting slow jams for every major R&B act in the 90's, but he no longer wanted that kind of career. His anti-corporate actions prevented people from appreciating his music based on its merit alone. Casual fans could have taken to his new material, but Prince the man had become too much of an oddball to take seriously. It would actually be another ten years before he became comfortable with his legacy and went back to playing all his old hits again.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Stone Roses, "All For One"; Radiohead, "Daydreaming"
AKA two big comebacks that broke the internet ... with cynicism and snark! To the music!
The first new Stone Roses track in twenty years is lovably stupid, and contrary to most of the reactions I've seen, it's very difficult to hate. If a bunch of teenagers followed up their "Battle of the Bands" upset win with a simplistic song about positivity for their upcoming graduation ceremony, it might sound like "All For One". It's an absurdly simple song that sounds like it was written in less than ten minutes, but perhaps that's the point. Remember this? Songs like these are too dumb and innocent to truly hate.
Granted, the Roses are supposed to be 50-something professionals with a century of music biz experience between them, and instead of trying to live up to their legacy, they took the quickest route to writing a new sing along for their festival appearances this summer. Of course they could have done better.
On the other hand, after more than twenty five years, the Stone Roses finally sound almost exactly like the La's! I never could hear the ressemblance back in the day, even between "Sally Cinnamon"-era Roses. Tell me that "All For One"doesn't capture the banal jauntiness of The La's "IOU"!
Those first ten seconds (the guitar fade in, that first unmistakable John Squire lick) sure had people anticipating another "I Wanna Be Adored", didn't it?
On the bright side, at least the Roses had the good sense to get to the point with their new song -- after the first thirty seconds, you've heard all the song has to offer and can pretty much fill in the next three minutes in your head. On the other hand, Radiohead's "Daydreaming" starts with a few intruiging sounds and textures that could potentially go somewhere but ends up building to absolutely nothing that's the least bit interesting. Hey, it's a microcosm of Radiohead's entire career!
In the video, Thom Yorke walks around doing nothing. He walks through a laundromat and walks up a snow covered hill, to name just two examples. Somebody please hold on to me before I fall off the edge of my seat! One of many takeaways from Prince's death is the lost art of rock stars carrying themselves like rock stars. Prince never looked like a slob in public, and he didn't take promo shots for his albums that looked like black and white mug shots. Actually, even common criminals spend more on hair care than Radiohead. Replace comotose Thom Yorke in this video with any random down on his luck goof and what do you get? You get exactly the same turd of a video.
The first new Stone Roses track in twenty years is lovably stupid, and contrary to most of the reactions I've seen, it's very difficult to hate. If a bunch of teenagers followed up their "Battle of the Bands" upset win with a simplistic song about positivity for their upcoming graduation ceremony, it might sound like "All For One". It's an absurdly simple song that sounds like it was written in less than ten minutes, but perhaps that's the point. Remember this? Songs like these are too dumb and innocent to truly hate.
Granted, the Roses are supposed to be 50-something professionals with a century of music biz experience between them, and instead of trying to live up to their legacy, they took the quickest route to writing a new sing along for their festival appearances this summer. Of course they could have done better.
On the other hand, after more than twenty five years, the Stone Roses finally sound almost exactly like the La's! I never could hear the ressemblance back in the day, even between "Sally Cinnamon"-era Roses. Tell me that "All For One"doesn't capture the banal jauntiness of The La's "IOU"!
Those first ten seconds (the guitar fade in, that first unmistakable John Squire lick) sure had people anticipating another "I Wanna Be Adored", didn't it?
On the bright side, at least the Roses had the good sense to get to the point with their new song -- after the first thirty seconds, you've heard all the song has to offer and can pretty much fill in the next three minutes in your head. On the other hand, Radiohead's "Daydreaming" starts with a few intruiging sounds and textures that could potentially go somewhere but ends up building to absolutely nothing that's the least bit interesting. Hey, it's a microcosm of Radiohead's entire career!
In the video, Thom Yorke walks around doing nothing. He walks through a laundromat and walks up a snow covered hill, to name just two examples. Somebody please hold on to me before I fall off the edge of my seat! One of many takeaways from Prince's death is the lost art of rock stars carrying themselves like rock stars. Prince never looked like a slob in public, and he didn't take promo shots for his albums that looked like black and white mug shots. Actually, even common criminals spend more on hair care than Radiohead. Replace comotose Thom Yorke in this video with any random down on his luck goof and what do you get? You get exactly the same turd of a video.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Prince RIP
In the 1980's you couldn't help but be a fan of Prince unless you hated contemporary music altogether. He was a sensation on record, on stage, and on screen. He had countless proteges who swarmed the charts under his guidance. He even appeared in the least obvious places -- it was only today that I learned he played keyboards on Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back".
A run of the mill, good-to-great artist's influence can be measured by the number of imitators they help spawn. Those rules don't apply to the legends though. They don't have imitators because they're too good to imitate. Nobody can even come close to duplicating what they do, and most don't even bother trying. Prince had plenty of clones in the 80's but that was because he was writing their music for them.
The first album I ever bought was "Purple Rain". I can't say I was ever a huge fan of Prince -- others will write about him from a more personal perspective much better than I can. But I loved "Let's Go Crazy". I saw it as fun, chaotic, immediate party music. I didn't care much for "When Doves Cry" in those days, and wouldn't really appreciate it for another ten or fifteen years.
Many artists feed off their own myths, leaving even their most devoted fans to helplessly sort through the blurred lines separating fact from fiction. Aphex Twin is one of those artists, with an origin story similar to Prince's. Self taught boy genius spends years honing his craft in relative solitude, apparently oblivious to what his contemporaries are doing, emerges with a fully formed sound that's light years ahead of what others can manage, continues living as a semi-recluse even at the height of their fame, hidden behind masks and head scratching aliases. All the while they record prolifically and amass a catalogue of music (including god knows how many unreleased albums) that takes decades to fully sift through.
At some point the artist has no choice but to perpetuate the myth because so much of their identity is wrapped up in it. Aphex Twin had collaborators in the early days. He was influenced by plenty of artists that he wouldn't admit to in interviews during the 90's. After enough time has passed they sometimes let their guard down. If you're lucky, the stuff that was too good to be true remains true (Aphex did buy that tank in the 90's and IIRC, he still has it).
Will the real story of the famously private Prince ever be known? Will anybody dominate a decade the way he did in the 80's, as arguably the top multi-instrumentalist, producer, writer, and performer? Today, the likes of Max Martin or Pharrell can claim maybe two or those four. Even Prince's tossed off junk -- such as "Nothing Compares 2 U", written for The Family but never released as a single -- became mega-hits in the hands of other artists.
It's a shocking, far too sudden loss for the music world. "He will be missed" can't even begin to cover it. Like him or not, Prince is irreplaceable, and we'll never see the likes of him again.
A run of the mill, good-to-great artist's influence can be measured by the number of imitators they help spawn. Those rules don't apply to the legends though. They don't have imitators because they're too good to imitate. Nobody can even come close to duplicating what they do, and most don't even bother trying. Prince had plenty of clones in the 80's but that was because he was writing their music for them.
The first album I ever bought was "Purple Rain". I can't say I was ever a huge fan of Prince -- others will write about him from a more personal perspective much better than I can. But I loved "Let's Go Crazy". I saw it as fun, chaotic, immediate party music. I didn't care much for "When Doves Cry" in those days, and wouldn't really appreciate it for another ten or fifteen years.
Many artists feed off their own myths, leaving even their most devoted fans to helplessly sort through the blurred lines separating fact from fiction. Aphex Twin is one of those artists, with an origin story similar to Prince's. Self taught boy genius spends years honing his craft in relative solitude, apparently oblivious to what his contemporaries are doing, emerges with a fully formed sound that's light years ahead of what others can manage, continues living as a semi-recluse even at the height of their fame, hidden behind masks and head scratching aliases. All the while they record prolifically and amass a catalogue of music (including god knows how many unreleased albums) that takes decades to fully sift through.
At some point the artist has no choice but to perpetuate the myth because so much of their identity is wrapped up in it. Aphex Twin had collaborators in the early days. He was influenced by plenty of artists that he wouldn't admit to in interviews during the 90's. After enough time has passed they sometimes let their guard down. If you're lucky, the stuff that was too good to be true remains true (Aphex did buy that tank in the 90's and IIRC, he still has it).
Will the real story of the famously private Prince ever be known? Will anybody dominate a decade the way he did in the 80's, as arguably the top multi-instrumentalist, producer, writer, and performer? Today, the likes of Max Martin or Pharrell can claim maybe two or those four. Even Prince's tossed off junk -- such as "Nothing Compares 2 U", written for The Family but never released as a single -- became mega-hits in the hands of other artists.
It's a shocking, far too sudden loss for the music world. "He will be missed" can't even begin to cover it. Like him or not, Prince is irreplaceable, and we'll never see the likes of him again.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Animal Collective, "Painting With"
Mike Powell's review of "Painting With" for Pitchfork was a gut punch read for me. It's the rare review that hit home not only as a vivid description of the music contained within, but as a personal memoir told through dissipated fandom. For about three years, from 2005-2008, I may have listened to Animal Collective more than any other band. Was that really a decade ago? It already seems like it was a thousand years ago.
This story doesn't have a sad ending. There's nothing wrong with "Painting With" -- it's fun, bright, giddy, and bursting with unconventionally creative hooks. But something is missing. It doesn't move me in the least. The same was true of their last album, "Centipede Hz". Listen, it's no big deal, like Powell says, "fifteen years is longer than most bands last, let alone great ones". Animal Collective will be fine with their side projects and third from the top festival appearances for the foreseeable future. But they'll never be the era-defining band they threatened to be several years ago.
Then again, as I showed four years ago, the unexpected success of "Merriweather Post Pavillion" was an outlier that comes along maybe once every couple of decades. The likely fallout from that type of flukey success wasn't clear to me then, but in hindsight it couldn't be more obvious. Great bands often need a few albums to work out their M.O., and fans need time to grow into their favourite bands. After approximately 4-6 years and 3-5 albums, it all peaks. In the Animal Collective timeline, the hardcore fans had already become disillusioned with what the band had become. The newer fans saw them as just another media driven fad, a view that was reinforced when the hardcore fan base became bored and started imploding. By the end of 2009, MPP might have been the default top album of the year in many polls, but the writing was already on the wall. Listeners were way oversaturated with all things Animal Collective, and no group of fans had much motivation for carrying the torch through to the next album for the reasons I described.
This story doesn't have a sad ending. There's nothing wrong with "Painting With" -- it's fun, bright, giddy, and bursting with unconventionally creative hooks. But something is missing. It doesn't move me in the least. The same was true of their last album, "Centipede Hz". Listen, it's no big deal, like Powell says, "fifteen years is longer than most bands last, let alone great ones". Animal Collective will be fine with their side projects and third from the top festival appearances for the foreseeable future. But they'll never be the era-defining band they threatened to be several years ago.
Then again, as I showed four years ago, the unexpected success of "Merriweather Post Pavillion" was an outlier that comes along maybe once every couple of decades. The likely fallout from that type of flukey success wasn't clear to me then, but in hindsight it couldn't be more obvious. Great bands often need a few albums to work out their M.O., and fans need time to grow into their favourite bands. After approximately 4-6 years and 3-5 albums, it all peaks. In the Animal Collective timeline, the hardcore fans had already become disillusioned with what the band had become. The newer fans saw them as just another media driven fad, a view that was reinforced when the hardcore fan base became bored and started imploding. By the end of 2009, MPP might have been the default top album of the year in many polls, but the writing was already on the wall. Listeners were way oversaturated with all things Animal Collective, and no group of fans had much motivation for carrying the torch through to the next album for the reasons I described.
Monday, April 11, 2016
The NYT can't be bothered with Coachella this year
Explained.
Translated:
-- Happenings at the most successful music festivals in the country apparently don't count as "news" anymore.
-- Bonaroo and Coachella and their like are social events, not musical events, and therefore aren't worth a music critic's time.
-- "Instead of covering the biggest festivals reflexively, we'll cover a number of smaller festivals with purpose" is the snobbiest sentence of music "criticism" you'll read this year.
Imagine if journalists in other fields were this aloof? The Superbowl has become so successful that it is no longer special. It's not even about football, it's a social event that revolves around prop bets, TV ad campaigns, and a glitzy, jingoistic halftime show. Instead of covering the Superbowl, we'll cover a number of high school football games with a purpose. In the best interests of football, of course. We love the game more than anyone!
I guess this is what happens when almost all the other daily papers have died off. Once the competition has gone out of business and there's nobody else around to cover the real news, you get to decide for yourself what counts as newsworthy. Narrative has replaced news, you say? Whatchu gonna do about it? Compete with us?
It's not about gaining a better understanding of an artist or contextualizing a subculture, obviously a live report from a festival isn't the best way to do that. But writing about music isn't, and shouldn't be a continual search for a greater meaning to the art form. In 1995, Jarvis Cocker sang "is this the way they say the future's meant to feel? Or just twenty thousand people standing in a field?" Pulp knew that most of the time, it's the latter, no more and no less. And that's OK.
Musicians are more dependent than ever before on building a loyal fanbase that will support their art through regular touring. The steady income provided by the festival circuit is a key cog in the economic engine that lets successful acts continue to be successful and to keep making great music. It's a shame that the NYT no longer finds that compelling.
Translated:
-- Happenings at the most successful music festivals in the country apparently don't count as "news" anymore.
-- Bonaroo and Coachella and their like are social events, not musical events, and therefore aren't worth a music critic's time.
-- "Instead of covering the biggest festivals reflexively, we'll cover a number of smaller festivals with purpose" is the snobbiest sentence of music "criticism" you'll read this year.
Imagine if journalists in other fields were this aloof? The Superbowl has become so successful that it is no longer special. It's not even about football, it's a social event that revolves around prop bets, TV ad campaigns, and a glitzy, jingoistic halftime show. Instead of covering the Superbowl, we'll cover a number of high school football games with a purpose. In the best interests of football, of course. We love the game more than anyone!
I guess this is what happens when almost all the other daily papers have died off. Once the competition has gone out of business and there's nobody else around to cover the real news, you get to decide for yourself what counts as newsworthy. Narrative has replaced news, you say? Whatchu gonna do about it? Compete with us?
It's not about gaining a better understanding of an artist or contextualizing a subculture, obviously a live report from a festival isn't the best way to do that. But writing about music isn't, and shouldn't be a continual search for a greater meaning to the art form. In 1995, Jarvis Cocker sang "is this the way they say the future's meant to feel? Or just twenty thousand people standing in a field?" Pulp knew that most of the time, it's the latter, no more and no less. And that's OK.
Musicians are more dependent than ever before on building a loyal fanbase that will support their art through regular touring. The steady income provided by the festival circuit is a key cog in the economic engine that lets successful acts continue to be successful and to keep making great music. It's a shame that the NYT no longer finds that compelling.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
The Billboard Power 100
This list was published about a month ago, so this is a bit of an old story. I've been browsing through it from time to time and there is a lot to process. Here are a few random thoughts:
-- Everyone in the top 10 is male, and there are just five women in the top 50.
-- The "I want to fuck you like an animal" guy is the third most powerful person in music as part of a digital sales and streaming conglomerate. Happiness in slavery indeed!
-- Lucian Grainge, the CEO of UMG, the most dominant music company in the history of the business, and the most powerful person in music according to this ranking, sees himself and his company as underdogs. No really, he said it!
-- About half of the top ten are in the live music promotion and management side of the business. That seems about right.
-- The teen pop svengalis like Scooter Braun and agents to the megastars like Jonathan Dickins (Adele's manager) start showing up in the 30's. These are the people filling the classic, old school management roles, whose job is to make their clients as famous as possible. None of them make excuses about being underdogs and having to take on multimedia empires and navigate labyrinthian revenue streams to make a living. Maybe because nobody wants to hear stars and their managers complain about how hard it is to become famous, so they learn to shut up and deal and exude confidence at all times. But in the upper strata of the list, a good many execs seem to want genius credit for diversifying their business model. Like in the good old days we could sell millions of CD's and artists could sit at home and make videos, but now we (reluctantly) have to do so much more to make our millions. Perhaps this is where the underdog mentality comes in -- they've had to leave their comfort zones and adapt in ways that two generations of predecessors haven't, and they see themselves as playing with a disadvantage because of it.
-- Everyone in the top 10 is male, and there are just five women in the top 50.
-- The "I want to fuck you like an animal" guy is the third most powerful person in music as part of a digital sales and streaming conglomerate. Happiness in slavery indeed!
-- Lucian Grainge, the CEO of UMG, the most dominant music company in the history of the business, and the most powerful person in music according to this ranking, sees himself and his company as underdogs. No really, he said it!
-- About half of the top ten are in the live music promotion and management side of the business. That seems about right.
-- The teen pop svengalis like Scooter Braun and agents to the megastars like Jonathan Dickins (Adele's manager) start showing up in the 30's. These are the people filling the classic, old school management roles, whose job is to make their clients as famous as possible. None of them make excuses about being underdogs and having to take on multimedia empires and navigate labyrinthian revenue streams to make a living. Maybe because nobody wants to hear stars and their managers complain about how hard it is to become famous, so they learn to shut up and deal and exude confidence at all times. But in the upper strata of the list, a good many execs seem to want genius credit for diversifying their business model. Like in the good old days we could sell millions of CD's and artists could sit at home and make videos, but now we (reluctantly) have to do so much more to make our millions. Perhaps this is where the underdog mentality comes in -- they've had to leave their comfort zones and adapt in ways that two generations of predecessors haven't, and they see themselves as playing with a disadvantage because of it.
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