Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Daniel Vangarde

No matter how much you think you know, musical six degrees of separation never ceases to yield new surprises.  My mind blowing factoid of the week: Thomas Bangalter's (Daft Punk) father wrote the disco/yacht-pop anthem "Hands Up" by "Ottawan", a near ubiquitous North American 80's TV jingle thanks to a million unavoidable Club Med ads.  This was revealed in the Daft Punk Unchained documentary several years ago, but I never saw it.

Vangarde is a fascinating person, and receives his due in a recent Guardian profile about the man and a recently released retrospective of his 70's and 80's recordings.  He wrote protest songs (which were banned in France), international disco smashes with Ottawan, and took up the cause of royalty rights for Jewish composers who were stripped of their rights during the Nazi occupation years.  One can easily draw a line between his combative attitude toward corporate music industry behemoths and Daft Punk's similarly uncompromising attitude.  In his retirement, Vangarde currently lives as something of a recluse in South America, sharing another similarity with his son who successfully keeps a low profile and avoids appearing in public despite achieving fame at the highest echelons of the music industry.  

Daft Punk retained artistic control of their career from the mid-90's onward, which would be nearly impossible today in the era of pop albums curated by a small army of outside songwriters and producers.  It makes sense if Vangarde did in fact advise them not to settle for anything less than complete control of their work and image.  How did they get away with it?  Daft Punk came along at the ideal time, long before EDM became a buzzword and a billion dollar industry.  In the 90's, companies knew that "electronica" was on the rise but had no clue how to go about marketing it.  The usual A&R strategies wouldn't work with faceless artists who recorded in their home studios and didn't play traditional concerts. Industry types had to make it up on the fly, and engage with artists on a case by case basis.  The Prodigy were a visually arresting group who could make eye-catching music videos.  Chemical Brothers were nothing to look at, but could be promoted as rock crossover artists.  Daft Punk weren't "rock" in the least, but their music had a more underground, exotic quality to it that could make up for the fact that the band members wanted to remain in the shadows.  And they could afford to keep their heads down if Spike Jonze produced their buzzworthy videos.  

So the industry let them do what they want, likely believing that the band wouldn't last long enough or get big enough to earn serious money.  They probably didn't feel like they were signing away that much in terms of future earnings or control.  It's also important to remember that the electronic music scene in Paris was miniscule compared with the more famous hubs in the US and Britain.  What were the chances of a couple of reclusive French teenagers actually breaking out into something big?    

Wednesday, November 09, 2022

Harry Styles vs Robbie Williams

While watching clips of Harry Styles' remarkable 15-night residence at Madison Square Garden in September, I found myself wondering: why didn't this happen with Robbie?  

Their CV's couldn't be more similar.  Teenage superstars with that decade's biggest boy band.  Became the breakout solo star of the group with a series of incendiary singles, and a quick succession of albums, each one bigger than the last.  Live, they present a stripped down setup featuring the band, the singer, and not much else.  No dancers, elaborate stage decorations, or video screen distractions.  The shows are driven by the singers incredible charisma, and their rare and innate ability to seem larger than life while also forging a personal connection with everyone in the audience.

Robbie didn't, or couldn't break into the American market.  In the UK and Europe he was a superstar, one of the top two or three selling artists at his peak, setting records for fastest ticket sales for his concert tours.  He moved to the US.  It didn't help him break the market.  

Nobody books fifteen nights at MSG as a trial experiment.  They do it because the demand is there.  Except that this level of demand is virtually unprecedented.  And now he's doing it again on the west coast!  

During their prime, Take That's songs were unknown in North America.  I would read about them in the NME or Select, who weren't in the business of covering boy bands but Take That were too dominant of a cultural force to ignore.  Except that I had no way of hearing the songs.  The indie shops I frequented weren't importing UK boy band records.  The big chains weren't selling their records, not without regular airplay and live tours.  Only "Back For Good" got regular play, but the band had chosen to split up by that point.  When Robbie began his solo career, nobody in America knew who he was.  

You can't play down the role of social media and streaming services in helping to break Harry Styles.  One Direction were worldwide stars, even to audiences who had never watched the episodes of X-Factor that birthed them.  Downloading or streaming their music can be done instantly.  Styles was already a familiar name.  Twenty years ago, many people predicted the death of the monoculture.  They said a Michael Jackson type of megastar would never come around again, the music business was too fragmented.   There were so many disparate ways to discover music and such a massive proliferation of artists that we, as a culture, would never agree on anyone ever again.  The opposite has happened.  Megastars like Harry Styles, Adele, and Taylor Swift have never been bigger.  The echo chamber of social media can create a world famous artist in ways that the 80's generation of artists couldn't have dreamed of.      

Sunday, November 06, 2022

Mimi Parker RIP

I was dumbstruck this evening by the devastating news that Mimi Parker has died.  I hadn't heard about her cancer diagnosis, which she made public a little over half a year ago.  

I was lucky to see Low a few times, and it is a singular experience to watch a band play in front of a completely silent crowd.  The lightest brush of a snare drum, pluck of a guitar string, or deep breath between phrases could be easily heard.  Amidst such suspended tension, even a voice as gentle as Mimi's would cut through the air and chill your bones.  I recall some controversy around the release of "The Great Destroyer", some fans were upset that Mimi didn't have a solo performance.  I couldn't understand the complaints, because for me she is everywhere on that album, her voice together with Alan's form a special timbre that no other group could replicate. 

Over the last few years, and even against the expectations of many of their fans, Low hit a critical and artistic peak.  Mimi had been the angelic voice fronting the band's most tender moments, and there are too many to mention: "Two Step", "Lazer Beam", "In Metal".  On their last two albums, it turned out that she was equally talented at vocalizing the soundtrack to nihilistic chaos, technological confusion, and extreme political uncertainty.