I was taken aback by the level of hostility toward Dan Brooks' recent article in the NYT Magazine, entitled "Streaming Music Has Left Me Adrift". Your take depends completely on whether you read the article as sincere, or tongue-in-cheek. For me, Brooks is engaging in bittersweet nostalgia about the past, but for many others, he's hopelessly stuck in the past and highly critical of the present.
How this article is perceived is particularly important to me because there are many similarities between Brooks' style of writing and my own. I write stories about the way things were (according to me and all my inherent biases) all the time. But fondly reminiscing about the past isn't the same as wishing we were still living in the past, or even approval of how things were in the past. A lot of what Brooks is saying comes off as quaint snickering about the way things were. Remembrances of the days before cell phones and TV remote controls would be similarly quaint and hilariously dated.
Brooks' article reads like what his 20 years ago self would have written about musical culture today. His insulting take on "objectively hideous" major label music of the 80's and 90's is something that a 90's alternative music critic would have written about the rock music of the 80's. There are too many nods and winks in the article (linking Journey and Smashmouth as the prime examples of this kind of dreck cracked me up) to suggest that Brooks doesn't know it's a dated method of criticism.
Music listening and purchasing used to be done mostly at home and in record shops. Now we listen almost everywhere but at home, and track down music online before making even the most rudimentary purchased. Surely we have lost something along the way. I miss hanging around record stores, and yes, which record stores you frequented did say something about your personality in the same way that the bars you frequented did (and still do). It was fun, but the experience has been de-romanticized by countless writers and even movies like "High Fidelity". Record store clerks really would snicker at their customer's purchases and insult them after they'd left the store. At the time it was fun (I never worked in a record store, but I enjoyed the atmosphere, even the hostility and yes even some of the snobbery), but I don't want to relive it again.
Nobody's debating the inherent sexism of fetishizing the female record store clerks or the dewy-eyed naivete of trying to date girls with "acceptably" cool CD collections. This stuff really happened! The debate is about how sincere Brooks is being when he writes that "the major labels have collapsed and ruined dating too". Many people are assuming he's being sincere. I think he's laughing at himself. .
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
RIP Mark Bell
In 1990, Gez Varley and Mark Bell aka LFO released their eponymous debut single. If they'd both retired from music after that, they'd still be spoken about in reverent tones by techno fans everywhere. The single was an instant classic, and the creators became folk heroes renowned for their abilities make subwoofers waltz around the room or destroy them altogether. "LFO", the single, recalls a specific time and place (the height of early 90`s British rave music) more vividly that any other record of its time. It's like the Haight-Ashbury of 90's techno -- we get dewy-eyed and nostalgic about it much the former flower kids of the 60's do about their beloved golden age. It's the kind of nostalgia that you always feel good about wallowing in.
LFO accomplished a lot more though. The follow-up single, "We Are Back" was also an instant classic (and even better than "LFO", depending on the day that you ask me the question), and their debut album, "Frequencies" was yet another outstanding effort that still ranks high on many "best techno albums" lists. After a long layoff, the second LFO album "Advance" finally appeared and easily exceeded expectations. Whereas many of their early 90's peers (Prodigy, Utah Saints) continued releasing music as if the rave had never really stopped, LFO shifted gears entirely into a maximalist wall of sound style of techno that they virtually invented and that still sounds fresh and vital nearly 20 years later. Quaking bass, ringing chimes, tracks that built into furious climaxes and slowly dissolved away, much of it wasn't easy to dance to but seemed like the future of club music anyhow. "Advance", FWIW, was my third favourite album of 1996 and is easily the best thing LFO ever did as far as I'm concerned.
They weren't done though. Varley and Bell went their separate ways shortly afterward. Varley released a number of essential records under his own name and as G-Man and became a minimal techno godfather of sorts. Bell released just one more album as LFO but more importantly, make the completely unprecedented leap into music production. He worked on several of Bjork's albums beginning with "Homogenic" and was the sole producer on Depeche Mode's "Exciter". Bell joined a very exclusive club of producers who gained legitimacy and importance outside the dance music scene. Indeed, outside of those who have worked with Madonna at some point, it's hard to think of any others who started out as DIY club kids making techno in their bedrooms and ended up producing some of the world's most respected acts.
Bell was like that one kid who escaped the small town for the big city and managed to make it on its own. Except he didn't let the city transform him, he didn't survive in the jungle by learning how to play by the rules of the natives. He didn't get swallowed up, rather, it was the opposite -- the big boys came knocking on his door because they wanted to conform to him, to sound more like him, to use his ideas to keep them on the cutting edge. No matter how big he got, Bell always seemed like "one of us", the local boy who made good. And now, sadly, he's gone.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees 2014
These ballots have gotten more and more interesting for me over the years, as the music I grew up with (as opposed to the music my parents' generation grew up with) gets added to the ballot. Let's go through the nominees, in the approximate order of their likelihood to get elected (i.e. approximated by my completely unscientific methodology aka MODO):
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. They seem like the token first wave punk/new wave act on the ballot, their look and sound may be timeless but they don't have the string of inescapable hits to match.
NWA. Influential and incredibly important to the history of hip hop, but so were 2 Live Crew. I'm not sure they should get in when there are hugely successful hip-hop acts with far more longevity (including solo careers of NWA members) who are waiting to get in and will be waiting to get in once the big 90's stars (Jay-Z, Snoop, 2Pac) become eligible.
War. More of an idea than a great band, no?
The Smiths. For a subset of my generation, this is a no brainer -- they're the most iconic British indie band ever, influenced generations of bands, and inspired the kind of fan devotion that few in the RnR HOF can claim. They even burned brightly for five years and split up and how rock and roll is that?
They're not getting in any time soon. The average HOF voter sees the Smiths as a bunch of fey Brits and a microphenomenon that would have broken through in the US if it was worth anything. They're not getting in while The Cure and Depeche Mode, two bands with immeasurably higher profiles in North America (and 20 + years more success), are still longshots to get in. The acceptance speeches would be must see TV, but dream on, Morrissey fans.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I don't think anyone has a clue why they're being considered for induction, but it's not their first nomination so somebody up there likes them a lot.
Chic. On the other hand, it's inconceivable that Chic haven't been inducted yet, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Releasing two of the biggest selling singles of all time and spearheading an entire genre should be enough, no? Of course the problem is that disco is for gay people or isn't real virtuoso music like Eric Clapton or isn't rock and roll or take your pick of flimsy excuses. As I said, they haven't been inducted yet, but in the same way that hip-hop has never received a Grammy for Song of the Year, it makes perfect sense because we already know the reasons why.
Nine Inch Nails. It won't happen this year, but Trent Reznor's eventual induction feels kind of inevitable, doesn't it? He helped fuse industrial and rock, brought it into the mainstream when there was absolutely no precedent for anything like it in the charts, has one Oscar in the bag and might win another this year -- it's an impressive resume.
Kraftwerk. Another band that absolutely belongs in any Hall of Fame in any genre and would be on my shortlist for the greatest band of all time. I doubt that the average Joe Cleveland rock fan "gets" Kraftwerk in even the slightest way. Voters probably know that they're important via reputation and association, in the same way that they know that Stephen Hawking is a famous physicist without understanding anything about his work or having read anything that he wrote.
The Spinners. They have the longevity, and if they're going to be inducted then it's probably good to do it while there's still one living original member.
Stevie Ray Vaughn. You mean he's not already in? He's a legend who could shred and died far too young, it's a HOF blueprint. However, 95% of rock and roll fans with a casual association with SRV couldn't name a single one of his songs. He's great by reputation, but he absolutely deserves that reputation. Why isn't he in?
Lou Reed. He died last year, which explains the timing of the nomination. But he's been eligible since 1997 and the Velvet Underground were inducted in 1995, so if his solo career was considered Hall-worthy then he would have been in a long time ago. Still, his name value is high so you never know. Speaking of name value ...
The Marvelettes. Frankly, this is a ludicrous nomination. They had one big hit. I can't imagine Lou Bega getting nominated in 2024 when he's eligible. Oh, but their one hit was on Motown, and every Motown band from the 60's gets enshrined eventually. What's more, it was Motown's first number one, which seems like it should count for something but really doesn't. If it wasn't the Marvelettes, another Motown band would have been the first, the bands were practically interchangeable. You can't claim that they "influenced" anybody, because all Motown records were written and recorded by the same people in exactly the same style. They were a hit factory, and the Marvelettes were one of the names that happened to appear on the sleeve of the record.
Still, it's Motown, so you never know.
Bill Withers. Great voice, great songwriter, great performer, a decade's worth of pop and R&B hits including a few that have been in heavy rotation since the day they were recorded.
Bill Withers got me thinking about the rising standards of the Hall of Fame. He seems to pass the smell test of a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, but he had just four top ten hits, one number one hit, and two Gold albums in his career. Red Hot Chili Peppers sold 80 million albums and were one of the world's biggest bands for twenty years and counting. It seems like you need to be on the U2/RHCP level to be a sure thing if you started in the 80's or later.
Bill Withers was perfect for his time without necessarily being a leader in his time. He crystallized the sound of the 70's but wasn't original enough or popular enough to survive once the industry moved on. The vast majority of bands don't adapt or fit into any era except the one they broke through in. A select few, like Bill Withers, can rise above and be remembered decades later. A select few from the select few can still sound contemporary (RCHP) or find ways to adapt (Madonna) long past the time they could have faded away without a trace. The 90's equivalent of Bill Withers in R&B might be All-4-One and they won't be getting into the RnR HOF.
Green Day. They'll get in. If you'd asked me in 1994 if their songs about wanking would be one day HOF-worthy, I'd have laughed but yet here we are.
Sting. He's been a kind of punchline for 25 years as the pompous MOR cure for amnesia who won't hesitate to gross you out with his tantric exploits, but he's a legend to the people who run the HOF. He's already in as a member of the Police and he'll get in again as a solo performer.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. They seem like the token first wave punk/new wave act on the ballot, their look and sound may be timeless but they don't have the string of inescapable hits to match.
NWA. Influential and incredibly important to the history of hip hop, but so were 2 Live Crew. I'm not sure they should get in when there are hugely successful hip-hop acts with far more longevity (including solo careers of NWA members) who are waiting to get in and will be waiting to get in once the big 90's stars (Jay-Z, Snoop, 2Pac) become eligible.
War. More of an idea than a great band, no?
The Smiths. For a subset of my generation, this is a no brainer -- they're the most iconic British indie band ever, influenced generations of bands, and inspired the kind of fan devotion that few in the RnR HOF can claim. They even burned brightly for five years and split up and how rock and roll is that?
They're not getting in any time soon. The average HOF voter sees the Smiths as a bunch of fey Brits and a microphenomenon that would have broken through in the US if it was worth anything. They're not getting in while The Cure and Depeche Mode, two bands with immeasurably higher profiles in North America (and 20 + years more success), are still longshots to get in. The acceptance speeches would be must see TV, but dream on, Morrissey fans.
The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I don't think anyone has a clue why they're being considered for induction, but it's not their first nomination so somebody up there likes them a lot.
Chic. On the other hand, it's inconceivable that Chic haven't been inducted yet, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Releasing two of the biggest selling singles of all time and spearheading an entire genre should be enough, no? Of course the problem is that disco is for gay people or isn't real virtuoso music like Eric Clapton or isn't rock and roll or take your pick of flimsy excuses. As I said, they haven't been inducted yet, but in the same way that hip-hop has never received a Grammy for Song of the Year, it makes perfect sense because we already know the reasons why.
Nine Inch Nails. It won't happen this year, but Trent Reznor's eventual induction feels kind of inevitable, doesn't it? He helped fuse industrial and rock, brought it into the mainstream when there was absolutely no precedent for anything like it in the charts, has one Oscar in the bag and might win another this year -- it's an impressive resume.
Kraftwerk. Another band that absolutely belongs in any Hall of Fame in any genre and would be on my shortlist for the greatest band of all time. I doubt that the average Joe Cleveland rock fan "gets" Kraftwerk in even the slightest way. Voters probably know that they're important via reputation and association, in the same way that they know that Stephen Hawking is a famous physicist without understanding anything about his work or having read anything that he wrote.
The Spinners. They have the longevity, and if they're going to be inducted then it's probably good to do it while there's still one living original member.
Stevie Ray Vaughn. You mean he's not already in? He's a legend who could shred and died far too young, it's a HOF blueprint. However, 95% of rock and roll fans with a casual association with SRV couldn't name a single one of his songs. He's great by reputation, but he absolutely deserves that reputation. Why isn't he in?
Lou Reed. He died last year, which explains the timing of the nomination. But he's been eligible since 1997 and the Velvet Underground were inducted in 1995, so if his solo career was considered Hall-worthy then he would have been in a long time ago. Still, his name value is high so you never know. Speaking of name value ...
The Marvelettes. Frankly, this is a ludicrous nomination. They had one big hit. I can't imagine Lou Bega getting nominated in 2024 when he's eligible. Oh, but their one hit was on Motown, and every Motown band from the 60's gets enshrined eventually. What's more, it was Motown's first number one, which seems like it should count for something but really doesn't. If it wasn't the Marvelettes, another Motown band would have been the first, the bands were practically interchangeable. You can't claim that they "influenced" anybody, because all Motown records were written and recorded by the same people in exactly the same style. They were a hit factory, and the Marvelettes were one of the names that happened to appear on the sleeve of the record.
Still, it's Motown, so you never know.
Bill Withers. Great voice, great songwriter, great performer, a decade's worth of pop and R&B hits including a few that have been in heavy rotation since the day they were recorded.
Bill Withers got me thinking about the rising standards of the Hall of Fame. He seems to pass the smell test of a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, but he had just four top ten hits, one number one hit, and two Gold albums in his career. Red Hot Chili Peppers sold 80 million albums and were one of the world's biggest bands for twenty years and counting. It seems like you need to be on the U2/RHCP level to be a sure thing if you started in the 80's or later.
Bill Withers was perfect for his time without necessarily being a leader in his time. He crystallized the sound of the 70's but wasn't original enough or popular enough to survive once the industry moved on. The vast majority of bands don't adapt or fit into any era except the one they broke through in. A select few, like Bill Withers, can rise above and be remembered decades later. A select few from the select few can still sound contemporary (RCHP) or find ways to adapt (Madonna) long past the time they could have faded away without a trace. The 90's equivalent of Bill Withers in R&B might be All-4-One and they won't be getting into the RnR HOF.
Green Day. They'll get in. If you'd asked me in 1994 if their songs about wanking would be one day HOF-worthy, I'd have laughed but yet here we are.
Sting. He's been a kind of punchline for 25 years as the pompous MOR cure for amnesia who won't hesitate to gross you out with his tantric exploits, but he's a legend to the people who run the HOF. He's already in as a member of the Police and he'll get in again as a solo performer.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Britney Spears, "Baby One More Time"
This is completely unrelated to my "40 for 40" btw ...
This is a tremendous writeup of Britney's debut single from the UK #1's blog, Popular.
Tom really nails it here -- he sets the scene for the album sales-inflated late 90's, defends Spears against derogatory "manufactured pop" charges, and describes why the song was practically destined to dominate the charts.
His only stumble is in his take on Britney's voice and it's well-known limitations. On "Baby One More Time", they covered up her deficiencies well, but without Autotuning her out of existence or drowning her out with background singers or other production tricks. Ewing goes on to write that "it’s not until the breakthrough into full-on R&B and club pop that she (and the producers) can really start playing with it [her voice], and with her role in the song".
I think he's giving short thrift to Britney and to the superstar producers that would become household names in the next decade. This is definitely a case where US/North American and UK/European experiences diverge. In the US, before Britney, R&B oriented chart pop by female artists was dominated by the big voiced Diva. You aspired to be Whitney Houston or else. Toni Braxton, TLC, Mariah Carey, and Whitney herself all took turns barricading themselves at the top of the Hot 100 for years. Just a few months before Whitney's breakthrough, diva worship reached its apex with the extraordinary success of Brandy and Monica's "The Boy Is Mine", which was #1 for the entire summer of 1998 (13 weeks). The popularity of this music showed no signs of waning whatsoever.
But seemingly out of nowhere, Britney changed the narrative completely. Suddenly, the focus was on the song rather than the quality of the voice behind the song. Manufacturing songs and stars, rather than seeking out the most god-given singing talent and accelerating its rise to the top, became acceptable again. This meant that producers were free to create rather than accentuate the same Boyz II Men-inspired vocal melodies again and again.
The Spice Girls owed their success to many of the same ideas, but Christina Aguilera and a million other teen pop idols weren't swarming the charts within months of their debut.
The idea of a manufactured star backed by a producer/svengali figure responsible for the studio magic was hardly new, it was just long overdue by '99. Ewing even mentioned the Shangri-La's, who are a perfect comparison to Britney. They weren't much better than passable singers either, but to analyze their vocal intonations would also be missing the point.
Within a few years, every teen idol and tabloid semi-celeb this side of Hillary Duff and Paris Hilton would be making albums -- hit albums even -- with the best producers money could buy, and nobody would blink an eye.
This is a tremendous writeup of Britney's debut single from the UK #1's blog, Popular.
Tom really nails it here -- he sets the scene for the album sales-inflated late 90's, defends Spears against derogatory "manufactured pop" charges, and describes why the song was practically destined to dominate the charts.
His only stumble is in his take on Britney's voice and it's well-known limitations. On "Baby One More Time", they covered up her deficiencies well, but without Autotuning her out of existence or drowning her out with background singers or other production tricks. Ewing goes on to write that "it’s not until the breakthrough into full-on R&B and club pop that she (and the producers) can really start playing with it [her voice], and with her role in the song".
I think he's giving short thrift to Britney and to the superstar producers that would become household names in the next decade. This is definitely a case where US/North American and UK/European experiences diverge. In the US, before Britney, R&B oriented chart pop by female artists was dominated by the big voiced Diva. You aspired to be Whitney Houston or else. Toni Braxton, TLC, Mariah Carey, and Whitney herself all took turns barricading themselves at the top of the Hot 100 for years. Just a few months before Whitney's breakthrough, diva worship reached its apex with the extraordinary success of Brandy and Monica's "The Boy Is Mine", which was #1 for the entire summer of 1998 (13 weeks). The popularity of this music showed no signs of waning whatsoever.
But seemingly out of nowhere, Britney changed the narrative completely. Suddenly, the focus was on the song rather than the quality of the voice behind the song. Manufacturing songs and stars, rather than seeking out the most god-given singing talent and accelerating its rise to the top, became acceptable again. This meant that producers were free to create rather than accentuate the same Boyz II Men-inspired vocal melodies again and again.
The Spice Girls owed their success to many of the same ideas, but Christina Aguilera and a million other teen pop idols weren't swarming the charts within months of their debut.
The idea of a manufactured star backed by a producer/svengali figure responsible for the studio magic was hardly new, it was just long overdue by '99. Ewing even mentioned the Shangri-La's, who are a perfect comparison to Britney. They weren't much better than passable singers either, but to analyze their vocal intonations would also be missing the point.
Within a few years, every teen idol and tabloid semi-celeb this side of Hillary Duff and Paris Hilton would be making albums -- hit albums even -- with the best producers money could buy, and nobody would blink an eye.
Monday, September 15, 2014
Inner City, "Big Fun"
I've decided to cut this song from my "40 for 40" list.
My serious dance/club music fandom began in earnest in '89-'90. At the time (as it is now), my interest in the music was mainly fueled via outlets that didn't involve going out to the actual clubs. You had to be of drinking age (19+) to get into most of the good club nights anyhow, so at least I had a convenient excuse. I'd tune into CFNY's live radio simulcasts from RPM, and browse through vinyl and dance club charts at the shops on Yonge Street on the weekends. RPM closed in the mid-90's and was reopened as part of the expanded Guvernment complex that occupies the same site on Queens Quay East in Toronto. Unfortunately, it is slated to close its doors for good in January 2015. With Sunrise Records announcing the closure of their Yonge Street shops this November, the flagship HMV store and Play de Record are now the last music stores on a strip that was packed with them for decades. The 90's in Toronto already seem like another era.
In many ways it was a golden age for dance music. I've lost count of the number of times that dance, or EDM, or whatever you want to call it, was about to cross over into the mainstream and blow up all over the world, according to rock critics supposedly in the know. The top dance producers of the time were too busy counting their money to care about such trivial labels. Black Box's "Ride on Time" was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1989. C + C Music Factory's first album went 5x platinum in the US, and "Gonna Make You Sweat" was #1 on the Hot 100. Dee-Lite went from having a buzz in the underground to being played at your cousin's wedding seemingly overnight.
The most unexpected mainstream crossover was from Kevin Saunderson and his Inner City project. At the time, it seemed like an organic and natural transition from the clubs to the radio. They had catchy songs, hedonistic summer-ready lyrics, female vocalists who could belt out a tune with the best of them, so what's not to get? As the years have passed though, I'm increasingly blown away by what Saunderson managed to accomplish. Derrick May and Juan Atkins seem to get more respect from the uber-devoted techno heads for laying down the blueprint of what Detroit techno was and what for the most part, it still continues to be. "Detroit" is an adjective mostly thanks to May and Atkins. Saunderson, in comparison, was a populist who had his songs briefly played on the radio. I felt the same way for a long time. Derrick May's "Innovator" compilation was the Rosetta Stone of techno, no less than required listening for anyone who planned to carry on a serious conversation about the music. On the other hand, Saunderson's success was something of a fluke. He was an oppurtunist who happened to be in the right place at the right time and managed to get his album recorded first.
I was wrong, and it wasn't even the "Faces and Phases" compilation that convinced me of how wrong I was (great as it is, it doesn't even contain any of the big Inner City hits). Twenty five years later, in a genre where records often sound dated before the year is over, Inner City's parade of hits still stand out as some of the finest mainstream techno ever recorded. The most amazing thing is that Saunderson took a then-regional micro genre and found a way to fast track this music into the charts, creating a market that almost nobody knew existed. This wasn't like Madonna collaborating with a hot producer with a 5-10 year track record of success, he took his cues from virtually nobody.
My list needed a song that would symbolize that era when dance music streams were crossing over with each other and into the mainstream at a breakneck pace. I was profoundly influences by the era and the styles of music, which set the stage for all my future forays into techno. So who better to represent it than the iconic "Big Fun" by Inner City, my favourite techno hitmakers of the late 80's?
The problem is that as integral as Inner City might be for contextualizing the music I listened to in '89 and throughout my life, this list is first and foremost a songs list. Representing eras is important (this is certainly the case with other songs on the list) but I couldn't justify including "Big Fun" instead of other songs that I couldn't live and breathe without hearing. There are plenty of songs that were representative of my taste in music and defined who I was at the time to the point that my interest in those songs became a calculated obsession.
I couldn't even decide on a standout Inner City song. I think I've tended to prefer "Good Life" over the years but "Big Fun" sounds more like a classic -- a proper introduction to the band and what they were doing -- mainly thanks to that killer opening riff. But "Ain't Nobody Better" is great too, and if we're looking at Saunderson's career apart from Inner City, I was (and still am) crazy over Reese's "Rock To the Beat", and the deliriously fine Detroit mix of New Order's "Round and Round". Was Saunderson on fire in those days or what?
In short, the "40 for 40" list is about telling stories, but first and foremost it's about standout songs. Sometimes it will favour the the artist with one song that drove me crazy over the artist with a consistently strong output.
My serious dance/club music fandom began in earnest in '89-'90. At the time (as it is now), my interest in the music was mainly fueled via outlets that didn't involve going out to the actual clubs. You had to be of drinking age (19+) to get into most of the good club nights anyhow, so at least I had a convenient excuse. I'd tune into CFNY's live radio simulcasts from RPM, and browse through vinyl and dance club charts at the shops on Yonge Street on the weekends. RPM closed in the mid-90's and was reopened as part of the expanded Guvernment complex that occupies the same site on Queens Quay East in Toronto. Unfortunately, it is slated to close its doors for good in January 2015. With Sunrise Records announcing the closure of their Yonge Street shops this November, the flagship HMV store and Play de Record are now the last music stores on a strip that was packed with them for decades. The 90's in Toronto already seem like another era.
In many ways it was a golden age for dance music. I've lost count of the number of times that dance, or EDM, or whatever you want to call it, was about to cross over into the mainstream and blow up all over the world, according to rock critics supposedly in the know. The top dance producers of the time were too busy counting their money to care about such trivial labels. Black Box's "Ride on Time" was the biggest selling single in the UK in 1989. C + C Music Factory's first album went 5x platinum in the US, and "Gonna Make You Sweat" was #1 on the Hot 100. Dee-Lite went from having a buzz in the underground to being played at your cousin's wedding seemingly overnight.
The most unexpected mainstream crossover was from Kevin Saunderson and his Inner City project. At the time, it seemed like an organic and natural transition from the clubs to the radio. They had catchy songs, hedonistic summer-ready lyrics, female vocalists who could belt out a tune with the best of them, so what's not to get? As the years have passed though, I'm increasingly blown away by what Saunderson managed to accomplish. Derrick May and Juan Atkins seem to get more respect from the uber-devoted techno heads for laying down the blueprint of what Detroit techno was and what for the most part, it still continues to be. "Detroit" is an adjective mostly thanks to May and Atkins. Saunderson, in comparison, was a populist who had his songs briefly played on the radio. I felt the same way for a long time. Derrick May's "Innovator" compilation was the Rosetta Stone of techno, no less than required listening for anyone who planned to carry on a serious conversation about the music. On the other hand, Saunderson's success was something of a fluke. He was an oppurtunist who happened to be in the right place at the right time and managed to get his album recorded first.
I was wrong, and it wasn't even the "Faces and Phases" compilation that convinced me of how wrong I was (great as it is, it doesn't even contain any of the big Inner City hits). Twenty five years later, in a genre where records often sound dated before the year is over, Inner City's parade of hits still stand out as some of the finest mainstream techno ever recorded. The most amazing thing is that Saunderson took a then-regional micro genre and found a way to fast track this music into the charts, creating a market that almost nobody knew existed. This wasn't like Madonna collaborating with a hot producer with a 5-10 year track record of success, he took his cues from virtually nobody.
My list needed a song that would symbolize that era when dance music streams were crossing over with each other and into the mainstream at a breakneck pace. I was profoundly influences by the era and the styles of music, which set the stage for all my future forays into techno. So who better to represent it than the iconic "Big Fun" by Inner City, my favourite techno hitmakers of the late 80's?
The problem is that as integral as Inner City might be for contextualizing the music I listened to in '89 and throughout my life, this list is first and foremost a songs list. Representing eras is important (this is certainly the case with other songs on the list) but I couldn't justify including "Big Fun" instead of other songs that I couldn't live and breathe without hearing. There are plenty of songs that were representative of my taste in music and defined who I was at the time to the point that my interest in those songs became a calculated obsession.
I couldn't even decide on a standout Inner City song. I think I've tended to prefer "Good Life" over the years but "Big Fun" sounds more like a classic -- a proper introduction to the band and what they were doing -- mainly thanks to that killer opening riff. But "Ain't Nobody Better" is great too, and if we're looking at Saunderson's career apart from Inner City, I was (and still am) crazy over Reese's "Rock To the Beat", and the deliriously fine Detroit mix of New Order's "Round and Round". Was Saunderson on fire in those days or what?
In short, the "40 for 40" list is about telling stories, but first and foremost it's about standout songs. Sometimes it will favour the the artist with one song that drove me crazy over the artist with a consistently strong output.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
U2 and Apple
The release of a new U2 album for free to 500 million iTunes users has become arguably the biggest music story of the year. I'm surprised that a) they managed to keep it (relatively) secret up to the moment it was announced, and b) nobody has tried to spin "Songs of Innocence" into the "biggest" or "fastest" "selling" album of all time.
A multi-billion dollar corporation has joined with a band of megamultimillionaires to pull an end around the music industry and force their product onto consumers who may not even want it. It certainly sounds bad to have it phrased it like that. Is this kind of practice bad for music fans, as virtually every music critic has been claiming? I don't see how one could argue otherwise. But it is really all that different than what has already been going on? Has a significant line been crossed here? I'm not convinced of that.
In my post about Lady Gaga at SXSW, I wrote that mainstream music seems to be heading toward a model where a small number of wealthy patrons (or companies) will support the work of an equally small number of artists. The arts thrived with this type of funding structure for centuries. Did it provide work opportunities to anyone other than a select few? Did it give consumers (i.e. extremely wealthy people in the proper social circles) much choice about what to listen to? No. But a small number of excellent artists were able to thrive and produce meaningful work.
We're going to be left with a very small number of obscenely funded artists at the top of the food chain, and a huge number of talented people barely able to make a living in music. The music of the rich will be well preserved and easily tracked down by future generations, and the music of the folkspeople will be fractured into so many mini-scenes that it'll remain difficult to collect and process, with or without the internet.
In fact, this is more or less the setup we already have, except that the wealthy patrons are the major labels, who for the time being can fund a relatively large number of artists each (but a much smaller number of artists than they did a generation ago). The majors seem destined to die out within another generation, which will separate the wheat from the chaff even further. Music will be distributed in increasingly creative ways, but seeing bands live on tour may be more difficult unless they're funded by the right sponsors looking to leech off their cred. Rock and pop might have to start taking cues from EDM -- the selling point is the DJ and the party atmosphere first, and the music they actually play comes second.
A multi-billion dollar corporation has joined with a band of megamultimillionaires to pull an end around the music industry and force their product onto consumers who may not even want it. It certainly sounds bad to have it phrased it like that. Is this kind of practice bad for music fans, as virtually every music critic has been claiming? I don't see how one could argue otherwise. But it is really all that different than what has already been going on? Has a significant line been crossed here? I'm not convinced of that.
In my post about Lady Gaga at SXSW, I wrote that mainstream music seems to be heading toward a model where a small number of wealthy patrons (or companies) will support the work of an equally small number of artists. The arts thrived with this type of funding structure for centuries. Did it provide work opportunities to anyone other than a select few? Did it give consumers (i.e. extremely wealthy people in the proper social circles) much choice about what to listen to? No. But a small number of excellent artists were able to thrive and produce meaningful work.
We're going to be left with a very small number of obscenely funded artists at the top of the food chain, and a huge number of talented people barely able to make a living in music. The music of the rich will be well preserved and easily tracked down by future generations, and the music of the folkspeople will be fractured into so many mini-scenes that it'll remain difficult to collect and process, with or without the internet.
In fact, this is more or less the setup we already have, except that the wealthy patrons are the major labels, who for the time being can fund a relatively large number of artists each (but a much smaller number of artists than they did a generation ago). The majors seem destined to die out within another generation, which will separate the wheat from the chaff even further. Music will be distributed in increasingly creative ways, but seeing bands live on tour may be more difficult unless they're funded by the right sponsors looking to leech off their cred. Rock and pop might have to start taking cues from EDM -- the selling point is the DJ and the party atmosphere first, and the music they actually play comes second.
Sunday, September 07, 2014
The Pitchfork 500 and my own 40 for 40
Earlier this year, I read the Pitchfork 500 book from cover to cover. The format is a bit exhausting -- five hundred blurbs of 100-150 words each -- and if you don't already know most of the songs I'm not sure how much you can really get out of the book. There were maybe thirty truly excellent write-ups that either really made me want to hear the song (if it was one I didn't know) or forced me to think differently about something I thought I already understood quite well. I would classify another one hundred or so as "good" or "very good", and the rest were just kind of there. The forced editorial style of constantly quoting from the lyrics of the songs and trying to connect those few lines to the criticism of the song simply didn't do it for me most of the time. Ninety nine percent of music lyrics lose their power to captivate when removed from the context of the music.
However, the essays at the start of each chapter/time-period were nearly all outstanding, and the sidebars that looked at specific genres or microgenres, often with a healthy dose of cynicism, were also consistently entertaining and a welcome break from the super-seriousness of the rest of the book.
It was disappointing to see such a varied mix of songs from the 70's up until the late 90's (i.e. until the early years of Pitchfork), only to have the book suddenly dive deep into an indie rock hell with only token nods to hip-hop and techno. In the introductory essays to each chapter, hip-hop and techno were highlighted as being so vitally important to the evolution of music, but they were mostly ignored once they hit the mid-90's and had passed through the established canon of those genres. Still, for a coffee table book about music that I (mostly) love, it was a worthwhile and often thought-provoking read.
But my main problem with the book was that it claims to be representing the best music of the previous 30 years by songs, rather than albums, or as the back cover explains, "[reflecting] the way listeners are increasingly processing music -- by song rather than by album". However, the actual song selections don't reflect that philosophy, especially once they hit the mid-90's and beyond. A good portion of the book reads like they made a list of the best (PF-approved) albums from the time period and simply picked a song from each of those albums. You could go through the top albums of the year lists for PF from 1999-2008 and pick out many of the artists that appear in the book for yourself.
---------------------------------------------
A lifelong friend turned 40 last year and "celebrated" by carefully compiling a "40 songs for my first 40 years" list. She told me about working on the list and I knew right away that I had at least one thing to look forward to about turning 40.
That time is quickly approaching. She roughly defined the criteria for the list as "whether or not I could listen to the song repeatedly without being sick of it and whether it invokes a strong emotional connection for me." Simple and to the point, and the eventual list was unranked. I want my criteria to be a bit different, and I struggled to define exactly what kind of list I want to make. However, after reading the Pitchfork book, I certainly knew what kind of list I didn't want to make. You will not be seeing 40 tracks from my favourite 40 albums, that's for sure.
First and foremost, it will be a songs list. Some of them will be the songs that "changed everything" and profoundly affected my listening habits going forward.
The list should tell a story, so roughly speaking, it should summarize how my tastes in music changed throughout my life. Songs that captured certain periods or important moments in my life will be on there. In the past I've made fun of publications that bestow a magical influence on a song or album, writing that such-and-such an album summed up the year or who's impact would resonate through its legions of soon-to-be copycats. I make fun of this because it doesn't make sense to generalize about a huge community of music listeners in this way. But for an individual, a song absolutely can summarize a summer or a year.
Because the songs tell a story, it shouldn't be necessary to like all of them as much now as I did then. In most cases, they will be songs that have been close to me for years or decades, but in some cases, a song may be necessary to tell the story even if I don't care for it much anymore.
Not all of them will be songs from great albums. In some cases, I will not have even heard the albums they came from.
A few bands will make the list on account of being in my pantheon of favourite bands ever. If there's not a particular song of theirs which stands out in a way that I've described, I'll probably have to pick a song that defines the essence of that band for me. I will not reflexively pick a great song from what I think is their best album. The song is always the key, it would have to be the song that first drew me in, or the song that I heard and knew I'd be a fan of the band for life.
Not every year needs to be represented, it's not a "40 songs for 40 years" list. Some years may have a few songs represented and many others will have none, because life just isn't neatly ordered that way.
It will be a biography told in the space of 40 songs, attempting to summarize what I am and what I once was as completely as possible.
Even at this late stage of the game, I'm not sure in what format to present the list. It will be unranked and the songs will be presented in the order that they impacted my life (regardless of which year they were originally released). Blurbs in the style of yearly top ten lists seem bland and inappropriate for a project like this. I'm trying to get it all figured out.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
Diary of Musical Thoughts Podcast Episode 20
"Some of them in the name of national self determination founded their own mixes", 75 min
I've been sitting on this mix for about four months, and at the time I wasn't completely sure what I wanted out of it, besides something new to listen to on an upcoming plane ride. I was aiming for something mellow, but not particularly spacey and chilled to minus-40 like the last podcast (Episode 19). The Lustmord, Jacaszek, Ishay Adar, and John Massoni/Sonic Boom discs were new purchases, and new discs provide my typical excuse for making mixes. The entire tracklist was pretty much improvised.
Somehow, out of this vagueness of purpose, came a nearly perfect mix. Whatever it is, I don't think I could have done it any better, if that makes any sense.
What I remember most about making the mix was my stunned reaction to Talk Talk's "I Believe In You" and how the mix nearly fell apart completely after that because I had no clue how to follow it up. That might be the last time I look to "Spirit of Eden" during an improvised mix. If you're thinking that the John Massoni/Sonic Boom track sounds like a chance to catch one's breath before the mix shifts gears into something with a more aggressive pulse, you're right.
What I remember most about making the mix was my stunned reaction to Talk Talk's "I Believe In You" and how the mix nearly fell apart completely after that because I had no clue how to follow it up. That might be the last time I look to "Spirit of Eden" during an improvised mix. If you're thinking that the John Massoni/Sonic Boom track sounds like a chance to catch one's breath before the mix shifts gears into something with a more aggressive pulse, you're right.
Some of them in the name of national self determination founded their own mixes by Bruiserfs on Mixcloud
Friday, August 15, 2014
Woob, "Lost 1194"
Bob Dylan's "Bootleg Series" albums have been huge hits with fans because they allow them to take a peek behind the curtain, offering insight into creative process of an artist who has always been somewhat shadowy about what he does and how he manages to do it. We can hear how tracks developed through demos and live versions. We've heard acoustic tracks go electric, electric tracks take on new life during live revues, and the unearthing of songs from his ignored or underappreciated periods. The series is still going strong after twenty years.
If only we could open the recording vaults for electronic musicians too (no, the "bootleg series" equivalents for them are not remixes). I'm not comparing Woob's catelog to Dylan's much more extensive one, but for whatever reason, he seems to be at the forefront of prominent 90's electronic artists revisiting/reworking their material ten or twenty years after the originals.
Much like "Repurpose", his earlier trip into the vaults, "Lost 1194" does pack many surprises or relevations. Overall it's a bit heavier on beats and percussion -- the long intros to "On Earth" are scaled back and the dubbier portions extended on "Lost On Earth", and the final portion of "Lost Odonna" adds a drum part that was missing in the original. Many of the samples are different, which doesn't affect the final product much, with the exception of the bone chilling screams that shifted "Strange Air" into a nerve-wracking deep freeze that are missing in "Lost Strange Air". Only "Lost Emperor" serves up a different mood than its corresponding original. Rather than the swampy hell of the bass heavy original, "Lost Emperor" seems tranquil, taking its cues from Eno's early ambient work rather than dub.
The key thing I've learned, having now heard both "Repurpose" and "Lost 1194", is that "Woob 1194" may be the biggest fluke in electronic music history. The alternate takes and everything Frankland has done since then (e..g as Journeyman) can't come close to what he captured live, with no editing, when he recorded "Woob 1194". It gives me a greater appreciation of how difficult it is to come up with quality live improvisations and mixes night in and night out, and how important it is to know your music inside and out, let your instincts guide what you're doing, and record almost everything you do. The stuff that spills out of you, seemingly without trying, may be impossible to duplicate no matter how hard you try.
If only we could open the recording vaults for electronic musicians too (no, the "bootleg series" equivalents for them are not remixes). I'm not comparing Woob's catelog to Dylan's much more extensive one, but for whatever reason, he seems to be at the forefront of prominent 90's electronic artists revisiting/reworking their material ten or twenty years after the originals.
Much like "Repurpose", his earlier trip into the vaults, "Lost 1194" does pack many surprises or relevations. Overall it's a bit heavier on beats and percussion -- the long intros to "On Earth" are scaled back and the dubbier portions extended on "Lost On Earth", and the final portion of "Lost Odonna" adds a drum part that was missing in the original. Many of the samples are different, which doesn't affect the final product much, with the exception of the bone chilling screams that shifted "Strange Air" into a nerve-wracking deep freeze that are missing in "Lost Strange Air". Only "Lost Emperor" serves up a different mood than its corresponding original. Rather than the swampy hell of the bass heavy original, "Lost Emperor" seems tranquil, taking its cues from Eno's early ambient work rather than dub.
The key thing I've learned, having now heard both "Repurpose" and "Lost 1194", is that "Woob 1194" may be the biggest fluke in electronic music history. The alternate takes and everything Frankland has done since then (e..g as Journeyman) can't come close to what he captured live, with no editing, when he recorded "Woob 1194". It gives me a greater appreciation of how difficult it is to come up with quality live improvisations and mixes night in and night out, and how important it is to know your music inside and out, let your instincts guide what you're doing, and record almost everything you do. The stuff that spills out of you, seemingly without trying, may be impossible to duplicate no matter how hard you try.
Monday, August 04, 2014
It’s Time to Revisit All 38 Soundtracks to Hit No. 1 Since "Purple Rain"
The title is rather self-descriptive, and call me crazy, but this is my favourite bit of music criticism of the year thus far. Kudos to Dave Holmes. It's not too often that the most insightful lines in a music article are consistently the funniest as well.
Breaking down the list further, we can see that the distribution of these 38 albums has been highly irregular:
1985-1989 (six albums, 44 weeks at #1)
Each of these albums was a cultural phenomenon and their core songs remain staples of "do you remember the 80's?" compilations up to the present day. Multiple songs from each of these soundtracks dominated pop radio at the time and each was responsible for making at least one or two careers. In the case of "Dirty Dancing", nearly everyone who appeared on it had a first or second career that they owe almost entirely to the soundtrack. There was even a "Dirty Dancing" tour, featuring the performers and music from the soundtrack, and an accompanying live album from the tour. And you thought this kind of brand-name cash-in started with the "American Idol" and "Glee" summer tours?
1990-1991 (zero albums)
Just like that, the soundtrack album gravy train dried up. It's not clear why -- were Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer really so invincible? The "Pretty Woman" movie and soundtrack were huge hits in 1990, and Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" hit #1 on the pop charts, so maybe the lack of #1 soundtracks in these years is just a fluke, rather than a shifting of the guard, especially since ...
1992-1998 (sixteen albums, 72 weeks at #1)
Yep, soundtracks were back. There's no bunching happening here either, these albums are uniformly distributed over these six years. This works out to an average of four weeks at #1 per album, but that's misleading because six of them were in the top spot for just a single week, and four others were #1 for exactly two weeks. Most of the rest were mega-gigantic blockbuster hits with radio exposure to match, especially "Titanic" and "The Bodyguard". This is just further proof that although some people remember the 90's as a time when alt-rock and nu-metal were dominant, the truth is that sappy soundtrack ballads in the vein of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" never went away, and were in fact bigger than ever.
1999-2001 (zero)
I'm not sure what happened here, but I took a closer look at 1999, and it was a weird year for music. Teen pop, country, nu-metal, and hip-hop swapped in and out of the #1 album spot without any rhyme or reason. As for soundtracks, there was almost nothing of note. I suppose the most significant was the "Austin Powers II" soundtrack and it's radio hit, Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" (Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman" also performed well).
2002-2003 (three, 10 weeks)
"8 Mile" was a phenomenon because Enimen was an unstoppable commercial force, and "O Brother Where Art Thou?" may have been the most unlikely Album of the Year Grammy winner ever, but otherwise you can't really say that soundtracks made any kind of comeback in these years.
2004-2005 (zero)
Again, I can't find any notable soundtracks in these years. There were a lot of #1 albums in 2005 -- a majority of them spent only a single week at #1, so you know that soundtracks were ice cold if not a single one could ride a big opening weekend into a first week sales boost and a short stay at #1. The most notable soundtrack in these years would appear to be "Hustle and Flow" and its Oscar-winning track "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp". Yeah, yeah, here's the link. Enjoy.
2006-2013 (twelve,17 weeks)
Soundtracks came back over night, thanks to Disney successfully targeting the tween demographic and young adult fiction making a jump to the big screen ("Hunger Games", "Twilight" saga). There were plenty of dead spots for soundtracks during these eight years, and most of these albums only spent one week at number one. Soundtracks were bankable but forgettable. None of these albums had a huge, breakthrough single.
2014 (one, 14 weeks)
"Frozen" gets its own category because no soundtrack has dominated the album charts like this "Titanic" in 1998. Every generation has its own Disney soundtrack to call its own I see.
Breaking down the list further, we can see that the distribution of these 38 albums has been highly irregular:
1985-1989 (six albums, 44 weeks at #1)
Each of these albums was a cultural phenomenon and their core songs remain staples of "do you remember the 80's?" compilations up to the present day. Multiple songs from each of these soundtracks dominated pop radio at the time and each was responsible for making at least one or two careers. In the case of "Dirty Dancing", nearly everyone who appeared on it had a first or second career that they owe almost entirely to the soundtrack. There was even a "Dirty Dancing" tour, featuring the performers and music from the soundtrack, and an accompanying live album from the tour. And you thought this kind of brand-name cash-in started with the "American Idol" and "Glee" summer tours?
1990-1991 (zero albums)
Just like that, the soundtrack album gravy train dried up. It's not clear why -- were Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer really so invincible? The "Pretty Woman" movie and soundtrack were huge hits in 1990, and Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love" hit #1 on the pop charts, so maybe the lack of #1 soundtracks in these years is just a fluke, rather than a shifting of the guard, especially since ...
1992-1998 (sixteen albums, 72 weeks at #1)
Yep, soundtracks were back. There's no bunching happening here either, these albums are uniformly distributed over these six years. This works out to an average of four weeks at #1 per album, but that's misleading because six of them were in the top spot for just a single week, and four others were #1 for exactly two weeks. Most of the rest were mega-gigantic blockbuster hits with radio exposure to match, especially "Titanic" and "The Bodyguard". This is just further proof that although some people remember the 90's as a time when alt-rock and nu-metal were dominant, the truth is that sappy soundtrack ballads in the vein of Berlin's "Take My Breath Away" never went away, and were in fact bigger than ever.
1999-2001 (zero)
I'm not sure what happened here, but I took a closer look at 1999, and it was a weird year for music. Teen pop, country, nu-metal, and hip-hop swapped in and out of the #1 album spot without any rhyme or reason. As for soundtracks, there was almost nothing of note. I suppose the most significant was the "Austin Powers II" soundtrack and it's radio hit, Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" (Lenny Kravitz's "American Woman" also performed well).
2002-2003 (three, 10 weeks)
"8 Mile" was a phenomenon because Enimen was an unstoppable commercial force, and "O Brother Where Art Thou?" may have been the most unlikely Album of the Year Grammy winner ever, but otherwise you can't really say that soundtracks made any kind of comeback in these years.
2004-2005 (zero)
Again, I can't find any notable soundtracks in these years. There were a lot of #1 albums in 2005 -- a majority of them spent only a single week at #1, so you know that soundtracks were ice cold if not a single one could ride a big opening weekend into a first week sales boost and a short stay at #1. The most notable soundtrack in these years would appear to be "Hustle and Flow" and its Oscar-winning track "It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp". Yeah, yeah, here's the link. Enjoy.
2006-2013 (twelve,17 weeks)
Soundtracks came back over night, thanks to Disney successfully targeting the tween demographic and young adult fiction making a jump to the big screen ("Hunger Games", "Twilight" saga). There were plenty of dead spots for soundtracks during these eight years, and most of these albums only spent one week at number one. Soundtracks were bankable but forgettable. None of these albums had a huge, breakthrough single.
2014 (one, 14 weeks)
"Frozen" gets its own category because no soundtrack has dominated the album charts like this "Titanic" in 1998. Every generation has its own Disney soundtrack to call its own I see.
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