Author Archive for ACtualPage 20 of 23

Don't Idolize

published
on January 15, 2008
by
ACtual
in genres and music
. 9 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Millions of Americans tune in weekly to American Idol. Millions will tonight for its premier. I’m still trying to figure out why.

I know, I know. The TV line-up is thin right now. Unless you’re watching the stellar 5th season of The Wire, indulging your senses in the L Word or devouring the new and improved American Gladiators, life on TV during the writers’ strike is hard. And while Fox may want you to believe it, buy into it, and worship them for it, American Idol is not the solution to your problems. They thought we’d forget that we aren’t getting 24. For years now, Fox has taken the show from over the pond and fed it to you with a sense of smug satisfaction. I mean, think about it…millions of Americans audition, meaning that the job of casting is never difficult (unless you consider that three people actually have to sit there and listen to millions of Americans who think they can sing), it doesn’t take any writers, so that cost and hassle is eliminated, and millions of Americans not only tune in, but actually call and text in to vote. People…they’re laughing all the way to the bank! And now, with the writer’s strike, they’re anticipating running up the viewer count because there is nothing else on. I give you fair warning here, gentle readers…if you really like Idol, or you’re not interested in a prolonged rant against it, this isn’t the post for you. For all the rest of you…read on!

There are numerous reasons not to waste your time on this show. Of course, enjoying wasting your time isn’t one of these reasons. But the reasons, when it comes down to it, need to be split up and addressed differently to both music lovers and people who don’t really care about music. First we’ll tackle the people who don’t really care about music…

You don’t like music or really care about it. You view Idol as pure entertainment, something to throw on the tv while you eat your dinner. In the beginning stages of the show, you like watching horrendously bad people who think they can sing. There’s a certain sort of sick fascination here, like watching a train wreck or taking pictures of a car accident as you drive by. I can almost understand this part…it can be humorous, entertaining to watch people as incredibly bad as the beginning contestants. But as humorous as it can be, what does it say about your taste that this is a good way to spend your time and viewing hours? Is laughing at other people’s misfortune that fun?

Then, you get into the regular show and listen to Simon, Paula and Randy talk about these people as if they’re actual artists. However, the entertainment value here is again derived from watching the contestants get beat up on. What the judges actually say doesn’t have any bearing, because the viewing population is the one who votes on the winners, so why even have judges to begin with? I will point out here that you can basically watch this sort of thing in any local karaoke bar. I recommend here American Gladiators, any National Geographic program, and movie watching as great alternatives to the “entertainment” value of American Idol. You can also spend 45 minutes reading a book and use the 15 minutes of commercial time in a TV hour to go for a walk. Of course, in the end, if Idol is that entertaining to you, you’ll still watch it, but my point here is to get you to sit there for a minute, think about it carefully, and really determine if you’re gaining anything, even real entertainment that couldn’t better be found elsewhere, out of this pursuit.

Then you have the people that enjoy or claim to enjoy music. This is a much easier group to attack. The entertainment goers have some excuses, as in the end what counts as entertainment is a matter of taste, and if you like it, you’re entitled to it. But in my mind, any self-respecting fan of music should have serious problems with this show as American Idol, for all its posturing as a musical show, is virtually devoid of any sort of actual musical quality or content, aside from the few guest appearances throughout the year by actual musicians. The program is supposed to crown the next pop music star, giving label execs a bankable star to sell albums because they have already won over the viewers who vote, so who wouldn’t buy the album?

Well, when you look at the fact that American Idol basically tests to see if you’re able to give a strong karaoke performance on national television, why should you expect any sort of actual musical talent from these people, let alone a decent album? People come on the show that have never made it as musicians, never made it in a band, and haven’t had any luck making it as a singer. These people aren’t just the most absolutely talented singers who happen to have really bad luck getting signed. There’s a reason they haven’t made it! They make the show based on their ability to carry a tune solo, and then progress based on their performances of other artists’ songs. Sure, as a singer you make each song your own, but not in any way that isn’t identical to what happens in millions of karaoke bars the world over. They don’t write their own songs, they don’t make their own music, and they need only the capability to captivate an audience of millions of “average Americans” (and we all know how smart they are from their election choice in 2004) for five minutes at a time. Finally, when the Idol is crowned, someone else usually writes the songs for the album, and the album sales usually flop due to either a) the fact that the Idol watchers have short attention spans and have moved on to other Pop Top 40 hits between the finale and the record release or b) the album exposes them for what they truly are: a glorified winner of a nationally televised karaoke/popularity contest. There are of course exceptions to the rule here, but the last Idol winner, Taylor Hicks, failed to break 1,000,000 album sales and lost his contract. Where were the millions of fans that voted for him when it came time to buy his album on the record contract they helped him get? Even a former Idol contestant (and loser to Hicks), Chris Daughtry, thinks the process is silly. “It’s funny at first, but come on,” he said. “They spend three weeks on people that can’t sing, and that’s what they’re banking it on. (They should) find some people that you can really invest in.”

In addition, you have merely to surf Billboard’s Top 100 or scan the radio airwaves for 5-10 minutes to realize that what the “average American”/radio listener/American Idol watcher knows about music is pretty much nothing. Saccharine singers like John Mayer and Jack Johnson, talentless “rappers” like Soulja Boy (all the people that came to this post from the Soulja Boy tag are now ready to throw me under a bus) and musically bereft bands like Nickelback saturate the entire popular music scene. Sure, there are different musical tastes, and I don’t deny anyone the right to their opinion, but when did the aggregate musical taste of the masses get so bad that a song telling you to “superman dat ho” could spend 26 weeks on the Top 100? Is anyone out there listening anymore? Meanwhile, amazing groups and artists like k-os, Throw Me the Statue, Immortal Technique and Jean Grae make music for years without getting noticed by the masses.

If you’re a “music fan” that’s spending time watching Idol, I suggest to you a visit to a listening station to find an unknown artist, a trip out to see a live performance somewhere, or simply an exploration into the collections of Hall of Famers that you aren’t familiar with. There is so much great music out there that you haven’t heard, I promise.

My Mom loves Idol…she’s of the entertainment crowd that enjoys watching Simon plaster contestants. Whenever I get caught up on my anti-American Idol rant, her constant argument revolves around the millions of people that tune in and call or text in a vote. “30 million people tune in,” she tells me, “they all like it.” I leave you here with the words of a wise person…”what’s right isn’t always popular and what’s popular isn’t always right.” But in the world of pop music and a show like American Idol, it should really be, “what’s popular isn’t always good.”

Beta Testers, Musicians: Uncle MixMatch Wants You!

published
on January 13, 2008
by
ACtual
in music, startups, technology, web 2.0, and website
. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Uncle SamFor months now, you, the devoted and kind, have followed this blog with a sense of excitement and expectation. Ok, maybe you haven’t, but that’s certainly how I would have followed it if I were you! And in all these months of posts, you’ve probably noticed both my subtle and blatant references to MMM, mixmatch, MixMatchers, mix match music and the art of mixing and matching. And for all these months, those terms have been, for the most part, largely theoretical, as they spoke to a mindset and practice that had yet to be launched. While I am merely a voice among voices here on a blog about evolving websites and hence evolving music, sponsored by the folks at MMM, I have no direct interaction with the process they have been going through to bring you the product that I so clandestinely promote.

Well “the time has come,” the rabbit said, “to talk of many things!” No longer is the idea of MixMatchMusic theoretical. No longer is the soul and thought behind such a great task and opportunity some shiftless, vaporous entity floating somewhere in the ether of cyberspace. No, my friends, the time has come when we can truly, without reservation or hesitation, throw our hands to the sky in exultant triumph and scream those magic works, “¡Viva La MixMatch!” Now you can create a profile and start right in using the innovative MixMatch sequencer and 1,000s of mBits to make your own music on your home computer.

Mixmatchmusic.com has finally opened its doors for beta testers. While it cannot yet take the full force of users that it will one day soon support, it can be opened to you now by request. If you’re a friend of the makers of MixMatch or a musician that is looking to get involved early and help out with the process of cleaning it up before a full scale public launch to assault all conventional musicians and label executives everywhere, we’re looking for you! So if you’re one of these people, and the MixMatch project is calling your name, shoot me an email here and we’ll get you set-up for the beta test and your first steps into the new and exciting world of MixMatchMusic.

Songs of the Streets

published
on January 8, 2008
by
ACtual
in artist/album reviews, genres, and music
. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

The Wire (McNulty)If you erased the entirety of television history; if you took everything ever broadcast and pretended that it had never existed, you would be at the beginning of understanding just how badly The Wire puts the term “television show” to shame. It’s beyond a television show. The Wire is a piece of visual fiction, a novel told in sixty minute chunks on celluloid. It creates a community of characters that you care about, because you know they exist somewhere. It creates a tapestry of an environment that is seems as tangible as the office you work in or the house you sleep in, because it doesn’t seem like fiction. And how do you get such a well-written, detail-oriented, rich in texture tapestry that captivates minds, spurs imagination and thoughts of what kind of prison we’ve created for ourselves in our society? You mix and match of course!

You take a former cop/school teacher and match him with a journalist/writer. You take cops, dealers, politicians, union workers, middle school students and dope fiends and mix them together. And of course, you mix vibrant visuals with amazing audio and music made to match. Part of what helps contribute to the atmosphere of the show is the music.

The responsible parties always pick songs that are authentic for the setting at the time, be it a slumland street or a blue collar bar, swanky political fundraiser or a police officer’s wake. The beauty of it is that they never play songs just to play them, and they never take over the scene, merely complete it. Cars passing by, a radio on a front stoop, a band playing in a bar, an alarm clock, a song on the radio during a conversation in a car. Songs are subtle background pieces that perpetuate the realistic feel of the entire show. Sometimes, as with some of the Baltimore rap songs, they float subtly from a car window of a passing Escalade to remind you of your surroundings. At other times, as with The Pogue‘s song “Body of an American” and “Efuge Efuge” by Stelios Kazantzidis, they become central to the action as they bring together characters in revelry.

And now, thanks to the good folks over at HBO, you can fill your ears with the songs and dialogue of The Wire. Released January 4th, …And All the Pieces Matter (or on iTunes) shows the diversity the show possesses. The rap songs are here, the rock songs, the four different versions of Tom Waits‘ “Way Down in the Hole” from the first four seasons, and the songs that are used in the season finale montages, all peppered with memorable clips of dialogue from characters both dead and alive. It’s extremely well balanced, featuring songs and clips from the first four seasons and a small tease clip from season 5. So go cop the package, son. The next time you’re in your car or walking with your pod, you’ll feel like you’re back in Bodymore, Murderland.

When the Mix Doesn't Match

published
on January 7, 2008
by
ACtual
in music
. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

We talk a lot over here about the ability and productivity of mixing and matching. It seems that every combination of two or more things is sacrosanct in this neck of the woods. Therefore, the thought for today is what happens when mixing and matching goes wrong? Now there’s two types of wrong mixmatch: the kind where the match is just a little off and some people might like it, others may not, and the kind where the match is so off that almost no one in their right mind could possibly conceive of liking it.

Case in point…I like eating hot sauce on cheddar cheese. Now that’s a slightly odd pairing, but I’m basically certain that there are a lot of people out there who either enjoy it or would enjoy it if they were to think of trying it. It might be a little weird, but a lot of people could enjoy it given the chance. But what about dunking oreos in orange juice? I’ve never seen anyone do that, it sounds disgusting, and I don’t know anyone who would even try it. Another example…my aunt likes to chew ice that she’s put salt on. I always considered this out of the ordinary, but I can imagine hundreds of thousands of people the world over enjoying it. But I’ve never seen anyone that enjoys the taste of Snapple Peach Iced Tea after they have brushed their teeth. That’s a mix that just doesn’t match. Or, as they like to say in my office, “That dog don’t hunt.”

So how does this relate to music? Well my pet rant today is what happens when good bands mix themselves with horrendous band names. There’s not a whole lot, if you’re an artist in the music business, that you can control. You can control the music that you make to start out with, but you can’t really control if you get discovered or not. Once discovered, it’s very possible you lose control over the music to some extent. You can control the gigs you play but not the crowds they bring in. The band can control who’s in it, but can’t control what the people involved actually want to do.

But there is one thing that every band has absolute control over because it exists long before the gigs and the labels and the fans…the name. Every band chooses their own name, and they have to do it before they even play a gig. And whether we like it or not, a lot of people (especially those of the American Idol fan club ideology) can and do judge a book by its cover. I mean, millions of people every year tune in and think that because some nobody from one of the fly-over states can sing cover songs, they deserve to have their own musical career. But that’s a rant for another post. But one of the first things, if not the first thing, that anyone hears about a band is their name. And once a band has become popular, usually in large part due to word of mouth, the name is near impossible to change with the same force of the original output.

So why then do good bands mix good music with bad band names? It’s an almost surefire way to make sure you’re either never discovered or taken as a joke. Some band names are catchy, but if the music doesn’t back it up, once that catch begins to fade, the name becomes sticky, a wad of gum holding the shoe sole of the band’s future to the pavement of its past. There are several types of naming sub genres I’ve identified for this little rant, and I’m going to examine them from glorious top to ignominious bottom: the popular/easy/immortal name, the easy to shorten name, the cumbersome name and the impossible name.

First let’s take a look at names that are immortal for one reason or another. Names that stick, roll off your tongue, entice someone who hasn’t heard them to listen to them, and names that are in some cases so simple that their mere ease of remembrance helps spread the band’s popularity. Obviously in some of these cases, the popularity of the band and their music helped to immortalize the name, but in others, the way the name is framed helps. The Beatles (clever because they’re not the Beetles), U2, The Doors (a reference at the time, I believe, to Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception), Hieroglyphics, Beck, Atmosphere, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Radiohead (who most people may not know is actually a name of a Talking Heads song.) The list of these names goes on and on, simply because there are a lot of good bands with great names. I’m sure you can think of at least three between now and the next paragraph. The names are most often short, to the point, descriptive, easy to remember and fitting for the band. Names of artists also fall in here like Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Joni Mitchell and John Lennon.

Then you have the easy to shorten name. These names can sometimes be long, but the band’s music and the form of the name justify the creation of an easy and acceptable abbreviation. The Jimi Hendrix Experience (Jimi, Jimi Hendrix), Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (Del), Death Cab For Cutie (Death Cab), Creedence Clearwater Revival (Creedence), Dave Matthews Band (Dave Matthews, DMB), Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band (Bruce Springsteen, The Boss). These names have great staying power because often the whole name has more impact, but the shortened name is just as effective.

Now let’s look at bands where the names got them some recognition, but then became a heavy burden or joke once the gleam of their first hit single faded. Bear in mind that these people may or may not still put out good music, but their credibility is constantly under scrutiny because why should you have band names like these if every song isn’t a hit? The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Hootie and the Blowfish, Insane Clown Posse, Frou Frou, Goo Goo Dolls, Jefferson Starship (how can you take it seriously when they changed from Jefferson Airplane just to be more modern? That in conjunction with a different band line-up killed every song but “We Built This City” for them) and Young MC (how can he ever grow up?)

These groups were all groups with some very good music at one point or another in their careers, and yet all of them faced intensified scrutiny later in their careers that was hard to overcome with the band names they had chosen. After five or six years, Hootie and the Blowfish might still make some good music (some of the tracks off their second album, Fairweather Johnson, were pretty good), but it had become a joke to listen to “Hootie.”

And then, you have the worst possible combination…a group that hasn’t been discovered, has no clear cut radio single for the masses to easily digest, and has a name that makes you not just want to not hear them, but to actively avoid them. One of the foremost examples in my mind is Deadeye Dick, a 90s alternative band that had a number of songs I really liked off their second album Whirl. The songs are all solid and could easily have found chart time with the other rock bands of the time, but the name helped crush them. Sure, it’s a good name for a Kurt Vonnegut novel, but in the end, books can overcome their names because it’s what’s inside that’s important. With a band, that name has to stand up to being repeated and tossed around as a prime identifier of the group.

A group like this is the entire genesis of this posting. A few weeks ago, I was asked to listen to and review for the site an album by a group called the Kung Fu Vampires. Their album was entitled Blood Bath Beyond, a clever play, to be sure, but how many people are actually going to pick up and listen to a CD by a group called Kung Fu Vampires? I wouldn’t have even thought about it if I hadn’t been handed the CD personally. The problem is, not much in the album is about Kung Fu or vampires. The beats are tight, the flows are pretty well put together, but there might be four or five lines on the entire disc that has anything to do with either of these subjects. So why alienate possible fans with a band name that is not only off topic, but in the end pretty silly? In conjunction with the album title, the whole thing looks pretty ridiculous, and unfortunately for the group, this ridiculous cover appearance could very well tank their potential to sell big. I laughed when I saw it, and after my second time through thought to myself, “This is actually a pretty decent rap album.”

So to all you aspiring musicians out there, especially those that may attempt to create something out of the MixMatch site, beware the name you choose. It can help you, hinder you, elevate you or bury you in due time, and once you’re established, it’s almost impossible to change. There’s no sense mixing bad names with good music. You might as well see how an oreo tastes in orange juice.

Record Execs: Stupid, or Just Plain Greedy?

published
on December 2, 2007
by
ACtual
in music and technology
. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Read an interesting article this week in Wired. Actually, the entire magazine was phenomenal and prompted me to order a subscription, but one article jumped out. Examining the current state of the music industry through the eyes of Universal Music Group‘s CEO Doug Morris, author Seth Mnookin prompts a series of new perspectives and questions surrounding the idea of where exactly we are now and where we are likely to go in the future with regards to music rights management, distribution and artist promotion. All of which, obviously, are keen topics in the mind of MixMatchers.

Morris is an industry ancient. If it weren’t for the fact that the past several years have seen him hammering other companies over rights to use and sell the Universal catalog with great success, he’d be a dinosaur. But he has. He’s been very busy, limiting who can use the Universal catalog and when, making YouTube sign an agreement with regards to the licensing, he’s engaged in a lawsuit with Myspace, and he has even gotten Microsoft to give Universal $1 for every Zune music player sold because they could be used to play music that wasn’t directly paid for by the listener.

So why’s he involved in all these digital disputes at the moment? It boils down to the record industry turning an ignorant eye in the 90’s to the idea that the huge profit margins on CDs and the public’s willingness to buy them couldn’t be eradicated by something as non-tangible and silly as a, um, what was it called again? Oh, yea, mp3. When you look at this period in time, it would be easy from an outside perspective to see clearly and rationally that the record labels didn’t want to go digital for fear of losing the justification for the large profit margins created by CDs. So rather than get out in front of the mp3 movement and attempt to control its direction, record companies dug in. The obvious initial example is the first assault on Napster. When Apple launched the iTunes store, they were only able to get major labels to sign on because when you break it down, Macs are a small percentage of the population, so how much could they possibly damage the sale of CDs? Of course, this is before the Windows iTunes was released….I doubt Jobs told the execs THAT when he was pitching them on letting him sell their music on the web.

But is Morris willing to concede that they took the wrong road by ignoring and attacking mp3s instead of going along, and are now paying for it dearly? Not really. I laughed out loud when he states in the article, “That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do.” Please. You didn’t know what to do? You mean, you couldn’t think of a way for digital music to make as much for you as CDs, so you chose not to know what to do? This is the part of the article where having read about the ascension in the ranks of Morris, I start to ask if it was because he was an accomplished and intelligent individual that could continually renovate an industry, or simply a good company man with a knack for turning a profit. If you say you didn’t get into mp3s because you “didn’t know what to do,” you’re either a liar or a fool. You could have easily figured it out if you took the long view (that mp3s and the digital music industry will eventually make you more money as consumers have greater control over what they want) versus the short view (these damn mp3s are cutting into our profit margin and need to go).

Well, they did sign up with Apple, and the article points out an interesting quandry: Jobs sold labels on the smaller population of Macs and the proprietary DRM Apple uses. While these are the types of security blankets that the industry was looking for for their revenue streams, they neglected to look at the fact that because the Apple DRM tracks will only work on an iPod through iTunes, and iPod has singlehandedly crushed the entire mp3 player market, they’ve created a golem in the iTunes store. According to the article, 22 percent of ALL music in the US this year was downloaded from the iTunes store. Furthermore, Jobs consistently blames the mess of mp3 players and protected songs on the labels, which leaves him looking pretty good.

So now Morris is taking a different route. Extremely protective over rights and licensing, Morris has decided that the next battlefront needs to make sure that Apple doesn’t run away with the entire digital music industry. By backtracking on his obsessive need for protection, he’s come to the conclusion that the only way to unseat Apple is to offer DRM free music in a wide variety of ways that entice people away from the iPod (good luck with that buddy).

This is a man who clearly has mixed priorities. First it was no mp3s, then it was DRM mp3s. Now it’s DRM-free and a non-exclusive iTunes agreement. His battle cry is that stolen and shared music, or albums sold for $10 when coffee is $3 a cup, are severely damaging the artists. In reality, they’re cutting into his profits. When you continue to pay the artist the same amount, and the net return on the profit takes a hit, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling CDs for 10 or 30 dollars, because you haven’t changed what you’re paying the artist! Now Morris faces an even steeper challenge with the fact that bands (by which I mean Radiohead and the inevitable overflow of copy-cats) realize they can take ALL the profit if they just release it themselves.  Artists that care about the integrity of their message, such as Immortal Technique, have already shunned record label overtures in pursuit of music that doesn’t need to conform to an executive’s idea of music, and profit that doesn’t involve paying out to someone who has had almost no hand in the creative process.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by his continuing victories in the fights he picks, Morris isn’t a dinosaur yet. But you have to wonder when the musicians that he claims to represent, and the fans those musicians want to serve will take a long look in the mirror and realize that together, they can create a place where artists are paid more, the labels that “own” their music don’t get away with highway robbery, and everyone can win. Ancients such as Morris like the win/lose approach (which often results in a lose/lose anyways) over the win/win approach. But with greedy record execs like this, and a populace gradually seeing that they don’t deserve to be slaughtered over the cost of a CD that their artist will see pennies on anyways, you have to believe the meteor is coming.