Music Thread

Topic

This is a thread to talk about music.

Replies

DavidM wrote:

I may have posted this before, but talking about Dutch music reminded me to watch it again.
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What I love about this is that I’m pretty sure the expression on this woman’s face is my exact expression every single time I see this band:
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<iframe title=”Vocal Coach reacts to Focus – Hocus Pocus (Thijs van Leer Live ’73)” width=”1060″ height=”596″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/UcyYrxF6FXg?feature=oembed&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen=””></iframe>

Love that song, I am not sure they did any other good songs.

Jan Akkerman is a great guitar player. This is a cool little song too, with an insane “Russian”guitar solo. The singer has a bit of an embarrassing Dutch accent.

Focus did lots of good songs. I’d probably say Eruption is my favourite:
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Annoyingly I missed them on tour this year as the only date near me clashed with something else. But they’ll be at the HRH Prog festival next year and I have a ticket for that.
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Jan Akkermann has a new album out this year but I haven’t heard it yet. The only review I’ve seen was lukewarm.
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My best new discoverty of the year (though they’ve been around for several years) is also Dutch: Mayra Orchestra. The singer’s Dutch accent seems quite strong to me but I don’t think that’s a problem:
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The high school I went to produced three acts which all became (somewhat) famous in the Netherlands. I think the most famous is Within Temptation, 2 people from that band were in my high school.

Another was a rapper who had a number 1 hit 15 years ago or so. He was in my class, a really great dude. I like this song he did:

DavidM wrote:

The singer’s Dutch accent seems quite strong to me but I don’t think that’s a problem:

No, no, as discussed the strong accent can only be a bonus.

Within Temptation are pretty famous outside the Netherlands too. Your country has exported a steady stream of prorgessive/symphonic metal bands over the last couple of decades: Within Temptation, Arjan Lucassen, The Gathering and all of Anneke van Giersbergen’s other projects, After Forever (with Floor Jansen now in Nightwish), Epica…
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I’m actually surprised to hear you also have rappers. I thought it was just wall-to-wall metal over there :D

MOst Dutch rappers suck really badly. But Brainpower is great. His lyrics are fantastic and the beats are pretty “dope” as I think the kids say.

Do you like Within Temptation? It’s really not my cup of tea. I can’t say if it’s bad, that type of music just doesn’t do anything for me. That kind of Tolkien metal.

I’m not a metal fan, though if I do listen to any then I prefer the symphonic end of the genre, which is where Within Temptation sit. But no, not really a huge fan. I still think the best band to come out of Holland is Focus.

I wonder what the most famous Dutch act is abroad. Maybe 2 Unlimited…or the Vengaboys. Or Andre Rieu. I think Golden Earring had a couple of hits in the US but I don’t know if people still know them.

Today, it’s probably Andre Rieu! I hadn’t realised he was Dutch, but he’s got a huge popular profile here — there are TV ads for his concerts and DVDs, so people will know the name and what he does, even if they have never actually seen or heard him.
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Everybody of a certain age will be able to sing a few bars of Radar Love, but probably can’t remember it was by Golden Earring or have any clue what else they did (I’m struggling to think of anything else, to be honest).

Anonymous wrote:

I think Golden Earring had a couple of hits in the US but I don’t know if people still know them.

Radar Love is one of the greatest driving songs ever recorded.
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Never heard of 2 Unlimited or Andre Rieu, but I do recall that the Netherlands band Focus had a novelty hit in the States with Hocus Pocus

DavidM wrote:

Golden Earring or have any clue what else they did (I’m struggling to think of anything else, to be honest).

I’m ashamed of you, David. Twilight Zone.

When the Lady Smiles is a cool song. But the video clip would is not really suitable for the metoo era, to say it mildly.

RonnieM wrote:

DavidM wrote:

Golden Earring or have any clue what else they did (I’m struggling to think of anything else, to be honest).

I’m ashamed of you, David. Twilight Zone.

This?
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Can’t recall ever hearing it. But wiki tells me it was 1982, I would have been 17, and I wasn’t really listening to much pop music until a year or two after that.

DavidM wrote:

Today, it’s probably Andre Rieu! I hadn’t realised he was Dutch, but he’s got a huge popular profile here — there are TV ads for his concerts and DVDs, so people will know the name and what he does, even if they have never actually seen or heard him.

For the life of me I don’t understand why he draws the crowds he does. I think it’s the pretty ladies in ball gowns that he always has on stage.

DavidM wrote:

Can’t recall ever hearing it. But wiki tells me it was 1982, I would have been 17, and I wasn’t really listening to much pop music until a year or two after that.

I was born well after you and knew it (and Radar Love) from Classic Rock radio. Those are the only two Golden Earring songs with any kind of rotation in the US.

njerry wrote:

Never heard of 2 Unlimited

No!

Anonymous wrote:

DavidM wrote:

Today, it’s probably Andre Rieu! I hadn’t realised he was Dutch, but he’s got a huge popular profile here — there are TV ads for his concerts and DVDs, so people will know the name and what he does, even if they have never actually seen or heard him.

For the life of me I don’t understand why he draws the crowds he does. I think it’s the pretty ladies in ball gowns that he always has on stage.

I think it’s as simple as that he plays unchallenging music with hummable tunes that people half-recognize, and that works across a surprisingly large demographic. He’s the acceptable face of classical music, along with those boy bands like Il Divo (who my mother adored for some unfathomable reason).
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I find it interesting to compare the listening figures of the UK’s classical music stations. For September 2019:
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BBC Radio 3 – 1,932,000
Classic FM – 5,137,000
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Classic FM pulls more than double the R3 audience.
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The main difference in their programming is that Classic FM plays unchallenging music. It’s the Andre Rieu of radio stations. They actually advertise it as “relaxing” classics, which reassures people that it’s not going to be too highbrow and will have nice hummable bits, while still making them think they’re listening to something more worthy than pop music. I can turn on R3 and find an in-depth analysis of Stockhausen. If I turn on Classic FM, I’ll almost certainly find something hummable by Elgar. And that’s what people obviously like.

I guess that’s it, it’s relax music. Musical comfort food.

Anonymous wrote:

I wonder what the most famous Dutch act is abroad. Maybe 2 Unlimited…or the Vengaboys. Or Andre Rieu. I think Golden Earring had a couple of hits in the US but I don’t know if people still know them.

That answer will also probably rely on age and location. In my peer group who hit 20 in the 90s they’d all know 2 Unlimited and barely any of them know Golden Earring but for Jerry it’s probably the opposite.

I didn’t know 2 Unlimited, Vengaboys or Rieu were Dutch. I know all of them; Vengaboys were here last year for a gig I think, and Rieu’s specials air often on the Arts channel. I think my mum has one of his CDs or DVDs.

(I thought the first two were German, and Rieu was Belgian.)

Here’s a weird story:
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50471812
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When I first read that Taylor Swift had been “banned” from singing her old hits by the record label, I was suspicious, as I’d never heard of any kind of contract that bans anyone from singing anything, as long as appropriate royalties are paid. But this story explains what the actual problem probably was:

Big Machine Records issued a statement on Monday night saying it had agreed “to grant all licences of their artists’ performances” for “the upcoming American Music Awards”.
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It didn’t mention Swift by name but the implication was clear: Her performance could go ahead.
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But the second half of the statement was the really interesting part.
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“It should be noted,” said the label, “that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media.
“Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”
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In other words, Swift never needed permission to play hits like Shake It Off, Love Story or I Knew You Were Trouble at the AMAs. What she couldn’t do was put them online afterwards.
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And that matters.
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Last year, 6.5 million viewers tuned in watch the AMAs on television, down from 9.15 million a year earlier, but clips from the show went viral online. Cardi B’s carnivalesque performance of I Like It has racked up 28m views on YouTube alone, for example.
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But there’s a difference between playing We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together in concert and making that performance available permanently online.
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If Swift plays one of her old hits in a club or at a festival, or even sitting on a park bench, that counts as a public performance and cannot be restricted by a record label.
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But if the performance is recorded and distributed for a streaming service, DVD or live album, it needs approval.

It now all makes a lot more sense. I assume there was no ban from the label, but Swift’s management realized the streaming implications and kicked up the public fuss with deliberately misleading statements to make it look like it they were being oppressed by the evil corporation.
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I mean, that doesn’t mean it’s *not* an evil corporation, but it looks like Swift and her management can give them a good run for their money.

Yeah, I thought it was interesting how they spun that. It felt like there was some crucial element missing from the original story.

DavidM wrote:

Here’s a weird story:

The article linked is about UK election and taxes.
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Did Swift’s management use the term “banned” or is that the headline? If they were going to receive immediate C&D orders for content that she should own, I can understand why they would have issues. If desired, the same rights holders could go after every artist that posted their material on Youtube or even covers.

Actually, performing songs that others hold the rights to in a public venue if their is money involved if that venue has not also paid for the proper ASCAP licensing is still gray territory.
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https://www.ascap.com/help/ascap-licensing

Thanks, I’m not sure what happened there but I have put in the correct link.
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This is the original tweet referenced in the article. She specifically says “I’m not allowed to perform”, which to me is another way of saying “banned”.
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https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/1195123215657508867/photo/1
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She also points out that the men who now own the rights had no part in making the music. Which is true, of course. Record companies are simply financiers, not creative people, and that has always been true since recorded music began.
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The thing is, in today’s world there is no need to involve a record company in making music. There are many other options available to you. Half the CDs I have bought this year have been self-financed by people without a record “deal”.
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But you’ve never heard of any of those people.
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So the question is, would you have ever heard of Taylor Swift if a record company hadn’t pumped money into ensuring you have?
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She chose to sign a contract that gave her world-wide exposure, instead of kickstarting an album that 1000 people would hear. I have no great love of record companies, but I’m pretty sure the benefits she has seen from that contract far outweigh this downside.

DavidM wrote:

This is the original tweet referenced in the article. She specifically says “I’m not allowed to perform”, which to me is another way of saying “banned”.

There is a bit of nuance here. The article you originally posted had the record companies response as:

DavidM wrote:

“It should be noted,” said the label, “that recording artists do not need label approval for live performances on television or any other live media.
“Record label approval is only needed for contracted artists’ audio and visual recordings and in determining how those works are distributed.”

They’re playing a bit of a game here too by specifically stating “recording artists” as the venue and broadcast network would need label approval for that performance. Read some of the information in the ASCAP link I posted above.

DavidM wrote:

She also points out that the men who now own the rights had no part in making the music. Which is true, of course. Record companies are simply financiers, not creative people, and that has always been true since recorded music began.

There’s a bit of nuance here too in that we are not talking about recordings or recording masters but song rights. Typically, those have mostly belonged to the writer, think Dolly Parton and how much she made off I Will Always Love You, unless there was something shady going on.

Yes, fair points. The songs are hers, it’s just the specific recorded versions on her album which are owned by the company. Which is why it appears that she is going to re-record all of her albums, as once she does that she will also control broadcast rights to *those versions* of her songs.
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Although, even then, she says she’s re-recording them when she’s allowed to next year. Implying that she needed the label’s permission to do that even though she’s (presumably) not going to be using any part of the recording which they own, which would be consistent with her also needing their permission to record live versions.

DavidM wrote:

Although, even then, she says she’s re-recording them when she’s allowed to next year. Implying that she needed the label’s permission to do that even though she’s (presumably) not going to be using any part of the recording which they own, which would be consistent with her also needing their permission to record live versions.

I assumed that related to some kind of expiry date or timing element relating to the originals and her being able to re-record them.

Famous mega successful musicians in 1969: "Let's write amazing catchy psychedelic pop songs, but also fill side 4 of our LP solely with a drum solo."

Famous mega successful musicians in 2019: "Ok. We need to make sure these songs don't offend anyone who is browsing in Top Man."

— Tom Cox (@cox_tom) November 21, 2019

I’m pretty sure I have bought every new album I’m likely to buy in 2019. So I’m going to listen to one a night in a countdown to the end of the year, and review each in one tweet or less. In alphabetical order then…

A Bit of Pottery by Deckchair Poets

Random group of rock musicians make a concept album based on Harry Potter that sits somewhere between Zappa and Bonzo Dog. And yes it is just as wonderfully bonkers as that sounds. Highly recommended. /1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXhJkbPxnpU 

 

Acoustic Live at Well Cottage by Marc Atkinson A rare chance for Marc to play some of his own songs, with just an acoustic guitar and the best voice in rock today. If you don’t know Marc’s work, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. /2

This set has many of the same songs but not a great sound quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9SMVgex6Q 

Dug my record player and a box of vinyl out of the loft this weekend. Don’t really think the music sounds any better but I’ve been enjoying the ritual of flipping the record halfway through and showing the kid how the setup works. In particular I’ve had fun digging through some old metal/rock albums I dont have on cd and haven’t listened to / thought of for ages.

Noel’s been dabbling with dancier stuff of late – and it’s really not been for me (to the point that I’ve listened to them once on YouTube and not bothered buying, acquiring, or even listening to them again), but his newest song, a single, is better – Wandering Star. The recorded version is fine, this is a really good live performance:

He’s actually in Australia now as his group are supporting U2 on their Joshua Tree tour. My wife’s cousin is in event management or whatever; she arranges drivers and venues and accommodation and all the rest for acts when they’re in town – through her we got free tickets to the Rolling Stones and Billy Joel and Tool and whatnot (well, I didn’t go to Tool; that was my wife’s parents). We saw her dad yesterday and I asked if she was looking after the U2 tour; he said no.

She’s just working with “the other group that’s with them”.

Currently listening to WKCR, the Columbia University radio station; the 2-hour gospel music show “Amazing Grace” just ended and has segued into a bluegrass segment.  The spiritual and mellow acoustic sounds are just right for my mood this morning.

This is a stunning rendition of Monteverdi Ritorno di Ulysse in Patria with great sound quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUjr0nI

This video features art by Mark Buckingham.

 

It also features one of my favourite singers. Who I know adores Neil Gaiman’s novels, but I suspect she’s never read a comic in her life and doesn’t realise the link :D

 

2019 playlist part 4:

Day Trip to Narnia by Cats in Space

I don’t think it’s as consistently good as their last album, but this is still a superb piece of polished, hook-filled melodic rock of the sort that people don’t do any more. What more could you ask for?

This isn’t the album’s best song but it’s the best video for a comic forum :

2019 playlist part 6:

Enclosure by The Askew Sisters

Traditional English songs and tunes, all beautifully arranged played and sung.

Best song:

(Contender for song of the year, but I’m not sure if something from 1816 qualifies as “this year”.)

2019 new playlist part 7:

Everything I Know Without Knowing by Rachel Newton

Short pieces for solo harp, somewhere between classical and ambient prog. This is the most beautiful sound you will ever hear. It’s only an EP and I wish it were longer.

This isn’t on the EP, but if you mentally subtract all the other instruments you’ll get a general idea:

(I was at this gig.)

I was at a gig at Alexandra Palace, a friend had a spare ticket. I missed the first band but got there in time for ‘In This Moment’ and then the headliner, ‘Halestorm’.

They were both good fun, even if ‘In This Moment’ seems like a placeholder name while they think of something more dramatic. Returning to a point from last month, about attitude and audience engagement, they both took the time to do this. Amusingly (for me) they both did it exactly the same way.

“Who’s seen us before?”

Big cheer!

“Great to see you again! Who’s seeing us for the first time?”

Big cheer!

“Great to see you, welcome!”

It was pretty much word for word both times.

I’ve had a chorus from one of Halestorm’s tracks in my head all morning. I’m not quite converted as a fan, but it was a good show.

One of my favourite “Who’s seen us before?” moments was when, after an almost dead silence, the singer said, “Good, that means you haven’t already heard my jokes!”

It was the exact same joke she had made at their previous gig

 

Playlist of 2019 part 8:

Fathoms by The Furrow Collective

Traditional songs, some well known some less so, all with band’s usual approach of sparse instrumentation and four contrasting voices. Hauntingly beautiful.

Sounds like this:

Playlist of 2019 part 9:

Face to Face by Twelfth Day
Their songs never do what you expect, there’s always something strange going on in the tune or the rhythm or the words that demands your attention. This album deserves your attention.

Still loving these guys.

This song is epic, and it’s based off of some random song a minecraft Youtuber started singing during a let’s play. Finally all those minecraft videos have a purpose:

🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

I love Ethiopian jazz. Mulatu Astatke is brilliant.

 

I have a real soft spot for bands performing with kids:

Me too :)

Earth, Wind & Fire Becomes the First Black Group to Be Inducted Into the Kennedy Center Honors

Talking of that I found out the other day that former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio was one of the kids singing backing vocals to Tina Turner’s ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ (despite being American she lived in London for many years and he was in a local school). He says he still gets an annual royalty cheque although it’s very small.

Porn has rule 34; Metal has Rule 666: If it exists, there is a metal band about it: War History (Sabaton), Pirates (Alestorm), Scottish Space Fantasy Superhero (Gloryhammer), Mongolian Folk (Nine Treasures). Now I’ve found Tolkien’s Dwarves Metal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF1EQXIG1c

EPIC! AS METAL AS MITHRAL!

🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

 

How much does knowing the story behind a song affect how much you like it?

There’s a song on the new Flying Colors album, You are Not Alone, which has a pretty positive message (as the title suggests) but really could have been about anything, or just abstract sentiment. The song was pretty good–the best thing on a fairly lackluster album.

Then at their gig on Sunday, Casey McPherson told the story it referred to, and it leaped from being pretty good to, oh my god this is my favourite song of the year

He tells the story here:

 

At the gig last night British Lion were the headliners and they did the majority of their set, then the lead singer said,

“This is the bit where the band go off stage then come back on for the encore. But we’re just going to stay on stage if that’s ok with you?”

He said it with a smile, and blamed a “curfew” at the venue intended to get everyone finished and out earlier rather than later.

In his words, “What’s rock’n’roll coming to?”

It was all funny, but he was clearly making a point, at least a little bit.

The forum keeps eating my posts. Let’s try with out the VPN.

 

 

A mix of shoegaze, punk and metal. She shouldn’t be able to drum and sing like that..

I’m putting my end of year listageddon together.

This is my top 20 songs of the decade, which was a ballache to put together and I have another 20 that on any given day I’d swap out.

https://thewaysofexile.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/songs-of-the-decade/

 

2019 was a classic for metal and here’s that list.

 

https://thewaysofexile.wordpress.com/2019/12/10/my-year-in-metal-2019/

SteveUK wrote:

“This is the bit where the band go off stage then come back on for the encore. But we’re just going to stay on stage if that’s ok with you?”

Always respected the Manic Street Preachers for never doing encores.

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

This is my top 20 songs of the decade, which was a ballache to put together and I have another 20 that on any given day I’d swap out. https://thewaysofexile.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/songs-of-the-decade/%5B/quote%5D

 

It seems impossible that I only know two bands in that list. And by “know” I mean “have heard the name of”.

But then, I guess there are a lot of bands in the world.

Been on kind of an Eddie Murphy frenzy. Watched his SNL episode on Saturday, watched Dolemite Is My Name on Netflix at my brother’s, and after a binge of SNL Eddie Murphy clips, both old and new, this was recommended to me:

Today I shall be listening to all 13 discs of Love From Planet Gong: The Virgin Years 1973-75

I finished up my albums of the year write up.

 

https://thewaysofexile.wordpress.com/2019/12/23/albums-of-the-year-2019/

A Chanukah song from the 30s, written in the style of Jewish Folk:

I love that Flying Teapot album. Wonderful nonsense.

Was watching an interesting video today about the ‘4 to the floor’ drumbeat. You may not know about this but that speed and tempo basically drives almost all dance music genres for the last 45 years, starting with disco (there are exceptions like jungle that go faster but generally it’s the case). Whether it be an upbeat Abba song or Fatboy Slim it’s ‘4 to the floor’.

Invented by drummer Earl Young on a 1973 song, the steady 120 beats per minute it runs at matches the average heartbeat when young people indulge in physical activity, such as dancing. So the fascinating thing was that it’s very likely hardwired into making young people dance. Heart rates slow as you get older so maybe a part explanation of why and when we deem our ‘clubbing days are over’.

 

garjones wrote:

Invented by drummer Earl Young on a 1973 song, the steady 120 beats per minute it runs at matches the average heartbeat when young people indulge in physical activity, such as dancing. So the fascinating thing was that it’s very likely hardwired into making young people dance. Heart rates slow as you get older so maybe a part explanation of why and when we deem our ‘clubbing days are over’.

That is interesting. I remember hearing a similar thing about videogame soundtracks back in the 90s.

Four to the floor, I was sure<br style=”color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;” />Never seeing clear<br style=”color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;” />I could have it all<br style=”color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;” />Whenever you are near?

garjones wrote:

I love that Flying Teapot album. Wonderful nonsense.

it can be 2 things

DavidM wrote:

garjones wrote:

I love that Flying Teapot album. Wonderful nonsense.

Oh I’m serious, I bought it a long time back and love it.

It’s nonsense because it’s about gnomes in a flying teapot but that’s not an insult it’s like nonsense verse from Lear or Spike Milligan, which is great.

 

Thought Lorcan might be interested.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/woman-scraps-its-reznor-ross-score/

 

I was a fan of Starsailor (still am but they’re now defunct) and wondered how many people bought their second album on the strength of the Four to the floor remix that was a radio and video hit – the album version is quite different, and most of their stuff is slow acoustic songs.

Quite infamously it was produced by Phil Spector just before he murdered.

That reminds me of Babylon Zoo’s ‘Spaceman’. They used the opening section in an advert for Levis jeans and it sounds like a Prodigy/Basement Jaxx style dance record. It sold a lot of copies on the back of that snippet on the ad but immediately when that 30 seconds used ends it turns into a slow indie rock song. I know a lot of people were quite pissed off.

It also reminds me of Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha, which only really found success with the Norman Cook remix. I remember a few people being disappointed when they checked out their other stuff on the strength of that version.

Generally, then, what’s been your biggest surprise in music?

Mine was possibly after seeing the movie The Wall, going out and buying the first Pink Floyd album I could find. It was their debut, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. So different from The Wall in every respect, you would think it was a different band. I honestly wondered if it was a different band and I’d got them mixed up 

 

DavidM wrote:

Generally, then, what’s been your biggest surprise in music?

Not sure if it is my biggest surprise, but I was shocked to discover that Green Day was not, in fact, a British punk trio. Billy Joe Armstrong affected such a British sound in his singing on the album Dookie that I just assumed they were from Birmingham or Manchester or someplace similar; certainly not Oakland, California.

Jimmy Iovine Knows Music and Tech. Here’s Why He’s Worried.

What’s the streaming business’s problem on the horizon?

Margin. It doesn’t scale. At Netflix, the more subscribers you have, the less your costs are. In streaming music, the costs follow you.

And the streaming music services are utilities — they’re all the same. Look at what’s working in video. Disney has nothing but original stuff. Netflix has tons of original stuff. But the music streaming services are all the same, and that’s a problem.

What happens when something is commoditized is that it becomes a war of price. If you can get the exact same thing next door cheaper, somebody is going to enter this game and just lower the price. Spotify’s trying with podcasts. Who knows? Maybe that will work.

If you look at the last 20 years of the music business as a recovery from Napster, has the problem now been solved?

I don’t view it as problem solved. There’s been progress, but there’s a ways to go yet. If I were still at Interscope, here are the things I’d be worried about. I’d be worried that I don’t have a direct relationship with my consumer. The artists and the streaming platforms do.

I’d be worried that an artist like Drake or Billie Eilish streams more than the entire decade of the 1980s, according to the information I’ve seen from labels and streaming services. I’d also be worried that the streaming services aren’t making enough money, because that can jackknife.

What about the future of the record business? Why should the next Billie Eilish sign with a record company at all?

The artists now have something they’ve never had before, which is a massive, direct communication with their audience — from their house, their bed, their car, whatever. And because of that, everybody wants them. Spotify wants them, Apple Music wants them, Coke wants them, Pepsi wants them. And people that make terrible second records are still famous and still have online audiences. The power of celebrity, this obsession with Instagram — it’s driven by personality and lifestyle.

So hail to the artists, because in the end they’re winning. It isn’t their problem to figure out how the streaming company and the record company are going to make more money. It’s the streaming company and the record company’s problem to figure out how to become more valuable to that artist.

What’s the secret for an artist to have a long career today?

Quality — of everything you do. Make quality the priority, not speed. Speed is marketing, but you have to have something great to market.

Dre says we’re seeing a lot of quantity over quality right now. Somebody asked me the other day, how do you make a Christmas album that lasts? I said, “Don’t make it with disposable artists.” If you don’t want to be disposable, take care of the art.

Are you impressed by artists’ work now?

Artists have these new platforms that are very, very powerful. So why do visual artists like Mark Bradford, Kara Walker, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Holzer make such powerful statements on where we are today in our culture, like Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy, Bob Dylan or Rage Against the Machine did? What has changed?

One of the reasons I left music was because there wasn’t a kind of music that I related to. I grew up with Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon. When Neil Young’s “Ohio” came out, I was 17 years old. I was a year from being drafted. My instincts said that this war is wrong. And here was a guy whose music I loved, and all of a sudden, I was part of, “We don’t agree with this.” And Neil Young had one-tenth of one percent of the platform that some of these artists have now.

These days I am getting that from the art world and not the music world.

So I call up Ed Ruscha, and I said, “Could you make me an American flag?” And he said, “Only if I can make it the way I feel about America today.” And I said, “Absolutely.”

When I got that painting, I knew that Ed had hit on something. And I said, “Where are the musicians that are doing this?”

There are some clues. Have we entered into an age of music where artists are afraid to alienate people? Since the country is so polarized, am I afraid to alienate the other audience? Am I afraid to alienate a sponsor from my Instagram? I don’t know. I’m asking the question.

But you do have artists like Eilish who are talking about climate change.

There are a few. But not nearly enough.

If I were still running Interscope, I would be signing artists and encouraging them. Right now there are a lot of people running around saying, “What’s making noise on TikTok?”

That’s fine. But I’m more encouraged by the people who are saying, “Whoa, this artist has something to say. I’m going to support them, because I believe that in the end they’re going to win, and that will make all of us win.”

An interesting read, especially on the streaming services. It is a very precarious business in tech when you don’t actually own anything. It’s why Netflix Originals was such a crucial step for them.

Yeah, music streaming services are a relative hair’s width from being fucked. All it would take is some new “technology” (hardware and/or software) or a strategic acquisition to disrupt the disrupters.

So what do they do? Start their own labels? Get into the concert promotion business? Both? Something else? Do they try to sign exclusive contracts with talent where they’re the only ones who have them? What happens if the talent doesn’t own all of their library?

Hell, artists only get paid less than a penny per streamed song. What if some of the biggest names held out for more?

I don’t know the answers but it will be interesting to see what happens.

Melody Maker readers’ poll for 1976.

Obviously a forgery though. We all know that 1976 was Year Zero for Punk and Prog was dead. Right?

 

That stuff has always been lazy journalism. A lot of punk bands emerged in 1976 but still only 40 people showed up to see the Sex Pistols famous gig in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall (famous because it inspired a few of those audience members to start bands). It was really the next 2 years it took hold on the charts and of course then people didn’t stop listening to whatever they liked before as any re-run of Top Of The Pops shows.

It’s similar to Britain’s ‘second Summer of Love’ in 1988 with acid house. It was set around a night in a fitness centre in South London with a 300 capacity and a few warehouse parties. It really was a huge public phenomenon in about 1990-92. Even then the best selling single of 1990 was from Elton John.

It always gets rewritten as the world went mad for something the moment it started and everything else fell away but it’s easy to see how that’s never been true. Even back to the mid 50s when rock and roll came into being, the charts following Bill Haley are full of slow ballads and crooners like Max Bygraves and Frank Sinatra.

What really amazes me on those lists is how high Noel Edmonds is.

 

garjones wrote:

A lot of punk bands emerged in 1976 but still only 40 people showed up to see the Sex Pistols famous gig in Manchester’s Free Trade Hall (famous because it inspired a few of those audience members to start bands). It was really the next 2 years it took hold on the charts and of course then people didn’t stop listening to whatever they liked before as any re-run of Top Of The Pops shows.

Punk (outside of the start of pop punk in the 90’s) has always been pretty happy to not be popular.  It’s almost ingrained in the aesthetic.  It also had a bit wider base with several proto-punk scenes (including Akron with Devo) and the movement proper getting it’s start at CBGB in NYC.  The Sex Pistols were a direct result of what was already established at CBGB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock

Derf Backderf (who also wrote My Friend Dahmer) has a great comic called Punk Rock & Trailer Parks that is a fictionalized account of Akron’s second wave punk scene that he was a part of in the late 70’s.

https://www.comixology.com/Punk-Rock-Trailer-Parks/digital-comic/164420?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L2Rlc2t0b3Avc2xpZGVyTGlzdC90b3BSZXN1bHRzU2xpZGVy

There was an interesting 4-part documentary on punk on BBC4 last month. I knew barely anything about the American scene, so i learned a lot. Raised my eyebrows a few times, too, such as when they treated Nirvana as a punk band

They covered how the American punk scene in the 80s was kept alive by bands producing their own zines to communicate with fans, because there was no mainstream coverage or support for it. Which is basically what I still see from bands I follow today, though with the Internet obviously replacing paper and postage. I guess the underground scene (no matter what the genre) has always been like that.

Someone … I think it was Billie Joe Armstrong … noted that when a punk band became popular they were accused of selling out. To which he countered, it’s only selling out if you change your style to get into the mainstream. If you’re still playing the same style but the mainstream has come to find you, that’s not selling out. And as long as he knew that was true, he was happy to be popular.

 

RonnieM wrote:

The Sex Pistols were a direct result of what was already established at CBGB.

Yeah absolutely, it’s pretty well know that the origins of the music style came from there with the likes of The Ramones and the New York Dolls.

The thing with genres and cultural movements is there’s an enormous level of overlap. Punk was characterised by 3 things, low-fi and short simple songs, an anti establishment attitude and the fashion. You could be described as ‘a punk’ without playing a note but just following the fashions.

Not every act has all of those elements, in the case of Nirvana they have quite a bit in the musical element but the songs were more nihilistic than rebellious, which is where ‘grunge’ came in (and subdued flannel shirt fashion was nothing like the extrovert nature of 70s punk). When Lydon formed PIL they kept the attitude but the music became a lot more layered and produced. The Undertones had a lot of the musical element but were a lot more cuddly and safe.

Tagging artists in or out of those movements can be quite subjective. Not just for punk but pretty much all genres.

 

DavidM wrote:

There was an interesting 4-part documentary on punk on BBC4 last month. I knew barely anything about the American scene, so i learned a lot. Raised my eyebrows a few times, too, such as when they treated Nirvana as a punk band

They covered how the American punk scene in the 80s was kept alive by bands producing their own zines to communicate with fans, because there was no mainstream coverage or support for it. Which is basically what I still see from bands I follow today, though with the Internet obviously replacing paper and postage. I guess the underground scene (no matter what the genre) has always been like that.

Someone … I think it was Billie Joe Armstrong … noted that when a punk band became popular they were accused of selling out. To which he countered, it’s only selling out if you change your style to get into the mainstream. If you’re still playing the same style but the mainstream has come to find you, that’s not selling out. And as long as he knew that was true, he was happy to be popular.

 

If you haven’t seen them, see The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy of documentaries. The first one focuses on the LA punk scene and was filmed in 1979 and 1980.

Here are the Wikipedia pages about them:
The Decline of Western Civilization
The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
The Decline of Western Civilization III

DavidM wrote:

Raised my eyebrows a few times, too, such as when they treated Nirvana as a punk band

Some see Grunge as a bit of a Punk revival with the lo-fi sound but like Gar said, had more in common with less showy punk groups.

DavidM wrote:

Someone … I think it was Billie Joe Armstrong … noted that when a punk band became popular they were accused of selling out. To which he countered, it’s only selling out if you change your style to get into the mainstream. If you’re still playing the same style but the mainstream has come to find you, that’s not selling out. And as long as he knew that was true, he was happy to be popular.

My favorite were the punk bands like Offspring that “sold out and went Alternative”.

garjones wrote:

(and subdued flannel shirt fashion was nothing like the extrovert nature of 70s punk)

There are different shades of punk – the Ramones’ attire isn’t particularly extroverted, and shares practicality and affordability with the grunge look (Seattle’s pretty cold, flannies are pretty warm and cheap).

Todd wrote:

If you haven’t seen them, see The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy of documentaries

I found the first one a bit of a chore but loved the second one; hair metal in LA, KISS’ Paul being interviewed splayed on a bed full of women, etc.

Andrew wrote:

There are different shades of punk – the Ramones’ attire isn’t particularly extroverted, and shares practicality and affordability with the grunge look (Seattle’s pretty cold, flannies are pretty warm and cheap).

As I say though it’s all very subjective as to what counts because those are 3 common features but not necessarily present in every punk band. The Buzzcocks are definitely classed as punk but they just wore shirt and tie. I can’t discount the fashion aspect though because if you ask anyone what this picture shows:

They will almost certainly answer ‘punks’ or ‘punk rockers;.

Personally I’m fine with ‘grunge’ being its own genre which takes some inspiration from punk. While Nirvana’s singles were usually short loud and brash a lot of their music (and with Soundgarden and Pearl Jam too) is quite slow, quiet and moody. So because they only sometimes exhibit one of the aspects of a punk band then I’m fine to call them ‘grunge’ and see no need to retrofit them into being ‘punk’ but mileage may vary.

 

One for Andrew here:

I intend to retire as solo artist after album no3 as I have just had a call from my brother begging me to start oasis again in 2022 if you believe in life after love c’mon you know LG x

— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) January 8, 2020

Had a clear out of a pile of records and traded them in at a local preowned record shop I’d discovered the other day. Picked up a record with part of my profits. I don’t know if anybody here will be interested in the band in question…

I follow him on Twitter and have his account and only his account set up for notifications. I think it’s a joke?

If there are any other casual/serious Oasis fans here still I listened to an episode of podcast Long Player this afternoon – a 30 minute rundown of the 4th Oasis album “Standing on the shoulder of Giants”. Pretty interesting summary of an album borne of a particularly dark period in the band’s life. It represents a turning point in that the imperial phase was well and truly over.

https://podtail.com/en/podcast/long-player/oasis-standing-on-the-shoulder-of-giants/

 

My friend went to Meredith a few weeks ago and Liam Gallagher was headlining.

He said he basically played Oasis and then did Wonderwall as an encore and came out and said “This is the last time i will play this song ever”

So, you know, the Gallaghers…

Anonymous wrote:

He said he basically played Oasis and then did Wonderwall as an encore and came out and said “This is the last time i will play this song ever”

He probably says that every night.

It’s like Barbara Streisand’s 27th “Farewell Tour”

Sadly I missed the announcement of his sideshows here (he was here for a festival) and didn’t get tickets. My CEO (originally from Manchester, big fan) saw him though, a winery gig in South Australia.

While Liam’s got two solo albums under his belt he’s not so conceited as to think that people aren’t attending to mainly hear Oasis songs; his setlists are well balanced (unlike Noel’s).

Jack White is a gifted guitarist, a skilled producer, and a talented songwriter; but I really can’t stand his singing voice. Just sayin’…

RonnieM wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He said he basically played Oasis and then did Wonderwall as an encore and came out and said “This is the last time i will play this song ever”

He probably says that every night.

The word is histrionic.

Please don’t kill me, Andrew

garjones wrote:

It’s like Barbara Streisand’s 27th “Farewell Tour”

She keeps giving us false hope.

Seen a bunch, but this guitar was new to me. Ronnie might appreciate the neck!  Not too keen on the distorted sound in the third tune, but really like the first two.

 

Anonymous wrote:

The word is histrionic. Please don’t kill me, Andrew

Andrew is only fooling himself if he denies that.

RonnieM wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The word is histrionic. Please don’t kill me, Andrew

Andrew is only fooling himself if he denies that.

“excessively theatrical or dramatic in character or style.”

Oh, it’s part of the appeal.