Hard News: Rough times in the trade
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Bullying? I wish I could be bullied like Wells.
(Look at Venice tho'. The one really good show we sent was shamelessly attacked here, and ever since we've sent desperately safe things.)
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Bullying? I wish I could be bullied like Wells.
Have your benefit suspended, then reinstated, then be harassed daily by WINZ? Yeah, must have been a lark.
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Sacha, in reply to
Part of the piece, surely
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
If I agree with him in any way it's that I don't see major trends seizing such a large share of public listening so much
Once again - dubstep. it's transformed and penetrated the way popular music is made, both inside and outside it's own narrow genre. We just don't know it often because we hear it as the norm now after it wriggled in from the creative edges.
Other niche forms also radically reinvented the mainstream in the past 20 or so years, but - likewise - we often simply don't get that because the adaption and adoption of the peripheral styles is gradual and they simply become an accepted part of the enjoyable noise around us.
Will we ever see another Elvis or Beatles? I think we might. Actually, I think we will. If we do, it will likely come when we least expect it and from a place that we simply don't have on our immediate radar.
Like Liverpool.
I'd also argue that both hip-hop and house/electronica were Elvises in their own radical wee ways. They both globally revolutionised popular culture and the sounds made. 'Elvis' does not need to be defined as a single person or group, surely.
All it takes is a contemporary heir to Rick Rubin or Brian Epstein. And there are countless aspirings out there.
One needs to remember how unlikely The Beatles were when they arrived.
vinyls
Yeech - hobby horse - vinyl is the plural when applied to the round black things we play on turntables. Pedantic. Sorry.
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BenWilson, in reply to
Once again - dubstep. it's transformed and penetrated the way popular music is made, both inside and outside it's own narrow genre.
Yeah, I'm not really in disagreement, and certainly when I hear pure dubsteb against even quite closely related electronica, it does have a very different sound.
Will we ever see another Elvis or Beatles? I think we might. Actually, I think we will.
Yes, I should be careful what I'm saying there. There's very little doubt that artists will (and have) emerged that appeal to more people, draw bigger crowds, etc. But the contextualized setting of what made Elvis and the Beatles super stars is an unlikely thing to re-occur, where a technology driven explosion in the means of distribution of music is coupled with the previous period in which people just didn't have access to much of a range unless they themselves made great efforts, that leads to the small mainstream being swept aside by a new and much larger mainstream, and the stark contrast in musical styles that produces this lends to a sense that something about that time was incredibly creative and original by comparison to now.
Now everyone, and I mean everyone has a large collection of music and a wide appreciation of it by contrast to then. They seek out the corners of the medium, and if a new musical creation emerges, there were already millions of fans.
But that feeling of unusually innovative times earlier is unfair. It's like saying Columbus was unusually explorative. Yes he was, but so are many people today - however America has been discovered now, so what people do discover now tends to seem dwarfed by that.
Yeech - hobby horse
Ooops, thanks. Makes sense, really.
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BenWilson, in reply to
the contextualized setting of what made Elvis and the Beatles super stars is an unlikely thing to re-occur
Again I should be more specific - I mean "in our lifetimes". If humanity takes to the stars, I can imagine plenty of scenarios where the tyranny of many light years distance between human groups could easily create scenarios where amazing movements of popular taste could be isolated and yet really well developed, and when they hit anywhere could take them by storm. Or the whole world could go through a massively regressive phase in which dissemination of music is hampered on purpose, which could easily mean the removal of this would be by definition revolutionary. But as things stand and are trending, anyone who has the least passion for music can pretty much get everything they want that makes it's way to anywhere that the internet reaches. So musical revolution will never seem so ... revolutionary.
But then again, I have to say, I'm limited by my musical imagination, into feeling that we've nearly covered every kind of music that can be made. In a purely mathematical sense, this is impossible. I could hear something tomorrow that is new in every sense, totally underivative in every way. But it seems likely that I won't even recognize it as music.
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Sacha, in reply to
the contextualized setting of what made Elvis and the Beatles super stars is an unlikely thing to re-occur
I believe industry arrangements at the time helped. Simon no doubt knows more.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Once again – dubstep. it’s transformed and penetrated the way popular music is made, both inside and outside it’s own narrow genre.
Yeah, I’m not really in disagreement, and certainly when I hear pure dubsteb against even quite closely related electronica, it does have a very different sound.
It's quite odd. On one hand, dubstep really has opened up new vistas. On the other, it's about 90% shit. As a friend pointed out to me yesterday, most of the people leering it up to dubstep in the clubs are the kind of people who'd have been partying to Limp Bizkit a few years ago.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
But that feeling of unusually innovative times earlier is unfair. It’s like saying Columbus was unusually explorative. Yes he was, but so are many people today – however America has been discovered now, so what people do discover now tends to seem dwarfed by that.
And also: who says we have to put a clock on genre innovation in popular music anyway? There's not necessarily anything wrong with working with something from the 1950s -- it's but a second ago in the context of the span of human popular culture.
It was interesting that Adam Curtis chose Burial to score All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. If Burial and their peers are in fact the music of theirtimes, then we;d have to conclude these are pretty creepy times.
Anyway, thanks Gio for introducing Lanier to the discussion. Even if we think he's wrong, it's an interesting subject.
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Sacha, in reply to
It's like saying Columbus was unusually explorative.
Fave reframing: Native Amercians discovered Columbus lost at sea.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
There's not necessarily anything wrong with working with something from the 1950s -- it's but a second ago in the context of the span of human popular culture.
I think his argument (and the book was published before dubstep, I should note. Also, he rates hip hop as the latest greatest innovation) is that flourishing of new genres of the first nine decades of the 20th century stopped at a time that coincided with the explosion of digital media. I am not not terribly qualified to judge the content of the argument or satisfied that he has proved causation, but it's quite interesting coming from a guy that for years was selling the concept that innovation would have accelerated post-Web, instead of endlessly replaying old forms.
(Coming from a literary angle one could make the argument that pastiche predated the web, although it happened to coincide with the rise of electronic media.)
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BenWilson, in reply to
t's quite odd. On one hand, dubstep really has opened up new vistas. On the other, it's about 90% shit.
I think that about most art generally, to be honest. Of course the really good ones are in a minority, that's almost by definition. I don't like most music that's around, but there's more music around that I do like than ever before. That has changed - I used to like more music from the mainstream, as a proportion of the mainstream. But the mainstream was so narrow, and the people controlling it so selective, that what we got to hear was usually good stuff. Now the mainstream is much wider, and the control so much weaker, that it just doesn't work that way. I can find DJs who pick stuff I like, but that's not done by picking amongst the small array of broadcast stations in NZ, it's by picking carefully from the enormous array of internet stations. And it involves far more conscious effort on my part to decide upon my choices.
There's not necessarily anything wrong with working with something from the 1950s
Hell no. Or older. One of my favourite kinds of music is ragas, and part of my embarrassment about my musical collection in the 80s was the very large European classical content, which was seen by my peers as ridiculously uncool. My dad was a fan, had hundreds of tapes he'd made from radio. I distinctly remember telling him I thought his music was dull and shit once, and he laughed and said, yeah, well there's a lot of shit classics, but tell me this isn't good, and played me excerpts from his favourites, all of which I had to admit were really good stuff. He laughed and said, yes well it's not surprising you like it, you had massive exposure as a small child, any time Mum wasn't playing her pop stuff.
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andin, in reply to
new genres of the first nine decades of the 20th century stopped at a time that coincided with the explosion of digital media.
wouldnt say stopped. And didnt some big companies try and control that explosion. They seem to have directed it in their face tho', not that I'm an expert.
So many variables.I am not not terribly qualified to judge the content of the argument or satisfied that he has proved causation,
Yeah I'd say bordering on bullshit as well.
But we've got brains and speaking of things old..er. -
I'd also argue that hip-hop [was] Elvis in [its] own radical wee way.
Elvis, was a hero to most, but what did he mean to me? :)
I could hear something tomorrow that is new in every sense, totally underivative in every way. But it seems likely that I won't even recognize it as music.
Lousy biology, limiting the boundaries of popular music again
Ben can have my proxy for this discussion, as he seems to be posting the comments I wish I had the time to write.
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Seriously, though, when’s the last time you heard a piece of music that made you think this is really new, as opposed to this is really good?
New to me is quite different from new to the world. Not being particularly down with the kids, the last "hot thing" I knew about before it reached NZ was Hootie and the Blowfish, as I'd been in the states with a friend who saw them in a bar in Myrtle Beach well before they were released in NZ.
But Mirah is pretty good (no doubt dozens of you will already have heard her).
There is no reason why we can’t mobilise resources to help professions like journalism respond to the current technological shifts, and not only continue to fulfill their function but serve us in fact significantly better than they did in the old media.
+1.
This is what disappoints me about the "copyright debate". That it's presented as a choice between "everything free, artists have to completely change how they work and if they can't they're screwed" vs "copyright lock down, turn your internet off, take you to court".
Rather than thinking about a sensible way forward which completely re-writes copyright and thinks about alternative ways to ensure that society has good levels of culture in various fields by people who get paid a reasonable amount of money for doing it.
Copyright was developed in part because of technology moving forward, it's not unreasonable to assume that technology would again be the death of it and require something new to come about.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
There's not necessarily anything wrong with working with something from the 1950s -- it's but a second ago in the context of the span of human popular culture.
Rock'n'roll, too, was a part of something much bigger. A melding together of the so called race records and the hillbilly music traditions, it is identifiable in a strand going back at least 50 years before. It's easy to think that it arrived with Elvis because that was the pitch and it's become lore.
It could, and has often been, argued that Sam Phillips just found a hell of a delivery system (Elvis) and a huckster showman to sell it (the Colonel).
On one hand, dubstep really has opened up new vistas. On the other, it's about 90% shit.
The vistas and the rhythmic possibilities are the part I like most - although there have been some monster bits in that 10% which wasn't shite.
I think that about most art generally, to be honest. Of course the really good ones are in a minority, that's almost by definition.
As a part-time, quite anal, hobby I edit a bit on Discogs - partially trying to get as many NZ acts on there as I can, because so many New Zealand bands, labels and musicians are so useless when they arrive at the internet bit. It's very easy to think of the times we live in as a swamp of music, where vast proportions of what is made simply sinks without trace, but put next to the post Beatles flood of 7" singles by bands nobody has ever heard of from every two-bit town on every continent and island on the planet, it's a comparative desert. We forget. And mostly they were awful.
the contextualized setting of what made Elvis and the Beatles super stars is an unlikely thing to re-occur
Who knows? There were less obvious contexts that made a huge difference too - the arrival for the first time of programmed Top40 radio in the US coincided with the release of I Wanna Hold Your Hand and it became the first record to benefit from it. That, as much as the oft touted blowback from Dallas, 22/11/63, was a key reason the Beatles broke America.
That in a way is like the sort of technology and content delivery transformations we are seeing all the time now. Throw a powerful figure, like a Geffen or a Tom Parker, into the mix and who knows.
Game-changing new delivery systems plus svengali is a very potent combination.
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Danielle, in reply to
Elvis, was a hero to most
I'm such a dork that whenever I hear that lyric I have a sort of mini-debate in my head: "yes, the broader point about co-opting African-American music is fair, but what you're not mentioning is that Elvis fused black rhythm and blues with white country, and that's why he had such crossover appeal. (Also, he was mind-numblingly hot.)"
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Svengali = Simon Fuller?
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Svengali = Simon Fuller?
I guess you could argue that he changed the face of popular music for better or worse. I'm not sure he added to the long term vocabulary though.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
but what you're not mentioning is that Elvis fused black rhythm and blues with white country, and that's why he had such crossover appeal.
He did, but he wasn't the first by a long shot.
For example:
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Danielle, in reply to
he wasn't the first by a long shot
And *that* is where the mind-numbing hotness part comes in. :)
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Sacha, in reply to
Rather than thinking about a sensible way forward which completely re-writes copyright
Trouble is, that requires most of the world to agree. We're currently being railroaded in the opposite direction by American entertainment industry lobbying.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
We're currently being railroaded in the opposite direction by American entertainment industry lobbying.
And by Kevin Kelly. I wouldn't underestimate the extent in which the "adapt or die" crowd is huting this debate - which I guess is my whole point.
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recordari, in reply to
I wouldn't underestimate the extent in which the "adapt or die" crowd is huting this debate
Bloody cabin dwellers.
<pendant>Since it seems to get mentioned fairly regularly here and elsewhere, albeit in relation to one remix or other, isn't Adele's rise to global uber-stardom worth a mention?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Since it seems to get mentioned fairly regularly here and elsewhere, albeit in relation to one remix or other, isn’t Adele’s rise to global uber-stardom worth a mention?
Since it seems to get mentioned fairly regular here and elsewhere, albeit in relation to one remix or other, isn’t Adele’s rise to global uber-stardom worth a mention?
Been meaning to. I suppose Jarod Lanier would regard Adele as a revival act, but she’s also very novel. The Guardian named “Team Adele” at number one in its Music Power List recently.
XL Recordings is a really interesting label. It started out as a label for 12” dance records in the late 80s in partnership with Martin Mills’ Beggar’s Banquet, but is now home to an amazing, genre-defying roster: Adele, MIA, the Xx, Beck, Dizzee Rascal, Gorillaz, Devendra Banhart, etc, etc. They were where Radiohead took In Rainbows for a commercial release. Label boss Richard Russell is responsible for Gil Scott Heron’s final recordings.
Their roots as a dance label show up in the way they’ve opened up a whole new side to Adele’s recordings by encouraging remixing. The stems of her tracks seem to be available to nearly anyone who wants them. As you note, I’m generally more into those than the original recordings. And they vary hugely.
In the recent series of Later With Jools Holland, there’s a fascinating contrast in a show that features both her and R Kelly (and also, for that matter, James Blake and Metronomy).
R Kelly is horrible on the show – an empty vessel. Adele is bustling and authentic and can’t just be read at a glance.
Anyway, she got on her way in 2007 with a three-song demo on MySpace (which got the attention of XL) – and this BBC performance of ‘Hometown Glory’, as a 19 year-old (uploaded to YouTube by digital agency Urban-Unsigned), which is still striking, 18 million views later:
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