Music Wonkery

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Eminem reaches his sell-by date

Music Wonkery

Q: Know the best way to tell you are no longer a cutting-edge musical renegade and threat to society (tm)?

A: Your lyrics are the subject of a long, appreciative article in the New York Review of Books.

Marshall Mathers may now be mentioned in the same breath as the Rolling Stones, Beatles, and Sonic Youth. *shudder*


Posted by Johno on 10/23/03 at 06:51 PM
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003

Eminem walks free/ now reported on perfidy

Music Wonkery

Charges of slander brought against Eminem by a guy he went to school with have been dropped. The charges were based on lyrics in which Eminem accused the man of beating him up every day in elementary school. (Em was willing to admit that???) The judge’s decision was reprinted in part yesterday in the Detroit Free Press, and read in part:

Mr. Bailey complains that his rep is trash
So he’s seeking compensation in the form of cash.
Bailey thinks he’s entitled to some monetary gain
Because Eminem used his name in vain. . . .
The lyrics are stories no one would take as fact
They’re an exaggeration of a childish act.
Any reasonable person could clearly see
That the lyrics could only be hyperbole.

It’s nice when a judge has a sense of humor.


Posted by Johno on 10/22/03 at 01:09 PM
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Thursday, October 16, 2003

Bottom Line redux

Music Wonkery

Recently, I noted that the New York club The Bottom Line was in danger of closing.

Witness the power of the grassroots! Jeff Lang, a New York University alumnus, has begun a petition drive to persuade NYU (The Bottom Line’s landlords) to spare the venue. You can see the petition and further information at savethebottomline.com. Alumni can petition here, the rest of us can go through the main page.


Posted by Johno on 10/16/03 at 08:00 PM
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A trio of interesting pieces on the RIAA

Music Wonkery

One, two and three.

I have been conflicted on this whole issue - on the one hand, file trading is certainly illegal, and likely wrong as well; but on the other hand, the RIAA is a nefarious organization whose ham-handed strongarm tactics have won it no sympathy from me or the general public.

I believe that in the not too distant future, this debate will be rendered moot by the advancement of technology.  Someone will come along with a new distribution method and a sound legal and business strategy.  Some of the old recording industry giants will adapt, others will not and will fade away.  Consumers will be able to buy music by the song or in bulk, on physical media or over the interweb for much less money; and their selection will be vastly greater.  The only real question is whether the artists will get a better deal from the new regime.


Posted by Buckethead on 10/16/03 at 06:33 PM
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Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Fat Possum: They Try Their Best

Music Wonkery

On the topic of the Blues and music industry perfidy, Fat Possum Records has a page up on their site taken from the New York Times explaining why Fat Possum Artists didn’t participate in Martin Scorcese’s “The Blues.”

It boils down to this: Fat Possum treats their artists well, and didn’t think that the rates the producers were offering for use of the music were close to fair. The publishers for the film-makers responds, as does Bobby Rush. 


Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 02:04 PM
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Martin Scorsese is a Goddamned Genius

Music Wonkery

Last night I was idly flipping channels before hitting the sack when I came upon the third episode of Martin Scorsese’s The Blues, directed by Richard Pearce.

Fuck.


Posted by Johno on 10/01/03 at 01:39 PM
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Tuesday, September 30, 2003

For Those About To Rock….

Music Wonkery

As I read this article, I am reminded anew of the crazy shit men will do in the quest for record sales.

(Oh, it’s for a cause, I hear you say? What about the rats in a blender? Was that for a cause too?)


Posted by Johno on 09/30/03 at 03:21 PM
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Friday, September 26, 2003

Plug

Music Wonkery

Just because I feel like doling out a tiny crumb of largesse today (too much caffeine, too little rest), please visit cdbaby.com.

They only carry music made by small artists, on small labels. Their search engine lets you search by mood, geographic location, or random word, and they have a terrific associative function that lets you enter an artist’s name, say “The Flaming Lips,” and gives you back a list of albums they carry that you’ll like if you like the Flaming Lips. And most stuff is about ten bucks.

This, folks, is how it is done. Please give them your support.


Posted by Johno on 09/26/03 at 04:20 PM
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Thursday, September 25, 2003

The end is not nigh

Music Wonkery

Buckethead,

It’s because you’re in your mid-Thirties, and had your hip ticket torn up years ago. Let me cite an example of what you’re complaining about, from Johnny Cash. In fact, I’ll cite two.

1) On his live collaboration with Willie Nelson for VH-1’s ”Storytellers“, Cash mentions that he stole the tune for “Don’t Take Your Guns To Town” from an old Irish ballad, “Clancy Lowered The Boom,” and later jokes that Kris Kristofferson always wanted to write a song called “Let’s Get Together and Steal Each Other’s Songs.”

2) The Johnny Cash hit “Ballad of Barbara” steals its tune, whole, from the English Ballad “Barbara Allen.” The words are totally different, but it’s the same EXACT version of the tune, down to the tempo, that I have heard most often from Appalachian musicians.

Regrettable as it might be sometimes (I’m talking to YOU, Sean “P.Diddy Puffy Daddy” Combs), theft is the one constant in pop music through the ages.

The difference, I think, is that the recombinant tendencies of pop music are much more in the forefront than they used to be, since the radio drives the market. For about six months there, about half the hip-hop on the radio had Pakistani or Indian music samples (NYC taxi-driver music), because one hit had it, and so everybody else did. A parallel example from the golden age would be the time in the 1930s that a troop of Danish yodelers toured the American backcountry for months on end. They were a sensation. The net effect? The early second generation of country music was full of yodels. Still is, if you know where to look.

Also, don’t confuse your distaste for excrescent pop music with the decline of music as a whole. You remember the ‘80s well because the market has worked its Darwinian magic, ensuring that most of what survived from the era was pretty good. You don’t remember Calloway, Rick Astley, The First Coming Of Kylie Minogue, or Tiffany because they sucked at the outset, and once they disappeared from the radio, they were gone forever. Ditto the ‘90s. You don’t hear Candlebox that much any more.

But you’re getting the current stuff unfiltered, and it hurts, a lot. At the same time, there are a lot of high points in the mediocrity. In twenty years I will welcome Outkast, Ludacris, Nelly (Hot in Herre!!!!!), 50 Cent, Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera, and even Ashanti’s stuff as produced by Irv Gotti back to my ears with great pleasure, as long as we can forget about Britney Spears, Limp Bizkit, and Staind.

I would recommend trying not to listen to Top 40 or Adult Contemporary formats. They will rot your brain. In fact the narrowing of radio formats is a symptom of the problem you describe, and I long for the day when you could hear two different-sounding songs back to back on the same station. Like so many other things, the marketing of radio has become so refined and the models so revenue-driven that there is no such thing as music for music’s sake, with a few noble exceptions like WFUV in New York, WXPN in Philadelphia, KPIG in San Fran, and their ilk.

[moreover] But you’re SO right about sex in the lyrics. It’s the audial equivalent of Penthouse (which is RATHER more than I want to see). Insinuation, innuendo, and misdirection are sexy. Talking about fucking is crass. But I would recommend you revisit your old blues records and see if they are all as subtle as you think. 


Posted by Johno on 09/25/03 at 03:37 PM
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The end is nigh

Music Wonkery

The Buckethead clan was at Taco Bell the other day, thanks to the lack of power at casa de Buckethead.  After several days of blessed silence, we were subjected to some stupendously banal pop music.  My dear wife asked, “will they publish anything?” Johno’s point that the emphasis is on industry rather than music makes it clear that the answer is “yes.”

I’ve been thinking, in my charmingly non-musical way, about music.  Especially the pop music that causes me so much pain.  Take sampling, for instance.  A recent Janet Jackson song doesn’t just sample America’s Ventura Highway, it hijacks the entire thing.  It’s one thing to take a small bit of something, and combine it with other small bits from something else, and create something new.  A lot of electronica does this without seeming completely derivative and lacking of originality.  But the bits have to be small, I think.  Rule of thumb – sampling should not consist of ripping off an entire song.

And the lyrics, dear Jeebus help us.  Certainly, popular songs are about sex.  They always have been.  But as far as I can hear, innuendo is dead.  Sex is no longer mentioned obliquely, let alone subtly.  It’s embarrassing to listen to.  Granted the innuendo in the early days of rock, let alone blues, was thin.  But at least it was there.  Many people complain about the misogyny of rap music, but in a way, this is worse.  Love is dead, we now sing about sex.  And Brittney Spear’s singing style sounds as weird to me as old songs from the twenties, nasal and grating.

The fallen state of modern music might be a sign of the apocalypse, or merely a sign that I am in my mid-thirties.  But every time I hear this pabulum, I creep closer and closer to Plato’s condemnation of music in the Republic.  I remember music being terrible in the 80s.  But it was awful in a completely different and better way.  It was awkward, and used primitive synth too much.  It was mawkish and saccharine.  But they were trying, it seemed.  Then as now there were gems, and you hoarded them.  But the vast sea of mediocrity was merely mediocre, not offensively coarse and unoriginal.

There is good new music, and I listen to it.  But you don’t hear it on the big stations, and you don’t see it at the top of the charts.  Perhaps if the forces of light defeat the RIAA and a new era is born, the internet will allow a thousand flowers to bloom.  But the bastards and beancounters in alliance are a powerful enemy.  And one that, sadly, the musicians must collaborate with.


Posted by Buckethead on 09/25/03 at 03:19 PM
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Bottom Line to Remain Open

Music Wonkery

The Bottom Line will remain open, at least for now. Good news!

Comments from my previous posting to Blogcritics had argued that the club’s booking and management have gone downhill in the last decade, and that closing wouldn’t be such a shame. Based on the postings on the marquee back when I lived in New York, that’s fair enough. The club should be booking Jason Mraz and Josh Rouse instead of faded older stars. In their defense, both Ute Lemper (!) and Odetta are in town soon, and, c’mon folks. Those ladies kick much ass.

Well, maybe a near-death experience will help re-invigorate the club and return it to prominence and quality. It will never be the Mercury Lounge, booking-wise, but at least it can compete with the Village Underground, Town Hall, and maybe even Tonic (if they’re smart) in the boutique music niche.


Posted by Johno on 09/25/03 at 02:18 PM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2003

The Bastards and the Beancounters

Music Wonkery

Bill Hobbs links to a sordid little story from the music industry’s past, in which a young country singer was shot before he could reveal to the world that the industry-rag “Cashbox” was a corrupt piece of shit.

See folks, those are the cats that presided over the “golden age” of rock and country. Old-school song pluggers, gangsters, and used-car salesmen with a little extra capital who would think nothing of dangling you off a building, breaking your legs, signing you to a contract so crooked that your corpse is scheduled to do live appearances, or in the case of George Jones, kidnapping your family every time you try to kick cocaine, because your management are also your dealers. What they did NOT do was scrutinize quarterly balance sheets, worry about balanced budgets and projections, manipulate share prices, or employ teams of lawyers analysts to defend “their” intellectual property from Benelux to Boise. That all happened when the neighborhood gentrifed and the beancounters took over.

So ask yourself: who’s better-- the bastards or the beancounters?

(Extended parenthetical statement: I’ve worked in the music industry, and I know this for a fact: the beancounters are firmly in charge almost everywhere. Leaving aside the legions of noble-minded smaller labels whose numbers are tiny compared to the whole, the music industry has shifted emphasis far away from “music” and placed the emphasis squarely on “industry.”

Granted, A&R guys are still allowed to be hairy and weird, and artists are still coddled while being bled white, but the focus is almost totally on the health of the parent company’s bottom line. Accounting & control run the joint, while Legal Affairs runs interference. While this means that people don’t get dangled out of windows anymore-- except in the rap world-- the music is now subjected to microscopic scrutiny and its sales potential projected out for years to come. Ears are secondary now, and demographics and marketing are king.

All this is by way of saying that the music industry has always been a filth-pit, and even though the means may change, the criminals remain the same. )

(Second parenthetical note: I’m not pleading for sympathy for the RIAA. Buncha vampires.)

(Third parenthetical note: Read ”Hit Men“ for the story of how the bastards and
beancounters came to work together.)

(also posted to blogcritics.)


Posted by Johno on 09/24/03 at 05:21 PM
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