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Digging In Our Heels

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Though universally revered, Martin Scorsese is sometimes viewed as an old-fashioned relic as he digs in his heels against changes in contemporary media. Previously, he got lots of nerdy flack for referring to superhero franchise films as “theme parks” rather than “cinema.” And, recently, in an essay on Federico Fellini, Scorsese went off on algorithms and the overuse of the word “content” to describe artistic output. He’s mainly referring to visual media, of course, and how “the art of cinema is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator” when we refer to it all as “content.” Here’s Scorsese:

“Content” was used more and more by the people who took over media companies, most of whom knew nothing about the history of the art form, or even cared enough to think that they should. “Content” became a business term for all moving images: a David Lean movie, a cat video, a Super Bowl commercial, a superhero sequel, a series episode. […] … it has created a situation in which everything is presented to the viewer on a level playing field, which sounds democratic but isn’t.

A platform’s reliance on algorithms that can’t separate artistic intention from specious cash grabs exacerbates this perception. There’s so much talk about freeing ourselves from the gatekeepers, but perhaps ‘old-fashioned’ human curation is a gatekeeping we need. Scorsese again:

Curating isn’t undemocratic or “elitist,” a term that is now used so often that it’s become meaningless. It’s an act of generosity—you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.

“Scorsese is right,” tweeted music critic Ted Gioia. “Anyone who refers to film, music, or writing as ‘content’ is simply not a trustworthy custodian of anything of cultural value. Unfortunately, these are the key decision makers in media right now.”

I don’t have too much of a problem with media companies calling the music or movies they stream “content.” It’s like a politician using blatant dog whistle language — at least you know who’s in this for the right reasons and deserving of trust. What’s insidious is when we, as artists, are convinced to start using the word “content” instead of “art” or even “our work.” A musician creates a beautiful song, puts sweat into editing an accompanying video, and then thinks, “here’s some content for YouTube” — that’s distressing. 

Language is powerful, and the words we use in our heads change our behaviors. If we start replacing words like “art” with “content” — even just internally — our intentions shift. We start feeding the companies hungry for content. Instead of making music and films for the fans or the human curators, we’re producing content for the algorithms. 

Seth Godin must have read Scorsese’s rant. Soon after the essay’s publication, Seth wrote his own rant on his daily blog: 

Publishing to an algorithm is not the same as publishing to an audience. And living in a culture that’s driven by profit-seeking algorithm owners is different as well. Because without curation, who is responsible? Who is guiding the culture? Who pushes the boundaries or raises the standards? […] …we benefit when we realize that the algorithm isn’t rooting for us and quite probably is working against us. The only winning approach is to earn permission and a direct connection with our fans and then act as curators for ideas (and as our own publishers).

Getting back to the power of language, I touched on this topic on the blog a few years ago when I commented on Cherie Hu’s idea that “The word ‘creator’ does more harm than good.” (Cherie’s original essay is offline, but I wholeheartedly recommend her Water & Music platform, where you can find many of her enlightening pieces.) I wrote this in my blog post: 

It may seem like semantics, but the way we adopt and use language rewires our thinking. Hu’s point— which I never considered — is that the more we refer to ourselves as ‘creators,’ the easier it is to submit to the notion that our creations are in fealty to others. Notice how the services almost all use ‘creator’ — a sampling of examples Hu points out include YouTube Creators, Facebook for Creators, Spotify’s “Creator Marketing.’ So when a platform sneakily claims ownership of our work we’re desensitized against protest.

“Content” is the same. The language implicates employment, that we’re delivering goods in a fiefdom. Responsibility, leverage, and agency shift to the “content provider.”

Buckle down, folks. Dig in your heels like Martin. You’re artists making art. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else. 

The Pros and Cons of Bandcamp’s Vinyl Pressing Service

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On the one hand, it’s excellent news that Bandcamp is expanding the company’s crowdfunding tool, allowing artists on the platform to ‘kickstart’ their way to a vinyl release. Called the Bandcamp Vinyl Pressing Service, the program integrates with an artist’s existing Bandcamp follower base to solicit advance vinyl sales over a 30 day period. If the artist meets the goal — which will be around three grand, minimum, for an LP — then Bandcamp will handle manufacturing and, ultimately, shipping and fulfillment for the vinyl release.

This service sounds great, and, for the most part, it is. The collapse of PledgeMusic left a hole that Bandcamp is looking to fill, as far as music-focused crowdfunding goes. It’s especially attractive to bands that don’t want to deal with shipping and customer service. And, as I’m guessing the shipping will originate in the US, this creates an advantage for bands from other countries with large fanbases in the states.1Last night I spoke to an Australian band who are drawn to Bandcamp’s new service partly for this reason. 

But now we come to “on the other hand.” Of course, Bandcamp is much-loved — and deservedly so — in the music community, probably the most trusted of all the digital music platforms. But it’s still worrying that bands and artists are relying on a single company for an expanding range of roles. Bandcamp is the digital marketplace, the fan community engine, the discovery system (via their fantastic editorial), the livestreamed-concert platform, and the vinyl manufacturer. It doesn’t matter that Bandcamp does these things well and seems good-intentioned. History has proven what can happen when bands rely heavily on platforms they don’t control.2MySpace and the aforementioned PledgeMusic are just two examples here. Bandcamp’s terrific, but that shouldn’t stop artists from building IRL communities, exploring their own in-site web stores, and comparing options for vinyl pressing. 

And that comparison is a way that Bandcamp’s vinyl falls short. As tweeted by Grace Ambrose of Thrilling Living, one would need to raise over $3500 on Bandcamp to manufacture 250 copies of an LP with color jackets and labels. If you do this yourself, going direct with any of the available vinyl plants, you could press 300 copies for about $2500.3I can confirm this. My label’s 300 unit pressing of Monta At Odds’ Argentum Dreams album cost about this much. So there’s considerably more profit (and a lower break-even point) when you press directly, especially when you factor in that Bandcamp takes a cut of all sales. 

I also think it’s important to be involved in each step of the vinyl manufacturing process and in close contact with your pressing plant. Bandcamp’s service appears to be hands-off — you deliver the artwork and audio, and eventually, there’s vinyl for sale. The Bandcamp Vinyl Pressing Service’s online materials aren’t transparent about which pressing plant or plants they use. That’s crucial info to know if you care about the quality of your records.

I understand that a lot of you just want to put out a vinyl record. You don’t want to deal with the pressing plant, get mired in the technicalities, or (especially) deal with shipping. The reduced profit margin is a reasonable trade-off for not enduring these headaches. Thus, this program is for you. I get it. And, out of all the third-party platforms that I’d want handling this stuff, Bandcamp is at the top of the list. 

Because of Bandcamp’s service, many more bands will be able to fulfill the dream of delivering music to fans on vinyl. Indisputably, that’s a beautiful thing. But know there is long-term value in learning the ropes and independently managing the vinyl-making process yourself. If you’re contemplating vinyl, weigh the pros and cons of the Bandcamp Vinyl Pressing Service. If you have the time, don’t mind some small headaches, want to potentially earn more, and are into the valuable education of managing a vinyl release, consider pressing your records without Bandcamp’s help.

An Accommodating Tinge of Distortion

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An Update on Bandcamp Fridays → You can’t have too much of a good thing. Since the very beginning of COVID-times, Bandcamp has waived their revenue share on the first Friday of every month. That means after payment processor fees, artists (or their labels, if managing the account) got an average of 93% of the total.

Bandcamp Fridays were a rousing success for everyone involved, not the least Bandcamp itself. Though the company led us to believe these first Fridays ended with 2020, I suspected these events would continue. And here’s Bandcamp with breaking news: 

Although vaccines are starting to roll out, it will likely be several months before live performance revenue starts to return. So we’re going to continue doing Bandcamp Fridays in 2021, on February 5th, March 5th, April 2nd, and May 7th. As always, isitbandcampfriday.com has the details.

Also, in the announcement, Bandcamp rightly points out that fans shouldn’t think these are the only days to buy music and support artists. Normally, “an average of 82% reaches the artist/label” through Bandcamp on a day that’s not the first Friday of the month. That’s still pretty good and remarkably better than those other guys. 

So why have these special Fridays, then? Well, they’re a lot of fun. Bandcamp Fridays remind me of Tuesdays at the record store — new releases came out every Tuesday in the olden times — and fans would line up at the door before we opened in anticipation of their favorite artists’ fresh music. Nowadays, Bandcamp Friday’s excitement carries over to social media. The social platforms come alive on Bandcamp Fridays with recommendations, exclusives from the artists, and praise from fans. It’s a nudge to the broader public that there’s something more than Spotify, that an inclusive music community bubbling with intention and enthusiasm exists in 2020. And because of that, I expect Bandcamp Fridays — or some version of it — to continue well beyond next May.

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In 2021, support people. Screw the brands. → The argument over streaming royalties and how the services don’t adequately pay artists often loses sight of an important factor. If a recording artist releases through a label, that label might take as much as 90% of the streaming royalty pie.190% would be a really bad — but not unheard of — major label deal. Then, there’s the issue of labels that don’t pay at all — whether that’s intentional or due to a combination of laziness and bad accounting. 

In 5 Magazine, Terry Matthew calls out labels that infamously don’t pay artists. Terry mentions classic Chicago house music labels like Trax, defrauding pioneering Black artists like Larry Heard and Robert Owens. But Terry notes a more significant problem: as fans, we sometimes mythologize the labels at the expense of the artists behind the music. We continue to support labels while (often unknowingly) hurting the artists. Here’s Terry:

Too often as an industry, we elevate packaging over product, memorabilia over music, brand over artist. All might be forgivable except the last, because there are real people involved in this, many of them are still alive and still active artists.

Terry’s prescription: Stop fetishizing labels at the expense of artist fandom. Buy releases directly from the artists when you can (via Bandcamp or artist sites). And be aware that the classic record you’re buying might be a dodgy label’s make-a-fast-buck repress.

There’s also a reminder not to get caught up in our beloved artists’ catalogs of classics, ignoring their current output. Many pioneering producers are still making vital music. A lot of it is self-released. The best thing we can do as fans is to follow our heroes as they continue their musical lives, supporting them when we can. 

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Shea Betts – Sea / Sky → This album is the first release from NYC-via-Canada librarian and music-maker Shea Betts. As evidenced by the title Sea / Sky, the album is an ode to both, with the first half inspired by the ocean’s movement while the second reflects the windiness of the atmosphere. Shea tells me that he had “a desire to make a more ‘abrasive’ ambient sound – something more distorted and overdriven than the subdued ambient that I often listen to.” That abrasiveness is anything but, closer to an accommodating tinge of distortion on keyboards that sustains like church organs. This organ-like quality gives Sea / Sky a religious air, an almost worshipful respect for the natural world inhabited by the album’s two subjects. With measured difference, the ‘Sea’ half conveys roughness while the ‘Sky’ portion is lighter and flowing. And the songs in the middle are a combination. “Where the ocean meets the sky,” says Shea. Despite its simplicity, Sea / Sky is expressive and visual — listening in full, with the concept in mind, is movie-like. I imagine a vertical slow-motion camera pan from the water to the clouds. Probably in black and white and dramatically contrasted. Is Béla Tarr available?

A Boy Can Dream

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Will 2021’s New Music Hold Out For Tours? → One positive thing we can say about 2020, it didn’t lack for great music. Here’s MusicREDEF’s compilation of various 2020′ best of’ lists as proof. For the most part, it didn’t particularly seem like anyone deprived us of their new music this year. In the superstar category, where the absence of touring is a significant detriment on release strategy, artists embracing lockdown life — like Taylor Swift and Charli XCX — prospered. On the other hand, business-as-usual releases from the likes of Lady Gaga and Childish Gambino seemed here and forgotten. 

I think, at first, the uncertainty of the times actually ended up pushing artists to keep the releases flowing. If you remember, there was a time when acts figured they’d be on tour by the summer, and everything would be hunky-dory. There was a feeling that if bands all held their albums for a few months, then there’d be a glut of releases when the time came to tour. So, bombs away. And credit to Dua Lipa for being one of the first to jump in the water, with an end-of-March high-profile album release during the early throes of pandemic panic. Future Nostalgia ended doing quite well for her, giving other acts the nudge they needed. But, most still believed they’d tour in the summer or fall.

2020’s uncertainty is giving way to 2021’s certainty. That certainty is that there likely won’t be any major tours for another year, at the earliest. For that reason, we might see fewer big releases next year or a planned glut of releases (preceding an excess of tours) in early 2022. Here’s Larry Fitzmaurice in the Last Donut of the Night newsletter:

Let’s put visibility aside for a moment (especially when, in the age of social media, it takes a lot to translate that into something you can make a living off of) and talk about the big problem with releasing new music and not touring behind it: No touring means no income, since an increasingly scarce number of musicians can afford to make and release music without touring to recoup the cost of, well, making and releasing music.

Smaller and mid-sized bands are more nimble and can do things that big acts can’t, like book short-notice regional tours and vary the types of venues they play. But there’s also the audience problem — will people be ready to attend concerts before the end of next year? Right now, I’m doubtful. I don’t know if I’ll be comfortable going out until I’m absolutely sure I’m not putting myself and my loved ones in danger. With all the vaccine good news, I hope we can all safely put aside these reservations before we ring in another year. If not, we’ll need all the great new music we can get.

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Apple TV Was Making a Show About Gawker. Then Tim Cook Found Out → I have mixed feelings on this story: 

Mr. Cook, according to two people briefed on the email, was surprised to learn that his company was making a show about Gawker, which had humiliated the company at various times and famously outed him, back in 2008, as gay. He expressed a distinctly negative view toward Gawker, the people said. Apple proceeded to kill the project. 

Several episodes were already in the can, so this wasn’t a small decision. And reportedly, there are other things that Cook (and Apple) object to in Apple TV+’s programming. Unsurprisingly, too much violence and nudity (the reason Cook killed a Dr. Dre biopic despite Dre’s involvement with Apple) or religious controversies (crucifixes were removed from Servant) are on the list. But then, supposedly, a scene was excised from a show because the script called for damaging an iPhone. Oh, and no one in a program can disparage China.

That all sounds dicey. But, in a way, I don’t mind the leader of a content platform setting guidelines based on personal convictions that influence the company’s vision. Most platforms are solely profit-driven and have no content guidelines at all (besides the legally enforced ones). Society’s present mess is partly because platforms try to please everyone, even if everyone includes those spreading dangerous misinformation, bullying, and filth. I’m not saying Cook’s personal views and convictions inspire all his policies (unless he really does love China), but I’d like to see more CEOs express convictions that act as constraints on their companies. I think, in this case, saying ‘no’ to Gawker applies.

Of course, there’s the chilling effect. Will studios take chances when having to navigate a CEO’s personality? On the other hand, could this become the differentiation that we miss in platforms? Like radio stations programming by loose definitions of genre, video streamers become separated by content that follows corporate vision. There will always be platforms that take more risks (that’s a corporate vision in itself), complimenting those that want to remain ‘family-friendly.’ Why not?

I admit what I’m proposing is naïve. Reed Hastings pulling an episode of Patriot Act off Netflix because it criticizes Saudi Arabia is not what we want more of. But if Twitter and Facebook suddenly decided that misinformation, hate-speech, and harassment weren’t allowed because it was against what Zuckerberg and Dorsey believed in — I’d enthusiastically welcome that. They are private companies, after all, and can do what they want if they wanted to. 

I know, I know. Just let me enjoy my fantasy for at least a few minutes.

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Elijah Knutsen – Music For Vending Machines 1 → Elijah Knutsen, who gave us the exquisite Blue Sun Daydream album a couple of months ago, is back with Music For Vending Machines 1. Elijah refers to this first-in-a-series as “a miniaturized listening experience … much like something purchased from a vending machine.” The three songs, each clocking in at an average length of nine-and-a-half minutes, note a particular noise in their titles: “Air Conditioner Sound,” “Vending Machine Sound,” and “Purple Wisteria Tree Sound.” Those titles are red herrings as these ‘sounds’ are spacious, melodic, and far from mechanical or ordinary. “Vending Machine Sound” in particular gives our ears a visceral variety — layers of mesmerizing, shimmering tones fade into a chorus of voices and footsteps. And then those noises succumb to warm bendy chords alternating in the stereo field, like an interim track on that lost mid-90s My Bloody Valentine album. As with his previous Blue Sun Daydream, Elijah Knutsen’s self-described “micro-release”1It’s still longer than most early Van Halen albums btw. is a gorgeous-sounding diversion, transporting and soothing the listener within its sonic world.

Embrace the Genre

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Like end-of-the-year best-of lists, new genre names are something that music fans love to hate. There’s a mixture of disdain for perceived pigeonholing and a failure to keep up with the latest trends — nothing makes a music lover feel older than a new, incomprehensible genre. Then there’s the sub-genre and the micro-genre. Seriously, it never ends. It’s genres all the way down.

Instead of feeling intimidated, I say embrace the genre and all its fancifully named layers. Genre is an identifier, important in pointing the way and gluing together scenes. There was a time that you could walk into an indie record store, look at the clientele, and guess what genres they listened to by how they looked. It’s harder now that genres are less-defined and blur together — which I’ll argue is a good thing. But it’s also why genres are reaching beyond sonic vibes and sounds, increasingly representative of technological innovation, communities, and desired lifestyles. 

If you’re a musician, there’s nothing worse than the question, “What do you sound like?” We shuffle our postures and avoid answering, or vaguely go for something broad like “rock music.” If you look up old artist interviews with me, you’ll see I often responded with “funk,” which was unfortunate. Why can’t we just own our genre — or create our own? Consider the genre as an elevator pitch. It’s a chance to claim a plot of land and plant a flag. 

Here’s how Seth Godin thinks about genre, as explained in his recent appearance on The Moment with Brian Koppelman:

“People who are creatives bristle at the idea of genre because they think it has something to do with generic. It has nothing to do with generic. It’s the opposite of generic. Genre means that you understand your part in the chain — [and] in the process, in the market — well enough to make something magical that still rhymes with what came before. You’ve done the reading. You respect the audience enough that you can’t just show up and say, ‘This is like nothing you’ve ever seen or heard before.’ It actually is where it belongs.”

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It’s fun to look at the birth of genres. The sounds predate the descriptive monikers, often by many years. Traditionally, genres are christened through these sources:

  • An artist or band name. Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys is where we get bluegrass.
  • Song or album titles. Ornette Coleman’s 1960 album Free Jazz and The Maytals’ 1968 single “Do the Reggay” popularized those terms.
  • Compilation album titles. A ‘scene’ is pre-built into the curated collection of artists, such as the now-legendary producers assembled on 1988’s Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit.
  • Lyrics. “I said a hip-hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip, hip-hop and you don’t stop …”
  • Record labels. In the late ’80s, you would’ve called Skinny Puppy something else if Throbbing Gristle didn’t start Industrial Records.
  • Music Journalists. Simon Reynolds is the ninja of the genre name and is still at it. But even before, there was ‘heavy metal,’ applied to music for the first time in 1970 by Mike Saunders, future vocalist of punk band Angry Samoans. Writing for Rolling Stone, he referred to Humble Pie as “27th-rate heavy metal crap.” Ironically, Sauders did not come up with ‘punk rock,’ which was coined the same year in Creem Magazine.
  • Music Executives. Seymour Stein of Sire Records came up with ‘new wave’ to market all these bands he was signing fresh off the stage of CBGBs.
  • The technology. Dub comes from ‘dubplate,’ which is technically a music-delivery format. But dub is hardly ever heard on a dubplate these days.
  • Territory. We can call music from Guatemala Guatamalen music even though the locals undoubtedly have a more specific name. And the ‘western’ in country & western refers to the western US where many rural workers migrated and settled, especially during the Dust Bowl.
  • Radio. Famously, Alan Freed named his radio show The Moondog Rock’n’Roll House Party. Like in many of the examples above, Freed didn’t use the phrase first, but he popularized it.

There’s one more traditional method of genre creation, which I hinted at in the beginning. The artist comes up with it herself. There’s a lot of power in naming your genre as, if you’re successful and others catch on, you become the forebear. Fela Kuti did this with Afrobeat. And Brian Eno did this with ambient music:

“All the signs were in the air all around with ambient music in the mid-1970s, and other people were doing a similar thing. I just gave it a name. Which is exactly what it needed. A name. Giving something a name can be just the same as inventing it. By naming something you create a difference. You say that this is now real.”

Quick side story: in the late-90s, a friend and I often DJ’ed trip-hop records and hip-hop instrumentals with the turntables pitched up near +8. Speed garage was the genre du jour at the time, so we jokingly named our genre ‘speed downtempo.’ It didn’t take off.

But, yes — sometimes a joke or off-handed comment will spawn a genre name. NYC’s DJ Olive came up with ‘illbient’ as a sarcastic response when a journalist asked if he played ambient. And Gilles Peterson famously once joked that his side room at an acid house party was the ‘acid jazz’ area, birthing a repackaged jazz revival. 

Genre is intrinsically tied to the music it denotes but spreads out to other qualities of the genre’s followers. Goth is as identifiable for its fashion as its sound, and close-knit genres like nerdcore are increasingly identified by membership in their communities. 

What’s interesting — with technological developments inseparable from how we interact with music — is the emergence of genres outside of a musical style. That is, the communities or the platforms define the genre, and the music comes later. 

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I want to look at a few recent arrivals in the pantheon of genres to see how defining our music ends up describing so much more. Be warned — many of these sub-genres contain references to other sub-genres. You might get genre whiplash.

Hyperpop

On the excellent Jaymo Technologies blog, Jay Springett writes about the daunting proliferation of genres and how streaming platforms affect genre creation: 

The world is now dominated by microgenres and subcultures, shaping perception of reality via niche hashtags and network effects. For better or worse someone at Spotify finds or makes up a genre name and then populates a playlist with content. The idea that people would be mad about an online genre having a name and coming from nowhere now seems quaint.

Jay is possibly hinting at hyperpop, a genre name popularized by Spotify via the in-house playlist of the same name. The actual sound of hyperpop is debatable and evasive, with many of its elements drawn from vaporwave, an older genre (by a few years) but somewhat more explainable. There’s a Gen Z do-it-yourself aesthetic, and many of hyperpop’s ephemeral stars are in their early teens. Lizzy Szabo, who helps curate the playlist, understands that hyperpop is “an artist and listening community” as much as it’s a musical genre. One thing to notice about that quote: the listeners are included in the definition, powering hyperpop alongside the creators. To participate, throw aside any reservations about a movement dreamed up by a big corporation. 

Glitchcore

Glitchcore shares many of the artists found on the Hyperpop playlist. Its defining sonic trait is the ‘glitch’ — quick edits, stuttering vocals and syllables, things that would have once made us check our compact discs for scratches. Some even take hyperpop songs and add these ‘defects’ for glitchcore remixes. But glitchcore’s difference is in its inspiration and intention. TikTok videos, with visual glitches matching the audio ones, along with bright colors and flashes, are the reason and original platform for most glitchcore tracks. Like how a TV signal popping in-and-out changes the quality of a show’s dialogue, it’s a visual aesthetic influencing the sound. Glitchcore is a genre given shape by a video editing technique mixed with a nostalgia for digital’s early days of jarring imperfection.  

Lo-Fi Hip-Hop

Like hyperpop, lo-fi hip-hop (or lo-fi beats, chill-hop, or, sometimes, ‘music for studying’) gets its name from a curated spot on a streaming platform. In lo-fi hip-hop’s case, these are streaming channels on YouTube playing an endless selection of music usually accompanied by a looping anime scene. A Gen Z variant of ambient music, lo-fi hip-hop is meant to accompany studying, video-gaming, or zoning out. This is another genre that’s expanded its popularity in COVID-times, with the studying girl of the ‘lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to’ channel serving as a lockdown work-from-home companion. The music itself draws directly from boom-bap hip-hop and — for those in the know — the mellow side of ’90s trip-hop, but is more basic, often constructed from interchangeable sample libraries and beat kits. Lo-fi hip-hop is a diluted version of its predecessors, which is why it’s so effective as in-the-background focus music.

Bedroom Pop

Bedroom pop started as ‘what it says on the tin:’ pop music made in the bedroom. Its unexpected ancestor is the lo-fi indie movement of the ’90s, with bands like Sebadoh and Guided By Voices recording albums on four-track cassette recorders. Nothing kept those bands from visiting a studio, but the constraints inherited through four-track recording were integral to their sounds (and brands). 

The bedroom pop aesthetic predates the pandemic but has unsurprisingly grown during months of lockdown. The songs are generally sparser and have an air of intimacy not found in your usual pop. Vocals are often delivered at an ASMR volume instead of belted out. 

Billie Eilish is the patron saint of bedroom pop. She does record most of her music in a bedroom with her brother, though these raw tracks are then mixed in multi-million dollar studios. As you might have guessed, unlike the four-track to the lo-fi bands, the ‘bedroom’ part is no longer essential to this genre. As the bedroom pop artist Girl in Red says, “Pop bangers are being made in bedrooms and bedroom pop-ish songs in studios. It’s more about how it sounds than where it’s made.”

Slowed & Reverb

Slowed & reverb is one of the oddest new genres, its name a play on the seemingly ancient (a decade+ old) hip-hop sub-genre chopped & screwed. Slowed & reverb appropriates other songs, but instead of ‘glitching’ or ‘remixing’ them, the music is slowed down (‘screwed’) and then doused in reverb. Recent hip-hop tracks mostly receive the slowed & reverb treatment but, as an offshoot of vaporwave, cheesy ’80s AOR songs are frequent targets, too. This genre is all about the feelings evoked — listening is like being lost in a fog that’s hazy, nostalgic, dream-like, and druggy. It also tends to turn upbeat songs into melancholic sobfests. 

Because slowed & reverb uses pre-existing songs, you can only find its ‘hits’ on YouTube, SoundCloud, and (sometimes) Bandcamp. The other platforms have copyright barriers, though some producers have gotten away with compiling slowed & reverb mixes and servicing them to Spotify as podcasts. In a recent development, a few artists are now commissioning official slowed & reverb remixes of their singles, so perhaps there’s growth potential after all.

(Are you interested in creating your own slowed & reverb track? There’s an app for that.)

Ambient Television

This is the newest genre on the list, coined by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker last month. I’m fudging a little as ambient television is not a music genre but a television aesthetic that draws influence from the same well as lo-fi hip-hop. This example shows how, as with glitchcore, different mediums are interacting to create new genres. 

Ambient television follows Eno’s maxim of “as ignorable as it is interesting,” or as Chayka explains, “something you don’t have to pay attention to in order to enjoy but which is still seductive enough to be compelling if you choose to do so momentarily.” These are the new breed of Netflix design shows or, as Chayka pinpoints, Emily In Paris — TV shows you can look away from to read that iPhone notification without feeling like you’re missing anything. 

There are more intriguing ramifications here when thinking about how streaming influences the ways we absorb digital media. Here’s Chayka again: 

Whereas the Internet once promised to provide on-demand access to limitless information and media to anyone willing to make use of a Google search, lately it has encouraged a more passive kind of engagement, a state of slack-jawed consumption only intensified by this past year’s quarantine ennui. Streaming companies once pitched themselves as innovators for offering the possibility to watch anything at any time, but do we really want to choose? The prevalence of ambient media suggests that we don’t.

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Genre-chasing can seem ridiculous. But, as you see, the names we use to bond music together says everything about how we listen. New genres are a commentary on the present culture. And old ones are an archeological dig. As Seth Godin said at the top of this essay, genres help us understand our “part in the chain.” That goes for the fans as well as the musicians. Genres decode the links formed through technology, platforms, fashion, and community. Embrace the genre.

Here’s a music genre list to scroll through. And here’s an interactive genre chart provided by Every Noise at Once. The latter offers audio samples but keep in mind the music is only part of the story. Chances are both lists are seriously behind on all of the new genres, even if they were up-to-date a week or two ago.

Creating Sends a Signal

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Craig Mod wrote two powerful paragraphs in today’s edition of his Roden newsletter. Like the sentiments that led last Friday’s post, these words serve as a guide for how to deal with challenging times. “Life is a protest,” says Craig, and I’m planting this here as I’m also not above needing a reminder:

I’ve written this before but I constantly need to remind myself of it, so, once again: A certain kind of work, lifestyle, mode of living — in and of itself — is protest. That is, work that is curious and rigorous is implicitly an antipode to didactic, shallow bombastity. It is inherently an archetype against bullshit. That to be committed to this work or life of rigor (be it rigor focused on “art” or, as they say in Japanese, sakuhin, or family or athleticism or whatever), and to share it with the world is to opt-out of being paralyzed by idiocy, and help others who may be paralyzed find a path back to whatever fecundity of life it is that they deserve.

I’ve held this belief in my pocket these past four years. Wrapped my fingers around it as needed. Along with sane, productive, brilliant friends, a therapist, and a loving partner, it keeps me from seizing up. Who knows what this week or month will bring, but please remember: The very act of living, moving forward, not seizing up, is a protest, and a damn strong one at that. And, shit, if our collective brains are, by chance, uncoupled from the eternal low-level Doom Vibe of Unkindness in Power, use that as a boost to go even further. Take that energy and run with it. It’ll be a gift more now, than ever before. You know what to do with it.

I’ve spoken about how optimism is a form of resistance but, today in the US, as trusted institutions (like, uh, voting) are getting trampled under despotic ambition, that’s easier said than done. But ceasing to move forward, to stop creating, to let ‘that guy’ invade your thoughts 24/7 is the kind of defeat those evil forces savor from you and me. Living your life — for yourself and those around you — and putting new things out in the world inspires more benefit than news-fretting nonstop in our heads and on social media.

Creating sends a signal that we believe in the future. And our creations point to the world we want to live in. Let’s pledge to continue doing these things — to resist — no matter what unpleasantness this week holds.

A Body of Work for Hire

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Going through an old archive, I rediscovered this terrific article on Burton Silverman, best known (to his chagrin) as the painter of the cover art to Jethro Tull’s Aqualung. Here’s an age-old story — an artist does an inexpensive, flat-fee work-for-hire. And then the product takes off and earns millions for everyone except that artist. From the article:

The tale of how Chrysalis Records had done him wrong was turned into somewhat of a running family gag. Given the haggard figure he created, we mused that he might eventually embody his own artistic creation — a destitute, howling figure draped in rags and huddled in a darkened street corner. Buried within this bit of gallows humor lies a nagging truth: There’s a palpable sense of unease and frustration at seeing something he created become immensely popular — define his career, even — only to see his ownership of the work taken away, thanks in no small part to the persistent myths and outright falsehoods that have been told about the artistic inspiration for the cover.

The ‘persistent myths and outright falsehoods’ refers to how Ian Anderson, leader of Jethro Tull, keeps telling everyone that the figure on the cover is a representation of him. Silverman insists it’s not, and one wonders if he’d care so much if Anderson wasn’t such a knucklehead about this.1I believe Silverman here — the article is convincing — but, tbh, it does look a little like Anderson. 

Burton Silverman's 'haggard figure' from the cover of Jethro Tull's Aqualung

Silverman is a successful enough artist — recipient of countless awards and permanent collection inclusions — that his Wikipedia entry barely mentions his association with Jethro Tull. So, it’s not like Silverman owes his success to the band. But it grates on him. Silverman’s handshake agreement with Chrysalis didn’t anticipate all the t-shirts, the merchandise, the dorm room posters, and Anderson claiming ownership because he believes he’s the scary cover dude. (Anderson has also annoyed Silverman by publicly referring to the cover as “messy” and “not very attractive or well executed.”)

There’s no contract, an error on Silverman’s part, so maybe he doesn’t have a right to complain. Legally this is a grey area, detailed by a copyright attorney in the article. 

I recall other work-for-hire arrangements where there was a cut-and-dry contract, the project takes off, and the artist feels cheated. In particular, there’s one producer who did a remix of a known ’80s song.2It’s not essential to this story to name names. The remix took off, becoming a top-charting hit in the UK. The producer signed a ‘flat-fee’ agreement — no one forced him — but he felt the label should pay him royalties.

The remixer started publicly complaining that he wasn’t paid enough and should be entitled to a cut of the song royalty. “My remix is why this is popular,” he reasoned. He brought this up in every interview and article that featured him, perhaps oblivious that this remix of someone else’s popular song was the only reason for the interview.

In other words, rather than adopting a ‘body of work’ mindset and building on the success of this project, the producer was publicly renegotiating an arrangement that wasn’t negotiable.

A couple of labels commissioned the producer for other high profile remixes over the next several months, but nothing else was a hit. He disappeared from the charts and public interest shortly afterward. I am sure many in the industry passed on working with this producer because of his attitude and public airing of ‘sour grapes.’

Seth Godin writes about situations like this in a 2018 blog post titled Considering the Buyout. He brings up the “I Love NY” logo, which Milton Glaser designed for $2000, and the Nike swoosh, designed by Carolyn Davidson for an astonishing $35. Godin refers to these projects, and the remix and album cover above, as illustration, not art. They might be artistic — especially in Silverman’s case — but, Godin says, “Illustration has a client … taking on all the risk. The artist is free to wander, and free to own the consequences.” He continues: 

As Milton Glaser has shown, being associated with dramatic success as an illustrator opens the door to even more success. It can fuel your art and create opportunities for higher leverage in your illustration work as well. Illustration can pay some bills at the same time it chips away at your obscurity problem.

Derek Sivers talks about how if your answer isn’t an enthusiastic “hell, yes!” then it should be a definite “no.” But, he adds a caveat: when you’re starting out and building leverage, then often a “yes” will do. “Hell, yes!” is for artists with leverage, and it might take a few frustrating work-for-hire ‘yeses’ to finally exercise that privilege. 

🔗→ My Dad Painted the Iconic Cover for Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung,’ and It’s Haunted Him Ever Since
🔗→ Considering the Buyout

Creating Scarcity in the Digital Marketplace

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In the latest Water and Music newsletter, Cherie Hu notes a startling development in music monetization. Utilizing the blockchain, a pair of electronic music acts auctioned digital artworks — “short-form, looping videos soundtracked by original music” — earning close to $40,000. Using non-fungible tokens (NFT), the buyers can own (or control) these pieces despite the content’s digital replicability. 

Cherie’s article then considers scarcity, a fan-driven quality of music and collectibles that, in the digital age, rarely exists outside of touring. As Cherie says, “In a capitalist economy, artificial scarcity creates the conditions for discovering culture’s true market value.” In old school (but still existent) terms, think of limited edition albums, the hand-crafted numbered cassette, or that t-shirt you can only buy directly from the touring band. But applying this to the digital marketplace is a tough nut to crack. Cherie writes:

… artificial scarcity could not be more antithetical to how the streaming economy works today, because we expect digital music to be as close to free and ubiquitous as possible — i.e. the opposite of scarce. In a noisy online media landscape, many artists also feel pressured to achieve the same level of ubiquity as the services that monetize their work, constantly churning out content in order to keep up with “the algorithm” and maintain fans’ attention — a burden that is ever more amplified in a world without touring. 

After reading this piece, I checked out Shawn Reynaldo’s latest First Floor newsletter. Shawn speaks with electronic musician Jordan GCZ about his embrace of the Patreon platform. Jordan suggests that he may release music only through Patreon — that is, not on vinyl or Bandcamp or the streamers, but only to his 36 (as of right now) supporters. And these won’t be cast-off tracks or outtakes — the artist promises to release some of his best songs this way, delivered only to his most ardent fans. 

Unless there’s something like incorporating tokens as Cherie writes about, there’s nothing non-fungible about Jordan’s Patreon-only music releases. These fans are free to copy and pass on these music files, and they might end up on piracy sites and YouTube. The scarcity is only in the files’ initial distribution. But I am intrigued by this idea — albums and releases distributed only through ‘fan clubs’ as an alternative to the corporate outlets. I just wonder if the status of membership and being the first to receive the music is scarce enough. 

🔗→ Digital Music’s New Drop Culture
🔗→ Patreon Creeps into Electronic Music

Bells and Mechanical Tune-Teasers

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Spotify Shuts Out SongShift → SongShift is a popular iOS app that allows the transferring of playlists across platforms. That is, if you use Apple Music (like me) and want to grab one of Joe Muggs’ Spotify-only Soft Music For Hard Times playlists, SongShift makes it happen. Now it seems Spotify is pouring the jerk sauce on this recipe, as the SongShift team recently made this announcement: “The Spotify Developer Platform Team reached out and let us know we’d need to remove transferring from their service to a competing music service or have our API access revoked due to TOS violation … as of SongShift v5.1.2, you will no longer be able to create transfers from Spotify to another music service.”

I guess one can understand the rationale. Spotify’s strength and differentiator, as far as music listening goes, is its playlists. If you’re into Spotify-only playlists, transferring them to your streaming place of choice might keep you from committing to their platform. Transferability makes it easier to leave the Spotify ecosystem, too. But it still comes off as a weaselly power move, especially as all other services allow these transfers (for now — this decision could set the tone). 

Spotify is a public critic of Apple’s walled garden, and Jason Snell points out this hypocrisy on his Six Colors blog: 

Spotify hates how Apple tends its own ecosystem, but it has zero interest in allowing its customers to migrate metadata in any way that might make it more convenient to leave Spotify behind. That’s their decision to make, of course, but for a company that claims to support consumer freedom, it has just made a hypocritical decision designed to reduce the freedom of its own customers.

One can argue about ownership of playlists, but the music is not the property of Spotify or anyone else besides the rights-holders. And I’m sure rights-holders would prefer the containers for their music remain fungible across applicable services. 

But what are you gonna do? I suppose if you use SongShift, maybe don’t update to the latest version (though I don’t know for sure if that will make a difference). And transfer those Spotify playlists as soon as you can, even if you use something other than SongShift. I’m sure Spotify will quickly put the kibosh on those other services, too.

Update: Spotify has done an about-face. Adds SongShift: “The only caveat is, you have to have created the playlist yourself, or the playlist must be collaborative and followed by you.”

——————

The Company That Has a Monopoly on Ice Cream Truck Music → The origins of the music boxes playing from ice cream trucks are fascinating. Today’s familiar sound was once in a heated competition with sleigh-bells (“ringing a bell all day long soon proved to be too manually taxing for drivers”) and resistance from older generations complaining about the noise (little did they know).

Nichols Electronics persevered and still delivers 300-400 music boxes a year. That seems low, but the company — which has provided these boxes for several decades — is comfortable with its niche’ monopoly.’ Nichols Electronics is a lesson for labels and artists — find your audience, serve only them, and prosper with consistency despite limited opportunities for growth. 

I also like the strategic rules that Nichols Electronics sets for songs included in their music boxes: 

• They’re short and easy to remember … the perfect length at between 15 and 45 seconds.
• They’re structurally simple: “You don’t want the music to be very full,” music historian Daniel T. Neely tells us. “If it’s too complicated, the message becomes kind of muddled.”
• They’re typically rooted in nostalgia.

As the article explains, “That last point is perhaps the most crucial element of a good ice cream truck song: We’re drawn to these melodies because we’ve heard them before.” It also helps when the ‘nostalgic’ song is in the public domain and doesn’t require licensing fees. That aspect might be a problem for the heavy metal ice cream truck. 

——————

Yoshiaki Ochi – Natural Sonic → Today, I randomly happened across a lovely percussive ambient album from composer Yoshiaki Ochi. Light On The Attic’s Kankyō Ongaku compilation featured this Japanese artist, as did Music For Dreams’ Japanese music collection Oto No Wa. Natural Sonic calms with tropical sounding wooden percussion, floating between the tribal, the distant, and the contemporary. In my interview with Elijah Knutsen, an enthusiast of Japanese ambient music, he describes how the Kankyō Ongaku genre often features the “natural sound of life, with bits of melody blended between the long stretches of environmental sounds.” Natural Sonic includes these elements on a few of the songs — beach surf on “Woods from the Sea,” or bird sounds on “Anywhere.” But the lack of synthesizers draws Ochi’s album closer to the likes of Martin Denny (except the bird sounds here are real) than the pioneers of Asian ambient music. And, interestingly, the organic materials that populate the album result in a timelessness. Natural Sonic was recorded in 1990, a fact I had to look up as listening gave no easy clues to its year of origin. 

Anti-Social Recording Artists

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I’m thinking about what Darren Hemmings had to say in a recent Motive Unknown newsletter. It’s not a secret that I’m no fan of social media (esp. Zuckbook). You might not know that I’m presently doing a lot of research into how a label or artist can effectively promote music without social media. I’m convinced it’s possible, but not without a fair amount of legwork and reconsidering music marketing traditions. So it was with great interest to see Darren, who runs a marketing consultancy representing the likes of Run The Jewels and Moby, state the following:

… there may be quite a fundamental shift starting here – albeit in very, very early form. It strikes me that some artists are increasingly tiring of existing on other people’s platforms where their relationship to fans is always compromised. Instead, platforms like Bandcamp and community hubs like Discord allow them to sell directly and build a home for those fans that is not subject to algorithmic control over who see their message. They are tiring of social media and tiring of other platforms controlling who they can reach. […] Where I think this could get interesting is when we see the first artists really break through with little support or presence across both DSPs and social media in general. I think many would see that as an impossible notion right now, but to my mind that is something that may happen sooner than we all realise.

I agree. And I would love for some of these breakout ‘first artists’ to be emerging rather than established (I mean, if Bruce Springsteen decided to do a Bandcamp-only release, it would obviously do well).

I also think the anti-platform sentiment that’s loudly brewing isn’t only about lack of direct fan access. There are also political concerns, especially among a younger crop of tuned-in artists. In Spotify’s case, there are problems with the platform’s unsupportive moves against musicians. And issues with Facebook (which, remember, owns Instagram) are so plentiful that the platform’s contributions to things like, uh, genocide are now old news. 

It isn’t easy to find optimism right now, but I’m optimistic about this. Artists and labels are starting to take control. They’re learning that the tools exist, for the first time in history, to reach new levels of independence (and interdependence). You know that thing I like to say: It’s the punk rock dream come true … if you want it.