8Sided Blog

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Commodifying Coziness and the Rise of Chill-Out Capitalism

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In the article Why Are So Many Brands Pivoting To Coziness?, Vox’s Rebecca Jennings reveals a curious marketing trend: brands displaying promises of comfort to attract millennials and Gen Z’ers. In youth-oriented magazine advertisements, we’re used to photos of adventurous consumers climbing mountains or traversing an exotic, unfamiliar city. Now you’re as likely to see a picture of someone sitting at home seated on a couch or maybe even — gasp! — reading a book. Combined with emerging products like weighted blankets and CBD shampoo, it’s evident that chill is ‘in.’

Media theorists point out that horror movies are popular during times of unease and distrust in society. Jennings has a similar reason for the rise of coziness: “Things are bad, and people are anxious about whatever ongoing horrors are metabolizing in geopolitics, the environment, and capitalism.” However, there’s an always-online twist to this movement. “The selling point is that this product will make you feel calm and safe, but the experience of using it is still supposed to look good enough for other people to see.”

Ambient music isn’t exactly mainstream, but it’s more in vogue — and pervasive — than it’s ever been. The flavors are varied, from dark drones to nature noises, from New Age throwbacks to chill-hop YouTube streams. If we’re defining ambient music as music that sits in the ambiance, politely ignored as we go about our lives, then all of those styles qualify. And, like brand-marketed coziness, the music is often pushed as an antidote for a hectic life. There’s something spacey and unobtrusive playing in the background as that person sits on the couch reading his book.

Streaming has enabled an even more utilitarian strain of ambient music, something that The Baffler’s Liz Pelly refers to as “emotional wallpaper” and “music that strategically requires no attention at all.” This music is made to fall into playlists that play on repeat as we study, or meditate, or slowly fall asleep. The primary purpose isn’t to calm our brains but to rack up Spotify plays as the playlists churn in repetition. Ambient music is perfect for this — we can only listen to the same pop hook so many times. An ambient drone might as well be endless.

Of course, music has always had calming and self-healing properties. That’s ancient history. And it’s untrue to say that ‘western’ music ignored this aspect, with blues and — of course — gospel as examples of genres containing elements of spiritual remedy. But the connection came as a surprise to many of ambient music’s forerunners. Take John Cage, whose life and direction changed after a conversation with Indian composer Gita Sarabhai in the 1940s. She pointed out that it’s okay for music to be meaningless, to exist solely to “sober and quiet the mind.” It makes sense to us. But this was a revelation for Cage, a stone thrown in the pond with ripples continuing outward.

What’s new is our era’s odd commoditization of relaxation music. Sure, the New Age genre was a small phenomenon in the late ’80s — those Windham Hill CDs flew off the shelves at the Camelot Music I worked at as a teenager. But playlists targeted to sleeping ‘listeners’ for money-making purposes is a bizarre twist. Consider the Sony-affiliated Sleep & Mindfulness Thunderstorms playlist, featuring 990 one-minute tracks containing sounds of rainstorms. Why a single minute each in length? Because Spotify will deliver a micropayment to a track that plays for at least 30 seconds.

But let’s get something straight. Personally, I love ambient music. I work to it. I relax to it. I sometimes sleep to it. And, if you can’t tell, I’m fascinated by it. That presents a quandary as I’m using the music in the same way as those studying to ChilledCow’s YouTube channel. What makes my cozy space so sacred?

Simon Reynolds’ recent Resident Advisor long-read about the state of ambient music is worth a look. He grapples with chill-out capitalism in his article, stating:

Still, there is something unnerving about the idea of ambient and New Age music uncoupled from any higher purposes and applied to the task of self-repair. Like power yoga or microdosing, it is taking an agent of change that was originally part of a culture of liberation and discovery, and putting it in service of the status quo. As David Toop, author of ambient bible Ocean Of Sound, wrote recently, “if ambient music only serves as an app to incentivise or a backdrop to productivity, networking and self-realisation, then it has no story of its own, no story worth hearing.”

Are we adding too much baggage to ambient music? Perhaps it’s just meant to be, like a soothing wallpaper hue or the bird sounds outside my window. Burdening this music with a special purpose or the responsibility of solace might be self-defeating. But, true enough, so is placing a profit incentive on our coziness.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

Fail We May, Sail We Must: The Living Influence of Andrew Weatherall

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At the beginning of the week, I ran across The Perfumed Garden, a blog collecting recordings and playlists from episodes of John Peel’s celebrated long-running radio show. The tracklists are fascinating on their own. They serve as trapped-in-amber snapshots of what was musically ‘cool’ that particular week of that specific year. Also, the shows from the late ’70s and early ’80s inspired listeners who later formed more than a few beloved UK bands. John Peel was who they were listening to. This influence remains enormous, and it’s fun to examine these roots.

Where will we look in thirty years to find the musical zeitgeist of today? Is there anyone like John Peel, collecting and noting songs for enthusiasts to study thirty years from now? I imagine there are tastemakers across genres with a similar influence — not only in underground rock and dance, but also in hip hop, in Indian music, in jazz, and so on. But I fear they’re making streaming playlists — ephemeral lists of what’s moving the present culture, but inaccessible to those studying music’s past.

The day after I was thinking about all of this, the news came from everywhere that Andrew Weatherall died. I’m assuming most of my readers know of Weatherall and, like me, are saddened by this news. If you’d like a refresher of his remarkable career, read some of these moving memorials. (Each word at the end of that sentence is a link.)

Weatherall was an X’s X, where X could be several things: a producer’s producer, a DJ’s DJ, a remixer’s remixer, and so on. If one of those Xs was your trade, then chances are you looked up to Andrew Weatherall as one of the best in the discipline of X.

And I did think about Weatherall, the tastemaker’s tastemaker, while I was falling deeper in the John Peel rabbit hole. Weatherall was the first name that came to mind as Peel’s worthy successor. It’s not an original thought — upon Peel’s passing, there was a campaign to give Weatherall the historic Radio 1 slot. But as Weatherall told Dazed & Confused (recounted by Greg Wilson in his lovely remembrance): “The curmudgeon says I’d rather be the one Andrew Weatherall than the second John Peel.”

On Twitter, Joe Muggs requested that we don’t solely remember Weatherall as “the Screamadelica guy.” He unarguably was so much more — for example, the first track on this posthumous single, released yesterday, is stunning — but I’d like to focus on a remix Weatherall did for that Primal Scream album.

I first heard the ‘A Dub Symphony In Two Parts’ version of “Higher Than The Sun” when it came out in 1991. Primal Scream were not on my radar, so it probably came to me as a radio promo (I was a college radio music director and listened to everything). At the time I was dabbling in electronic music production with a few basic pieces of gear. I was mostly (badly) emulating beats and loops found on the instrumental mixes of hip hop 12″ s from the likes of Public Enemy, Black Sheep, Erik B. and Rakim …

In my world, this ‘Dub Symphony’ changed everything. It presented the remix as nearly untethered to the original, artistic branches sprouting from the seed of someone else’s creation. There was nothing else like it.

I was already obsessed with The Third Mind, a book and concept developed by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs that encouraged combining random, unconnected elements to summon undiscovered inspiration. I interpreted Weatherall’s style of remixing as a producer’s version of The Third Mind. Weatherall’s ‘Dub Symphony’ helped me — and many others — approach the act of remixing as almost mystical, a long-distance collaboration.

I don’t have a whole lot of original music to show for my own long and storied music career. But I’ve got a ton of remixes under my belt. I fell in love with remixing — fell in love hard — and most of the time, that’s all I did in my studio. For better or for worse, I can thank Andrew Weatherall for that.

A side note: when I’m consulting music-makers, I always mention ‘the punk rock dream.’ The phrase refers to how, as a punk rock kid, the prospect of self-releasing, worldwide distribution, and instant networking was like a dream to me. And now we’re living it. My colleagues are sick of hearing me spout this phrase which I thought I might have coined. But then I ran across this Weatherall quote in The Guardian as I read a bunch of his older interviews this week: “Here we are at the apex of the punk-rock dream, the democratisation of art, anyone can do it, and what a double-edged sword that’s turned out to be, has it not?” Did I somehow crib that from The Guv’nor, too? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

Here’s a great selection of Andrew Weatherall’s productions combined with wise words and tales from the man himself. This mix serves as an excellent primer if you’d like one.

Here’s an archive of Andrew Weatherall DJ mixes. The number of sessions approaches 200.

Here’s an archive of his NTS radio show Music’s Not For Everyone. These programs verify Weatherall’s ear for amazing, up-and-coming artists in a variety of genres, and why he gets mentioned alongside John Peel as an influential tastemaker. His last show aired on January 30.

And, if you use Apple Music, here’s a playlist I compiled via various sources. It features Andrew Weatherall productions, remixes, and collaborations alongside tracks he played on his NTS radio show.

I’m not a fan of tattoos, but I like the ones on Andrew’s forearms. They read: Fail We May, Sail We Must.

This post was adapted from Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care, a weekly newsletter loosely about music-making, music-listening, and how technology changes the culture around those things. Click here to check out the latest issue and subscribe.

The Ongoing Collision of Music and Podcasts

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Recently, the co-host of the Geeks and Beats podcast posted the news that Spotify removed all 250 episodes of his show. This inexplicable act was the result of a takedown request from Universal Music, caused by an allegation of copyright infringement. The notice, sent by Spotify, did not specify what triggered the complaint, so the show’s host doesn’t know how to respond:

As you can see, we have no idea what’s being contested. All we know is that Geeks&Beats has been kicked off Spotify. And not just for the mysterious offense. All 250+ episodes are gone. Wow. Obviously, though, the sniffing algorithms found something and triggered the takedown. Try appealing to a robot.

It would be great if a copyright identification system for podcasts resembled Content ID on YouTube, where the use of songs is approved and, if desired, monetized. Perhaps that’s on the way. But, Spotify’s present one-strike-and-you’re-toast application of the tool is a problem.

If you recall, SoundExchange and PodcastMusic.com are preparing to launch a music licensing platform for podcasters.1However, I haven’t seen any updates on the launch since August, so I don’t know when this service will finally become available. Drawing upon SoundExchange’s extensive collection of pre-approved masters, the platforms expect labels and artists to set licensing prices for catalog easily, and podcasters to easily obtain those license for their shows. The service will include commercially known songs as the majors come on board.

But how will Spotify’s song-sniffer know that the podcaster acquired a legitimate license from SoundExchange? I don’t see the two platforms ‘talking’ to each other to verify music usage. What I expect to happen: Spotify automatically pulls the podcast down (every episode!). The podcaster disputes the claim with proof of the license, with no idea if she’s sending the correct documentation for the disputed song. And then she waits for the podcast to (hopefully) get reinstated. How long do you think that will take? And if it’s a podcast that regularly uses music from SoundExchange’s licensing platform, then fielding takedown notices could become the podcaster’s part-time job.

The intersection of music and podcasts is more like a collision. It’s a total mess. And the indispensable podcast The Future Of What covers the topic in detail in the latest episode. Listen and feel the frustration of everyone involved.

🔗→ This is how insane music copyright claims have become: Totally. F**cked.
🔗→ Episode #178 : Licensing Music For Podcasts

How a Factory Fire Underscores Vinyl’s Fragile Future

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This month doom and gloom descended on the record industry. And by the ‘record industry,’ I mean the industry that manufactures, releases, and loves vinyl records. The fragility of the vinyl revival was dramatically revealed by a tragic fire at a factory in California. People are freaking out. And, as I wrote about the story for my newsletter, I started thinking about vinyl in a broader sense — why do we love it, what are its alternatives, and do we really need it?

Before we go down the rabbit hole, you might want to watch an informative video that shows the creation of a vinyl master:

Pretty cool, eh? So, back to this concerning fire. The quick summary: a couple of weeks ago, the Apollo Masters Corp. building in California burned to the ground. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the damage to the facility was severe enough that it’s unlikely the plant will reopen. And that’s bad news because this plant was one of two in the world that provided the lacquers necessary to create master discs for vinyl record production. (You may have noticed that Gonsalves opens an Apollo box for his lacquer in the above video.) The other plant is MDC in Japan, reportedly behind schedule and turning down new customers even before the fire.

This tragedy triggered a lot of doomsday takes, with the founder of record presser Capsule Labs memorably coining the word “Vinylgeddon” in Billboard. I briefly spoke to Mike Dickinson of Austin’s Chicken Ranch Records, and he wasn’t as dramatic: “There could be a bottleneck in the new release categories for a bit, but I don’t think we will see much of a slowdown in already mastered and plated product. It will be interesting to see what labels will do to innovate during this time.”

Chicken Ranch presses with Gold Rush Vinyl, which fortunately uses the Japanese lacquer-maker. Once word gets out that this plant has a reliable source for lacquers, what happens to their backlog? Will prices rise? Will it take much longer for finished records to ship? And, more importantly, what happens to the plants that used Apollo for lacquers? Another wrinkle to this story is that Apollo was also a source for the cutting styli used in Westrex heads. Thus plants with Westrex equipment may have a problem replacing styli.

All is not lost. There is DMM (Direct Metal Mastering) technology that most European pressing plants use. DMM doesn’t require a lacquer, though some feel the sound of DMM records is harsh and lacks bass (thus not the preference for DJ music). With some tweaks, this process could be viable for everyone, but the promise of improving DMM tech might be a fool’s errand. Here’s Abbey Road Mastering Engineer Miles Showell being a total downer:

I highly doubt there will be any serious development in DMM. All the Neumann engineers who designed and knew about this stuff are dead. All of them. They did not write everything down which will probably make reverse engineering DMM technology prohibitively expensive.

The absence and cost of innovation are other issues. For all the talk of a vinyl resurgence, it’s still a niche business. Is there enough financial incentive for invention and new technologies? Physical manufacturing isn’t as sexy a pursuit as some shiny, disruptive music tech start-up. Where will we find the vinyl innovators?

The Discogs editorial team has a more optimistic take. There are quotes from ‘unnamed executives’ that other American lacquer plants could appear soon, and it’s hoped that a retired Apollo will openly share their proprietary technique. Also, master plates are created far in advance, so we shouldn’t see a slowdown in new releases for several months. Record Store Day 2020 is probably safe. And represses of classic titles make up most of a record plant’s business, and those plates are ready to go, no new lacquers needed.

Despite which way things end up, the Apollo fire is a wake-up call. The infrastructure for the vinyl industry is fragile. Another reminder of this instability is the recent — and on-going — scandal with Direct Shot Distribution. All three major labels now use Direct Shot to get their vinyl to stores, including the indie labels distributed through the majors’ indie services such as Warner’s ADA. The handling of all these records by a single distributor has created an inexcusable backlog, delays getting releases to stores, and weird things like shipments “supposed to contain music [instead] filled with bottles of prescription cough syrup.” The situation has prompted some to throw around the conspiracy theory that it’s the major labels’ way of killing off the vinyl revival. I don’t buy it — it’s merely the migraine headache of coping with unexpected analog hold-outs in a world that’s moving toward the digital. The ‘niche’ is so easy to maintain digitally that its physical side can’t keep up in the global market.

This brings me to what I really want to talk about: reliance and identity.

The identity of a lot of independent labels is tied up in vinyl. This strong link is a reason the news of the Apollo fire sent shockwaves around the music industry. I doubt many labels are depending on vinyl financially — the dirty secret of the ‘vinyl revival’ is that most independent labels would be stoked to sell 200 or 300 copies versus the couple of thousand pieces small labels shot for in the ‘90s. But, for many, the identity of the vinyl-pressing label is vital in the wake of digital labels.

Anyone can start a digital label, right? It’s believed that vinyl means you’re more serious, that there’s an investment, and, for artists, there’s prestige. There’s something to be said for all of that. It’s why many labels pressing vinyl do so at a loss — which is fine if you can afford it. But there are other ways to show you’re serious about your label. Springing for an exceptional website that engages fans comes to mind — or spending that vinyl money on someone to help with promotion. And seriousness doesn’t have to cost money. Operating your label professionally and with ambition and purpose says a lot more than a stack of unsold records in the corner of your home office.

Things have calmed down a bit since the fire, but labels relying on a vinyl identity were initially terrified at the news of Apollo’s demise. What would their futures look like if the infrastructure for vinyl collapsed? Here’s an unwelcome comparison: is this fear the same for a label that put all its eggs in the Spotify basket, and now Spotify is shifting its focus to podcasts? Or, how about the fears of an industry propped up by the insane profit margin on compact discs, and a few years later, no one wants CDs anymore?

Today there’s so much opportunity for diversification. Not only in the delivery format of a musical release, but also in the means that a label and an artist can inspire income streams, distribute themselves, and find previously untapped audiences. There’s no reason to narrow one’s scope. Nurturing an identity is cool — branding is a necessary consideration — but not at the expense of putting your project in a predicament if that one aspect you’re tied up in changes direction.

Do we need vinyl? I want to think so, though I did sell my entire collection in one not-as-painful-as-you’d-think decision strategically before moving to a new house. Here I’ll defer to Shawn Reynaldo, who asks some crucial questions about the need for vinyl in his outstanding First Floor newsletter. Provocatively, Shawn — who primarily writes about DJ-oriented genres — states:

It’s funny, electronic music is supposed to be rooted in notions of futurism… But so many of our practices are rooted in sentimentality and notions of “this is the way it’s always been done.” Traditions can be a good thing, and I’m not the kind of person who regularly advocates for “smashing the system,” but when it comes to vinyl, we’re long overdue for a change. The [Apollo] fire is a major bummer, but it might also be the catalyst we need to make some real changes.

Vinyl enthusiasts are sometimes puzzled by people who purchase records and never open them. These record-buyers do listen, but they opt to use streaming platforms or digital downloads (the vinyl probably came with a download code). The album is an appreciation of the music, a totem of sorts, something to look at or to show friends. It’s often a measure of support. And more than a t-shirt, albums become decor, giving voice to the fan like a collection of books on a shelf.

I’d venture that in 2020 most albums are purchased like this. And that gives me pause about an album’s purpose. I wonder if this power is transferable to other collectible items. The answer: of course it is. We already see it in the surprising return — and popularity! — of cassette releases on Bandcamp. The mocking was rampant when cassettes started to reappear. But think about it — if we’re buying a personalized item to support a band and to physically show that support in our homes, a cassette is equally effective. It’s even more potent wrapped in a groovy and personalized package. Financially, a cassette is a lot less risky and more hands-on for the band. And, refreshingly, the investment is in the personalization and creativity of the object, not the cost.

The door is open for imaginative stand-ins for the vinyl album. It could be a screen-printed wooden box containing photos from the recording session and an odd-shaped USB for the music. Or perhaps a compact disc in a hand-stitched multi-page zine with artwork reflecting the band’s political activism. And if you want to get really nostalgic and downright weird with your format, how about releasing your music on a floppy disc?

I’ll go one further. Does this physical object even require music? As long as the listener has the audio files or access to the release via streaming, anything can represent the fan’s love for the band.

I recall my friend David and his support for the South African electronic musician Felix Laband. Felix is also an excellent visual artist and David tracked down and purchased one of his paintings to proudly hang on his wall. Though he loves the artwork on its own, this was primarily a show of support for Felix’s music. As David writes on his blog about the purchase, “If we could do the same for John Kennedy Toole for having written A Confederacy of Dunces or for Brian Hutton directing Kelly’s Heroes we would, but they’re dead so you’re it. We hope that repatriating your art is adequate compensation.”

The first trick is inspiring your fans to offer support and want to display your object in their homes. Next, come up with something crafty, surprising, and personal that connects with a dedicated listener and dazzles her friends. This something could be a vinyl record, but it doesn’t have to be. And, someday, it’s possible that it can’t be. Be ready.

A quick addendum: We can’t ignore that vinyl manufacturing is an environmentally hazardous procedure. The Apollo Masters Corp. supposedly ran afoul of the EPA in the past. Apparently, the plant didn’t have to adhere to some environmental regulations due to grandfather exemptions. Building a new plant removes these exemptions, and that could be one reason Apollo is hesitant to reopen.

Furthermore, as pointed out in a recent must-read article in The Guardian, the PVC in vinyl contains carcinogenic chemicals. The Thai factory where half the world’s supply originates is likely contaminating a local river with toxic wastewater. Records are a petrochemical product, so let’s not forget the pollution and greenhouse gas that entails.

But, as also mentioned in The Guardian piece, digital streaming has its own impact on greenhouse gas. The manufacturing of the phones and computers we use to listen results in toxic waste. And, as our devices are updated, the old ones end up in landfills. Like a lot of news these days, this knowledge is dispiriting. But having this conversation offers a glimmer of hope as we explore and imagine alternative, less harmful ways to listen.

This post was adapted from the second episode of my email newsletter Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. Click here to check out the full issue and subscribe.

The Tamed Beauty of Slowdive’s Pygmalion

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Slowdive - Pygmalion

The Quietus pointed out that Slowdive’s album Pygmalion is 25 years old. Pygmalion is one of those ignored-at-the-time albums that creeps up, virus-like, many years later in influence and reputation. If you know what Slowdive sounds like, but you haven’t heard Pygmalion, then you don’t know what Pygmalion sounds like. As Joe Banks expressively says in The Quietus piece, “If Slowdive had previously sculpted a Gaudí-esque edifice from their pedal boards, Pygmalion puts us inside its walls.”

For all of its beauty and tameness (and I don’t mean that as a dis), it’s wild that Pygmalion was considered ‘difficult’ in 1995. I have to admit — I’m not even sure if I ‘got it’ when it was released (I remember buying an expensive import of the CD because their US label passed on it). I mean, where are the drums?

Banks points out a direct line of influence from Talk Talk’s last two albums and Pygmalion. They’re treading similar soundscapes. Talk Talk had a bitter battle with EMI over the likewise ‘difficult’ The Spirit of Eden, eventually getting dropped from the label. Good thing this didn’t dissuade Slowdive as Pygmalion is a gorgeous statement that wouldn’t be out of place as a new release on a post-rock label’s 2020 release schedule. Oh, hurried world — this is the sound we need now.

As for not heeding Talk Talk’s downfall, Slowdive was dropped from Creation Records a week after Pygmalion‘s year-delayed release date. Let’s show Alan McGee who knows best — listen to Pygmalion here.

This post was adapted from the debut episode of my email newsletter Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. Click here to check out the full issue and subscribe.

Sampling Non-Stop

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CMU’s Setlist podcast is running a fantastic series of shows on the ‘Top Ten Legal Battles’ in the music industry. The latest episode is about a European court’s recent judgment over a two-second sample from Kraftwerk’s “Metall auf Metall”. As I’ve covered on the blog, the defendant lost. It’s all quite fascinating, and the podcast covers the ins-and-outs. The hosts also include a short history of sampling litigation and an easy-to-follow explanation of the rights in play. Check it out:

The unsuccessful lawsuit over a short horn sample in Madonna’s “Vogue” is discussed in the history section. The hosts remark that the publisher for the sampled artist — The Salsoul Orchestra — used ‘new technology’ to identify the short sample. I would make a bet this technology is the website whosampled.com. Rights-owners often consult this site to find who sampled their artists. I speak from experience — someone once contacted me regarding one of my sneaky samples, revealed to the sampled artist’s publisher via that site.

In other sampling news, CMU also recently covered Drake successfully arguing fair use for one of his samples. The sampled artist was Jimmy Smith, with a snippet appearing in Drake’s “Pound Cake.” It’s a sample of a spoken word bit from 1982’s “Jimmy Smith Rap” where Jimmy states that “jazz is the only real music that’s going to last, all that other bullshit is here today and gone tomorrow, but jazz is, was and always will be.”

The case is curious because Drake cleared the recording — usually the only requirement in sample clearance — but Smith’s estate argues that he should have cleared the ‘lyrics’ as well. So, Drake went for a fair use defense for his appropriation of the lyrics.

I’ve written before how fair use is a tricky argument. There aren’t any set-in-stone conditions that qualify for fair use, but there are some loose guidelines. In the end, it’s left to the opinion of the court. And surprisingly (to me), the court ruled in Drake’s favor.

CMU:

In the words of the Second Circuit: “The message of the ‘Jimmy Smith Rap’ is one about the supremacy of jazz to the derogation of other types of music, which – unlike jazz – will not last. On the other hand, ‘Pound Cake’ sends a counter message – that it is not jazz music that reigns supreme, but rather all ‘real music’, regardless of genre”.

The court goes on: “‘Pound Cake’ criticises the jazz-elitism that the ‘Jimmy Smith Rap’ espouses. By doing so, it uses the copyrighted work for ‘a purpose, or imbues it with a character, different from that for which it was created’”. Which, the judges reckon, is sufficient to constitute fair use.

That’s a coherent and straight-forward opinion. But I still feel the ruling could have gone either way. As I’ve said before if you’re going to argue fair use then be ready to defend that in court. And keep your fingers firmly crossed.

🔗→ Artist News Business News Labels & Publishers Legal Setlist Setlist: Top ten legal battles – The Kraftwerk sampling case
🔗→ US appeals court rules that Drake’s Jimmy Smith sample is definitely fair use

Epiphany in Yekaterinburg

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If there’s a thread running through what I write about on 8sided.blog, it’s how the rush of progress affects our culture, specifically as it pertains to art and creativity. It’s tempting to focus solely on the technology as it’s what’s driving most of this progress, but I’m fascinated by the big picture effect on human society and you and me. Most of the time, I’m thinking about music — how we listen to it, how we make it, and what value we put on it. The blog’s tagline is ‘thinking about music’s place in the 21st century’ and that about sums it up.

Last year I hit 50 years (I think I just passed the Brimley/Cocoon Line), and I often think about how I recorded my high school punk band on a 4-track cassette recorder, tape hiss my worst enemy. And then, in college, I cut reel-to-reel tape with razor blades to splice together extended dance remixes to play on the radio. I was a film student for a while, and I loved the monk-like discipline of cutting film in the same way. In about five years, technology erased all of these activities. I was part of the last generation to touch tape with a razor blade.

I often tell the story of obsessing over a magazine record review as a teenager and trying to find the album. I lived in Central Louisiana, and a lot of independent records were hard to come by. But I’d look for this record that I only read about for months and months and months. I finally found it on a family trip to Baton Rouge, in a hip record shop on the outskirts of LSU. So excited! And when I got home and put that record on, it sounded like the greatest thing I ever heard. That obsession, that hunt, that feeling — is that still a thing?

But lest you suspect I’m on a ‘let’s go back’ nostalgia trip, know that I would have traded all of that for the technology we have now. I’d trade my experiments with the 4-track cassette recorder and all its creativity-inspiring limitations and all the tape cutting. I would even trade that obsessive feeling of the record hunt that’s impossible for me to explain to anyone 15 years younger than me. I mean, I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be a teenage music fan with the world’s recordings available anytime — to read a review and thirty seconds later I’m listening.

There’s been a shift in my brain as I move from one era to the next, a shift that happens so fast that I can’t help but notice it. No boiling frogs here. And it’s still happening, and it’s happening to all of us, whether we’re 50 or 15 or 35 or 95. That’s what fascinates me — those moments when I realize the game has changed and the way I process art or approach creativity has, too. And it seems like this happens every month now.

Yekaterinburg, Russia on a map

A story: in early 2001 or thereabouts, I was somehow booked to DJ at a basement nightclub in Yekaterinburg, Russia. I had the expected American assumptions of a club night in Siberia (or the Urals — there’s some debate about that), that I’d be blowing minds with all of my hot-off-the-presses tunes that these isolated punters had never heard before.

I walk into the club and immediately hear the local DJ before me not only playing loads of tunes I had planned to play in my set but also playing fantastic music I had never heard before. I was stunned. We were three hours deep from Moscow by plane! How did the DJ find this music? I went into the DJ booth and noticed that he was playing off burned CDs marked with Cyrillic Sharpie scrawl.

I was witnessing digital music changing the world. Napster, Soulseek, and all the others leveled the playing field. Suddenly DJs everywhere had access to most of the same music as me, and it was time to step up my game. I remember standing in that DJ booth realizing the weight of this — music was suddenly ubiquitous, and fans in faraway cities you’ve never heard of can hear it, love it, and rock it out in their DJ sets. In the snap of a moment, my world seemed completely different.

This post was adapted from the debut episode of my email newsletter Ringo Dreams of Lawn Care. Click here to check out the full issue and subscribe.

Why a Tip Jar on Spotify is a Bad Idea

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In discussions with artists, in think-pieces, in Twitter threads — here’s an idea that comes up all of the time: streaming platforms (Spotify, etc.) should add a ‘tip jar.’ If you enjoy an artist, you can ‘tip’ them, like a dollar bill in a busker’s guitar case. It’s a way of helping the artist in a time of dwindling streaming payouts.

The suggestion is well-meaning and, at first, sounds like a great idea. But there are a lot of problems.

Let’s start with logistics. The streaming platform would need to implement a direct payment system. And the only way a ‘tip jar’ would work is if the payment goes directly to the artist. A label or distributor could be a conduit, but if the idea is to eliminate the ‘go-between,’ then having someone in the middle — accountable for payments and likely taking a cut — defeats the purpose.

For this ‘tip jar’ to work, the artist would need to contact the platforms and set it up personally. And, unlike a single distributor that maintains relationships with multiple platforms for an artist, the artist would have to directly manage each platform (assuming different spaces come on board to the idea).

But could we even get to that point? This concept wouldn’t work unless Spotify came on board. And what’s the incentive for Spotify to do something like a ‘tip jar?’ It would take an investment and change in infrastructure to set up this feature and facilitate direct payments. What’s in it for them? As a shareholder-controlled company, there needs to be a profit motive embedded in everything they do. And, again, if a platform takes a cut of the ‘tips,’ then the purpose is defeated.

I don’t harbor an illusion that Spotify would install a ‘tip jar’ without a profit motive simply to support the artist community. It’s not hard to discern Spotify’s interests, given the company’s recent moves: the opposition to raising copyright payouts to songwriters, the shift to podcasts, Daniel Ek’s insistence that Spotify is an ‘audio company,’ not a ‘music company.’ Spotify, and other corporate platforms, seek profit above all else, and a ‘tip jar’ doesn’t fit into that equation.

Now let’s pull back and look at some broader problems. We have to accept that, on its face, a ‘tip jar’ on streaming platforms is a bad idea. It disguises the insufficient payouts to artists — as well as the lousy record deals where many artists find themselves trapped — by claiming they can (and should) live off tips. There are already ethical problems with paying service industry workers far below minimum wage due to the possibility of ‘tips.’ We shouldn’t continue to normalize this practice by extending it to recording artists.

Also, an artist tipping system harms non-artist songwriters. Songwriters would not receive these tips. If fact, non-artist writers would probably receive less royalty. It’s possible services and labels would use the tipping feature as an excuse to reduce royalty payouts.

If we can ignore this bad behavior, then there’s an additional danger. A tipping system on Spotify, used by artists for income, would ironically increase reliance on the platform. It’s another method of separating artists from their fans, with Spotify standing in the middle. If the domination of corporate streaming platforms is what brought us here, wouldn’t it make better sense to offer solutions that lessened an artist’s ties to them? I worry that including Spotify et al. in plans to help independent artists shuts us off from outside-of-the-box ideas that further artist independence.

I also don’t think that artists should have to busk and beg on the side of a road that runs alongside corporate property. It’s a bad look, and it’s demeaning, and, despite what we’re led to believe, there are other options. Yes, artists need to make a living, and streaming payouts are awful, especially in the niche genres. But ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ isn’t the answer here.

The answer lies in fandom — it always has — and finding ways to cultivate and engage an audience without a middleman controlling access. For starters, a robust artist website is key. Create a hub that draws new listeners and repeated visits from diehard fans. Reward with bountiful content, consistent updates, surprises (very important), and full streams of the catalog. Your website is where you send people, not Facebook or Spotify or another platform that controls access to fans. One can still use those platforms, of course, but use them merely as tools to get people to your site. And, if you want, that’s where the tip jar goes.

Self-Promotion and the Fear of Rejection

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A while ago, I had a conversation with a client looking to launch a music video for his latest single. The video was fantastic — the client collaborated with a talented filmmaker friend and ended up with a music video that, quality-wise, wouldn’t have been out of place on early ’80s MTV.

The client’s question to me: how can I get this video placed on a prominent music website or blog where most eyes can see it? The client then lamented that he didn’t have a budget to spend on a publicist, a familiar tale.

I explained to the client that he is capable of taking matters into his own hands, finding potential outlets for his video, and contacting the appropriate people. The quick steps:

  • Find a few sites you’d like to cover your music, ones that include similar music already.
  • Go through the website and find articles or reviews for music just like yours. Make note of the writers.
  • Find how to contact those writers. Many sites supply the contact info for the writers. If not, a simple search should locate the writer on, say, Twitter or Linkedin.
  • Reach out to each writer. Make it a personal note. Not a pasted email. Mention the review or article that you saw and that you liked it, and that your music is similar. Would the writer want to check it out? Supply a link.

Music writers receive dozens of emails each day, asking them to listen to music. The overwhelming majority — if not all on some days — of these emails are pasted rather than personalized, Often the recipient’s address is BCC’ed among dozens of others (or even CC’ed, yikes).

In the steps above, the thinking is that a musician who has done their homework, has targeted the writer for their musical preference, and is complimentary will stand out and be a breath of fresh air. There’s no guarantee the reviewer will check out the music, but the chance is far greater.

However, after telling the artist how to approach writers and be his own publicist, he gave the response that I hear way too often: “Yeah, that’s cool, but I don’t have the time to do that.”

We’re not talking about a full-fledged publicity campaign. I’m just asking for the recording artist to look at a few sites he’d like to be on and then contact a handful of writers. I can’t imagine this taking more than a few hours. Isn’t the artist’s music video — or music, really — worth putting in a few hours?

My first reaction is that this isn’t someone with whom I should be working. This musician’s not dedicated to his craft if he won’t invest a few hours of research and networking. He can’t be serious about his music career. Is he a hobbyist? I don’t work with hobbyists.

But I can dig further into the artist’s mindset and understand there might be a fear of not doing a good job. And the fear of rejection. What if the writer emails back, “this is terrible.” The feeling of rejection is even worse, as this is a writer that the artist knows is into similar styles of music. What is the writer (i.e., the expert) hearing that the artist isn’t? Was the artist an imposter all along?

This episode has me thinking of why some artists won’t network and do publicity on their own. As I showed above, it’s easy to do, and the contacts become valuable when directly cultivated by the artist. Instead, most artists opt for services or pay high fees to publicists. Could the publicist serve as a barrier, protecting the artist from negative feedback and discouraging words? “Turns out the release isn’t a fit for that magazine” is probably the worst news the artist will ever receive from the publicist.

I’ve always thought that the main reason artists enlist music publicists is for their networks and connections, and the wise artist can find these on his or her own. But now I understand what else I’m asking from the artist: be ready for rejection, the direct criticism of your heartfelt work, and the potential strengthening of that imposter’s syndrome. Most writers won’t respond — we know this — but there is the chance for a harsh dismissal by an expert. We could forgive even the most thick-skinned artist for hesitation.

The Shifting Definition of Independent Music

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Recently a reader called me out for repeatedly throwing around the phrase ‘independent artist’ or ‘indie label’ without explaining my definition (or if I even had one). Fair enough. Let’s discuss: what does independent mean in 2020?

The ‘indie’ tag has meant less and less over the past thirty years. There was a stark difference between indie and major labels until the grunge years of the early ’90s. The success of Nirvana triggered an ‘indie band’ signing spree that saw a lot of independent labels get into bed with the majors, both publicly and covertly. I remember insiders up-in-arms over The Smashing Pumpkins, whose Caroline Records debut was supposedly just an ‘indie cred’ warm-up to their already planned sophomore album on a major label. Caroline, at the time, was a subsidiary of Virgin, after all. Even then, there were debates over whether an act such as this could be considered independent.

Things seem less complicated now, but only at first glance. One can’t get any more independent than self-released, right? And bedroom labels are rampant, a far distance from the three major label behemoths. But the confusion lies in distribution, marketing, and the third party deals a label or artist signs in the guise of ‘label services.’ Is a self-released artist independent while using a distributor that also controls her publishing? While promoting solely through a social media platform that is the gatekeeper to her fanbase? And while relying on Spotify playlist placements for discovery and traction?

We’re likely splitting hairs. Some of the bands we considered the most independent in the ’70s and ’80s relied on corporate record chains to sell their music, or entered into deals with management agencies and live venue networks. But now there is an air of acquiescence that seems different. Is ‘selling out’ even an available option when the biggest corporations in human history are necessary for exposing one’s music?

This circumstance presents a challenge when defining ‘independent music.’ And this challenge is depressing. If we’re in bed with corporations because of the tools we use, then there’s not much hope for the punk rock dream.

Historically, we’ve looked at independence in terms of control. Who’s in the driver’s seat? I think that stands, even if we need to tweak things a little. It’s natural to call a label or artist who controls songs and revenue flow — traditionally through a distributor — an independent. But even that’s debatable, as Cherie Hu pointed out in a recent post:

… according to Billboard and Nielsen, copyrights owned by Universal Music Group account for a 29% share of the recorded-music market — but if you look at [indie label] catalog distributed by Universal, that share increases to 38%. On the flip side, copyrights owned by indie labels account for 35% of the market, but copyrights distributed by indies account for only 16%. This implies that many artists and labels who we categorize as “indie” actually rely on distributors owned by major labels to release their music — a nuance that can be complicated to discuss in the open.

Also, a difference from decades ago is that the current independent artist must also exert control of her fanbase. In other words, the audience interacts through the proprietary website, or an email list, or at live shows rather than solely through the corporate go-between of social media. As I’ve spoken about before, an independent artist uses social media as a mere tool, not a reliance.

Our definition of independent is increasingly subjective. If Taylor Swift managed to gain control of all her recording masters, publishing, and fanbase access, we could call her a sort of independent artist even when Universal distributes her music. Likewise, an emerging artist on a small independently distributed label, but who signed all his recordings and publishing to the label for perpetuity, isn’t exactly independent.

I believe the title of ‘independent’ now leans towards those who understand and control their rights. It used to hinge on the size and scope of the artist’s associated label, which made the definition easier to suss out. But as more and larger artists continue utilizing 21st-century tools to seize their rights, the meaning of ‘independent’ only gets blurrier.