8Sided Blog

the scene celebrates itself

The Olds Are Alright: Dance Music Becomes Generational

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Joe Muggs in Mixmag:

Which is more important, though – reinvention or continuity? After all, the purity of scenes that are created for and by youth, with all the energy and absolutism that goes with that, is something special. Whether it’s the teenagers excluded from UK garage who turned their youth clubs into moshpits as they invented grime, or kids in bedrooms across the world cooking up ever more mind-warping memes and post-vaporwave electronic sub-genres that only make sense with total immersion in cultural reference points from K-pop, Cartoon Network and dark web research chemicals, some things absolutely don’t need the input of old farts. There’s a stupendous thrill that comes from hearing kids from Shanghai or Sao Paulo, Jakarta or Johannesburg, smashing together extreme electronics with pop and local sounds with zero respect for the canons and hierarchies of the past.

But at the same time, The Black Madonna [who referenced “the young folks and more seasoned folks sharing space and ideas”] is right. In the space of house-techno-rave that she’s operating in, it’s incredible to have people like her and Honey Dijon, Optimo and Harvey and all the other battle-hardened vets right in the thick of things, bringing the weight of decades of experience to bear on the dancefloor and sharing that with the young guns they play next to. Each new generation that discovers the joys of Kerri Chandler or Photek or Chris & Cosey re-ignites the power of their music.

As one of the above mentioned ‘old farts,’ I love this sentiment, and I’ve also thought a lot about it. We are in a unique place where veteran (a kinder way of saying ‘older’) artists freely mingle and perform with younger, emerging talent. For example, in dance music, some of the biggest draws — and influences — are now 50+. In my DJ heyday — the late ‘90s — this wasn’t the case. Though, granted, the genre was fresher.

I used to think it was good for older artists to step aside and let the young take their seats at the table. But it turns out the different generations are just adding extra chairs. There’s a collaboration between the various ages of artists rather than competition or resentment — a transfer of ideas that encourages innovation while respecting history. And it’s not just the artists — the fans have embraced this generational variety, too. When the 79 years old Giorgio Moroder can release albums and tour with enthusiastic fanfare from the electronic music community, it’s evident that we’ve arrived in a special and respectful place.

🔗→ Never mind nostalgia – we’re living in a golden age of intergenerational partying

Record Store Day and the Spirit of Vinyl

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I sure wish we had Record Store Day back when I owned a record store. The closest thing I had to Record Store Day was that time that the Orlando Lollapalooza date got canceled. My store — the only indie-rock-catering record shop in downtown Orlando at the time — was flooded with disappointed festival-goers looking for somewhere else to hang out. That was the biggest day of profit in the store’s existence.

Record Store Day is a great idea — in a perfect world, every Saturday would be Record Store Day of course — though many independent labels have serious issues as the event becomes dominated by major labels. Last year Numero Group, for example, blasted the current RSD as an “unwieldy grip-and-bitch fest … lines, fights, flippers, backed up pressing plants, stock shorts, stocking, and pricing at 4 am the morning of, and that inevitable markdown bin filled with all manner of wasted petroleum and bad ideas.”

As an independent label owner, I understand these gripes entirely. The now major-label (and major-indie) dominated RSD is mainly a nuisance for the small imprint. I’d instead release a high-profile album a week or two before Record Store Day. That way the shops will (hopefully) have my release in stock already, but I’m not vying for attention with the limited edition Devo boxsets and whatnot.

But as a former record shop owner, I am totally cool with Record Store Day. It was tough to keep the lights on at my store in the early ‘90s. I can’t even imagine how tough it must be now. But I do know that the money earned on Lollapalooza-cancellation day paid our bills for a good month. And it allowed us to take risks on some great new records in the following week’s stock order, too.

Meanwhile, Leor Galil of the Chicago Reader reminds us:

RSD’s founding principle is to support local record stores, but I don’t think such support should be confined to shops that stock RSD special releases. Thrift stores can be great places to buy music, even if they devote only a small fraction of their floor space to it. […]

Secondhand shops … rarely sort or catalog their collections in any way, so that it’s futile to take any approach other than “see what you can see.” Such stores are often the last stop records make before the landfill, and browsing their collections can feel like panning for gold in a sandbox. I don’t mind spending 15 minutes at a Goodwill, though, digging through battered Herb Alpert discs and high school marching-band LPs—the longer I look, the slimmer the chance I’ll find anything interesting, but even the tiniest chance is worth 15 minutes to me.

Though record stores maintain some aspect of discovery, I think customers are a lot more educated before going in than they once were. I doubt many of the people in line on Record Store Day are thinking, “I wonder what I’ll find?” They have their pre-determined purchasing targets. It’s more like, “I hope they have a copy of that Devo boxset left!”

Unimpeded access to new music (via streaming and endless opinion and information online) creates a savvy customer who knows what he or she wants, whether today is RSD or not. I do wonder how many people still ask for recommendations from the geeky clerk behind the counter. “I like crazy modern European jazz … what’s good?” gets replaced by “can you direct me to the new The Comet Is Coming album?”

On the other hand, it’s impossible to go into a thrift store with a record-buying agenda. Though rarely can you ask someone behind the counter for a recommendation, but that’s beside the point. Following Galil’s train of thought above, thrift stores remain frozen, unaffected by streaming, by the internet, by the ups-and-downs of the ‘vinyl revival.’ Just as we did twenty years ago, you go in and hope. You often buy something because the cover looks crazy, not because you went in looking for it (you’re cheating if you call up Discogs on your phone). You’ll take a chance on a record even though it’s got a few deep scratches on side two. And then you take that stack home — whoa, it only cost $7 for all of them — and you put on that one record that makes it all worthwhile. You made a .50 gamble, and it’s the JAM. That’s the spirit of vinyl. Happy Record Store Day!

PS – The above photos were taken this morning by Gary Davis at East West Music & More. Gary got the last copy of the Devo boxset!

PSS – My best thrift store find? I once ran across mint copies of the first several original Telex 12″ singles on the floor of a pawn shop, a quarter a pop.

🔗→ Remember resale shops this Record Store Day

An Amazing BBC ‘Bootleg Report’ from 1971

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I previously wrote about bootleg culture in the age of streaming and reminisced on the simple days of CD bootlegs sold in my own record shop. Now my pal Kenn Richards — via his essential Research {Curation} Reduction newsletter — alerted me to this 14-minute BBC documentary from 1971 examining the bootleg scene in London at the time. Holy cats, this is wonderful.

The video features incredible quotes and contributions from Led Zeppelin manager Peter ‘no one heavier than me’ Grant, ‘The’ Pink Floyd, Yoko Ono, and John Lennon who prefers to be in a bag. Also, it’s so quaint how the guy who manufactures bootlegs and the other guy who sells them (at a Virgin Records, no less) are so open and casual and like ¯_(ツ)_/¯ about it.

Here’s some bonus content from the same year: Neil Young discovering bootlegs of his own work in a Los Angeles record store. Watch the guy behind the counter — his uncomfortable body language as Young starts flipping through the bins is priceless.

Apple Gains as Songwriters Come Out Against Spotify

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Billboard:

In 2017, Spotify launched its Secret Genius Awards annual event to honor songwriters and producers behind some of the streaming platform’s most-played songs. But now some of those same honorees are speaking out about something much less celebrated — Spotify’s plan to appeal Copyright Royalty Board rates, along with Google, Pandora and Amazon.

“We’re hurt and disappointed,” the dozens of songwriters wrote in an an open letter to Spotify on Tuesday (April 9) addressed to Spotify chief Daniel Ek and shared with Billboard. “You created a songwriter relations team and ingratiated Spotify into our community. We know that you are not the only DSP appealing the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) rate determination. You are, however, the only provider that made us feel we were working to build a modern music industry together.”

It seems silly, from a PR standpoint, that Spotify would pick this battle (along with another two at the same time). But how could the company know that songwriters — and a good segment of the industry — would come together with such force? Historically musicians and their industry don’t exactly agree, delivering a fragmented and unfocused protest at best. Perhaps songwriters have been emboldened by the Music Modernization Act, or the pervasive atmosphere of protest we live in now, or the vilification of the tech industry by its own actions, led by Facebook. A combination of the three is most likely.

Spotify will probably be the loser in this PR war. And the winner might be the tech giant that’s sitting this one out, according to Variety:

Ultimately, Apple, which for years was the company the music industry most loved to hate, is now in an enviable position. If Spotify wins its appeal against the CRB — which is considered a long shot — Apple benefits by paying reduced royalty rates. If Spotify loses the appeal, Apple, by not joining the other streamers, looks like the hero. And if, at the urging of songwriters, artists start jumping on a #CancelSpotify bandwagon, Apple Music stands to gain subscribers.

“Unlike Spotify, music is not Apple’s core business, thus allowing [it] to sit this one out, with Spotify taking the heat and the legal bills that follow,” says Jeff Rabhan, chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYU Tisch. “By choosing to watch this war from the sidelines, Apple has made a brilliant move by making no move at all.”

🔗→ Spotify’s Secret Genius Songwriters Pen Letter to Daniel Ek Over CRB Rate Appeal: ‘You Have Used Us’
🔗→ Apple Is the Real Winner in Spotify’s Battle Against Songwriters’ Rate Hike

The Counterintuitive Environmental Cost of Digital Streaming

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File this story under ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,’ via Billboard:

Published on Monday (April 8), the research — a collaboration between the University of Glasgow and the University of Oslo –found that despite a sharp drop in the use of plastics in music production over the last two decades, the “storing and transmitting” of digital music files has actually led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by the industry.

“These figures seem to confirm the widespread notion that music digitalised is music dematerialised,” said University of Oslo Associate Professor and lead researcher Dr. Kyle Devine in a statement, referencing statistics citing the decrease in plastics use since the year 2000. “The figures may even suggest that the rises of downloading and streaming are making music more environmentally friendly. But a very different picture emerges when we think about the energy used to power online music listening. Storing and processing music online uses a tremendous amount of resources and energy — which [have] a high impact on the environment.”

More parade-raining from the original report in The Conversation:

Obviously this is not the last word on the matter. To truly compare past and present, if it were even possible, you would have to factor in the emissions involved in making the devices on which we have listened to music in different eras. You would need to look at the fuel burned in distributing LPs or CDs to music stores, plus the costs of distributing music players then and now. There are the emissions from the recording studios and the emissions involved in making the musical instruments used in the recording process. You might even want to compare the emissions in live performances in the past and the present – it starts to look like an almost endless enquiry.

Even if the comparison between different eras ultimately came out looking different, our overriding point would be the same: the price that consumers are willing to pay for listening to recorded music has never been lower than today, yet the hidden environmental impact of that experience is enormous.

I don’t see any mention of the environmental burden of additional landfill created by excess physical media so I wonder if that was a consideration. Regardless, it would seem the solution is not a change in consumption but in the sources and production of energy.

🔗→ Digital Music Consumption Has Led to Increase in Greenhouse Gas Emissions, New Study Finds
🔗→ Music streaming has a far worse carbon footprint than the heyday of records and CDs – new findings

Cool Record Collection, Dad!

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Rolling Stone:

It may sound bizarre, but today parents and their teenage children actually attempt to hang out and listen to music together. This was not always the case. “Larry, the president of the company, likes to say how his mother thought that his rock and roll was not even music,” [Edison Research’s Megan] Lazovick says. “They could not relate at all about music. It seems generationally a lot different today. There seems to be a lot more connection over music with parents and their teenagers.” […] Edison Research found that 76 percent of parents and 60 percent of teens agree with the statement “listening to music is a bonding activity for you and your teenagers.”

I can’t even imagine. I remember my parents mildly flipping out when they found a copy of the Dead Kennedys’ Plastic Surgery Disasters in my bedroom — one of many times that I was questioned on the music I was listening to. These days it must be a lot more difficult to rebel when your parents grew up listening to Beastie Boys and Marilyn Manson (or maybe even GG Allin!). I think that’s one reason gaming videos are so popular — it’s a phenomenon that today’s parents can’t wrap their heads around.

Some more from the article:

When the two demographic groups can mingle without embarrassing and infuriating each other, osmosis occurs, and parents start to stream more often. 68 percent of the 1,909 parents surveyed agree with the statement “your teenagers assist you with new technology,” while 52 percent say they learned about a streaming service from a child.

Intuitively to me, both of those percentages seem quite low. But we can expect the way we — and the older population — listen to music to continue transforming, both as tastes simultaneously broaden and merge, and convenient (and democratized) technological solutions overtake a restricted, ad-supported FM bandwidth.

🔗→ Teenagers Are Teaching Their Parents to Stream, and Radio Is Nervous

Red Bull Music Academy’s Closing and the Mirror Universe

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Marc Schneider in Billboard:

Energy drink maker Red Bull is ending its partnership with consultancy company Yadastar, which oversaw the Red Bull Music Academy and its associated entities, including a radio station, event and festival series and online publication. As a result, RBMA and Red Bull Radio will cease operations in their current forms as of late October, Yadastar announced on Wednesday. […] Whether that means the ultimate end for Red Bull’s foray into radio and other types of music-focused projects Yadastar oversaw remains to be seen. A Red Bull spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Corporate patronage is always tricky, even more so in the current age when ‘brand partnerships’ are how some artists are able to maintain careers freely. But Red Bull’s embrace and support of usually electronic, often uncommercial music didn’t come off like a brand alliance. You can either see that as a savvy success in sophisticated brand management or a resource-draining failure. I bet Red Bull’s attitude steadily shifted from the former to the latter over 21 years. All I know is I’m a huge fan of the music history journalism on Red Bull Academy Daily — check out this Simon Reynolds piece on the North American ‘60s acid rock electronic avant-garde! — and many of the programs on Red Bull Radio — holy cats, this entire archive of Kirk Degiorgio’s Sound Obsession show! But I don’t think I’ve popped the tab on a can of a Red Bull drink in at least a decade. I’m not alone, and I’m sure plenty in C-level management at the company have issues with Academy fans like me.

Ed Gillett in The Quietus:

… however gentle Red Bull’s advertising may have been on the surface, it’s self-evident that those holding the purse strings would have expected a meaningful return on such substantial investment. RBMA’s vast trove of learning and experience may have functioned as a public good, but it was not incorporated or owned as one – ultimately, if and when it no longer made financial sense to Red Bull’s owners for it to exist, then its importance to a wider community of artists and listeners could never have been enough to save it.

In this, RBMA reveals the uncomfortable truth that many of the most influential nodes in our collective network of globalised underground music, whether news sites subsidised by property developers or streaming platforms funded by venture capital, rely not only on the creative communities who provide their content and create their value, but also on the continued indulgence of wealthy benefactors, whose priorities can and will change. In Red Bull’s case, an expectation of the eternal good will of CEO and owner Dietrich Mateschitz might be viewed as optimistic, given his widely-publicised and noxiously reactionary political views.

Is a reliance on (or an optimistic holding-out for charity from) corporate patronage keeping grassroots artistic communities from forming? What will happen to the community around Red Bull Music Academy? Is it shattered? Will we all go home now that the money isn’t there? Or, more importantly, do we need that money to maintain an influential and productive community?

I look at dublab which has independently operated as an online radio station — and, yes, a community of artists — since 1999. Sure, they list RBMA as a ‘programming partner’ (I don’t think there’s any funding involved), but the organization is, for the most part, listener and event supported. There’s a culture based around dublab, very much tied to the Los Angeles underground. They don’t have the impact of a Red Bull Radio but imagine a dublab in every city with an underground music scene. Now imagine all those stations and communities networking and supporting each other. That’s powerful stuff, and a CEO’s supposed altruism isn’t required.

Let’s circle back to the high-quality content RBMA, and its contributors, have gifted us. In the paragraph above I mentioned two favorites: the Simon Reynolds article and Sound Obsession show archive. I hope you aren’t reading this after October, clicking those links, and finding dead web pages. That’s another worrying problem — art becomes ephemeral when it’s subject to and owned by a corporate patron. If Red Bull is ready to wash its hands of the expense of artistic charity, what further incentive is there to keep the content online?

Terry Matthew in 5 Magazine:

We like to think that information, which wants to be free, will also propagate on its own: that once released, a document or story will be replicated in so many places that you can never take it down again. The internet is forever, we think – but it’s not. According to a New Yorker story by Jill LePore about the Internet Archive, the average life of a web page is about a hundred days. […]

Carter Maness brought this up four years ago about the fate of thousands of blog posts he’d written while employed by AOL and other media companies. “We assume everything we publish online will be preserved,” he wrote. “But websites that pay for writing are businesses. They get sold, forgotten and broken. Eventually, someone flips the switch and pulls it all down. Hosting charges are eliminated, and domain names slip quietly back into the pool. What’s left behind once the cache clears? As I found with that pitch at the end of 2014, my writing resume is now oddly incomplete and unverifiable.” Maness published this story on The Awl, itself defunct and starting to show visual signs of code decay.

Of course, this isn’t solely a problem of corporate patronage. dublab could cease operations tomorrow, the entire site and archive vanishing into the digital ether. And it’s not just a digital feature either — there have been repeated stories of film history destroyed in warehouse fires. But things do get messier if RBMA claims ownership of its material and Simon Reynolds can’t re-post his article on his blog, or Kirk Degiorgio isn’t allowed to upload his Sound Obsession archive to another site. That’s where the subject of patronage matters the most — when reproduction is possible and warranted, but the dual roadblocks of sponsored ownership and digital obsolescence realize a mirror universe where the artwork never existed.

🔗→ Red Bull Music Academy, Red Bull Radio to Shut Down
🔗→ What Does Red Bull’s Corporate Exit Means For Underground Music?
🔗→ 404: The Internet Has A Memory Problem

An Indefinite Break: When Artists Step Away

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Popjustice editor Peter Robinson in Music Business Worldwide:

Last month’s articles following the death of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis each discussed his extraordinary music and the impact it made both in its own right and on the music of others. But there was blanket recognition, too, for the way Hollis called time on Talk Talk and pretty much retired. As the Guardian put it in one headline: ‘He disappeared into the fog.’ […]

If we permit a band to split up, it’s not long before we demand a reunion. Solo artists who turn their back on the whole thing are regarded as fools or mad recluses. Someone might not want to tour again, or make more music, might feel they’ve said everything they ever needed to say, might know themselves well enough to know this lifestyle isn’t for them? Inconceivable. Not to mention inconvenient, if the purchase of your next property relies on squeezing 20% out of another album. […]

Many of us have had musicians and creatives tell us literally to our faces that they just cannot do this any more. Given how sceptically we view artists who in our heart of hearts we know can’t do it any more, it’s no wonder there’s no orthodox way of dealing with popstars who just don’t want to.

We’re disappointed because there’s a story we tell ourselves about our favorite artists: that they live and breathe music with every fiber, and to stop would be their inevitable demise. Or, at the least, a betrayal of their divine nature. I know that sounds highfalutin’ and impossible, but I think, deep down, we believe it.

As a recording and touring artist who gave up the lifestyle and, for the most part, the creation I completely understand the stresses and the eventuality of feeling spent. People ask me for the next record — or the next DJ set — all the time and I appreciate the compliment. But it’s hard to explain to a ‘fan’ that I need an indefinite break because the artistic process isn’t compelling at the moment. And I — and your favorite artists — need to be compelled. Otherwise, the best I can promise is ‘half-ass.’ That’s not for me to deliver.

And I’m small potatoes. I can’t even imagine the pressure placed upon prominent artists that choose to step away. Mark Hollis or Scott Walker do come to mind, along with other missing-in-action artists given the recluse or ‘gone crazy’ tag. Here’s a tweet I saw the other day that got a ‘hear hear’ from me.

P.S. OK, I’m still occasionally compelled to create, and I’m called to it more-and-more these days. And I’ll have a new EP out soon to show for it.

🔗→ Sometimes, artists turn their back on the music business for good reason

Putting the Puzzle Back Together

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Rolling Stone:

… today’s most influential music companies [are] increasingly eating into one another’s core businesses in a bid to grow their prosperity. At the center of this trend are those music-streaming services “doing a Netflix,” i.e., investing money into independent artists to create their own content outside the traditional record-company structure. […]

Streaming services are becoming distributors and, in some cases, record labels. Record labels are becoming streaming services and, in some cases, talent management companies. Talent management companies are becoming record labels, while distributors are having a go at becoming managers. (All of these companies, it appears, also want to become video and/or podcast production houses, but that’s a topic for another article.)

This concept isn’t that different than what a traditional major record label would do 20+ years ago (and, remember, there were more than three ‘major labels’ in those days). A major label would have control of A&R, manufacturing, distribution, publicity, publishing, tour support, and so on. And in some (often self-serving) cases the label would also provide an artist’s manager and legal team.

It’s like in the ‘00s the puzzle got thrown on the floor and scattered into many pieces. Now that it’s being put back together the pieces aren’t quite fitting the same — rather than a label providing management or publishing, the current trend is the manager or publisher starting a record label. But without the capital and influence of the flush-with-money major labels of yesteryear, I wonder if many of these new endeavors are spreading themselves thin. I think we’ll continue to see companies handling two or three of these aspects at a time (i.e., publishing, distribution, and A&R) but I don’t feel the trend of trying to do everything under a single umbrella will yield many successes.

🔗→ Every Music Company is Morphing into the Same Thing

Robots vs. Curators: The Battle Begins

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Techcrunch:

Spotify … announced a major change to how its playlists will operate, with the news that some of its previously human-curated [editorial] playlists will now be personalized based on listeners’ tastes. […] “Some playlists will now be personalized for each listener based on their particular taste. This means that for those specific playlists, no two will be the same,” the company shared in a blog post.

Spotify says it decided to make this change after finding that users listened longer to the personalized playlists, during a trial of the new system. It also notes that the new system will increase the number of artists featured on playlists by 30 percent and the number of songs listened to by 35 percent — metrics that artists will surely like.

I’m a huge fan of increasing discovery opportunities, so I welcome and am intrigued by this news. Though I wonder if Spotify’s creating a musical version of the ‘Facebook bubble,’ where listeners with narrow tastes don’t get introduced to artists outside of their established spectrum. The algorithmic playlist change could be beneficial for new artists among listeners with an already broad predilection and great for classic, already well-known catalog artists with everyone else.

Matty Karas isn’t having it. He wrote this rebuttal in the 3/28/19 edition of the Music:REDEF newsletter:

But sometimes I really, really don’t want personalization. Like when I decide to click on my preferred ANTI. I don’t want to hear the re-sequenced version of the album that Spotify thinks would be best for me, and I don’t want to start on track 2, no matter how great track 2 is. If I wanted that, I would’ve clicked directly on it. I want to hear the album Rihanna actually made, sequenced and mastered. That was the intention of my click. Likewise any of the playlists that I follow. I follow them because I like the music and the flow and/or I like and trust the curator. The unspoken agreement between me and them is they’ll put thought and effort into the playlist and I’ll listen. Period. […]

Labels love this, I’m told, because it’s a way to get more tracks and therefore more labels on any given playlist. But who wants that kind of democracy? I want the four most interesting, pertinent, appropriate tracks you’ve got, not one from each of the three major labels and one from a token indie. Does anybody not want that? […] I want my curators to lead. If they’re just passively following me, why exactly am I following them?

Luckily there are many curated third-party playlists out there, but those are for the ‘broad’ listeners mentioned above. Maybe we’re selfishly expecting the majority of listeners — the ones who, in the past, mainly listened to music via commercial radio on car commutes — to explore and embrace new artists. Spotify’s giving the majority of its users what they want (and I won’t lie —algorithmic playlists are fascinating and fun) while the rest of us can dig into curated niche selections like this. Or this.

Elephant, get into that room. Let’s talk about Apple Music. The industry is expecting the company to copy Spotify and start introducing their own sophisticated algorithmic playlists. However, I’d like to see them lean into curation. Apple Music has flirted with playlists compiled by influencers and other notables, but they are hardly visible — the ones that exist are sort of difficult to find. If Apple can get Oprah and Spielberg on stage to promote its TV offering, then why not enlist playlists from heavy hitters? And I’m not talking lazy extensions of Beats 1 shows. Perhaps Frank Ocean’s ‘Songs I Listened To Growing Up.’ Mitski’s ‘Songs I’m Playing on the Bus While On Tour.’ Convince Four Tet to move this over to Apple Music. Put some fun and personalization into it — what makes that Four Tet playlist so cool is that there’s no doubt he’s adding the songs to it himself.

Let Spotify have the algorithms. Apple probably won’t be able to catch up anyway. Apple Music already subtly differentiates itself by being friendlier to the album format — they should go all in on the taste-making curator as well.

🔗→ Spotify expands personalization to its programmed playlists
🔗→ Music:REDEF – March 28, 2019