Archive for April, 2010
Lala Shutting Down
I got an email this morning notifying me that my favorite streaming web service, Lala.com, is shutting down. Not totally unexpected. After Apple bought them awhile ago you were always sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. To figure out what they’d do with the service. Whether they were going to work to integrate Lala (or Lala’s technology) into some new streaming site (which is what rumors say) or whether they are just taking out a competitive threat to mp3 sales and figure the purchase price of the company still beats giving people the option to own a “web song” in the cloud as opposed to owning the file on your mp3 player or hard drive.
I’m assuming it’s the former. That there’s a streaming music site about to be launched via Apple. And that would be very good news.
The New Paradigm
Both The National and LCD Soundsystem seem to be adopting the new paradigm with the release of their latest records. That paradigm starts with streaming the new record with a hip publisher like the New York Times or NPR. Then, after you indoctrinate some folks and have coupled the release of the new record with a glowing write-up, you put out the record and hope people will buy it, probably a few weeks after that initial stream. The stream is embedded in some kind of Flash or HTML5 video so you have to kind of digest the whole thing in its entirety and one piece and you can’t skip around. Once the album is out maybe you’re hoping you sell more records or, perhaps to the point, you really see all of recorded music as marketing for the other things you’re working on like playing big shows and going on tour.
What is old is new again I suppose. And we’re back touring, merch sales as the main vehicles for revenue growth. And if you’re big enough to get your album on NPR in its entirety maybe you’re big enough to license your tunes to some film or TV.
It’s a good model and one I certainly enjoy as a consumer.
Ideas and Talent
I was reading an article about the new LCD album in The Guardian and James Murphy said the following:
I see this band as pure evidence that having a decent idea is more important than being talented.”
That struck a chord. Perhaps for obvious reasons. Because it’s how I feel about making music as well. Anybody who picks up a guitar and hands it to me expecting me to unleash something approximating solid guitar playing ability finds out very quickly that that’s not exactly the thing that informs the reason I write music or the reason that the songs and the music turn out the way they do – namely, good.
I’ve always thought of myself more as a producer and, as they say, an idea guy, than as someone that’s actually holding all the talent. My talent lies in the ideas. The ideas being my taste, the way things should sound, the words around the sound that can allude to meaning or greater significance, the positioning of those things visually and from a brand perspective. The idea. That’s what I’m good at.
When you see my up on that stage or playing a show, I’m mostly not playing a guitar. But I’m surrounded by incredible musicians that are playing their instruments and making them sound beautiful. And that’s kind of the point. I’m totally okay with creating something around which everyone else can contribute without having to have me do every single thing myself.
I think about that a lot. The power of the idea. The power of the ability to execute that idea by hook or by crook. Vision. That’s the thing I dig on. Having this idea in my mind and then making it real and holding it in your hands (or I suppose your ears if its music). The idea behind the thing.
The next thing we’re putting out is a two song EP called “Singer/Songwriter” and the whole premise is the idea. I knew that I wanted to do something that was electronic and different than the first record and I knew that it needed to be something totally antithetical to the thing you hear in your head when you hear the phrase “singer/songwriter”. And I was wondering what else it needed to have when this phrase crept into my head. That phrase was “I quit my job” and I just thought it was funny and there’s more to it than that mostly about people’s expectations around artists and how you kind of want them to blow themselves up to romanticize the notion of making art and all of those things. And that’s the idea and the concept.
And I knew that I couldn’t do it by myself and that I’d need someone to help me make the whole thing come true as long as I was there to supply the vision and the foundation and then I could rely on someone else’s talent to bring the thing to life and make it pop and make it real etc. and that’s what happened.
Changes Coming
There are some changes coming as we get ready for the release of a new two song dance EP titled ‘Singer/Songwriter’. In retrospect, “dance” is perhaps an aggressive word for what the songs are. Maybe a better description is “dance inspired”. Regardless, they’re two very good songs and, as the first official release since Pain Is A Reliable Signal, they’re a pretty interesting departure from the sound known as “landscape pop”.
So we’ll be re-skinning the website, doing a promo clip or two, maybe doing a video, doing a press campaign with Bill and the team at TC, writing a new bio. And, of course, seeing if there’s a way to recreate these songs live. I’m partial to and more interested in the first song, “Singer” which has this banging hard edge to it and which I’ve labeled “escapist electro-pop”. We’ll see how it goes.
So stay tuned. S/S will probably come out in early June with an EP release party sometime in late May.
The Mix I Just Made
Here’s the playlist to the mix I just made. The goal was accessibility with a touch of New Wave/English sensibility.
1. Feel the Love – Cut Copy – Love the acoustic on this tune. Just a great sounding song.
2. My Girls – Animal Collective – Obvi
3. So Far Around The Bend – The National – “Well there’s no leaving New York”
4. What Difference Does It Make? – The Smiths – Johnny Marr’s riff. Plus Morrissey’s lyrics are great as usual.
5. On Melancholy Hill – Gorillaz – Pop perfection
6. Soul on Fire – Spiritualized – I love it when J Spaceman says “Sweetheart”. It’s so poignant and touching.
7. Age of Consent – New Order – I could listen to this song forever. The Marie Antoinette trailer always pops to mind as well.
8. Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes – Paul Simon – There’s some significance to this tune.
9. Ragged Wood – Fleet Foxes – “Tell me anything you want. Any old lied will do.”
10. Black Cab – Jens Lekman – Very catchy. Too long but very catchy. I like his mixture of kind of fey melody against sampled drums
11. Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse – Of Montreal – One of the stranger songs about drugs I’ve heard. The song feels manic which I think is intentional.
12. Gideon – My Morning Jacket – Yes please
13. Common People – Pulp – Just a great song. And it fit the mood.
14. Sick of Goodbyes – Sparklehorse – A good way to introduce someone to the beloved and departed Mark Linkous
15. Kelly Watch The Stars – AIR – It all worked on Moon Safari
16. Up Against The Wall – Peter Bjorn and John – The kind of song that gets to me.
After The Show
When you’re on stage and playing the songs and the lights are shining on you. That is a good and powerful feeling. I’ve likened it in the past to running. That’s about the closest approximation. Running is second to being on stage. But both are sensations where the endorphins are kicking and you feel totally in the moment. Alive and without concern for teh thing that came before or after. And maybe there’s a part of you that is slightly more aware and that is doing a thing this way or that for the intended effect and because you know the crowd will dig it. But still. It’s Jon Kabat-Zinn and the mindfulness thing.
Which makes the feeling right after the show is over so strange and odd.
