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- Wiley's great grime giveaway
When he sacked his manager on Twitter last night, Wiley fans probably thought they'd seen it all before. Then he started uploading zip files containing mountains of unreleased music ...
If there's one thing world-weary Wileyoligists have learned, it's to never be surprised by anything he does. Ever. Which is why his Twitter hissyfit yesterday, slating and then sacking his manager John Woolf, was less melodramatic than it might seem. He's even thrown this kind of tantrum before – 18 months ago, when he publicly dissed Woolf for the travesty that was Cash in My Pocket: "If You Knew How Mad I Am Right Now Watch The Video For The 1st Time And Its That Shit Version Of The Tune John Woolf I Am Gonna Get You I Promise 1 Day You Will Pay For This You Tramp I Hate You."
But then yesterday evening, in a fit of pique, Wiley found a new way to surprise us: he embarked on the sudden and cathartic process of giving away what appears to be 11 zip files of finished tracks, freestyles and demos, recorded mostly in the last year. The zip files giveaway is still going on as I type, and is being archived in this gargantuan thread on Grimeforum.com.
Wiley has spent most of the past year referring to himself as The Elusive, also the name of the album for Island he has just wilfully scuppered. As a nom de guerre it perfectly describes the impossibility of ever working with – or working out – the man also known as Richard Cowie. As I recounted in my Ten Essential Wiley Tracks for Fact magazine, he's had beefs, fall-outs, and tantrums galore, been stabbed 14 times, retired at least twice, and never released an album without denouncing it. The word incorrigible springs to mind.
In the stream of consciousness that has spewed forth from his Twitter feed in the last 24 hours, one truth stood out: "I jus want everyone to know I make music day and night." Full analysis will take a while longer, but for demos and cast-offs, the quality seems astonishingly high, moving through the 80-odd tracks that have been uploaded so far. As one Grimeforum.com user suggested, there are (or rather, were) a few top 10 hits in there.
In contrast to the electro-schlock of some of his recent chart singles, tracks such as Elusive Intro and Playground Freestyle demonstrate Wiley is still capable of the breathtakingly forward-thinking beats that made his name in 2003. And lyrically, he's lost none of his old fire – delivering the same winning mix of hazy metaphor and gut-churning honesty, self-doubt and head-strong confidence. "Can't kill Bill you are not Uma Thurman … It's all about passport travel / Especially when you came from the gravel / Kids know my lyrics like Christmas carols," he spits on Aim High, perhaps the highlight so far.
One stoical soul who has been working with Wiley in recent years told me he once received a phonecall on Christmas morning, while opening presents with family.
"I've got some more finished tunes for you, if I send them over now can you check them out please?"
"Wiley," he said. "You do realise it's Christmas don't you? Aren't you going to take a day off?" The grime legend reeled, apologised, and hung up. The idea of a day off from music didn't even figure in his thinking. Never mind The Elusive, Wiley is The Compulsive.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Переслать - Behind the music: Will reducing the cost of gigs raise ticket sales?
Could the announcement that the world's biggest promoters, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, are about to reduce the cost of tickets bring live music sales out of a slump?
Looking at the success of this year's 40th anniversary of Glastonbury, one could easily assume that live music is going from strength to strength at the moment. Unfortunately, the world's biggest festival appears to be an anomaly; this summer has seen numerous concerts and festivals cancelled.
Though things aren't as bleak here in the UK (yet), artists such as Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga have seen tickets still available just a few days before their shows. Other acts, which normally sell out, such as the Eagles and John Mayer, have had to scale back their tours. So, what is going on?
The fall in demand for tickets can partly be blamed on the recession. Spending a few hundred pounds on a festival, or even a concert, forces people with a limited budget to choose one or two events a year (I know people who chose Glasto over a holiday). Bigger artists, who have seen a slump in record sales, want touring to make up for lost revenues and are rumoured to charge up to £3m to headline a festival. Venues and promoters charge exorbitant prices for parking, food and drinks to make a profit after paying the headlining artists. Ticket agencies such as Ticketmaster have ridiculously high service charges. Festival organisers recently called songwriters "money-grabbing" for wanting to raise royalty payments a few percent, from the current 3%, for live music. Considering that's less than what credit card companies get, I think they should consider targeting other culprits.
But could today's announcement that the world's biggest promoters, Live Nation and Ticketmaster, are about to reduce the cost of tickets change the recent downturn?
The announcement is certainly a step in the right direction, as everyone involved in the high end of the live music industry needs to lower their monetary expectations (if prices are lowered, people will get back into the habit of going to more shows). But the high cost of going to some live shows can't be the only reason for the slump in ticket sales.
Another reason for festival and gig cancellations is that more people seem to wait until the last minute to buy tickets. The promoters who have shelled out big advances to the artists get nervous about making their money back when the show isn't sold out in advance – and either change the show to a smaller venue or kill it altogether.
In the US, the reconstituted Lilith Fair tour, a "Celebration of women in music" featuring artists like Sheryl Crow, Gossip and Rihanna, has scrapped numerous dates. It's rumoured to be because of weak ticket sales, despite lawn tickets being reduced by Live Nation from $25 (£16.50 – not a very steep price, I'd say) to $10 – a move that, understandably, upset those who had paid full whack. Lawn tickets for American Idol Live and the Rihanna/Kesha tour have also been slashed to $10.
Or could it be that there are just too many concerts and festivals, and a certain "gig-fatigue" is setting in for music fans? It would be a shame for up-and-coming bands if festivals disappeared. It's an unrivalled method for them to get exposure, as festivalgoers often stumble upon acts that they would not buy a ticket for otherwise. As opposed to the headliners, a festival gig is not a money-making venture for these bands – often it ends up costing them money to play.
At least one good thing has come out of this failure to sell enough tickets – touts end up having to sell their tickets for less than they bought them for, if selling them at all. Maybe it'll make them turn to a more worthwhile profession and leave real music fans to access tickets for their actual face value price.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: songs with handclaps
Last week, it was hats off to songs about headwear. Next, put your hands together for handclap songs
A tough week that forced many to scratch their heads (which, of course, would have prven more difficult in olden times thanks to the presence of a hat). I was still impressed with the breadth of nominations however, as well as the quality of debate – some really good posts from saneshane, shiv, pairubu, tin and many, many more.
This week's topic should prove a fair degree easier, I think, but first here's your A list (column, plus commentability, is here): Marvin Gaye – Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home); Steeleye Span – All Around My Hat; The Libertines – Time For Heroes; Stanley Holloway – The Lion and Albert; Slapp Happy – Some Questions About Hats; Beck – Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat; Prince – Raspberry Beret; Randy Newman – You Can Leave Your Hat on; Steely Dan – The Fez; Kevin Ayers – Irreversible Neural Damage.
Pausing only to tilt our hats to the appropriate angle, we continue on to the B list:
Architecture In Helsinki – Feather in a Baseball Cap
A dose of arty pop, with occasional Fall-ish qualities, that stood out from the crowd when I listened. It's stuttering and synthetic, but well-structured and the hat imagery is effective.
Lyle Lovett – Don't Touch My Hat
I like Lovett's humour and his velvety voice almost as much as Lovett himself appears to like his Stetson. You can have his woman, but not his hat.
Xela – Bobble Hats in Summer
Minimal, glitchy, woozy techno that doesn't even so much as mention bobble hats in passing (never mind summer). But still, I like it.
Ian MacNabb – German Soldier's Helmet Circa 1943
An odd song, in that it belies the title to be something about parental love and the passage of time. Rather than, say, war.
Jimmy Buffett – They Don't Dance Like Carmen No More
Another bit of nostalgia, this time for an age where men were men and women wore fruit on their heads. Touching in parts and some nice descriptive touches.
Lauren Aitken – Pork Pie Hat
A tale of headwear thievery that might have proven too traumatic to listen to, were it not for the chirpy ska and harmonica flourishes.
The Animals – The Story of Bo Diddley by T
Its connection to the theme may be tangenital (based purely to the following lines: "he pulled his hat down over his eyes/ and moved over to western skies") but it's still a funny, fascinating song that says a lot about the devotion the UK invasion bands had to r'n'b music.
Glen Campbell – Gentle on My Mind
More hats being pulled low and a song that's either stirring or sickening and just perhaps a little bit of both. I was first taken with the Tim O'Brien/Kathy Mattea version – the toing and froing, the mandolin. Then I read Tin's dond of the week posting and went back to listen to the lyrics again. There's certainly something vivid about them, enhanced almost by the quick tempo of the song and the matter of fact way they're delivered. Glen's version gets the nod here as it was the track nominated and, to be honest, I didn't find the arrangement as nauseating as Tin did.
Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby – Style
"A hat's not a hat unless it's tilted", sings Deano and he should know. Ultimately this song, as delivered by Deano and Frank to an outmoded Bing, is tantamount to bullying. They're giving him all these fashion tips, then telling him he's either got style or he hasn't! How cruel.
Rocky Votolato – Tinfoil Hats
The hats may stop aliens from reading your thoughts, but what happens when ET can tap into your dictaphone which has ALL YOUR RECORDED THOUGHTS ON IT? Didn't think of that one did you Rocky? Still, a nice piece of outsider-ish balladry all the same.
For all listed songs available on Spotify in one handy place, you could do worse than go here.
This week, handclaps is what I want. Now this is hardly the most musicological of topics, and as for lyrical content goes you might want to come back in a week. But it is my contention that the most danceable music ever recorded contains crucial passages of handclapping. And if you don't believe me, ask Shirley Ellis. I don't think this is a rubric that should need much further explanation, but I shall be around to answer queries should any arise.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill, the Collabo.
DO post your nominations before midday on Monday if you wish them to be considered.
DO post justifications of your choices wherever possible.
DO NOT post more than one-third of the lyrics of any song.
DO NOT dump lists of nominations – if you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
DO be nice to each other!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Tom Ewing | The changing face of lo-fi indie, from Wavves to Sleigh Bells
DIY is now a way to allow a more intimate relationship with a increasingly fickle audience in the context of a shrinking record industry
The drum pattern that opens the Ronettes' Be My Baby was once the most thrilling sound in pop. Now, used in tens, maybe hundreds, of other songs, it's one of the cosiest – a tip-off that however fuzzed-out or glammed-up the surrounding music is you're in the safe hands of a pop traditionalist. Its appearance on an indie record – from the Jesus and Mary Chain through the Magnetic Fields to Johnny Boy – is a statement of faith: that certain people and times simply got pop music right.
So I was a tiny bit disappointed to find that same beat on the new Wavves album, King of the Beach. Not because the California one-man band isn't in hock to the 60s, but because the record mostly downplays its classicism in favour of lyrical snottiness and goofball punky bounce. The Be My Baby track, When Will You Come, is one of a few spots where King of the Beach slows down and I nod off. That damn intro shouts: "Pay attention! This is proper pop!" but I prefer Wavves when he doesn't telegraph that, when the harmonies sneak past the plasticky guitars and so-what vocals and sucker-punch me with prettiness.
For some, Wavves is infuriating – a mediocre talent given lashings of unearned publicity. Even the ridiculous photoshop-style collage of cat, spliff and horrible font on his album sleeve draws ire. But his mixture of the casual and the classic seems typical of the current moment in indie pop. There are more sunshine and chemicals in his music than in, say, the Vivian Girls or the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, but there's a similar commitment to the amateur ethos.
To some extent this is a survival strategy. A while ago, the accelerating turnover of blog favourites was a cause for concern: were bands tumbling into the spotlight before they were ready? Now musicians like Wavves are adapting to that reality, and making their unreadiness part of the story. Suggestions that indie borrows too much from its 80s or 90s equivalent miss some of the point. Back then, DIY was an ethical stance in the face of an industry at the height of its rapaciousness. That ethical case hasn't gone away, but the business doesn't seem half as world-crushing as once it did. So now DIY is a way to allow a more intimate and agile relationship with a probably fickle audience in the context of this shrinking industry.
This is also the supposed advantage of blogs over newspapers or magazines, so the new lo-fi musicians don't just appeal to bloggers – they think like bloggers, with a similar "done is good" mentality and a lack of distance from the audience. What does that imply musically? A mix of instant appeal, fallibility, but also reassurance – those ideas that let you orient yourself quickly, like that Ronettes drumbeat.
Wavves has all of these, and listening to his new album is a happy way to pass a summer half-hour. But for pure sensation it can't compare to the best indie hype of 2010, Brooklyn duo Sleigh Bells, whose Treats gets a UK release in August. Initial praise for Sleigh Bells emphasised their blown-out noise side – but go to them looking for extremity and you'll be disappointed. Like Wavves, it's the prettier core that matters: in Sleigh Bells' case the cheerleader chants, shoegazer daydreams and high school hallway chatter that they set against their divebomb guitars and redlined synths.
Sleigh Bells have been called lo-fi, but in one important respect they cut against that trend. Indie's messy production usually complements a naturalistic working method – if it sounds raw, that's just how the song came out. For all his newfound polish, Wavves sticks to this philosophy. But for Sleigh Bells the mess actually emphasises how mashed-together their music is: their record sounds like his sleeve looks. There's fierceness in Treats, but not in the gleeful noise, more in how aggressively they have glued and fused its components. They have come up with a wilfully artificial aesthetic and are going all-out to make it work – for me there's a thrill in hearing them try that trumps any number of recycled Ronettes beats.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Have we forgotten the joys of music blogging? | Sian Rowe
The launch of Pitchfork's Altered Zones was met with derision from bloggers sniping about 'traffic-driving ad revenues'. Whatever happened to just discovering new music for fun?
Music blogs used to act like online zines, compiling the latest underground music or uncovering lost vinyl classics for a new generation. They relied on adjective-strewn enthusiasm for all things undiscovered and were unpaid apart from a few free CDs and a place on a guestlist. But with the launch of the Pitchfork-endorsed Altered Zones last night, and the subsequent internet backlash, is blogging about new bands starting to sound like boring old music hackery?
Altered Zones is boasts an exciting variety of content from 14 of the most impressive underground blogs around. These include San Francisco's yourstru.ly, which films its favourite bands in unusual locations, 20jazzfunkgreats, which plucks innovative electronic sounds out of thin air, and former print zine Transparent, which is overseeing the site.
"The best thing about blogging is the people you get to meet," says Jack Shankly, one of Transparent's co-founders. "It's a great way to gain exposure for the individual blogs (and the music they cover) among a readership that might be unwilling to trawl all 14 sites." They'll also benefit from Pitchfork's bank account, allowing them to spend a little more time listening to music, and a little less worrying about bills. In short, they'll be professional enthusiasts.
But it also shows what's happened to blogging in recent years. As Shankly says, readers don't want to trawl through hundreds of sites in search of new music. Instead, many music fans rely on MP3 aggregators such as the Hype Machine or blog networks like MBV (featuring Fluxblog and the Catbirdseat) to decide what to download. They are now run like small businesses, with associated promotion wings – such as the Buzzmedia-affiliated Gorilla Vs Bear showcases – and labels. Come on, who wouldn't want the official Mexican Summer/Gorilla vs Bear SXSW T-shirt?
And it appears that bloggers these days are familiar with fancy big-business words too. Following Pitchfork's announcement about Altered Zones, there was a critical backlash. Impose, a Brooklyn blog and magazine, discussed how "central command" and "traffic-driving ad revenues" had come into play in their piece about the site's reception. Salad Fork, a blogger known for indie-pop discoveries and beyond, wrote an "analytic dissection of music blogging", while on Twitter people moaned about "blog monopoly" before the site they were complaining about had even gone live. Which made me think: isn't this kind of internet whining best reserved for budgets and expense scandals rather than something that's meant to be, er, fun?
Shankly agrees: "I don't want to waste time and energy bitching about a record or band I hate. There is no gratification in that. It's irritating that there's a negative culture of ownership that exists in blogging. There is an assumption that a blog gains certain rights over an artist, track or video simply because they posted it first. It seems the antithesis of what blogging is about."
Whether it's glitch, dream pop or doom-metal, this kind of writing should be about emotion, not numbers and hard analysis. If blogging is to retain its credibility it needs to remember that new music can be a joyous thing. So stop griping about the business, stop worrying about what Altered Zones could become and just listen to the songs. Even Pitchfork does that.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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