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- Behind the music: The music industry roars back, or does it? | Helienne Lindvall
Figures out this week seemed to suggest the industry is in rude health, yet artists claim to be struggling. Who's telling the truth?
"Music industry up 5% in 2009", "Music piracy crisis 'over' as industry revenues rise to £3.9bn", "Consumer spend on live music hit a record breaking £1.5bn", screamed headlines the other day. Great news! So what have all these artists and record labels been going on about, complaining about what a dire state the music industry is in? Who's telling the truth? Actually, both PRS For Music, who conducted the research for the report behind these headlines, and the labels and artists are right – to a certain extent. Of course, headlines, and statistics, should never be taken at face value. To find out the truth you have to ask the right questions. To be fair, PRS's chief economist, Will Page, and his colleague Chris Carey say their work should be treated as "a view of the music industry from 30,000 feet … as the increasingly complex and cross-border industry is proving hard to add up". But let's look a little bit closer than that.
The good news: Sales of recorded music have flattened (or, as Page puts it: "We've fallen off a cliff, but at least we've stopped falling").
What it really means: Five years ago the figure was £1.8bn, today it's £1.3bn – a near-30% drop, without even considering inflation – but at least it's not lower than last year. One could also argue that without Susan Boyle having the biggest-selling album in the UK (second biggest in the world), coupled with the death of Michael Jackson, sales would have continued to fall. The overall 5% (actually 4.7%) rise in UK music revenue can only be compared to last year, as that's when Page and Carey started measuring it.
The good news: The UK is still one of only three countries (the US and Sweden, being the other two) who are net exporters of music, when it comes to songwriting royalties.
What it really means: Well, that is good news (especially for someone like me, who's a Swede, living and working in the UK). It sucks, however, if you're a musician in Spain, where domestic music revenue has, basically, bottomed out (other European countries are having similar problems). It's also worth noting that much of this revenue comes from so-called heritage acts – Abba for Sweden and the Beatles for the UK, to name the biggest contributors.
The good news: Live revenue is up by 9.4% on last year.
What it really means: Now here's where it gets tricky. The report includes "on-the-night" spend, such as food, drinks, parking, merchandise, etc – money that doesn't necessarily go back to the artist, label or people closely associated with the act. It also includes revenue from secondary ticketing, of which none goes back to them, but to the person selling the ticket and "fan-to-fan ticket exchange platforms" like Viagogo and Seatwave.
It is possible that the aim is to display what the music business contributes to the UK economy, and not what goes to people and companies involved in the actual music industry. But then we come across another problem. Page and Carey have chosen to measure it by revenue from gigs set in the UK, not earned by UK acts' performances. True, Take That did one of the most successful tours of last year, but American stars like Lady Gaga, Jay-Z and Bob Dylan tend to demand close to 100% of ticket revenues (excluding "service charges" and other charges that are added on the ticket price). In other words, all that revenue leaves the UK, which leads us to …
The good news: Summer festivals revenue is up the most and they're boosting live revenue.
What it really means: Festivals are still only responsible for 20% of all live revenue, compared to 40% for arenas. Headlining acts at festivals, a lot of them American, can demand huge fees, while smaller acts get nominal income from playing festivals. It's still encouraging, however, that UK festivals and tours have not suffered as badly as US ones have, recently, though the rapid closure of smaller venues (49 pubs a week, according to the Publican), where emerging artists can hone their craft, is worrying.
Finally, the report published some stats that most publications missed. The spend on recorded music per capita in the UK is £16.59 per year, while the US figure is £9.43 and Spain is a paltry £2.38. The digital revenues per capita are £3.51 in the UK, £4.08 in the US and £0.49 in Spain. So, if the statistics are to be believed, it appears the Brits have not completely fallen out of love with the CD.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Переслать - New music: Yadi – Guillotine (demo)
Full-frontal pop with no bells and whistles? That'll be Yadi
Hannah Yadi is currently unsigned, which seems slightly problematic given the fact that, if Guillotine is anything to go by, she's going to be huge. Over plinky-plonk piano and a simple beat seemingly tapped out on a tin can, Guillotine grows into a military march, Yadi's swollen vocals making Marina and the Diamonds sound shy and retiring. Lyrically, it's defiant, aggressive and slightly menacing, with the line "I can make you love me" repeated over and over. Unlike some of her contemporaries, Yadi doesn't disguise the radio-friendly elements of her songs with unnecessary bells and whistles, although this is only a demo so the final version may literally contain bells and whistles. Make no mistake, she is one to watch.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Music Weekly: Caribou
This week sees the show return to normal after last week's outrageously successful (well, there were lots of positive comments) South African house special. That means Alexis Petridis is back at the helm, alongside Rosie Swash and Malik Meer, editor of the Guide.
First up, we hear from Caribou (aka Dan Snaith), who is back in London (where he now lives) after months of touring. Snaith talked to Rosie about many things, including the relationship between maths and music, and why he spent his adolescence listening to Yes in his bedroom instead of going to gigs. He also had a great deal to say about his recent trip to Ethiopia, so we've made a Music Weekly Extra where you can hear everything Snaith said that we couldn't fit in the show. And by the way, we did manage to include a nine-minute exclusive James Holden remix of Caribou's Bowls, so it's not like we're being stingy or owt.
In Singles Club the panel examine dubstep's bid for the mainstream via Katy B's much-hyped Katy On a Mission. The team also cast their critical eye over Gyptian's Hold Yuh – the dancehall jam that's had a makeover courtesy of pod fave Nicki Minaj – and Kisses' People Can Do the Most Amazing Things.
Plus, there's a live track from Domino's latest siging, Chief, who came all the way from California to perform for us (OK, they were here on tour too).
Hope you enjoy this week's show, next week is a dubstep special with interviews from Mount Kimbie and Ikonika. Please say hello on Twitter and Facebook if the fancy takes you.
Переслать - Does Eminem and Rihanna's new video glamorise domestic abuse?
Some bloggers think the video for Love the Way You Lie glamorises violence, while others believe it highlights the dangers of domestic abuse
The single has already topped the charts in several countries, but the video for Eminem's Love the Way You Lie has only just been released online. It features Megan Fox and Dominic Monaghan as a couple trapped in the kind of destructive relationship that Hollywood likes to make appealing.There are a few images of Fox literally playing with fire (rather predictably, given Rihanna's lyric – "Just gonna stand there and watch me burn"), before the couple exhange slaps, throw stuff at each other, then start kissing angrily against a wall.
The violence does at least reflect Eminem's lyrics – "I laid hands on her, I'll never stoop so low again/I guess I don't know my own strength" – but the video's depiction of domestic abuse has already drawn criticism; Entertainment Weekly made its feelings clear: "Eminem's Love the way You Lie video: Domestic violence is AWESOME." But Billboard takes a different line, saying that Rihanna felt the song was something she needed to get out of her system following the "very-public assault at the hands of ex-boyfriend Chris Brown" and that, ultimately, "the clip aims at highlighting the dangers of an abusive relationship and, indirectly, delivers the message that it's better to walk out before it's too late". What do you think?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: songs about old age
Last week was all about the thrill of the hunt. Now we want songs that rage against the dying of the light
Greetings, wrinklies. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that those wrinkles are not a sign of age, merely a result of a brow furrowed in scepticism: "Who does he think he is calling me wrinkly? He should have a look in the mirror first, the simian half-man." You are right, of course, but wrinkles will one day come to us all and that eventuality is the concern of this week's topic.
But first, the A-list (and a column that discusses it): Blood Sports – The Style Council; Marvelettes – The Hunter Gets Captured By the Game; William Cornysh – Blow Thy Horn Hunter; The Seeker – The Who; Pentangle – The Hunting Song; Dread Zeppelin – Moby Dick; Dead Kennedys – Winnebago Warrior; Ronnie Lane – The Poacher; Gene Vincent – Bird Dogging; Sonny Terry, Brownie Mghee – Fox Hunt
Tally ho! Straight to the B-list we go:
Alasdair Roberts – I Went Hunting
I see there's a video of Roberts elsewhere on this website. This track is thoughtful, delicate and well-composed with a delightful intricacy to the vocal line. Great nom from Mnemonic too (I think I often say that).
Show of Hands – Longdog
Here's a straight-up, honest-to-goodness hunter and he's not afraid to admit it. This sounds like it's from the States, but it's actually performed by an English folk group.
Pete Seeger – Bear Hunt
As much a tale as a song, I suppose, but I like the tempo and, yes, the sentimentality.
Tom Lehrer – The Hunting Song
This is the anti-Seeger, earthy sentimentality replaced by sardonic urbaneness. "People ask me how I do it/And I say 'there's nothing to it!'/You just stand around looking cute/And when something moves you shoot!"
Deep Forest – Hunting
Something a little bit different and an interesting discovery for me. World dance music, if that's not the crassest classification ever, as made by two Frenchmen. It's an unexpected sound, and quite powerful too, even if it drifts into cheese in places.
K'Naan – Until the Lion Learns to Speak
I don't think this is really about hunting, the opening proverb apart, but it's a cracking track and great live too.
NATO – Chorjavon
I won't repeat SV80's recounting on the NATO backstory, but it's a powerful piece of pop that takes the jolly organ figure which popped up across the piece last week, and takes it someplace sinister.
Albert King – The Hunter
Now this is what I'm talking about. I could listen to this punchy, bluesy rock'n'soul all day, but if I did, I would never eat my tea.
Ted Nugent – Great White Buffalo
There were a few harsh words for the Nuge on the blog, and this song is slightly incoherent in parts, but the guitar playing is phenomenal. Of that I am sure.
Mountain - Nantucket Sleighride
The yang to Nugent's yin as I didn't go as much of a bundle for this as many on the blog last week, but it's got a classic hook and offers a distinctly different take on the topic.
Here's a Spotify list with as many of the top 20 tracks as I could find.
What were we talking about again? Oh yes, old age. We've had songs about getting older (check the Marconium, it was so long ago there wasn't even a B-list), but that included songs about being in your thirties, so I think there should be enough fresh territory to cover here. I don't want to draw a line as to what age constitutes "old", hopefully the songs will make that clear. I'm looking for insight into old age though, rage against the dying of the light and all that sort of stuff.
I'll be around this weekend, but I'm covering the Edinburgh festival for a few weeks so the playlist will be chosen by Paul "New Band of the Day" Lester. I'll be back at the end of the month.
The toolbox: Archive, the Marconium, the Spill, the Collabo (with, I hope, new anti-leaking properties).
The rulebook
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.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Pacific! - Narcissus
Beats, ballet and black body paint. Swedish electro duo Pacific! have it all
Who hasn't fallen in love with their own reflection? Come on, we've all been there. Well, Swedish duo Bjorn Synneby and Daniel Hogberg, aka Pacific!, have chosen self-infatuation as the theme for their audacious second album. Conceived as the musical backdrop for a ballet to be staged in Gothenburg later this year, Narcissus, the title track, combines Daft Punk's electro-pop melodrama with an 80s drive-time sheen to create just the right kind of cheese. There's a brilliant moment around the two-minute mark when the beat falls away to leave a scratchy guitar riff that arrives from nowhere and stays for the rest of the song. Above is an almost* exclusive video featuring Swedish performer Olof Persson and a lot of black body paint.
*It had only been watched eight times when we went to press.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Take two: who has made the best 're-version' of their own record? | Tony Naylor
Damian Lazarus reworked his album to meet his fans' original expectations, Franz Ferdinand did it to defy them. Whatever the reason, they should be applauded
In last year's Smoke The Monster Out [STMO], DJ/producer Damian Lazarus delivered, arguably, the defining album of the modern clubbing experience. In a similar way to Björk's Debut, released 15 years earlier, STMO captured, in its mood, sonic palette and lyrics, both the transcendence and transient emptiness of modern techno culture. Ambivalent and idiosyncratic, it evokes the tantalising, illusory sense of freedom that can only come at 7am while dancing in some cavernous cathedral like Berlin's Berghain. Throughout, darkness, fear, dysfunction and a restless yearning flickers at its edges. That is why it is so resonant; it is club music that is both lost and defiant, sad and delirious.
Somewhat ironically, when the Crosstown Rebels chief decided to take his clubbing opus on tour, to the clubs, he decided it needed a radical overhaul. It's a whimsical record of varied textures and speeds, incorporating all sorts of influences, from dubstep to East End music hall to Scott Walker. Lazarus thought that the tracks needed to be streamlined and sped-up, toughened and reinforced, if they were going to work as a late-night live show.
"People were playing the original Moment in clubs, albeit at the end of their sets, or at a special moment in the night, but I always thought the track needed a heavier kick, and I wanted the vocals to be a little more dubbed-out, if it were to be a club record", says Lazarus. "It was super important for me to retain some of the key elements, in all the tracks; especially Lullabies where we'd made some crazy sounds and melodies. I wanted the remix to reflect that, but work in a club."
He could have taken a few days to remix the album down into a flat, functional set, but instead he decided on a more organic approach. Then based in Los Angeles, he approached leftfield US techno producer, Kenneth James Gibson , aka [a]pendics.shuffle, and after discussing the tracks "at great length", and inviting Gibson to come see him DJ, they set about "making the music that people originally expected me to make". "It's an odd way to go about things," he says, concluding: "I enjoy a tricky life."
The resulting club versions (just released on Get Physical, and streamed here) are a fascinating coda to the first STMO. The original may be the meatier work, but there is an irresistible logic to the club versions; a neat synchronicity between the two. Where the original album continually alludes to the seductive nature of techno's never ending late-night modulations, the club versions make this a living reality. The joy of repetition really is in these long, subtly evolving tracks. Moreover, while the new versions have a lean and limber elasticity, a directness and momentum dictated by the demands of the dancefloor, they also convey much of the quirky spirit of the original STMO. They work both as stand-alone tracks, and an introduction to the original album.
Of course, Lazarus isn't the first artist to rewire his own work in this way. The most radical recent example is Soulwax, who, by giving the fairly awful Any Minute Now (let's not forget that bits of it sounded like the Rasmus) a heavyweight electro overhaul, created the peerless Nite Versions. That, in itself, was inspired by Duran Duran's extended club versions of their tracks, which they used to release as b-sides, and the Human League's Love & Dancing. The latter is often dismissed as a cash-in or mere curio. Elements of it have not aged well, but there is still something thrilling about the Human League (or, primarily, producer Martin Rushent) immediately seeking to push beyond the straight pop success of Dare.
They weren't just tinkering for the sake of it, either. The tough, enigmatic instrumental version of Things That Dreams Are Made Of is the superior one. Likewise, Franz Ferdinand's Blood – an "alternative takes" collaboration with producer Dan Carey – is a more interesting record than Tonight. The original is a risk-averse indie record by an intelligent band seemingly inhibited by public expectation. The "dub" version exhibits far more of their natural wit and playfulness.
You might argue that you can't have your cake and eat it. That you can't release the sensible mainstream version of an album (or in Lazarus's case, the weirder version), then rework it in an experimental way to keep your hardcore fanbase on board. I think that misses the point, slightly.
Most creatively curious musicians will work through several versions of a song, none of which is necessarily the definitive one. Re-imagining your own records is perfectly natural, and allows an artist to take chances, to experiment, to question and recontextualise what they do. Even if it leads to Soundgarden producing a dub version of a song called Big Dumb Sex , this has to be a good thing. But what's your favourite reworking of an album?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Why Pet Shop Boys' Being Boring is the perfect pop song
Two decades ago, Pet Shop Boys released their opus to life, love and loss. For me, it's the greatest single of all time
Later this year – 12 November, to be precise – marks the 20th anniversary since Being Boring, the greatest single of all time, was released.
Greatest single of all time, I hear you cry? Hang on a minute. Well, you're not alone. Even Neil Tennant, when informed of the honour, admitted: "No one thought that when it came out!" But first, a few facts. Being Boring was the second single from the Pets' fifth album, Behaviour, an autumnal masterpiece. It stalled at No 20, but quickly became a fan favourite (for me, like many other 15-year-olds stuck in suburbia, its lack of commercial success underlined its greatness).
What makes the perfect pop song is, of course, another blog altogether, but whatever the formula – let's say, 2:52 min of verse/chorus + sentiment – we're still essentially dealing with subjectivity. So my argument is a personal one.
None the less, certain factors are incontestable. Being Boring is a classic minor-key grower, its imprint on the soul deepens with repeated plays. Over to Tennant (in a 1996 BBC Radio 1 documentary) to shed some light: "We were always fascinated about the way Stock Aitken Waterman would change key for choruses. And so the verse of Being Boring was in A minor or D minor, maybe, after we went up a semi-tone into A flat for the chorus. Which we would never have done before. It wasn't an attempt to be mature; it was actually an attempt to be like Stock Aitken Waterman."
Intriguingly, what began as an attempt to do out-and-out pop (if we are to believe the sometimes disingenuous Tennant) morphs into something else. And it's this juxtaposition, this delicate balance between disposability and maturity that forms part of the song's elixir.
Another ingredient is autobiographical detail, which Tennant sums up: "The first verse is about all my friends in Newcastle [one in particular, Chris Dowell]. It just described what our aspirations were. And in the second verse I moved to London with an idea to go to polytechnic … and the third verse is looking back at what's happened and I'm doing what I'm doing, and he's dead. I mean, it's quite simple."
Perhaps, yet its themes are anything but. In the panoramic lyrical sweep from the 1920s to the 70s and, finally, the 90s, Being Boring really is about everything: innocence and experience, ambition and self-realisation ("I never dreamt that I would get to be/The creature that I always hoped to be"), love and (AIDs-related) loss ("All the people I was kissing/Some are here, some are missing"), friendship, nostalgia, ennui and, of course, defiance ("We had too much time to find for ourselves"). Tennant's plaintive vocal style only adds to the pathos. And it's all infused with the glamour and spirit of writer Zelda Fitzgerald (whose 1922 essay, Eulogy on the Flapper, contained the song's ideological kernel: "She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.")
There are other factors that, like an elegant interior, don't add anything structurally to my argument, but are still intriguing: the oddly successful (though often unscannable) rhyming couplets ("When I went I left from the station/With a haversack and some trepidation"); the sophisticated production; harp flourishes, wah-wah guitar, eerily extended opening note (from which the "overture" breaks out in an unexpected direction); the subtle irony of the title, with Pet Shop Boys playing on the perception of them as "boring"; and the black-and-white Bruce Weber-directed video, a thing of beauty, with its nudity, poodles, white horses, tap dancers, writhing couples and handwritten scrawl of intent: "The song is about growing up ..."
But greatest single ever, you ask, really? Aren't we dealing with something intangible here? Yes, but if art exists, as the writer Annie Dillard argues, "to make the stone stony", what could be stonier? Being Boring has followed me through my own teenage parties, student days, fumbled relationships and drunken evenings. In the summer it feels nostalgic, rose-tinted; in the winter it's a sun-beam, a cause for celebration. "I remember dancing to this," says one of the hundreds of comments on YouTube, "and I'd get tears in my eyes thinking of all the friends and lovers I've lost, where my life has gone and where it ended up." In short, does another song evoke, so perfectly, the sigh of experience with the hope of living?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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