| rss2email.ru |
 Создание, раскрутка и монетизация сайтов  |  ЛерКом - из-под мышки художника  |
 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Music Weekly podcast: Protest songs special
As a new book about the history of protest songs is released, we look at the past, present and future of the genre. Why isn't Chris Martin protesting against the cuts in song? We find that despite arguments that protest songs are still being written, modern examples tend to be less explicit.
Dorian Lynskey talks to Alexis Petridis about his new book 33 Revolutions Per Minute, which tells the history of protest music through 33 tracks. We also hear from the Agitator's Derek Meins, who supports contemporary protest groups such as UK Uncut and the university occupations with his music; and singer Hannah Peel covers the Doors anti-Vietnam war song Unknown Soldier.
Plus: Michael Hann joins Dorian and Alexis to profile the story behind tracks by Ramones, Machine and Nina Simone.
Leave your reviews of those tracks and any other comments below, or on our Facebook page or by talking to us on Twittter.
Переслать - New music: Sea of Bees – Sidepain
A singer who wouldn't say boo to a goose offers a joyous ode to Jenny Lewis
Sea of Bees is Sacramento-born Julie Baenziger, who looks, from her press photos at least, like the kind of person who would burst into tears if you raised your voice. Her music seems to confirm this suspicion – fragile folk, all hushed tones and lovelorn lyrics. Live, however, the tracks from her debut album, Songs for the Ravens, are given a more playful spin with Baenziger introducing each one with carefree anecdotes and drunken psychobabble. This part of her personality is brought to the fore in this Guardian exclusive of her new video for Sidepain, a song inspired by Jenny Lewis. It's a simple idea: Baenziger plays up to the camera before a host of mates join her to gurn, mug and stand in a line. The song is a joyful shuffle, anchored by the lovely closing statement: "You're the sweetest pain in my side."
Sidepain is released on 11 April through Heavenly Recordings.guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Readers recommend: foreign-language versions
We'd like you to suggest original artists' foreign-language versions of their own songs
Once upon a time, in an attempt to break into a new market, record companies would compel artists to record versions of their songs with the vocal sung in a language other than English. This practice is less common as English has become more widely spoken in the world, but there are instances from more recent years. Some may have been recorded for non-commercial reasons – perhaps the artist simply thought the song sounded cool sung in a foreign tongue.
The foreign tongue in question was usually French, Italian or German, but I'm sure the RR hive mind knows of versions in more obscure languages.
To clarify: I'm not looking for cover versions, or songs with the odd line or verse in a non-English language. (So no Wooden Heart, Rocking Mitch.) I'd like the original artists' foreign-language versions of songs best known sung in English.
The toolbox:
* This week's collaborative Spotify playlist
* The RR archive
* The Marconium (blog containing a wealth of data on RR)
* The 'Spill (blog for the RR community)
* An explanation of how the word "dond" came to be used by RR people to mean to second another reader's nomination
Please do:
* Post your nominations before midday on Tuesday if you wish them to be considered.
* Write a few lines advocating the merits of your choices.
But please don't:
* Post more than one third of the lyrics of any song.
* Dump lists of nominations. If you must post more than two or three at once, please attempt to justify your choices.
Here are the results of last week's Readers recommend: songs about gossip.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Behind the music: How the long view paid off for Elbow
The band's A&R man was a fan long before he began working with Guy Garvey and co. Here, Jim Chancellor explains why artists still need labels (but not as much as labels need artists)
When Jim Chancellor of Fiction Records was presented with the Music Week award for A&R of the year recently by Elbow's Guy Garvey, he ran up on stage, jumped on top of the singer and wrapped his arms and legs around him. Not the usual behaviour of a record label executive, you'd imagine. Yet, sitting with Chancellor in his office on the eve of the release of their new album, Build a Rocket Boys!, the love and passion he feels for Elbow is obvious. "It's a work of utter beauty," he says.
Chancellor's relationship with Elbow goes back many years. He followed the band for a decade before finally managing to buy them out of their previous deal with V2. "They started The Seldom Seen Kid before we got the deal done. I wasn't allowed to hear a note until the deal was signed, for legal reasons. When I finally sat down with them to listen to it they asked me what I thought, and I was blown away – The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver was the most staggeringly beautiful piece of music I'd ever heard," he says. "Maybe that's all the A&R they needed, someone to tap them on the back saying 'that was great'."
Some bands write many songs for an album, and need the help of an A&R to point out which ones are potential singles. But Chancellor says Elbow are brilliant at weeding out rubbish themselves. Even though he thought The Seldom Seen Kid was "utterly brilliant", the radio department at Polydor/Universal, of which Fiction is a subsidiary, said they needed a crossover track – an anthem, if you will – to plug to radio. "Leave it with me," Garvey told Chancellor. A week later, the band delivered One Day Like This.
For some bands, winning the Mercury prize has been a curse, but for Elbow it brought them a wider audience when they won in 2008. "We enter two or three records [for the Mercury prize] every year," says Chancellor. "Pretty much anybody can do it. I think they had about 127 applicants last year. It costs you a few hundred quid. You have to send them a whole bunch of records and press, and then they hone it down to the finalists, supposedly solely based on it being a great record."
So what about the follow-up? "It's hard to follow a record that, in some people's eyes, is perfect," says Chancellor. "A&R is about engaging the artist and finding out how to get the best out of them, to make sure they deliver the best possible record they could make in their entire lives. The problem is you've got to do that every single time. It might be to send them to Malibu to do some writing, as we've done with Snow Patrol. Elbow went to the Isle of Mull for a week, to hang out and jam.
"Rock isn't dead – that's a load of old bollocks," he continues, referring to recent reports on the lack of rock artits in the top 40. "We managed to sell quite a lot of records last year. It's become a hell of a lot harder. We can't spend as much money as we used to. It's really tough, but because we've had a few successes, it's given us the chance to sign more artists.
"The figures on album sales are not as bad as people think. They're not great, but a lot of that is because there's nowhere to sell them any more. Going into a book shop, you always buy a book you didn't plan to buy, and that was the beauty of record shops."
Chancellor maintains that bands still need labels, which are now offering much fairer multi-service partnership deals and revenues split 50/50 or 75/25 with the artist, depending on the investment required. I ask him if his acts agree. "I sincerely hope so. The other side of the coin is: who in their right mind is going to give four unemployed guys from Manchester £150,000 and just tell them 'make some music, and let's see what happens'. Would you get that from a bank? No chance. We just say: 'Give us a song and we'll see what we can do. Bands who have gone out there trying to do it all by themselves have realised it's tough. Our job is to spread the music."
But getting a record deal is just the beginning. By the time Fiction signed Snow Patrol, the band had already released two albums on the indie label Jeepster. "By then, they were very hungry for success. They worked like titans to promote Final Straw. Yes, it's tough to get a deal – and it should be, because it's quite a commitment."
Will Elbow break America, like Snow Patrol? "A band has got to want that," says Chancellor. "And it costs a lot of money to support extensive touring. White Lies [another Fiction band] want that international success, and they've made an awful lot of effort to do that. They've been everywhere and they're seeing results. They're now getting into a position, everywhere but the US, so far, where they don't need money from me any more – because they've built such a live following."
The label also works like a hothouse for new talent, helping acts grow through regional touring, putting out a few EPs and working the specialist areas, before introducing them to the rest of Polydor. "We give them the chance to quit their day job," says Chancellor.
At a recent Universal open day, I asked him what Universal is doing to change the perception that major labels are bad guys who rip off artists. He replied that all they can do is treat artists right, so that they'll go out and speak positively about the label. "We're very proud of what we do. We don't feel like we're taking anybody to the cleaners, and the label is trying to be more transparent." Judging by Guy Garvey's gushing testimony, he may be right.
Build a Rocket Boys! Released on 7 March.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - New music: Gang Gang Dance – Glass Jar
Have the New York experimentalists made the perfect radio-friendly unit shifter? Have they heck
It's always nice to start an album with a single, or perhaps a short instrumental to ease the listener in. But not for New York musical surrealists Gang Gang Dance who've just revealed the opening track from their forthcoming fifth album, Eye Contact. Glass Jar is a sprawling, 11-minute opus that starts with about three minutes of mumbling, watery synth whooshes and shimmering cymbals. It's meandering, mildly frustrating and, frankly, a little boring, until suddenly the clouds part and out comes the melody, complete with twinkling keyboards, big drums and singer Liz Bougatsos's distinctive wail. Maybe it's delayed gratification, but keeping us hanging about only improved the pay off.Eye Contact is out on 9 May through 4AD.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
