Manele is for the Kids

Just gotta post about my favourite young manelist at the moment, Ionut Cercel. And when I say young I honestly mean young: this is truly the next generation of Manele singer.



The kid can't be more than ten in these videos (although there are some available where he's a little older), but he's already a fully accomplished manele singer. His vocal technique really shines on some of his slower tracks, while remaining noticably the voice of a young boy, and there's a feeling that child stars rarely are able to put across. I like.

Still, it's obviously not destined to end well and I do worry about someone this young in the music industry. Apparently a product of an eager (manelist) father who put him in a TV show, age 4, he's now 12 and out promoting his album. Some of the pictures in an album like this are quite disturbing, especially the one where he's holding a bottle of Carlsberg. There's obviously a trend with child stars in manele (with other boys like Babi Minune) and while I guess they're adorable it's maybe not that good a sign really.

Let's hope he'll manage to outlive his child star status in any case, 'cause he's obviously very talented. (A few more videos.)

Genres that Last

"Hey hey, my my/Rock'n'roll will never die"
-- said Neil Young

Well, I guess so far he's been right. Rock'n'roll hasn't died. But since Rust Never Sleeps came out in 1979 countless genres of music have disappeared or been relegated to dozy nothingness. Insignificantly small ones that blipped by on the radar. Big ones that defined an age. Some are even dying now.

But not rock'n'roll, that's survived well since the seventies. And whatever Nas has to say about it, not hip-hop either. Dancehall is doing remarkably well, again. Soca has faired better but shows no sign of seizing up. Punk is doing okay, if on a smaller, subcultural scale. Bollywood has produced some great material recently. Soukous too. And R&B -- well, you know R&B. How come this is so? Why do some genres seemingly go on forever, thirty years or more, while others fizzle out immediately?


Well, there's the obvious stuff. Vagueness is helpful. Very large size with different groups forming different understandings is probably a good idea. Chance definitely has something to with it, with the large arbitrariness of how labels are applied denying new ones survival or creating ones that are especially strong.

In general, for almost any genre that manages to stay strong over nearly thirty years, the ability to absorb generation shifts is incredibly important. Something like "rock" solves this by having each generation take over the label but kick out its current practitioners - there was no opposition in both prog rock, pub rock and punk rock being genres of "rock" in Britain. Thus the inevitable generation putsches don't necessarily involve getting rid of genres, and different groups and scenes in different circumstances all adopt the label.

Soca, dancehall and Bollywood (to name three) are different though - here it's pretty much one continuous scene with stationary and/or gradually shifting centers, yet they've remained vital throughout. I think the other possibility for a scene that will outlast its original generation is music that's very clearly functional, with a group of actors (sound systems, carnival organisers, movie makers) competing against each other and demanding good quality product from musicians. This way institutions benefit from constant development and encourage it, gradually brining in young talent instead of excluding it.

This is all idle speculation in any case. I'd love to hear anyone with a really long-lasting genre that doesn't fit either the "functional music" or "vague term that stands for something rather than represents a scene" criteria. In particular, I think the Jazz scene might have gone beyond either (with non-functional music and respect for the elders and institutions), and I do think some genres will change around over time.

Hate Thy Neighbour

The phenomenon of prole-hate in music is a curious beast. Otherwise sensible people, considered members of academia and the middle class, will passionately hate certain types of music. They will overlook all its qualities, disparage its musical appeal and consider it the worst kind of crass commerciality. And it happens over and over again, with surprising frequency, in all sorts of contexts.

Chris at Word The Cat posted about one such hated-but-brilliant genre last week, Romanian manele, and how it's hated by everyone from script kiddies to literature professors. But certainly I've seen similar diatribes against funk carioca, new orleans bounce, UK garage and so on. It's amazing how socially acceptable it can be (certainly chav-hate in the UK completely is). Certainly it can be partly explained by some sort of hegemonistic pushing of the values of the bourgeoisie, but in the end I'm not sure that's the primary motivation. Actually, I think its a lot simpler than that.


One thing that almost all of these kinds of accounts have in common is the bog-down into details about clothing, manners, appearance and other factors that have very little to do with the actual music. I think this gives a clue to what it's actually about - it's a hate of the people rather than the music, and the music gets swept along in it all. And not just any people either: it's almost always the people you don't like or didn't like as a kid in your immediate surroundings. People don't hate "proles" across the globe but close to their own community. Hence the hate for manele which is actually a hate for roma in disguise.

The same sort of argument can be made when it comes to subcultures - is there anything a "proper" hip-hop lover hates more than their immediate "neighbour" in southern hip-hop? People can dismiss loads of music but only get truly livid at the stuff that they encounter near (but not in) their own social surroundings. (A similar thing can be seen with hardcore and punk people against emos. At this point the connection to class gets tenuous indeed...)

I'm certainly not immune myself to this stuff. I can't honestly listen to or appreciate french house or britpop (among other things) because the people in the discos in York were listening to it when I lived there. Nasty fucking music for nasty fucking people! I'm trying to get past these sentiments but it's damned difficult. Maybe the worse you feel about it the more powerful it actually is, look at punk and rock'n'roll...

I think this is partly why I can appreciate writers who are completely outside the music they write about, like Fredrik Strage here in Sweden. He may write for (and I quote) "the ad executives, who want to be hip (but don't actually want to get 'down')" (AH-H) but the fact that he is so distanced from the musics serves to create perhaps a better communication between high and low than if he'd be standing right next to it. I'm not sure if this partly contradicts stuff I've previously said, but there you go.

And now we're going to Stockholm and the votes of the Birdseed Jury. Hello Stockholm!

Hello Belgrade! I must say you've put on a great show tonight - these are the votes of the Birdseed jury.

[Now that I've plowed through them all I was going to a top ten of my favourites and a top ten of my predictions. But heck, I'm going to be so optimistic that I'll just post my favourites and make those my predictions too - I believe in the Eurovision audience, and "quality" in Eurovision terms can't be defined as anything other than broad pop appeal.]


1 point to Russia (video) (article)
2 points to Turkey (video) (article)
3 points to Moldova (video) (article)
4 points to Denmark (video) (article)
5 points to Croatia (video) (article)
6 points to Ukraine (video) (article)
7 points to Bulgaria (video) (article)

8 points goes to... Bosnia (video) (article) Bosnia and Herzegovina eight points. Bosnie et Hercégovine huit points.

10 points goes to... Azerbaijan (video) (article) Azerbaijan ten points. Azerbaïdjan dix points.

And our 12 points goes to... Malta (video) (article) Malta twelve points. Malte douze points.

Thank You Stockholm!

Iceland, Norway, Denmark, UK, Georgia, Serbia: Dreg Round Out

The very last (well almost) post of Eurovision entries rounds out all the entries that don't fit into the other categories, should have been in other categories but weren't, or that I've just not had the energy to write about before. All of them should ideally have got their own, well-considered entries but time is running critically short.

Let's start off with four more mysterious retro offers.

Eurobandid - This is my life
Uploaded by nostalxia

I grew up listeing to this sort of music, being a total Eurocheese fan around the age of ten. That was in 1991. And however much Iceland has updated some of the electronics and adapted the song to Eurovision stylistics with that soaring duetting, it's damned hard to look beyond the fact that it's essentially a stylistic borrowing from an era that falls into the Uncool gap. (Usually stuff more than a couple of years old up to maybe fifteen-twenty years old is always going to be uncool. Although the early nineties are possibly on the verge of a pending revival what with the renewed interest in Portishead and stuff.) In any case, it's gonna take some more clever reworking than this to get it contemporary - they could easily make something decent by keeping the vocals and changing the backing.

Maria Haukaas Storeng - Hold on Be Strong
Uploaded by nostalxia

Norway's entry sorely needs heavy restructuring. Currently it's some sort of ABCABCC', of which the B part is so completely out of place it's ridiculous, with a totally different melodic feel and no apparent connection to the rest. And then C', the repeat of the bit that must tentatively be considered the chorus, goes into the same feel - bombastic broadway rather than popped-up folk song. It's major confusing and won't fly in this competition, where simplicity is utterly the key. They should have just gone for the verse and the chorus, added a Hardangerfela and written different lyrics for the second instance of the worse, walking before attempting to run.

2008 Denmark - Simon Mathew (Semi 2)
Uploaded by nostalxia

The last Scandinavian entry also suffers from some gelling issues, with a straight-up happy chorus that doesn't really seem to work with the more relaxed verses and a strangely uncompelling bridge (though a decent middle-eight). That and its near-painful Danishness should prevent me from liking it. But the last half is killer: Beatles-like drive at a high level with a great horn part, good voice, lovely harmonies and a compelling singalong quality that could easily have gone along for several more minutes. I think this could be Denmark's most successful entry for years.

Andy Abraham - Even If
Uploaded by Galiza

Yes, it's memorable and stuff. But the UK's entry falls under my strong aversion to fake old-style music and I'd rather not be poking at it too much. Soul fans might well vote for it anyway. *shudder*

And now for an entry that should have ended up somewhere in the previous two posts but inexplicably was forgotten.

Diana Ghurtskaia - Peace will come
Uploaded by jief75

I seem to have, eh, mislaid Georgia's pop entry with rock guitars last time but it fits well enough into that theme, with its touch of Bond-themeishness and its unusual lyrical content the only stand-out features. The eastern-ish chorus is probably the best part.

eurovision serbia 2008 - Jelena Tomasevic - Oro
Uploaded by jief75

And finally host country Serbia's entry, which I'm a bit afraid might be the first step towards an Ireland-style development. First they become more and more successful at perfecting a formula, then after they win the quality of the entries slowly starts decreasing as the pattern becomes more superficial and formulaic. This isn't bad but it's nowhere near as dramatic as the best stuff; "low-key" might be the first step towards "smoothed-out". (Actually Greece is doing something similar - haven't their characteristic up-tempo pop songs become way more dull since they won it?) Watch out for a couple of bombs followed by a turkey in years to come.

There. I'm done. In time for the Semis. Phew.

Montenegro, Israel, San Marino, Slovenia, Belarus: Pop Rocks

Right. I know I'm ploughing through these with a fervour that makes Johnnn's obsession with Fleetwood Mac look like he's maybe heard a song by them once and kinda liked it. But I'm in a rush to review them all by Tuesday when the first semi-final is broadcast. So expect a couple of big, loosely-held-together round-out posts in the next few days, after which I never, ever, ever want anything to do with the Eurovision ever again (until next year).

Well, anyway, here's the other dubious trend for you - commercial pop that incorporates ideas and moods from rock. (We've had Lithuania and Azerbaijan previously who also echo this sort of theme.) Is it a more sophisticated attempt to cash in on the Finnish winner two years ago? Is it another sign the Eurovision is trendier than previously? In any case the world of rock now seems to be open pickings for all sorts of poppy songwriters.

Stefan Filipovic - Zauvijek Volim
Uploaded by jief75

On the other hand it doesn't have to be that modern at all. The Montenegrin entry is ageless pop-rock, the kind that might as well have been written by Elton John or Mark Knopfler or Don Henley (if they spoke Serbo-Croatian). It's reasonably well-produced and clad in a contemporary costume, and I guess the chorus is kinda memorable, but it's not going to matter an iota since no-one likes this kind of music anymore.

Boaz Mauda - The Fire In Your Eyes
Uploaded by GayClic

Israel's entry is also on the traditional side (though rather more Savage Garden than fogey-rock) but the attempt to update it with little touches of oriental pop flavour almost work. I say almost, because the greater part of the song (from about 0:20 to about 2:10) is such a straight-forwardly dull pop-rock excercise that it's a bleedin' mystery they didn't put just take the intro and the last part and constructed a whole song around that. I guess they're trying to go for the often-so-successful ethnic-western combo but the energy just deflates completely in most of the song.

Miodio - Complice
Uploaded by Galiza

It's like we're going through a gallery of different combinational approaches here. Here is the entry from debutant country San Marino and it tries to be big, grandoise pop-rock in the Andreas Johnson tradition, but here it's the production that totally, utterly falters. It so needs a big, fat beat and more soaring keyboards to work and the flagging energy in the verses is just ridiculous. It's a pity because it's a fairly fresh entry and a decent first effort from the tiny mountain nation. And it could have been real good.

Rebeka Dremelj - Vrag Naj Vzame
Uploaded by jief75

Now we're reaching the opposite end of the scale - pure pop songs that incorporate a deft touch of rock in their formula. The Slovenian entry is one of my favourites all-round in this category, partly because the rock can only be felt in the little electric guitar touches and in the melodic structure and it doesn't disrupt the pop in a way that feels somehow very now. It's also probably the one song in the competition which is most incessantly memorable, with it's extremely simple and meme-building chorus. It's bound to do fairly well, pity they didn't make more out of the marvellous bridge.

Ruslan Alehno - Hasta La Vista
Uploaded by Galiza

Europe's last dictatorship Belarus does again what it's done every year - pick a big pop star from Mother Russia, spend millions on consultant songwriters and producers and marketeers to make the perfect Eurovision song... and fail because it's always somehow soulless, forced, and people see through the veneer of modernity to the ugly heart beneath.

Need I say that it fits completely perfectly into this category of tinkered and manipulated music?

Some Alternative Music Business Models

Last night I caught the excellent Danish documentary (I never thought I'd use all those words together!) Good Copy, Bad Copy on Swedish television. (Full video in the link provided.) It's a well-researched, pacey glance-over of all sorts of issues concerning copyright, from sampling rights, alternative models of copyright, the viewpoints from all sides of the copyright debate and so on, with pertinent interviews from Russian street vendors to the head of the IFPI.

The documentary really excels in the second half, though, when it looks at business models in developing countries with no functional copyright legislation. The two examples used are the Nigerian film business, aka Nollywood, and Brazilian music genre Technobrega, both extremely thriving scenes. The former makes money off selling many legitimate copies of cheaply-produced video CDs at a very low price. The latter makes no money off released records, instead using them as a loss leader to earn cash from assembláges (sound systems) and live recordings of assembláge nights.

I love that sort of thing, and these are certainly not the first genres to use alternative methods of earning. What's interesting, I think, is how much music adapts to the business model chosen.


There are all sorts of genres with alternative business models. Here's just three examples. You can make money off...

...exclusive one-of-a-kind records for high-paying clients. The business of making dubplates, exclusive records specially made for use by particular sound systems, has been the backbone of the Jamaican recording industry since the sixties. It's also been a huge driving force in the quick development of music on the island - since the sound systems want exclusive records, there's always been the pressure to innovate.

... making music to strip to. Ghettotech (the real Detroit deal, not the global variant) was created specifically with strip clubs in mind, and artists like DJ Assault would earn their money specifically from performing there and creating as appropriate music as they could. Is it any wonder the genre is booty-focused and misogynistic?

...t-shirts. Heavy Metal bands in the eighties would often tour at a loss, confident at making huge profits off t-shirt sales. Bands like Iron Maiden are almost more like a fashion brand these days than a band - and of course as you'd expect the image-heavy focus of the bands reflects their way of earning money.

Do you know of any interesting alternative business models? What other interesting and music-shaping ways of earning money are there?