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?
There's been a lot of discussions and speculations what this year's Eurovision trends might be, and I've certainly heard novelties (which isn't true) and rock mixed with pop (which kinda is, see my next Eurovision post). But if I would have to name one trend that's more substantial than all the others, it's the shift towards standard mainstream, well-produced pop. Besides the six countries in this post there's also (conservatively counting) Russia, Greece, Malta, Armenia and Hungary - that's a quarter of all the entries in a fairly tight genre field.
Now, this might not seems surprising in a competition based on audience voting, but Eurovision has been notorious for lagging behind even the most stale mainstream pop. All the entries in this post, on the other hand, basically have the qualities of production (not necessarily song writing and performance, though) to do fairly well in the charts even outside the competition. If there's anything at all to set them apart it's little touches of slight national flavour in all the cosmopolitanness. But maybe, guys, it's not always the country you expect.
Take, for instance, Isis Gee. She's American, the song is American-produced, and whaddyaknow, it sounds American. Like an album track by Mariah Carey or something. Bright, overloaded with strings, slightly larger dynamic range than most European pop... It's not going to work, because Europeans can sense a straight import when they hear it (witness the failure of a similar strategy by Cyprus in 2006).
Or why not the Netherlands? Like Estonia (whose track is in some sort of fake-gibberish Croatian) the Netherlands have tried to analyse the recent win series of Eastern Europe and created something pseudo-Balkanic. I detect the rocker roots of this one unfortunately in the walking bass part that's a little to hard mixed and especially the wispy freakbeat drums, so it might not work too well on all audiences (especially with the fairly uneventful vocal performance). Still, it could do okay - people are, after all, flattered by imitation.
And then there's us (by contrast, since obviously you can hear it's Swedish, right?), and it's as well-crafted as anything we've sent of in the past few years. But I still don't like it. It feels squashed, somehow, slightly over-compressed (especially in the second verse) and there's something about the diva vocals and high-end synth riffs that reminds me unpleasantly of E-Type. Plus I've got little affection for Perelli. Still, I can easily see this breaching the top ten. But let's not dwell on it, shall we?
Ukraine, on the other hand, have everything but a very silly song title going for them. There are strong superficial similarities with Perelli's track - closer to dance music than anyone would dare do in the US, strong vocals, lack of dynamic range. But the detail work is immense, with great synth sounds, a brilliant and very modern-sounding bass line, and enough eastern flavour to work as both a cosmopolitan and a local number. Somehow, if there's anything that can be described as European pop as a contrast to America, it's this. And it's great. Top 3, if not the winner?
Another really strong entry I think. Hanson meets Timbaland meets traditional Eurovision and it actually works, it's got that coasting I associate with good-quality modern production. And it's even got a fake rewind! Still, I doubt anyone with a bit more taste will be as enthusiastic as me, so It'll probably end up in the lower half of the final.
And then there's Germany which sounds like a second-rate sleepy All Saints song and is all round snore-inducingly awful. (The secret is in the tempo or in charismatic performers, guys.)
There. If you think I'm rushing through these it's because there's only just over a week left, and I'm dead set on reviewing every track by then. Two posts to go...
Downtrodden working-class youth music. Apologistic support for an evil dictator. Mainstream pop for all the family. And positively filthy pseudo-pornography banned by religious authorities.
Few musics manage to be all of these things in their lifetime. Dangdut, Indonesia's big native pop genre is probably exceptional in being all of them. At the same time. Welcome to the story of what might be the most multiple personality-stricken genre in the world today.
Dangdut has some roots ranging back to Malay folk music from the forties, but it was in the early seventies that things really started to happen. Influenced by Indian film music, and by some accounts Arabic pop music, young, poor Muslims (ie. the indonesian majority, not devout Muslims per se) started experimenting with a synthesised pop form that contained local flavours, western-oriented electric guitars and a large dollop of tablas. The tablas are what gives the genre its name - "dang-dut" was a derisive description of their sound in a sanctioned government newspaper. As usual the elites disdained any new expression of working-class creativity.
And in the seventies in Indonesia those elites were pretty much General Suharto. His 31-year dictatorship wouldn't have been possible without a bit of common sense and he let most singers (like The Queen of Dangdut Elvy Sukaesih) go on performing. More troubling was the genres superstar (and King) Rhoma Irama, whose anti-establishment Islamic message and rock-infused music made him enormous and surprisingly powerful. Suharto didn't dare touch him, but made sure he stayed off television, and eventually managed (in a typical Suharto move) to neutralise him by bringing him in as a supporter of the regime.
Irama was probably the first to play around with the mixture Indian film music - pop - Malay folk, but he certainly wouldn't be the last. During the seventies disco and synth appeared as Dangdut components, followed by a veritable explosion of house, hard rock and what-have-you dangdut variants. The music is incredibly open to variety in influence, and whereas most genres tend to settle down fairly quickly dangdut is just as varied as it was 30 years ago and doesn't seem to stop evolving. Even compilations of the genre will veer wildly from totally traditional to completely remixed (with only the basic structure in common) and club nights usually feature all sorts of mixed music.
It's not strange then perhaps that it's so many things to so many people. By the late nineties this once-controversial genre had settled into broad mainstream popularity, but then how do you explain something like this?
Dangdut has easily the filthiest dancing of any music I know of, mapouka included. Just look at it.
It's fascinating and a huge step in a strange direction from when dangdut last made international headlines, when recent superstar Inul Daratista was banned by religious authorities (and criticised by Rhoma Irama) for her supposedly lascivious dancing. But her dance moves are elegant and balletic compared to this stuff. Are we seeing another mapouka development where dangdut is turning into porn? Probably not, because debates like this one seem to indicate the dirty sort of dancing is far from being disliked by young people in general.
It seems like an unusual direction for a genre that is so strongly Muslim in its image, but maybe it just goes to show just how open-ended the music is. It co-exists on so many levels, safe and dangerous, political and apologist, traditional and modern, and it'll be fascinating to see where it goes to next.
(edit: There are some futher developments here and here that I didn't spot at first. The "sexy dangdut" seems to be developing a whole subcategory of its own, it's very interesting stuff.)
I wanted to make a mixtape for a friend of mine of music I'd been listening to for the last six months. Then I realised I didn't have any of it. All music I'd been listening to recently I had on vinyl (like Neil Young or Barbara Streisand) or on Youtube. Or on MP3 blogs. I don't have music any more on my computer.
Has anyone else stopped archiving like me? Is there a danger to this kind of over-reliance on web sources? Oh, and in case anyone is remotely interested, here's a Youtube Playlist of as many of the tracks I could find. Crappily enough quite a few are not on there, either.
I don't get it. I've read half a dozen accusations I'm sure of the Eurovision being especially novelty-heavy this year. But however I count them I only get to four proper full-blown novelties, Spain, Estonia, Latvia and Ireland. Maybe it's because I'm very restrictive in applying the tag, but something like Malta's entry is never a novelty in my book - it's a well-constructed pop song, conventionally sung, that happens to have a (subtle) spy theme. Is anything that's not about love or dancing a novelty song?
That said, here are three clear-cut examples, two that I've seen labelled novelties but aren't, really, and one that maybe should be. Let's start off with one of the most obvious examples, Estonia.
Kreissiraadio - Leto Svet
Yup, this is a novelty, through and through, made by an appropriately "kreissi" comedy troupe. To me, that's not really a problem - I think the song works okay on its own terms. The skacid-like backing is energetic, the melody is okay, the earworm chorus is memorable (if a tad too closely connected to the Goliat theme song and the bridge of Buffalo Soldier). Whatever, though - the singers and the humour are not nearly as charming as Verka Serducha was last year, and it's going to sink without a trace. As could Estonia's neighbour Latvia, if things go against them:
Pirates of the Sea - Wolves of the Sea
This one failed to make the first round in the Swedish competition which doesn't surprise me because novelties rarely do. (Which reflects rather badly on us Swedes if anything.) The idea is obviously to create a Dschingis Khan for the nineties-- er, I mean, 21st century, by updating the semi-disco backing to some sort of bubblegum dance. It works fine in a Hits for Kidz kind of way and might do fairly well in the competition, since it's actually a well-connected, well-brought-together pop piece under the silly gloss.
Now you're probably asking, do I like all the novelties? No.
Dustin the Turkey - Irlande Douze Pointe
Ireland is a nation of Morons. Fed up with sending (and failing) with dozens of awful folk ballads they chose to "comment" on their own lack of success by sour grape blaming everyone else and making a joke of the Eurovision. Which could be okay if it was remotely funny or a worthy entry but this excrement is the worst song in the whole competition. By a mile and by every standard.
Two more countries that usually make the novelty lists this year I'm rather more reluctant to include.
Ishtar - O Julissi
This doesn't conform to any standard of novelty really, it's not meant to be funny, it's not particularly gimmicky and it's not bad at all (in fact rather pleasant and well-crafted). Except, of course, one thing: it's sung in a completely made-up language. Belgium (notorious for its language conflicts) has done this before and no-one went around accusing Urban Trad of being a novelty, because their tone was less light and springy. Mid-level final?
Laka - Pokusâj
This is where the accusation really gets weird and fairly disturbing - making fun of outsider musicians always gets my blood boiling. So, the man has a live hen on stage and dancers dressed as farmers. But how is this music novelty in any shape, sense or form? It's a heartfelt, slightly new agey pop song that's closer musically to Coldplay than to any other entry in this competition. Obviously the stage persona is not something thrown together for the occasion, and the humour is totally positive and a little sweet. I dig this a lot, I hope it does really well.
Finally, while I'm already worked up, time for an entry that no-one has dared label a novelty but which maybe should be.
Sebastien Tellier - Divine
Critics have been fawning over Tellier whose co-operations with Sofia Coppola, Daft Punk and Air supposedly makes him a "real musician". As far as I'm concerned he's a beard and not much more, and the video is by far the most gimmicky one of all the entries, with a bunch of fake Telliers in wah-wah funny locations throwing microphones at each other. I can just guess at how novetly-oriented his stage performance might be, but since he's "oh-so-distant-ironic" in his humour I'll assume it'll be far from a lone man with a guitar.
I guess the question is: why should the middle classes be excluded from the tag? To me, Belle and Sebastian are just as much a novelty band as ever The Archies. Totally another reason why the Novelty tag stinks, it's a method of propagating class repression.
You can hear the sounds all over these days. Listen to some of the artists featured on Blackdown's latest Pitchfork feature on "wonky", off-kilter synths in UK Garage. (For instance, Darkstar.) Or to recent indie hype band Crystal Castles. Or the latest Nelly Futardo single. Seemingly ancient synthesizers, heavily filtered, weaving, breaking, wobbling, tightly arpeggiating.
These artists have latched onto a hugely trendy influence: a genre that has been bubbling under the surface for 25 years, yet remained surprisingly active with just as tight-knit a community and aesthetic as any other genre. I'm talking about Sid tunes, music created using the venerable Commodore 64 home computer.
The Sid chip was created by an engineer named Bob Yannes in 1981 for inclusion in what would become one of the best-selling games machines of the eighties. Yannes came from the synthesiser industry and ended up including a whole bunch of features that his superiors hadn't asked for, including envelopes, three separate ring modulators, three oscillators and fairly advanced filtering. The result was an analog/digital hybrid way ahead of the competitors in the field, and an integral part of the success of the C64.
Soon enough the chip had attracted a large cadre of talented musicians, nearly all of them European, who by the mid-eighties started realising the full possiblities of the notoriously ill-documented chip. Martin Galway, Rob Hubbard and Ben Dagliesh were all British. Jeroen Tel was Dutch. Chris Hülsbeck was German. They used the chip mathematically, discovered a way to put in crude samples using flaws in the design, and created some of the most memorable computer game music from the eighties.
At this point Sid tunes could hardly be called a genre, but that all changed with the advent of the demoscene, which started out on the C64. Amateur musicians, again almost all European, would create ever-more-spectacular tunes using the limited chip, and soon a community and a party scene led on to a well-developed aesthetic. The genre gained a canon, grew immensely and was catalogued thoroughly. The biggest Sid collection, the HSVC, contains some 30 000 tracks, the majority of which have been created long after the lifetime of the machine as a gaming platform.
So, what does it all sound like? The epithet "unstable" is probably not a bad one, internal distortion and slightly imprecise oscillator control creates a unique sound that can't properly be emulated. (Sidplay is probably the next-best choice for windows users, you'll need it a bit below.) Here's Martin Galway's classic Wizball music, which was voted the best Sid tune of all time:
As you can hear the typical sound is rather more "very fake live instruments" and "strange sounds" than ordinary synth, with lots of pitch-bending swoops, little tight arpeggios and portamento simulating everything from ghostly theremin to beatboxing. There's a certain something appealing about the attempt to eke something real out of the little chip while pushing its wobbly technical boundaries, and on classics like Last Ninja tune 6 there are almost touches of beauty. Sometimes it goes overboard with complexity - Rob Hubbard's 16-minute near-prog Knucklebusters is a good example, however excellent the detail may be - and the percussion and bass suck, but there's something about those thin monophonic synths that still touches people today.
My personal favourite (though not typical in its simplicity) is Hubbard's Commando, a simple and apparently throw-off reimagining of a Japanese arcade theme that is pushed into a living room dance floor classic by little militaristic blasts of digital gunfire, seemingly thrown in at random. Brilliant!
So how did the Sid scene belatedly end up in the spotlight? Part of it is probably the resurgent interest in chiptune music and bitpop in general, with club nights and mainstream bands. Another instrumental factor is the Sid Station, a hardware synth using the Sid chip that's found its way into the setup of a surprising array of mainstream artists. (Timbaland famously abused it.) But I think what's perhaps the most important aspect is how well the more meditative, meandering Sid pieces fit into the current electro-based soundscape, which is equally based on unstable, warping synthesis. "Wonky" indeed.
"The Universe, as has been observed before, is an unsettlingly big place, a fact for which the sake of a quiet life people tend to ignore." -- Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
I've spent the last (and as you can see largely postless) week engaged in the rather stressful activity of moving house, and for a bit of reprieve I decided to re-read Douglas Adams's Hitch-hiker trilogy, which I vaguely liked many years ago. Not so brilliant on the whole but I did like the story of the Oglaroonians.
Rather than go out and explore the world, the inhabitants of the planet Oglaroon have amassed themselves in a single tree in a forest, creating an elaborate mythology to prevent any of them from ever leaving. Rather than face up to the vast universe, claims Adams, most people "would happily move to somewhere smaller of their own devising."
Now I'm thinking this brief incidental anecdote is a rather credible metaphor for what to me is one of the bigger mysteries of music on the internet.
The basic problem is this. The internet allows for virtually unlimited exchange of music over all kinds of borders. Yet the development of music over the past decade has been towards smaller, geographically localised scenes as much as anything, and people might be more narrow in their listening now than ever before in recent rock history.
It all seemed so remote in the wake of Napster's success. I remember reading an anti-iTunes article on The Register (it might well have been this one, where Andrew Orlowski praises "short-range broadcasting" and ready exchange of music with neighbours on the bus) and laughing at the idea that the future of the internet held anything other than an ever-widening listening range. But they were right, totally right.
The file-sharing technologies have become narrower. DC++ and then BitTorrent increasingly limited the amount and type of files one had ready access to - it's totally symptomatic that creaky old Soulseek is still superior in musical selection to any more modern service. Services like last.fm are built around reinforcing already extant tastes, or integrate them with those of your existing friends. Music blogs and podcasts are also very much limited selection tools that present "somewhere smaller of their own devising." The ambition for the truly world-wide seems to have largely dissipated.
The statistics bear this out. Swedish vote-based hit list Tracks (via) contained 31% Swedish tracks in 1997. Last year that figure was 63%, more than twice as many, and the interest in local bands here seems to never have been bigger. And look at all the local scenes that have turned up, from Snap to Kuduro - now more than ever we've got all these tiny communities in marginal cities turning out thoroughly localised genres.
Is the world really that frightening a place? And is this desire to profile yourself as a local community really a bad thing? I haven't decided, but it's nevertheless damned interesting.
