Slideshow of the Annual Air-Guitar World Championship in Oulu, Finland last month.
Did you just find out about Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings by reading this very sentence? Ha! We here at the Quail have officially defeated you in the old-fashioned, indie snob game of "I Heard of Them First." But fear not. We here at the Quail are not sore winners and have opted to comfort you in the form of a profile of Jones and the Dap-Kings. Read up on the pioneers of the retrosoul explosion by making the jump. As an additional consolation prize, be sure to tell all your other indie snob friends that you even knew that the Dap-Kings, more recently known as "Amy Winehouse's backing band," were approached by her and Mark Ronson for their support on Winehouse's "Back to Black," NOT the other way around.
Hip hop fans! Complete the following lyric: "We know a place where the nights are hot/It is a house of funk/females and males/both headed for... Moscow? Break-dancing is back, but this time, it's big in the former Soviet bloc, not the blocks of the Bronx and LA. Are you just going to take that, New York? 'Cause I think that the Red Square is trying to give Union Square a run for its money, and New York, you can't just take that. If you don't watch out, London and Paris will be disrespecting you in the streets. And that would just be upsetting.
Freakonomics takes on the music industry. Featuring commentary from industry heavyweights and academics, this article promises to enlighten us all as to how the consumer controls the industry in the future or at least will spark some beef between me and Greg. In any case, stay tuned.
And last but not least, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is running an exhibition called
"Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967." . All rock-art, all the time, "Sympathy for the Devil" promises to examine the link between contemporary art and renowned rock music, featuring the work of such artists such as Jean-Luc Godard, The Velvet Underground, Yoshitomo Nara, Talking Heads, Andy Warhol, Pete Townsend, and everyone else you can imagine. And hey--even the Old Gray Lady is starting to dig it. And in a move of total, shameless nepo-promotion, I'd like to send a shout-out to the hardest working editor in America, Ms. Kamilah Foreman, a valued and most awesome member of the team at the Chicago MCA. Keep up the good work.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
So Much Music, So Much [New York] Times
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3 comments:
The music industry is in its death throws, and you know it Anil.
Are you trying to start a fight with me, Greg?
I will admit that I am a mere foot-soldier for the forces of mass consumerism and cultural production that is The Music Industry. I will also admit that cheering for The Music Industry under the current business model is not wholly unlike, to quote Tyler Durden, polishing the brass on the Titanic.
Yet like all good empires, The Music Industry will evolve with time: hence the advent of the 360 deal and the resurrection of the singles deal from its quiet grave in the mid-1960s. Maybe it's all going digital, but labels aren't trying to get the money off discs anymore anyway.
And did you hear about the RIAA's victory in "Virgin v. Thomas" this afternoon? The Empire has struck back. Take heed: the reckoning is nigh, downloaders!
I'll remind you of your unfortunate comments when I call you from my corner office using my corporate card, the charges for which will appear in your next favorite band's marketing budget. So there.
Quit trying to start stuff, Greg. It's so unbecoming!
There is no way in hell that the stodgy old music industry can track down every pirate out there. Over the last 10 years, we have seen illegal downloading sites come and go. Landmark court decisions shut down Napster and Kazaa, but what has happened since then? Oh right, Bittorent has lead to more downloading than ever before. Pirating is here to stay. Therefore, less money will be available from album sales and there will be easier access to the markets; the most successful ventures will have very little overhead, and will use 'pirating' to their advantage.
The best example I can think of is Kevin Barnes. The guy records everything in his bedroom on his computer, but he still managed to release a critically acclaimed and profitable album this year (“Hissing Fauna…”). The best thing that he ever did for himself was to “leak” his album on the file sharing sites 6 months before its release; buzz built up behind it, and by the time the official release came around the record was ready to take off. He did that with a small scale but highly effective marketing campaign, and had no need for a major corporate structure to make it possible.
Even if you remove illegal downloading from the picture, it is still a bleak one for the big boys in New York. Its simply cheaper and easier than ever for artists to directly access their markets without the middle men. Between protools, myspace, and itunes, there is no need for studios, mass marketing campaigns, or physical media distribution channels. I will give it to you that there might still be labels, but there will be thousands of them and they won’t have nearly as much power as they do now.
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