Broken Voices
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on May 17, 2010
... say it in broken English.
When I was 19, and interning at the late, lamented
... as tears go by.
Record World Magazine, I walked past the office of the person responsible for the album reviews, Sophia Midas. The music I heard stopped me in my tracks. The sound was new wave cool, but the voice had a quality I can still best describe as scarred – pain came through that voice. I asked Sophia what it was, and she said, “That’s Marianne Faithfull’s new record, Broken English.”
“The Marianne Faithfull of ‘As Tears Go By’? Mick Jagger’s girlfriend?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Jeez, what happened to her? I mean I love this record, but her voice sounds like it’s been through the mill.”
“It has. You can’t expect someone who has lived like
her to sound like she did in her 20s.”
“In a way, I like this better. I always found ‘As Tears Go by kinda bland.”
Sophia smiled, “You would.”
This impression coalesced that weekend when she appeared on SNL. She missed notes, opened her mouth and nothing came out once or twice. She wore every line on her face like a badge. She was amazing.
Whitney then...
This bit of ancient history came to mind while researching a possible project on
... and more recently
Whitney Houston. The press throughout Europe, particularly in England, seems to relish the fact that Whitney in her 40s isn’t Whitney in her 20s.
I think Liz Smith has it right. Can anyone be expected to perform in their 40s like they did in their 20s? Can anyone be expected to look as good? What do my English compatriots expect? Sure, Whitney abused the instrument, and would be the first to admit that.But look at Frank Sinatra, Elvis, or David Crosby (ever expect to see those two mentioned in the same sentence?) — even after abuse, weight gain, vocal changes, all the things the for which Whitney is being derided they went on to have long careers.
So maybe this is ageist as well as sexist?
Could this be right?
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on May 5, 2010
This comes from today’s (Cinco De Mayo) CMU Daily:
MORE RESEARCH SAYS FILE-SHARERS BIG MUSIC CONSUMERS
There’s been loads of research over the years that shows that those pesky file-sharing kids are also some of the entertainment industry’s best customers. But hey, there’s always room in your CMU Daily for another report saying much the same stuff as all the other ones.
That file-sharing music fans might invest their pocket money into gig tickets, t-shirts and other more tangible band-related gubbins is unsurprising, though the latest bit of research on this issue suggests file-sharers are also pretty big customers of the sorts of content-based products they are actually nicking off the net, which presumably backs up the much touted theory that many use file-sharing for the purposes of previewing before purchase. That said, the new research from the University of Amsterdam says that file-sharers subsequently spending money on content-based products is more common in the film and gaming space than with music.
But even in music, where easy access to free tracks via online sharing networks probably is in part responsible for declining record sales, money consumers save by nicking digital versions of albums is often then spent on other music products, or so reckons Professor Nico van Eijk. Although based primarily on a study of Dutch file-sharers, his report also looked at the Swedish industry, where record sales have, until recently, been steadily declining amid rampant online piracy. But, van Eijk says: “Total revenues [in Sweden] from recorded music, live concerts and collecting societies remained roughly stable between 2000 and 2008″.
Of course, a boom in live and merchandise revenues is no good for record companies, whose interests are solely in recorded music, but, as we have rambled on many occasions before, that’s mainly the fault of labels for not diversifying their interests ten years ago when it first became clear that record sales were going to go into terminal decline.
Looking back at the record industry’s initial mad panic when the internet arrived on the scene, van Eijk is predictably critical, writing: “Labels tried to stem the tide of unlicensed music file-sharing with their conservative strategy of abstaining from innovation, promoting legal measures against supposed offences, and digital rights management. This strategy resulted in the current backlash, providing space for a new entrant establishing a major brand in the online music business: Apple’s iTunes. Reinvention of the business model looks like the only way out for the traditional players in the music industry”.
Of course, such reinvention has been underway for a few years now, even if it’s taking quite a bit longer than everyone would like. It’s certainly too soon to say which sorts of new business models are going to work, and van Eijk doesn’t give any real opinions on that issue, except that current digital price points are almost certainly too high.
Renewable resources, etc
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 23, 2010
No Such Thing As A Green CD
A quick thought uniting Earth Day with downloading music:
According to Earth 911:
Discs are considered plastic #7, a catch-all category for many different kinds of products. They are not generally accepted in most community recycling programs.
Jewel cases are plastic #6 and pose a similar recycling conundrum.
The CD creates an enormous amount of non-biodegradable material when it’s disposed of. Downloads just disappear into the magnetic ether.
I COULDN’T GET A BONE THROUGH MY NOSE, THROUGH MY NOSE…
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 16, 2010
His Prices Were Insane
I Couldn't Get a Bone Through My Nose ...
When CDs first came to America, I was in retail managing a store for Crazy Eddie in the affluent West Village. At that point, everything on CD was imported from Germany and Japan. We were the only store that had ‘em and the early adapters had to come to us.
My district manager and I went out to lunch at the Waverly Diner on Sixth Avenue to talk over this new development. He asked, “What do you think?” I had a chance to listen to them, and just the lack or surface noise was strange and amazing. I considered for a moment.
“They sound great. I worked in a recording studio, and this is what the music sounded like when we mastered it.” I thought some more. “I just wonder if all the weird music I love will come out in it. I mean, I suspect a lot of my favorite records, like 801 Live (Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno, among others) or the Residents.”
Well, I needn’t have worried. Eventually, I owned CDs of both 801 Live and the entire Residents catalog.
Now, the recorded music has long enjoyed the pleasure and profit of reselling its catalog whenever a new medium for music comes out. My favorite example of this is in the movie Men In Black when Tommy Lee Jones is showing off alien technology to new recruit Will Smith. He picks a small, shiny round object off a stand and says, “Well, looks like I’m going to have to buy The White Album again.”
This all came rushing back to me this week because I had a yen to hear Richard Thompson’s “A Bone Through Her Nose” and could not lay my hand on my copy of Daring Adventures. The yen became so overpowering that, despite lean retroeconomic days, I figured I could put 99 cents toward it. So, I tried to find it on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, even Walmart. Not there. I went to the Pirate Bay and couldn’t even find a pirate copy. The best I was able to do were 30 second clips on La La and AllMusic. In response, reader Gail Balfore sent me a link to the live video below. Audio isn’t great, but the solo at the end will rot your socks!
So, now that old worry from my Crazy Eddie days, fully a quarter century ago, came rushing back: Will I be able to download my favorite music, even grey market?
Richard Thompson, One of the Worlds Greatest Guitarists (and Snarkiest Lyricists)!
Keys to the New Music Business
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 12, 2010
Alicia Keys Reaches Out To Her Fans. Do you?
Alicia Keys has made big news with her search for a new blogger for her website. Beyond demonstrating the might of Keys’ publicity machine, the story casts Keys as a clever artist and savvy business person. She recognizes that her music career is her business.
What about you?
If you make music for people to listen to live or on recordings, like it or not you have joined the music business. Congratulations. Now you have to start to think differently about those people listening to your music. You can call them fans, but you must call them customers.
These days, artists must take a lot of their career into the hands of their immediate circle. One of the keys to success that Keys sees is customer outreach through her blog, and the need for the best blogger to do that task. And as Bryon and Jesse Eisenberg of Future Now Marketing say in their excellent book, “Waiting for Your Cat to Bark,” “…Customers want to enter into dialogs with businesses, to establish relationships, participate in the conversation, and be more in control of the exchange.”
Keys reaches out to her customers, gets them involved in the conversation.
What have you done to reach out to your existing customers – AKA fans? What steps do you take to get new customers? What do you know about your customers?
Do you have a website? A blog? A twitter account? MySpace and Facebook page? When did you last update your content? Do you have a space for your customers/fans to interact with you? Can your fans/customers navigate your website easily to find what they want? What do you do to make people want to come back there?
Once upon a time, record companies took care of this, but that bucket has sprung a leak. Now, your team has to look after itself. Even a major label artist like Alicia Keys realizes that. While you may not have the resources at her disposal, you have some very important assets: Your intelligence, your abilities, and your creativity, the things that got you making music in the first place. You need to channel some of those resources into building and maintaining a customer base. Get started today.
The (Possible) Secret To Mariano Rivera’s Success
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 7, 2010
Watching Mariano Rivera get his first save of the season last night in the Yankee’s victory over the Red Sox (Yo, Brian, where’s the starting pitching?), a possible explanation for the Sandman’s longevity. Rivera is 40 by his own admission, and has 15 seasons under his belt. During that time he has pitched a bit over 1000 innings.
Now let’s compare that to, say, teammate CC Sabathia. Entering his tenth year in the majors, CC has a bit under 1900 innings pitched, or almost twice the number that Rivera has thrown in about two thirds of the time.
Enter Sandman
Sabathia throws about 110 pitches in an average game, and a bit over 200 innings per season. That means CC has already thrown 22,000 career pitches, nearly twice what Rivera has thrown in his.
This is not to take away from Rivera’s athleticism or his amazing, almost unfailing control. It just points to a career choice that seems to have worked for him.
I remember Rivera’s first start (perhaps game) as a Yankee. He was late because he walked from a family member’s Washington Heights apartment, across the Macomb Dam Bridge to the Cathedral of Baseball in the Bronx. He was unflappable even then, and, as I recall it, had a serviceable start. But, like so many young pitchers, he wound up in the bullpen and thrived there. It wasn’t long before he was the set-up man for John Wetland, and when Wetland left, Mariano Rivera became one of (if not the) greatest closers of all time.
Joba Chamberlain could take a page from the Sandman’s book. He has the stuff to be a great closer, as he demonstrated setting up the 8th inning last night. No “Joba Rules” necessary in the bullpen. In 20 years, he could still be going strong.
Or anything could happen. Remember Jim Bouton? He had one of the most amazing fastballs anyone had seen in the major leagues when he came up. Then, one day, he threw a pitch and “it felt like [his] arm fell off.” He spent the next 30 years trying to recapture, not his speed, but his status. And he took as his example another great with remarkable longevity, Hoyt Wilhelm who threw knuckleballs in the major leagues for 20 years, until the age of 50.
If I coulda learned how to throw one consistently, that means I coulda been in the majors, even now.
Privacy? What Privacy?
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 2, 2010
Is this web privacy?
I’m amused and a little bit horrified by the Whitaker Family. The video of the family tooling around in their minivan singing “Single Ladies” and the dad telling his son he’s not a single lady, which upsets the son to tears, has gone viral, at least according to CBS (it was the first time I’d hear of it).
Now, apart from the question of who took this video while they were driving, it also brings up the issue of privacy on the web. A massive hue and cry arises every time Facebook changes it’s privacy policy, yet married couples also use their Facebook status to fight in public, urging their friends to comment.
But, back to the Whitakers: Early web adapters were told never to mention their children on websites and take care about who has access to their picture pages, as it’s an open invitation to any loony who might have designs on children. Facebook has changed that, also. Everyone puts pictures of everything on Facebook, many they live to regret. Yet the Whitakers, who blog about everything their kids do, have this video going viral, and are appearing on TV shows because of it, with their kids. People know they’re from Atlanta, and crazies have a way of finding what they want.
So, here’s a family wherein the parents probably joined the fervor when Facebook compromised their privacy in terms of advertising, yet they freely post everything about their son and daughters. There’s irony in that, but there’s also danger.
Brooke McEldowney is a Genius Story-Teller
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on March 26, 2010
I don’t know if you follow the comic strip 9 Chickweed Lane, but every now and then creator Brooke McEldowney creates story arcs of amazing complexity and humor. A couple of years ago it had to do with one of the characters, a professional dancer, and a unicorn. No one believed in either of them. Her current arc deals with a ripping yarn about World War II, espionage, a love story, and military incompetence. That she is able to do this in four panels a day and keep the story moving, have a punchline daily, and maintain the high level of artistry just blows me out of the water every time I read it.
Boo-hoo-hoo to AT&T
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on March 8, 2010
This is from today’s Cynopsis:
iPhone users’ hopes of tethering their AT&T data plans to the device to avoid paying an additional monthly fee seem, well, hopeless. (Having to purchase a separate data plan is expected to quell demand for the device, but the telco has gone out of its way to blame 3G network problems on iPhone users and was not likely to give away iPad access for free.)
Now, while I don’t necessarily fault AT&T for not giving away free access to iPad users (if they can afford the toy, they can afford the $30 a month to keep it stocked), I do have problems with the last part of the reasoning, blaming iPhone users for their 3G network problems.
As a long-time AT&T user (I started with Cingular well over a decade ago), I have gone without a new phone now for 18 months, as has the rest of my family, and when we are free and clear of penalties for switching, that’s the plan. For one thing, they charge the most for their admittedly spotty 3G services. Adding $120 a month for digital usage of our phones to the 120 we already pay for our phone service – you remember phone service, when you talk to people with the phone? – is out of the question in our household. So, while we’ve actually received decent service and customer response from AT&T, we’re seriously thinking of changing.
AT&T has brought this on themselves. By negotiating a deal with Apple (don’t get me started on them) that makes the iPhone an AT&T exclusive, they knew they’d get far more 3G traffic than previously. They should have prepared for this rather than beefing afterward, and instead of blaming the users (you use the network too much!) AT&T should cop to their own shortsightedness.
I’ve used a smartphone for nearly a decade, but lately it’s been a smartphone with a lobotomy because I simply can’t afford the massive rates they charge for 3G. The best smartphone I had, a Cingular HTG phone with wi-fi, died and, again, I didn’t have the funds for a new wi-fi compatible phone. If I upgrade now, I’m FORCED to pay the $30 data fee. So, it’s bye-bye for us. Why should I be forced to pay for a service that the company concedes is spotty so I can have my Outlook data at my finger-tips for when I’m away from my desk (which is often)? Yet another case of a company not looking at the interests of their users, not seeing past it’s nose.
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