Last week, while driving later at night, I caught part of an interview on Q with Adam Cohen, son of the legendary Leonard Cohen, talking about his father's influence on music and on Adam himself as a musician. Adam talked about music losing it's "cultural relevance", telling a story that when some thieves broke into his car, they didn't touch all the of the great music he had lying around on CD, but they took everything else they could grab. He said this was, in part, to music not being valued.
Adam has a point, but not because the thieves passed up his awesome CD collection. Music, like most types of media, is around and available for free (or almost free) more than ever in the age of the internet. Not only is copyrighted and legally released music pirated as soon as it's released, and made available in very easy to find ways, more and more artists have been releasing their music with little or no expectation of being compensated for what they do. Part of this is a need for a fan base. A band can put out their music on bandcamp or other service for free and people can come by and check it out with no expectation to buy it. This makes new fans quickly. But, is there an incentive to actually buy the music after sampling it for free?
In 2007, Radiohead caused a controversy by offering their album In Rainbows up on their website for "pay what you want". Fans could download the album then, if they wanted, send the band some money for the music. There was no expectation to pay for it though. The album was downloaded 1.2 million times. While Radiohead never released sales figures, they have said they did quite well with the strategy. Some critics say that Radiohead were cutting off their noses to spite their faces, offering up a critical and financial success of an album for basically nothing. This probably set the ball rolling for the free digital download we all enjoy today.
It's a hard road for any up and coming musician. You need people to consume your music, by buying it or by coming to a concert, but few people will take chances on an unknown quantity. Offering up music for free may get you heard, but it takes food out of your mouth.
Adam Cohen was right about music being less culturally relevant, in as much as we've begun to consider music not as something we need to pay for, but as something that we are deserved for free. In addition, the age of the album is slowly starting to disappear. Music is much more ephemeral, with artists riding more and more on a hot single rather than a hot album, sometimes to disappear after they're not the flavour of the month anymore. One can't fault the thieves for not stealing his TV on the Radio CDs, not because they didn't know who they were or know how awesome their music was. Rather, the thieves were interested in monetary value, not cultural value. Making money on music is a hard slog now, both as a musician and as a thief. No one will buy something that they can get for free, unless the artist is offering something of quality, and something that is well known. It's less a cultural issue than a changing musical financial landscape. Until there's a better model of how to market and sell music in a digital age, the CD, the album and the physicality of music will be a relic to all but music collectors and avid fans, like me and Adam.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Canadian Indie Band Round Up #2
Has it really been a year since I featured three up and coming Canadian indy bands? Let's fix that right away. Here's three Canadian acts you need to check out:
1) Foam Lake
Foam Lake are seasoned veterans of the Canadian indy rock scene, having been in bands like The Blood Lines, Slow Down Molasses and The Warbrides. Foam Lake just put out their debut album, Force and Matter, in November 2011.
The band sound a lot like Wire crossed with Depeche Mode. They have solid post-punk and indy rock sensibilities, and add in a nice flourish of electronics in many places in their first album.
http://foamlakeband.com/
2) Rob Crooks
From Winnipeg, Rob Crooks plays a noisy mix of indy rock with plenty of experimentation. As a member of hip-hop collective Magnum K.I,, he made some intriguing hip-hop. Hearts, his 2012 release, sees him abandon hip-hop (for the most part) for oddball experimentation, feedback and singer-songwriter sensibilities. Thing of him as a low-rent, mosquito bitten Canadian version of Beck and you have a close approximation as to how he sounds.
http://www.robcrooks.com/
3) House of Daggers
From Vancouver, House of Daggers is a collaboration between DJ Tone and alt-pop singer Nothingilistic. Nothingilistic has released three albums of weirdly skewed pop so far, but House of Daggers is a dirty, dancable mix of electro-rock. Having been familiar with Nothingilistic's career to date, House of Daggers sounds like nothing he'd produce ever. It's a fascinating departure and the music is driving, noisy and challenging. Their debut EP is called Lightning Swords of Death.
http://www.myspace.com/565073443
http://youtu.be/_Vu7dExkmiI
1) Foam Lake
Foam Lake are seasoned veterans of the Canadian indy rock scene, having been in bands like The Blood Lines, Slow Down Molasses and The Warbrides. Foam Lake just put out their debut album, Force and Matter, in November 2011.
The band sound a lot like Wire crossed with Depeche Mode. They have solid post-punk and indy rock sensibilities, and add in a nice flourish of electronics in many places in their first album.
http://foamlakeband.com/
2) Rob Crooks
From Winnipeg, Rob Crooks plays a noisy mix of indy rock with plenty of experimentation. As a member of hip-hop collective Magnum K.I,, he made some intriguing hip-hop. Hearts, his 2012 release, sees him abandon hip-hop (for the most part) for oddball experimentation, feedback and singer-songwriter sensibilities. Thing of him as a low-rent, mosquito bitten Canadian version of Beck and you have a close approximation as to how he sounds.
http://www.robcrooks.com/
3) House of Daggers
From Vancouver, House of Daggers is a collaboration between DJ Tone and alt-pop singer Nothingilistic. Nothingilistic has released three albums of weirdly skewed pop so far, but House of Daggers is a dirty, dancable mix of electro-rock. Having been familiar with Nothingilistic's career to date, House of Daggers sounds like nothing he'd produce ever. It's a fascinating departure and the music is driving, noisy and challenging. Their debut EP is called Lightning Swords of Death.
http://www.myspace.com/565073443
http://youtu.be/_Vu7dExkmiI
Monday, May 7, 2012
Forgotten Music #13: The Cramps - "Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon"
This is the last repost of Forgotten Music from my livejournal. The next installment will be all new content!
RIP Lux Interior.
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The Cramps are one of the best bands ever to play psychobilly and horror-punk. Cited by some as the inventors of psychobilly, a style of music that merged rockabilly with punk, The Cramps formed in 1976 in New York City. The band had a rotating membership, but always used the core of vocalist Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. Active in the early CBGB's punk scene, The Cramps released their landmark first album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, in 1979. They recorded and toured steadily up until Lux Interior's death early in 2009.
I became aware of this band late in their career, after hearing the 1990 album Stay Sick at CKUL. I fell in love with their sound and look immediately. They combined the visuals of 50s rock with B-movie horror film and sleazy erotica. Poison Ivy often posed in skin-tight vinyl and played her guitar in a sensual way. At the time, "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns" was making its way up the college charts, but "Creature From the Black Leather Lagoon"'s manic approach really appealed to me. The video is one of the most playfully demented things I've ever seen. If you like this, go listen to "Human Fly" and especially "Garbage Man", featuring Ivy in skin-tight gold pants!
http://youtu.be/Zt4lf6aR15Y
RIP Lux Interior.
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The Cramps are one of the best bands ever to play psychobilly and horror-punk. Cited by some as the inventors of psychobilly, a style of music that merged rockabilly with punk, The Cramps formed in 1976 in New York City. The band had a rotating membership, but always used the core of vocalist Lux Interior and guitarist Poison Ivy. Active in the early CBGB's punk scene, The Cramps released their landmark first album, Songs the Lord Taught Us, in 1979. They recorded and toured steadily up until Lux Interior's death early in 2009.
I became aware of this band late in their career, after hearing the 1990 album Stay Sick at CKUL. I fell in love with their sound and look immediately. They combined the visuals of 50s rock with B-movie horror film and sleazy erotica. Poison Ivy often posed in skin-tight vinyl and played her guitar in a sensual way. At the time, "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns" was making its way up the college charts, but "Creature From the Black Leather Lagoon"'s manic approach really appealed to me. The video is one of the most playfully demented things I've ever seen. If you like this, go listen to "Human Fly" and especially "Garbage Man", featuring Ivy in skin-tight gold pants!
http://youtu.be/Zt4lf6aR15Y
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