Selling Out Pt.2

A friend swears that a few years ago that I became infuriated a the fact that Bob Dylan starred in a Victoria's Secret commercial many years ago. (Does anyone remember this?) He tells me I even proposed asking him about it when he played the Norva shortly thereafter (though, in hindsight, I doubt he would have answered me). Since then, I've let up my anger and decided to say, "You know what? It's his career; he's going to do it no matter what I think, so why should I let it bother me?")

I also read in his "Chronicles, Volume 1" that he was a fan of rap music. Not so much for the music, but the politically-charged lyrics of artists like Public Enemy and NWA (Go ahead...picture Bob Dylan listening to "Fuck Tha Police"). To him, (and I'm paraphrasing here) albums like Fear of A Black Planet, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, and Straight Outta Compton were like listening to a bomb go off. These people were pissed off and were not just going to sit around and complain about it amongst themselves. I went into those albums with the same attitude (and I'll admit, a bit of nostalgia for "911 Is A Joke") and learned to appreciate them as such...but to a lesser extent with Straight Outta Compton.

So, while I've learned to accept this, why does this bother me so much?



(Full disclosure: Pepsi sponsored the Black Eyed Peas last tour, so I'm pretty sure they own Will.I.Am lock, stock, and barrel.)

Secondly, in case no one heard, Bruce Springsteen publicly apologized today for signing on to a greatest hits package to be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. To his fans, it seemed as though the man who has spent the last 20+ years lamenting the death of "Mom and Pop America" and fighting for labor rights missed the fact that he was supporting Wal-Mart (read WAL-MART). In his apology, Springsteen claimed to have "dropped the ball" and said "[o]ur batting average is usually pretty good...but fans tend to call you on this stuff, as it should be." You can read all about this in his interview in the New York Times Sunday edition, which...SURPRISE! coincides with his appearance at the Super Bowl halftime show.)

In other news, his new album "V for Vendetta"...umm, "Working on A Dream" is in stores now.

Insert Witty T-Shirt Slogan Here

Agitated Audience-member: "TAKE OFF YOUR UNIFORM BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE, MAN!"

FZ: "Everybody in this room is wearing a uniform and don't kid yourself."

Selling Out

There is a fine line between keeping real and being popular. The question is the difference between an entertainer and artist. To me an artist is someone who portrays their soul into their work. They put everything into it; it’s their ‘baby’ so to speak so everything has to be perfect. Artist’s do not need to have thousands of fans and make tons of money, they are satisfied with the work they put out. Take …And You Will Us The Trail of Dead as an example. They keep the same elements that they started from but add new things. I was driving the other day and I heard a song on the radio that I had never heard but I knew right away that it was Trail of the Dead because they have an authentic sound that is uniquely them. Sure enough when the song ended it was a song off their new album. Entertainers I feel are in it for the money, which is what being a sell out is in my opinion is. When you have artists who cannot sing but they are making so much money because they are good entertainment, where did societies taste in good music go wrong? Hello, Brittany Spear is an entertainer but not an artist in the least bit. I am sure the only reason she gets attention is just because people want to see the crazy things she will do. Which is no reason to keep people with no talent around. But then we also have the musicians/artists who were in it simply to make great music and then decided to sell out. Greenday as an example, they were awesome back in the day. Their sounds was raw and now today they sound just like any other mainstream band out their. That not to say that if an artist goes mainstream that they are going to turn out like that at all. Take Smashing Pumpkins as an example. They mainstream band but there sound has always stayed to its roots while branching out and trying new things. They have always kept that unique sound that you can tell is them. They took a break for a while, probably best so that they wouldn’t start making music that sounded like every other artists that sold out. It was probably the better choice to make, were able to recharge and come back with new ideas after they long hiatus.

Dusseldorf!

Great Moments in "Selling Out"

1999: Electronic artist Moby releases his album, "Play", on an unsuspecting mass public. On his previous album, Moby had attempted (somewhat unsuccessfully) to mix his D.C. hardcore roots with his current musical interest. Since he felt this attempt did not go over well and he was more well known in Europe than the US, before Play was released he licensed every single track from the album to a number of advertisers. His rationale was that "this would be the only way my music would be heard". Four years later, Wired magazine would call this "licensing venture so staggeringly lucrative that the album was a financial success months before it reached its multi-platinum sales total."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/moby.html

2003: Thirty-something "Indie" artist Liz Phair leaves Matador Records, signs to Capitol Records and gets produced by the Matrix (Avril Lavigne, Shakira, Britney Spears). Phair tries to balance a newfound innocence in her lyrics ("Why Can't I?") with her trademark overt sexuality ("H.W.C."). Fans cry "sell-out" while Phair defends her position in interviews by saying there was no way she could afford to raise her son at a label that could only pay her so much.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/02/arts/music/02phai.html

2007: "Indie" psych-pop band Of Montreal are riding the crest of their most successful/personal album to date, "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?". The band feels that the album deserves a better live presentation than just them on a bare stage. They want to give the audience a show and then go even BIGGER on the next tour. Their solution? License a song to Outback Steakhouse and appear in a commercial for the new T-Mobile Sidekick.


Fans cry "sell-out". In response, lead singer Kevin Barnes writes a lengthy diatribe entitled "Selling Out Isn't Possible" . In it he proposes that, "The pseudo-nihilistic punk rockers of the 70's created an impossible code in which no one can actually live by. It's such garbage. The idea that anyone who attempts to do anything commercial is a sell out is completely out of touch with reality." which brings me to my final moment of selling out.

(On a somewhat related note, read Barnes' plan to survive in the era of digital media entitled "We Will Only Propagate Exceptional Objects".)

2008: Sex Pistols lead singer Johnny Rotten shills for Country Life butter. It should be noted that the Sex Pistols have never shied away from the notion of doing things "only for the money". At one point, they went on a reunion tour with the name "Filthy Lucre" (read "dirty money" for us Yanks). Despite their "punk" image, it should be noted they really were nothing more than...yes, I'll say it...a dirtier, snottier, more drug-addled version of a "boy band". And so, the man who once claimed "and you thought that we were faking ,that we were all just money making" now says "People know I only do things that I want to or that I believe in and I have to do it my way...I've never done anything like this before and never thought I would, but this Country Life ad was made for me and I couldn't resist the opportunity."

"You know nothing about art or sex that you couldn't read in any trendy, New York, underground fashion magazine" -"Admit It," Say Anything

I believe that with being an indie artist, authenticity is the only thing defines you. It seems to be that the way indie music "sounds," though styles and themes may change, has been predetermined. Indie music can be picked out of a 1000 song catalog by Indie enthusiasts over your typical, everyday top-40 songs. Indie music is often self-produced, self-authored and self-invested. Everything done to an Indie song has a purpose above making every instrument quantized and pitch corrected. Though auto-tune can be found in a great deal of Indie records, it is not done to enhance the production value of said song. It is done to add to the atmosphere of the composition.

There is a great divide among "keeping it real" in Indie music. I haven't quite figured out what the Indie world has against making music, but it seems like the minute an Indie artist turns a profit on their music, they have sold out. When I discover a band that none of my friends have heard of, I face an internal dilemma. I want all of my friends to hear the music, but at the same time I am afraid that the music will become too well-liked that it will become a mainstream success. I remember when Death Cab For Cutie's "You Can Play These Songs With Chords" showed up on the shelves of my local Newbury Comics. This album has an immaculate cover of Morrisey's "This Charming Man," which is what immediately attracted me to this band. I loved how Death Cab's music was vastly different from virtually every other album I had heard at that point in every facet. Their production values were extremely high, though it sounded just like the demo tapes that local bands were passing out. Their music was sophisticated (and it still is), which is partly what made the relatively minor-league "sound" of the album seem irrelevant.

As Western culture moved in and out of the punk-pop fad, it seemed like the up and coming fad after punk-pop was listening to artists that no one had heard of before. It became a status point in a way if you were listening to a scarce artist or genre, which immediately made it popular. When "the OC" made its television debut back in the day, the character Seth Cohen referred to Death Cab on a number of occasions. The band even made a live appearance on the show. All of a sudden, the band I raved about for so long that my friends wouldn't stop playing their Sum 41 CDs to listen to became the new thing. Since then, Death Cab has played to mammoth-sized crowds and sold tremendous amounts of records. Their production value has gone up with each release and with that so has their popularity. The question still haunts, however, if Death Cab for Cutie sold out. My answer is "no." I believe that if popular culture never picked up on Ben Gibbard's song writing that the band would have released the same music that they've released post pop culture exposure. Though some fans of the band may call them "sell outs" for turning a profit on their music, they have continued to stay authentic in the sense that the music they are making sounds dramatically different from anything on the radio today, yet something about them still appeals to the pop culture crowd. If selling out means making music that millions of people love and being able to support one's self because of it, then Death Cab for Cutie has absolutely 100% sold out.

One last point of contention: The Beach Boys made surf music that sky-rocketed their popularity. Brian Wilson hated surf music and hated the beach. In fact, the only members of the Beach Boys that lived that lifestyle were drummer Dennis Wilson and singer Mike Love. As soon as the band released "Pet Sounds," their popularity in the states seemed to drop. Brian Wilson composed some of his most authentic songs to date on that album and was criticized for it. With that said, who can truly define "keeping it real" and what is and is not authentic?

Music to Me

Okay, let me just start by saying I have never blogged before in my life and I never thought I would see the day where I had to. So here it is… Music: is the love of my life. My passion for music is credited to my father, who would always play the guitar and sing to me all the songs from his youth, to name a view The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Who, and Elvis Presley and so on. While still holding true to these bands I also listen to bands like Nirvana, 311, Incubus, and many more. It wasn’t until about high school when my best friend Nathan introduced me to a band that is so unbelievably talented that they instantly became my favorite. Who are they you ask? There name is ….And you Will Know us by the Trail of Dead, or Tail of Dead for short. They are one of those bands where one can listen to the whole album through with out skipping to the next track. (It rarity when that happens.) And, it not just one of their albums it all of them. This band never puts out a song that sounds like they reused a melody and put different words to it. Each on of there songs is unique. Each album is never the same. Trail of Dead uses a variety of instruments to create their unique sound, which some instruments you can pick out and other you can’t. This band cannot be put into any particular category, so you will just have to listen for yourself.

"I am not a DJ" -Greg Gyllis

I think that, as this is my first post of the semester, that I should be up front with everyone reading this: I don't believe in genres of music. While I recognize a select few core styles of music (i.e. hip-hop, country, rock, jazz and horse-shit) I believe that even those can be blurred in such a way that a new style of music is formed. Take, for example, Fusion jazz. A mix of Jazz music and hip-hop created an instantaneous genre. However. . .name one chiefly Fusion artist. I'll wait while you think of one.

I believe that the blurred lines between genres have opened up an entirely new portal for musicians to explore. This portal can be found in the art of "Mash-ups." Hip-Hop artists have been doing this via sampling techniques for as long as loop machines have been on the Market. Bone Thugs N Harmony mashed their hooks and lines with a Phil Collins sample on their song "Home." More recently, MTV brought together Jay-Z and Linkin Park for a revolutionary mash-up session. While thousands of DJ's in clubs across the universe have experimented with mash-ups in their sets there is, in my opinion, one single go-to authority on the art of mash-ups.

Greg Gyllis, more commonly known as Girl Talk, left his life of tissue engineering to change the world with his mash-ups. Using the words and music from hundreds of different artists spanning a multitude of genres, Girl Talk is able to craft unique tracks through the juxtapositions found when different styles of music are combined.

I feel like when God created our universe, he bestowed upon us the musical genius to change the lives of millions. Unfortunately, this genius is not as infinite as everyone once thought. Listen to 98% of the music on the radio (coincidentally the same music Girl Talk mashes up) and you too will realize that most of these songs are crafted from similar chord structures and lyrical themes. The musical genius of the world is running dry. Through the composition of music created by other musicians, artists like Girl Talk are able to rediscover the music that was created in the last 75 years and morph said music into something reachable by today's youth and disenchanted musical fanatics.

How long will it be before the mash-up is deemed as illegal as making mixed cassette tapes and peer-to-peer file sharing? As long as acts like Girl Talk continue to bank on the musical feats of others, someone's going to be pissed. Only on his recent CD Feed The Animals has Girl Talk used a Metallica sample. Unfortunately for you, Girl Talk, Lars Ulrich really really really likes his money.

You're Dripping All Over The Galaxy

And so begins my second attempt at blogging. Last semester, I had another blog where I made shameless plugs for my (now on-hiatus) radio show, professed my love for Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, and got a creepy back massage from Bradford Cox of Deerhunter. My musical tastes haven't changed...much...since then (for instance, Ghostland Observatory wore thin after one listen; only about 5 of the Lightspeed Champion songs were any good). Still, despite my "indie" preferences, you're just as likely to see me at a GWAR show or listening to Finnish "drinking metal" bands or this song...

I hope to use this blog in the same manner as I utilized my radio show: to expose people to music that's probably not being aired on the radio (or at least not in this area). I've sent out e-mails to a few of my favorite blogs to try and figure out how you go about LEGALLY posting MP3s, though as I'm finding it's just as difficult and confusing as anything else going on within the music industry right now. (Note that these links are 3 years old.) Plus, I'm not really trying to endanger myself or the many connections I've made through WODU (various label contacts, promoters, etc.)

In the meantime, click here to view the video for my first favorite track of 2009, Animal Collective's "My Girls" from the album Merriweather Post Pavilion.