Earlier this year I signed up to Spotify, which means that I now have thousands of albums at my fingertips without having to pay a penny for the pleasure, or displeasure, of listening to them. This ought to have signalled a frenzy of indulgence as I immersed myself in the aural equivalent of a supermarket trolley dash, but it didn’t. I love Spotify, but I don’t use it very much. It’s a bit like the internet in general; we all have access to information that could change our lives but, largely speaking, we’d rather spend our time on Twitter and Facebook.
Anyway, my point is that I haven’t heard very many new albums this year and I’m a bit ashamed of myself for that. The LP, as a format, is something that needs to be preserved in the face of ‘pick and choose’ downloading and I feel as though I ought to be doing my bit. Give it an airing on Spotify, then buy it if it’s any good. Easy.
Of the few albums I have heard, I would nominate Paloma Faith’s Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? as my favourite. She’s an interesting character to say the least, and the album is a belter – especially the title track and New York. She’s one of these people whose speaking voice is so at odds with her singing voice that you wonder if she’s pulling off some insane ventriloquism act, but it works wonderfully. Another album I’ve been listening to a lot lately is Brand New Eyes by Paramore. Yes, yes, I know. I’ve tried my very hardest to hate Paramore because it seems like the right thing to do but it just isn’t working. They’re young, bible thumping Americans who have all the ingredients for being exceptionally annoying and yet they have a knack of writing very good pop songs. Ignorance and The Only Exception are just brilliant. So why do I feel so dirty?
I also have to mention the race for the Christmas number one single. I’m fully behind the Rage Against The Machine hijack campaign, and downloaded my copy on Monday, but I found myself wondering today why anyone cares what is number one at Christmas. We don’t care what’s topping the chart for the rest of the year, so why should the Christmas week be any different? Well, to be honest, it wouldn’t normally bother me that much but Simon Cowell’s outburst on the issue left me with no choice. What a complete arse that man is. If he came out and admitted that he doesn’t give a shit about his artists as long they’re making him money, I’d at least respect his honesty but pretending that The X Factor is anything but a puppet show is absurd. Along with Britain’s Got Talent he’s managed to corner the market in misnamed television phenomena. Still, moaning that no one on The X Factor has ever actually possessed said indefinable attribute is pointless because if they did have it they wouldn’t have applied for such a tacky competition in the first place. The real question is how such a show can attract 19 million viewers for its final. Why do so many people enjoy watching cabaret singers doing cover versions? When I was young I always thought famous people were a different species, somehow above the rest of us, and that was how I liked it. I wanted to be impressed by the things they could do. Nowadays people seem to prefer the idea that just about anyone has the potential to be famous. Perhaps it makes them feel like they might be next? Susan Boyle has sold over four million albums on the back of the fact that she used to look a bit rough. Okay, she can sing a bit, but if she was conventionally attractive in the first place she wouldn't have got anywhere. Being a good singer isn't that unusual, after all. John and Edward (inspired name) are famous for not being able to sing. They are famous for jumping around. Well, aren't they? Stavros Flatley plumb yet further depths.
I'm not saying anything new or interesting here and I'm not trying to, but it's all a bit sad. These programmes won't stop people with real ability from doing their thing of course, but it does rather devalue their achievements. And, if it's getting easier to be famous, what incentive is there for future generations to try any harder than they need to? I just have this chilling vision of parents in 40 years' time bemoaning the music of the day and harking back to when we had 'proper' artists like Girls Aloud and Take That. Or perhaps this is what every generation says. Is that what happens? Have I taken the cheese?
7 comments:
In 1950's popular music culture was dominated by safe, easy listening, family oriented music similar to that seen on x factor, prompting over 50 years of rebel music including Elvis Presley, James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Public Enemy and of course Rage Against The Machine.
Simon Cowell will be inspiring similar musicians to find an alternative route today, whilst helping Rage sell A LOT of records, get a potential number one single and connect with a younger fan base they would not of had before. Is that a bad thing?
I don't think we'll quite get to the point of people looking back and thinking of current pop dregs as 'real' music, but I do wonder whether music will be quite such an important part of youth culture in future.
There'll always be people who have music as their love, but I'm not sure it'll be a stock element of everyone's growing up in the way it used to be. Music sells to a much wider range of ages than ever before, earlier generations of rock and pop stars have grown old and carried on going, and it's just generally not as centred on a youth audience as it once was.
For the past several generations music's sort of been seen as the embodiment of youth, and for a lot of people as an inspiration for their emerging identities, but I think in future it might really just be background noise for a lot of people. I'm not sure anything will replace it per se, only that there's a lot more ways for kids to learn about the world and start to feel a part of it than there was before; some of music's ground has maybe been usurped in that regard.
Pop music had to fight quite hard, and for quite a long time, to be considered an art form - it's achieved that, but maybe making a minority of itself in doing so. A lot of people won't ever get that far into it, and so instead there's this whole market catering to them with a lot of pretty insignificant entertainment of the take-it-or-leave-it kind, that just happens to be music (or have music in it - the TV programme's already a huge big part of the deal for people who choose to entertain themselves in that way).
There was opera when there was music hall; there were renegade bluesmen when the world was full of crooners. There'll always be music, but there's probably going to be a lot more musical entertainment. It's just nice to fire a foul-mouthed reminder of the former into the charts every once in a while.
Sadly Rage Against The Machine are on Simon Cowell's label, so it won't make any difference to him, he'll still get all the money from them getting to number 2. It's all a big game which I generally refuse to spend money on, which is why I listen to Spotify and little else. (That, and I don't have much money.) But I don't blame you for being disillusioned with its cynicism.
By the way, thank you for the lovely Christmas card - it made my day. xx
They're not on Simon Cowell's label - they're on Epic, which is owned by Sony, who also own Cowell's label SyCo. They are, in effect, both employees of Sony - Cowell won't make any money from sales of 'Killing in the Name'.
The fact that Rage Against the Machine are on a major label at all might seem a flaw in the plan, but I think it's a bit of an excessive criticism - that really is the nature of the beast. Back at the time the song first came out, people used to mock it for that very reason by singing, "Fuck you, I've just signed to Sony."
There's no real way to avoid ending up on a major label if you want to be successful, much like there's no real way to avoid working for large companies (subsidiaries of NewsCorp, say) in most lines of work. The difference being that Rage Against the Machine use their position as part of Sony to espouse radical opinions, whereas Simon Cowell uses it to exploit a succession of hopeful young things. Cowell won't get the money from Rage Against the Machine, though - I know the story that he will is doing the rounds, and my word is probably no better than anyone else's, but I'm really quite certain that it's not the case. They are most definitely not on his label.
I am so out of touch. I haven't got time or inclination to keep up with the current music scene. (I bought one new album this year - 'Coaster' by NOFX.)
I don't watch any type of reality show so all this X Factor stuff is not on my radar. However, I have seen a few articles and it all sounds like an artificial karaoke nightmare. But good luck to the performers. My disdain is to 19 million idiots.
Regarding the Christmas number one, I couldn't give a monkey's about it. I suppose it would be appropriate if The Muppets (40/1) won the contest.
@MattKeefe: I stand corrected, but it still seems a bit dodgy to me! I bet Cowell has loads of shares in Sony so stands to gain either way, otherwise there's no way Sony's bosses would risk pissing him off like this. But you may be right and I may be wrong. I'm just very cynical about the whole thing - apologies.
Ian - I think there will always be a desire to make alternative music, but my fear is that it will become more marginalised because the major labels just want to play it safe and the independents are finding it harder to compete. Record sales generally are in decline, so only the big hitters will survive. HMV are running their stores at a huge loss despite picking up business from the collapse of Zavvi and Woolworths, and probably won't last much longer. I don't think you can directly compare today's situation with the 1950s because the means of distribution is so different.
Matt - Yes, you could be right. When music in a physical form ceases to exist, as it surely will before long, it's hard to imagine young people getting as excited about it because it will be less tangible.
Ariane - I don't think it matters too much whether or not Simon Cowell profits from the Rage record, the principle at stake is choice. The fact that Cowell has declared the Rage campaign as 'stupid' is enough for me. This is the most interesting race for the Christmas number one that I can recall - everyone is talking about it. Surely that's a good thing? I really don't understand why anyone has a problem with it. It's a bit like being the best sprinter in your class at school who always wins everything; if some new kid comes along who's just as good, you can't reasonably say 'That's not fair! I might not win now!'
If Joe McElderry wins the race, fair enough. But at least it is a race and not the foregone conclusion we have come to expect.
You say that Sony's bosses wouldn't want to piss off Cowell, but what could they possibly do about it anyway? They didn't start the campaign and they can't stop people downloading a song if they want to. Again, I don't see the problem. It's dictatorship versus democracy, essentially.
MJB - 'artificial karaoke nightmare' is as good a summary as I've seen.
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