Reviews August 2010

Timber Timbre - Demon Host (Single)

Timber Timbre are a bluesy Canadian acoustic folk band, and Demon Host is their first single to be released in the UK.
It's a dark, eerie, somewhat macabre confessional tale, driven almost entirely by one acoustic guitar and voice, with a touch of chiming piano and choir-like additional voices towards the end. The song appears to be a lament over a life full of regret and unheeded warnings and is riddled with the chilly fear of a man waiting for his inevitable damnation. Mood-wise it has much in common with Robert Johnson's work (e.g.Hellhound On My Trail ). Lyrical images of death, churches, futile repenting and forthcoming demons augment its haunting melody, and singer/guitarist Taylor Kirk's delivery is pitched just right to maximise the effect.
****

French for Cartridge - Liquorice
French For Cartridge is a London-based male/female duo 'formed as an attempt to create atonal pop music whilst at Goldsmiths' which has received fawning reviews from the likes of Artrocker magazine.
Musically, it's a quirky mixed bag of oompah-beat pop songs (Oooh!, Sitting and Reading) samey mood pieces, (A Hundred and One, Two Feet in The Water) breezy yet plodding pop-rock (Loosening The Structures, Picture Negative) or various combinations of the aforementioned styles. Several of the tracks manage to create a pleasant ambience, but there is little expressive melodic quality as the lyrics are generally abstracted from the mood of the melodies. Twice as Nice, for example, is a sarcastice swipe at Hollwood-style image-obsession and and consumerism, yet has an utterly inappropriate saccharine melody. It simply doesn't work, even ironically.
Liquorice thus shares the same musical problems as many art-rock recordings. It sounds as if French for Cartridge take lyrical ideas and then set them to music. Really, this shouldn't be so blatantly apparent as the songwriter's gift is surely in the ability to marry melody and lyric into a seamless whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Without this, music may an interesting (in an abstract way, as Liquorice is in its blend of styles), but it could never be moving.
I'm not impressed by the lyrics either. In several of the songs they are impenetrably vague. Here's an example from A Hundred And One - 'allagretto -allegory -alleluia -allez Marie - alphabet -alphabet-alphabet-alphabet- alphabet-alphabet-alphabet -alphabet -also- alphabet'. Hmm.
In other places they seem to have fallen straight into the Noel Gallagher Don't Believe The Truth/Definitely Maybe/Slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball trap of confusing contradiction with depth. In Loosening The Structures we have 'complex, subtle too/even when it's seemingly simple and confused.' In TV Dinners we have 'Broken Ribs/All is well'. You could argue a coherent meaning for both, of course, but it would have to be an argument.
Liquorice left me cold and confused. Or is that hot and bothered as I understood it only too well?
*

Josephine Foster & The Victor Herrero Band - Anda Jaleo

Anda Jaleo is a collection of Spanish folk songs by Federico Garcia Lorca that were banned by Franco and have now been arranged and released by Josephine Foster & The Vistor Herrero band who are about to embark upon a European tour to support the album.
The entire album is gloriously earthy-sounding - it's exactly what you would hope for - a whirl of dramatically strummed nylon-stringed Spanish guitars, castanets and a dash of harmonica here and there. The vocals are all performed in the original Spanish.yet come accompanied by handy English translations. If you had told me that Josephine Foster was the greatest living Spanish folk songer I'd have believed you. Her voice is utterly convincing and captivating as she guides us through an odyssey of joy, woe and danger with Lorca's tales of adventure, romance, bull fighters and beautiful gypsy women. Great stuff.
****

Sleigh Bells - Treats

Sleigh Bells are a Brooklyn electro-pop duo with bottomless resources of ear-candy hooks.
Treats is a delightful and wildly oscillating genre-straddling joyride. It is extremely rare that such disparate influences are distilled into a coherent, effective and original direction. Vicious guitar lines and brutal beats sit together in perfect harmony with gentler melodies as chant-like female vocals scat over groovy stomps underscored by endlessly inventive guitar/synth lines and counter-melodies. There is an chaotic and futuristic quality to many of the tracks (Crown On the Ground, Tell 'Em) and a breezy retro pop feel to others (Rill Rill). It works so well as all is informed by an unswerving and masterful musicality. The beats, instrumental lines and melodies are carefully plotted, making for a satisfying cohesive whole where every aspect combines to make each track more than the sum of its parts.
Treats is continually (and very nearly continuously) entertaining. It's joyous, innovative and unique.
****

Mount Kimbie- Crooks and Lovers

Mount Kimbie are a Dutch experimental post dubstep duo who set up a drum machine, hold down keys on keyboards and add chopped-up vocal loops over the top.
Each track is a beat-driven soundscape devoid of any form of traditional songcraft, where a range of different notes/sounds/effects have been put through a sonic blender. It may, therefore, be missing the point to judge Mount Kimble by any traditional criteria as they seem utterly unconcerned by expressive narrative.
It is certainly experimental, yet throwing everything you have in your fridge into a food processor doesn't require any culinary skill, and although the results would be innovative in a sense it could hardly be considered a contribution to cuisine. There is a meaningful difference between doing something unique and creating something innovative and progressive. I have the impression that any moments in Crooks and Lovers with any semblance of expression is utter fluke and it is difficult to see what they are attempting to acheive. I found it directionless - and tedious.
*

Latest Single Reviews

Delphic - Counterpoint

Trancey, hypno-beated electro- pop with an incessant looping synth riff, occasionally augmented with an Edge-style, delay-drenched guitar part. Lyrically we find the protagonist variously 'holding my head up' and running 'through streets and empty corridors', asking to be told that 'nothing's wrong today' over and over again. There is a 'nice' mood throughout, but that alone isn't nearly enough to sustain interest over a trying 6 minutes and 21 seconds. Yet, in fairness Counterpoint did leave me with food for thought. I still can't quite decide whether the track is only 3 minutes or 6 minutes and 21 seconds too long.

Bot'ox - Overdrive

This is a French electro-pop mood- piece instrumental. It's light on the instruments, heavy on the mental and mood-wise not unlike what Lennon's 'Revolution 9' may have sounded like had it been made with a sequencer.

Young Fathers - Automatic/Dancing Mantaray

Young fathers are a Scottish hip-hop trio with heavy overtones of Outkast. Both tracks here are smoothly and highly produced - 'Automatic' is dancey and upbeat, 'Dancing Mantaray' is bass heavy, quirky and rather appealing. The vocal stylings are very Andre 3000 on 'Automatic', yet Young Fathers have enough song craft and personality about them to suggest that they may be able to carve out a niche for themselves. Promising.


Chapel Club - Five Trees

This is insipid plodding pop-rock complete with a depressing everyman vocalist. There are several instances where they commit that most cardinal of lyric-writing sins - the melodic emphasis is completely out of whack with the lyrical emphasis. Thus prepositions/conjunctions etc. are stressed instead of key words (e.g.' I strayed too far into A dream'). The chorus lyrics revolve around the line 'Dust in my heart, dust in my veins'. If that's what Chapel Club are trying to express here, then they've done themselves proud.

Airship - Algebra EP

As per-usual the accompanying PR release would have you believe that this band are the second coming. By the end of the second paragraph phrases such 'generation-defining artists' have already been cheaply bandied about. In reality, Airship are much nearer to the 47,000th coming of the regional English indie-pop template, with chiming guitars and earnest, yearning vocals. The moods across the four tracks are, it must be said, admirably varied - showing an unusual versatility. There's an appealing Pixies-esque feel to some of the songs - ( 'Spirit Party's verse is reminiscent of ' Monkey Gone To Heaven'). The title track is by far the best, with a somewhat uplifting low-soaring chorus. Yet, as so often, hope for more dies with the melodies. They're decent enough, but there's little magic here.

The Winter Olympics - Attention All Departments/They Launched a Probe

The Winter Olympics call themselves a dance-punk band. Driven by synths and pounding distorted guitars and drums, they're more like an 80's power- pop band. Singer Andrew Wagstaff's voice is a blend of Simon le Bon and Tony Hadley, and they deliver their massive-sounding, pulsating, chest-thumping choruses with precision and abandon. They're going for triumphant transcendence through humorous, yet emotive fist- pumping arena-ready anthems, and you have to suspect that this may work out very well for them. The melody of second track They Launched a Probe hints at the potential for an emotional depth beyond most bands of this ilk. The sound is fantastic, the lyrics refreshingly different, and this release makes you very curious to see if they are able to deliver the Kaiser Chiefs/Scissor Sisters like sense of fun in their music and lyrics live.

****

No Machine - On Ebay

The accompanying press release tell us that "On Ebay is set to give to give (sic) music a breath of fresh air". That's music in general apparently folks. Congratulations on winning the hyperbole superbowl lads.
It also tells us that the song concerns 'a guy who puts his girlfriend on ebay, then regrets it.' This is the closest anything in this particular package came to interesting.
It's well produced etc., the instruments (guitar, bass, horns, keyboard, drums) are skillfully played and arranged etc etc., but so what? A pleasantish synth harmony underscoring the chorus melody aside, this is a bland song with a pedestrian repetitive melody (albeit passionately delivered) that manages to get on your nerves halfway through the first listen. I wonder how pleased with it the team behind it really are. It seems something of a song for the sake of it.
Excuse me. I think I need a breath of fresh air.

*

Album Review - 'First Of The Last To Know' by Peter Katz

Peter Katz is a sensitive singer songwriter type with an oh-so-lovely breathy smooth singing voice and a heartfelt delivery. The album is so well produced that it sounds like Katz and his band are right in front of you. It's all gentle acoustic guitar, piano and percussion with the occasional cello, violin or trumpet thrown in to help the listener distinguish between tracks. The songs are very personal tales of longing and/or waiting marinated in self-pity, even when he adopts other personas such as in The Fence (a homophobia victim), and Oliver's Tune (a leukemia victim). Katz knows that the title track has the strongest melody and has roped in Glen Hansard (oscar winner and erstwhile frontman of underrated The Frames) for his vocals and name. It could well be a hit.
If you're bursting with yearning and sweetness you may be able to relate to First Of The Last To Know better than me. In this regard, it's a perfectly realized collection of songs. Either Katz is the nicest man in the world or he purposely excludes any thoughts and emotions that aren't cuddle-worthy. It's all too easy to imagine the songs as background accompaniment to the summing up wisdom voice-overs on Scrubs or One Tree Hill and the like. I don't doubt the sincerity which he wears on his sleeve, but the album is so incessantly pensive and nice that it began to irritate me. The press release states that 'Katz' songs, carried by his passionate, intimate voice, guide us through the gamut of human experience.' Well if that's the gamut of his human experience, he really needs to get out more.

For acoustic introspection fans *****
Everyone else **

Album Review - Laments by Richard Warren

It's a shame really.
Any chance this album had of striking me as more than a pleasant and breezy grower was ruined by aGRRressive PR.

Laments sounds great and is beautifully produced. Ragged good-time stomps are followed by introspective ballads, with a spontaneous feel maintained throughout. The skillfully and tastefully employed instruments (clear electric and acoustic guitars, drums, piano and lashings of hammond) are mixed masterfully. There is no denying the album's amiable warmth, earthiness and folky-swagger. Warren is evidently an excellent arranger and producer, although not the most assured vocalist. With occasional exceptions (e.g.No Companion Like Solitude and Black Stone Empires) he opts for a natural tone, but otherwise his voice is effects-drenched and nasal, and in places reminiscent of 1970's era Dylan.

The problem is that the melodies are relatively weak and the production, upon repeated listening, appears to serve as a crutch. Certainly most of the melodies would not suceed very well in the ultimate 'how would it stand up with only voice and guitar?' test.You could argue that, with Laments' focus upon the sonic whole, this is an unfair criticism. However, when its accompanying PR release describes the songs as 'Unforgettable' and claims that the album 'resembles nothing less than a compelling compilation of "greatest hits" comprised of timeless songs that were never released' you can't help but feel disappointed that the hardest thing to forget is in fact the laughable hyperbole of the PR statement itself. Perhaps the pervasiveness of the election and summer blockbusters have sent marketing departments into a frenzy, but this ludicrous exaggeration does Warren a disservice by setting unmatchable expectations.
However, to continue the realtive-quality line, Laments is a damn sight more enjoyable and appealing than most things I've heard this year. Lamentably.

Russian Circles/Earthless - Camden Underworld 13/04/2010

Russian Circles/Earthless - Camden Underworld 13/04/2010


Although also an instrumental American rock band, opening act Earthless are a very different kettle of fish to the headliners. Vivacious drummer Mario Rubalcaba and hippie-haired bassist Mike Eginton are a juggernaut rhythm section that pins you to the wall with relentless rhythms whilst trigger-happy guitarist Isaiah Mitchell blazes over them with his Hendrix-toned bluesy shred. However, there is little for the listener to grab on to. Earthless's music is... well...somewhat ungrounded. They are highly skilled musicians, but the sheer length of their audience-losing improvisatory passages smacked of self-indulgence and left a non-plussed crowd yearning for some song-craft.
Russian Circles gave the audience exactly what they were missing. The vital distinction between the two bands' music is that Russian Circles' tracks have a purposeful, progressive narrative with emotional coherence and meaning. Each section of each track has its function in relation to the whole. Each member plays precisely what is required to serve the big picture, nothing more and nothing less, and Earthless seemed utterly incoherent by comparison. Where their performance was politely appreciated, Russian Circles’ performance was relished. Their class shone from the first moment, and the previously subdued audience responded as if they had been let out of a cage, leaping and moshing with abandon.
Russian Circles’ light-and-shade music is peppered with brutal metalesque percussive passages and balanced with moments of delicate melodic sensibility (although even these sections are always pulsing and rhythmic). There are obvious echoes of Master Of Puppets era Metallica in many of the riffs and a constant underlying Tool-like sinister eeriness - yet they have forged a unique sonic identity that transcends such influences. Aided by a very musical use of loops and sampling, the three members manage to produce an enormous sound, and tonight focused upon tracks from their recently released third album, Geneva. Brian Cook (bass and samples) may be the new boy (having joined in 2007), yet he is the dominating presence onstage, furiously conducting the music with his entire body.
None of the band addressed the audience at any stage, the gaps between each track filled with throbbing distorted tones washing around the room as the band members remained motionless until the cue for the next number. A shy wave from each as they left the stage was the only interaction.
No vocals, no banter, no ego. For Russian Circles, it really does seem to be all about the music.

The Steven Machat interview - From gamekeeper to poacher

Steven Machat was born into the music business. His father Marty was the right hand man of Allen Klein, the man who took over the management of both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones at the height of both bands' success in the late 1960's. After becoming a qualified lawyer and accountant, Steven joined his father to form Machat & Machat - which rapidly became one of the industry's most powerful business management firms. Machat & Machat's clients were a diverse roster of illustrious big names such as Phil Spector, Leonard Cohen, Phil Collins, Ozzy Ozbourne, Bobby Brown and ELO. Steven's memoirs - Gods, Gangsters and Honour is a no-holds-barred, insider account of Steven's three decades-plus in the music industry, containing a wealth of shocking and hilarious anecdotes from interactions and deal-making with clients. Steven provides the low-down on oversized egos, scandalous behaviour, multi-million dollar pay offs, and the realities behind the images the gods of popular music like to portray. Last year he gave a well-received speaking tour of colleges and Universities across the UK, including Cambridge University and King's College, London.
Only a few years ago, Steven was still to be found brokering and structuring enormous deals for fat cat artists or large multinationals. Over time he became increasingly disillusioned with the 'quantity over quality' bottom line that the 'big 4' major labels (Sony, Universal EMI and Warner) necessarily perpetuate, and his focus changed. In the book Steven also charts his personal transformation from a self-confessed 'gangster' businessman to a significantly more altruistic being interested in developing acts that he feels can genuinely contribute to culture rather than to the coffers of conglomerates. Today he wants to share the benefit of his experience with artists at the other end of the spectrum. He is very much a man looking to 'give back' and leave a legacy he can be proud of - a man on a mission.

" I was as guilty as anyone, in fact I was one of the worst of them all…” he says through his thick Brooklyn accent. “I used to make music to appeal to a mass audience - I perpetuated this mess also. I had all the gangsta rappers, that shit….. I put out records by Donny Osmond and New Edition (a 1980's US teen boy band). New Edition were a joke - it was one of the worst things I've ever done. I put out music for ages 8 to 80 so the generations would buy it for each other. Now I have the freedom to focus on the music that moves me."
After his father's death, Steven struck out on his own and currently runs The Machat Company. His personal taste remains as eclectic as his past suggests, and he is currently looking to represent any new acts that believes in. "I like music that picks me up, or allows me just be....... or to meditate...music that allows me to sit in the sun, music that makes me run... any amount of artists on any given day, from all over the planet. I love folk, The XX, Animal Collective, Indian music , Brazilian music...anything that moves me - I'm currently working with a band called T. Mandrakes... good time music...I really believe in them."
Steven believes that the vertical integration capabilities (top to bottom ownership of music production, distribution and the platforms it is presented on) enjoyed by majors has created an 'emperor's new clothes' effect, where popular music has floundered creatively yet has been able to tread water commercially via the vast cross-promotional capabilities of major labels' parents companies, where various media platforms are used in combination to co-ordinate hype. Here, representation trumps reality. “Acts are given credit in the music press.....that's not an independent press - that press works for a company that needs to perpetuate sales with the least economic resistance, and they write all horseshit. Always look at who controls that media."
Even so, he finds the ongoing popularity of manufactured big-ballad divas puzzling. " I just don't get it... Leona Lewis, Mariah Carey... that music is just not going to bring society anywhere else. It's very limiting. I used to punish my son by making him listen to Celine Dion. I'd say 'get in there, you need to hear this because that's where your brain's at'...they'd (majors) rather sell X Factor than facilitate artists. (Majors are full of) mental midgets with an MBA mentality. That works ok if you're selling tools, but it's counter- productive when you apply it to artists and art".
Steven has no tears to shed over the difficulties many big 4 - owned labels have had in the wake of file-sharing, and welcomes the marketing - free platform that the internet can provide. He sees the shake up of the major labels' fossilized business model as a necessary and progressive step culturally. For someone who has been so successful capitalizing on capitalism, he is also something of a socialist. "(These) companies will be bankrupt and be gone. Independents will be there - there's competition now. The majors had so much control...total control. They've been stopping music from becoming a unified force. It's all perpetuated by the banking system. The system prioritises the protection of the big company models, which are anti-cultural. I think we should put them to sleep. We've had enough time. People in England should tell the government to fuck off - take down the banks. They're supposed to be providing a public service. "

Steven describes himself as “much more content” now that he has left the corporate world and the cut-throat feuds described in his book behind him. He feels he can now take care of his bands as well as take care of business. He enjoys a closer working relationship with his acts, having the time to regularly attend their gigs and to both nurture and encourage them. "I'm the adrenaline that gets into your system. I'll make you go....and I'll give you the courage to go back out there."
Yet he is grateful for the lessons learnt from the journey that has lead him to a role that he finds exciting and fulfilling. "There's not much I would change given the opportunity. Music has been my magic carpet ride. It's taken me - both physically and in a personal sense - everywhere I've wanted to go."


Gods, Gangsters and Honour is now available in paperback from Beautiful Books

Single Review: Crying Lightning - The Arctic Monkeys

Single Review:

Crying Lightning - The Arctic Monkeys

Although propelled by the usual punchy mischievous riffs, Crying Lightning is lacquered with unexpectedly darker, eerie layers of brooding menace and sensuality.
There is also a newly measured pace to its melodies, which Alex Turner now croons to calculated effect rather than attacks, enabling a more satisfying contrast between the moody verses and the shimmering chorus.
The well-observed lyrics are still present, but with a touch more of the sexuality reflected in the heady ambience of the music - 'My thoughts got rude as you talked and chewed on the last of your pick and mix'.
Yet Crying Lightning fails to impact with the authority of previous singles. The impression is of a band venturing into new territory with purpose, but as yet without the assuredness to convince.

However, the very fact that the band is not willing to rest on their laurels bodes well for the future.
The Monkeys are evolving.

Review - She Keeps Bees @ The Lexington 9/3/2010

Review - She Keeps Bees @ The Lexington 9/3/2010


This wonderfully effective Brooklyn duo came to The Lexington at the latter stage of a European tour supporting 2009's Nests, and more than lived-up to their reputation as a fine live band in front of an expectant and sold-out venue.
They took to the stage as casually and unceremoniously as a pub band, but demonstrated their superior class and road-honed tightness instantly. The music is purposefully simple. Every song is short and sweet (and sour), with each part and melody boiled down to its essence for maximum impact. Like the line-up (and front-woman Jessica Larrabee herself), it is all lean and no fat.
Larrabee is a one woman guitarmy, banging out tough dark bluesy riffs and teasing out lush chord patterns with the same authority and relaxed fluidity. Her voice - like many of the best rock vocalists - is warm and soulful, yet edgy. Drummer Andy La Plant is a dynamic powerhouse but has a sensitive musicality to his playing that complements Larrabee beautifully. When she downed guitar for two acapella tracks, the songs were no less effective for it. Each track was a sensual tour-de-force, culminating in a devastating solo Larrabee performance of ‘Cage Match’ dedicated to her sister, who was in the audience.
Larrabee is an engaging and endearingly manic onstage presence, with her good-humoured banter serving as a foil to the intensity of the music. She said she felt the need to talk after playing so many non-English speaking countries, and between tracks she entertained the audience with amusing anecdotes from the current tour - including tales of Andy’s hospitalization in Paris and of the limitations of German cuisine. The only negative was that, at just under an hour, the set was too short.
Larrabee and La Plant are a real-life couple, and at one stage Jessica wistfully wondered aloud whether Andy was ever intending to propose to her. Musically at least, they already seem to have reached some form of sacred union.

ZZ Top Review- Wembley Arena 28/10/2009

Review: ZZ Top - Wembley Arena 28/10/2009


ZZ Top rarely travel to the UK, yet have been enduringly loved by their many thousands of British fans, and there is no doubt that they are one of the few surviving all-time classic rock n' roll bands. Their appeal has spanned 40 years, with (perhaps uniquely) the original line-up still intact. They have sold over 50 million records. None other than Jimi Hendrix himself anointed ZZ guitarist and singer Billy Gibbons as his favourite guitar player shortly before his death in 1970. None other than Keith Richards inducted them in to the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Once, in their home state of Texas, I saw a bar brawl develop from the mildest of criticism of ZZ Top.

Perhaps as a result of such stature, and the rarity of their British appearances, there was the sense of a very special occasion amongst the thousands at Wembley. With the three band members recently turning 60, the crowd are also all-too-aware that they may never have a chance to see the band perform again. From the first chord there was a warmth and bonhomie between the band and audience, and even between the audience members themselves. An atmosphere of camaraderie prevailed. There was none of the aggressive shoving and jostling that often mars the standing-area experience at big rock gigs. Rather, the audience seemed to be almost hypnotically attentive, absorbing and cherishing the experience as best they could, and respectful of everyone else's will to do the same.

Opening act ‘Steel Panther’ (essentially an American answer to The Darkness) had taken to the stage with immense energy and bludgeoning technical prowess, and succeeded somewhat in entertaining with their relentless cock-rock pastiche. Of course banal self-ridicule will only take you so far, and, as with The Darkness, a joke becomes less and less funny every time you hear it. It’s safe to say that they won’t be performing their most popular song My Heart Belongs to You, But My C**k is Community Property in 40 years time.
When ZZ Top swaggered on to the stage with their trademark matching beards, sunglasses, shiny jackets and futuristic mic stands, the contrast between themselves and Steel Panther quickly became evident. Despite having a similar sense of theatre in their appearance and choreographed stage moves, ZZ Top's music and appeal proceeds from a genuine celebration of the timelessness of great rock ‘n roll rather than ironic mockery of its most dated aspects.
They gave the crowd exactly what they wanted - a greatest hits package with a few welcome surprises thrown in. A gritty opener - Got Me Under Pressure got the rock rolling nicely, and then the band hit the crowd with an irresistible one-two from their 1973 Tres Hombres album - Waiting for the Bus (a driving boogie) and Jesus Just Left Chicago (a soaring blues hymn). Sound problems plagued the first half of the gig, with Billy Gibbons' guitar and voice disappointingly subdued, but no-one seemed to mind as the band ploughed on through a succession of their 70's classics, including I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide and Cheap Sunglasses from 1978’s Deguello. However, by the time they threw in a Hendrix homage with Foxy Lady, the sound had settled. Gibbons’ guitar blazed into life with its trademark thick and distorted yet shimmering tone, and was complemented by the now audible rawness and warmth in his voice. The band began to cook, with Dusty Hill (bass) laying down the grooves with relentless, finger-flurried determination and sharing singing duties as Gibbons’ leads surfed the rhythms with relaxed fluidity and authority. Whilst Gibbons and Hill performed with infectious energy and a mischievous glint in their eyes, drummer Frank Beard (ironically beardless) appeared relatively disengaged and chain- smoked throughout, although musically he was his usual reliably-metronomic self.
By the time the band had arrived at the big crowd-pleasers from 1983's multi-platinum Eliminator album — Gimme All Your Lovin, Sharp Dressed Man and Legs, they had Wembley eating out of their hands, and even these glossier numbers were given a powerful, roughed-up edge. The encore included ZZ classic La Grange and concluded with the ever popular Tush from 1975's Fandango, complete with masterful slide playing from Gibbons.
ZZ Top left the audience with a warm glow from the sheer class and joie-de-vivre of their performance, and a sense of privilege from having witnessed one of rock's truly great bands at their consummate best. If this was to be the last time that these fans would see ZZ Top, then at least they left knowing that they had experienced a performance brimming with the passion and pride that the band's stature and legacy deserves. In an era of cynical cash-driven reunions, such experiences have become increasingly rare, and thus increasingly valuable.

Set List-

1) Got me under pressure
2) Waitin’ for the bus
3) Jesus just left Chicago
4) Pincushion
5) I’m bad, I’m nationwide
6) Future Blues
7) Cheap Sunglasses
8) Mexican Blackbird
9) I need you tonight
10) Foxy Lady
11) Brown Sugar
12) Party on the patio
13) Just got paid
14) Gimme all your lovin’
15) Sharp dressed man
16) Legs
Encore:
17) Tube Snake Boogie
18) La Grange
19) Tush

State of the music industry pt.4: Towards a progressive future

4. Towards a progressive future


The file-sharing sphere will of course be influenced by major label-influenced media, especially internet media, in which major labels are heavily invested. Yet marketing practices upon which the majors have increasingly relied are, of course, much less effective in a cultural sphere where the industry does not control content, platform or distribution as it largely has done since its inception, and in recent years (since the last round of mergers in the 1980’s) has almost entirely dominated. The industry model has become obsolete to growing millions, as (similarly to any freedoms) once people have tasted free-roaming access to the treasures of musical culture, they will not accept being denied them. They will not accept their choice of music or the mode of its consumption being dictated to them. The majors cannot address this in the age-old solution of format change. Any attempts to introduce a new format they can control would fail, as unless an unlikely qualitative leap in sound quality is achieved, no one will be prepared to return to (in the words of Peter Mandleson) the ‘days of flogging a CD in HMV for £20.’ The large labels will, it seems, become increasingly dependent upon catalogue, and also live revenue and merchandizing from 360o deals where their parent companies will look to take advantage of their cross-promotional capbilities.
Yet the finite nature of catalogue and performers demands that these revenue streams be perpetuated. The majors could cut their losses, and focus exclusively upon efficiency by concentrating on blockbuster acts and tightening the conveyor belt of teen idols. Many blockbuster acts have little interest in 360o deals, as they are already established and would rather cut out the middle-man. A few, perhaps in increasing numbers will be happy to sign on if it makes financial sense, and the industry will strive to make sure that it does. Madonna already has, albeit with Live Nation, a live promotions company rather than a label (further illustrating the shifts in industry power). With manufactured acts the majors can get a large slice of an entire career (however long it lasts), with multiple revenue streams. Therefore in many cases they will make more money from a good-looking, malleable cross promotion- ready act than from one with ‘only’ wonderful songs. It is most likely that they will focus all their efforts on cross-promoted superstars, leave organic music to the independents, and poach any acts who grow to a sufficient size as to be efficiently monetisable. Majors are currently also looking to increases the monetisable time scale of catalogue publishing and licensing rights. Yet all these options are, again, short-termist anti-cultural solutions. If new catalogue and current artists continue to fail to compete with their predecessors, a major industry collapse is surely only a matter of time. If back catalogue and heritage acts are this popular now - amongst a generation that grew up with music industry-mediated platforms, surely the popularity of more organic music will only develop with file-sharing capability and internet access growing daily. There will of course still be a co-existing multi-media market driven by television and commercial radio – but there will also be an increasingly powerful sphere where by peer recommendation unaided by mass marketing will determine popularity. Is there a way for the major labels to provide long-term security and to monetise the new cultural sphere of file sharing?
The file sharing phenomenon has created a new ‘year zero’ with a new direction that the industry must adapt to. The old rules no longer apply. So far it has reacted with the same endemic defensiveness, short- termism and sense of entitlement that helped put it in its current position. All three of these perennial major label characteristics showed in their failure to buy out Napster when they had the chance. Tower records chief executive Russ Solomon believes that record companies have been primarily concerned with forcing a new format succession as an answer; ‘record companies have been busy trying to create new technology…rather than focusing on music.’ There is, however an entire new market with millions of consumers hungry for specialist product, who can be reached with no delivery, manufacture or storage overhead fees. What an incredible opportunity the big 4 have to be proactive, to move forward by realizing that at this moment what is necessary for their business is also what is good for culture. A historical opportunity to develop a model that is both financially and culturally sustainable – a mutual necessity in the long term. If they can produce quality catalogue they will continue to control a cultural resource of fundamental importance and value to society that will remain monetisable as long as it continues to perform this function. Not only will this allow for the continuation of lucrative licensing and publishing revenues, but it also constitutes the best chance of providing successors to today’s most popular acts in the live arena.
Very recently, Nic Garnett (former head of IFPI) has claimed that ‘There’s a growing realisation…that culture ultimately trumps technology. Governments, as much as the creative industries, are finally working with the idea that music and other forms of creative expression have special needs’. If this is true, perhaps the big 4 and the British Government will begin to shift direction.


Format change will not be accepted. History has shown that the biggest boosts for the industry have usually been artist driven. In the 1940’s, a stockpile of new songs recorded by new talent helped the industry double its turnover after World War 2. EMI dragged itself back from the brink after the same war by investing in new A&R staff, a decision that brought them the incalculably valuable asset of the epoch-changing vision of George Martin. Throughout the 1950’s, new artists effected a catalogue boom. The first year alone of the rock ‘n roll boom (1955-1956) increased American industry profits from $227 million to $327 million. There is nothing as lucrative as a new artist who genuinely articulates with (especially youth) culture. Elvis Presley and the Beatles brought people back into the record shops and industry revenues to soaring and lasting new heights. Columbia’s success in the 1950’s and 1960’s has been largely credited to their policy to be always looking for talent, anywhere they could find it. They tapped natural living resources rather than focusing on a centralized assembly model. In 1983 the industry had been shrinking for four years. After the typical phase of conservative reaction, Sanjek tells us, ‘artists began to suffer less from the straightjacket of their labels creative inertia’ and artists were ‘now in a position to make new music which would [paradoxically and ironically] of itself stimulate sales.’ Hall and Oates and Michael Jackson’s Thriller (amongst others) went on to lead a spectacular comeback. When the American industry faced a downturn in the early 1990’s, the Seattle ‘grunge’ scene facilitated a new boom.
Organic artists create living culture which articulates. This produces catalogue of enduring value. Already, half of both Philips and Deutsche Gramophone’s turnovers are guaranteed by the diminishing return of catalogue. Majors have historically depended upon versatile catalogue with across the board appeal to survive economic setbacks. Without the protection of this resource, neither the catalogue nor the live acts capable of driving the industry will endure.
Charles Kennedy, of independent label Invisible Hand tellingly remarked that ‘if the industry had spent what it’s spending on fighting piracy on developing artists it wouldn’t be in trouble.’ The majors have recently panicked having realized the irreplaceable value of articulatory catalogue, and are seeking to extend copyright to prevent recordings nearing their publishing expirations from falling into the public domain as they claim they need them. Barfe points out that it is a depressing state of affairs and illustrative of the majors’ complacency (having left it so late to tackle this issue) that they are in the position of needing to fund new music with royalties from Elvis and original rock n roll. Perhaps the short term-minded ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ approach has left an over-mature and increasingly anachronistic model that even all the King’s horses and men will not be able to rescue.
Once again, majors may have to look to independents for the way forward, as new musical forms and specializations have always been the independents domain, with the majors poaching and appropriating their successes. Majors should rather appropriate the independents labels’ conception of their artists’ value. Creative artists, rather than created artistes must be appreciated as the industry’s greatest assets, rather than be viewed as potential liabilities that must be kept in order. Creativity, rather than plastics and metals must be considered the industry’s most important raw material. They must source and nurture living culture that can self -perpetuate rather than assemble and market its hyperreal replica.
The future is highly uncertain as the dust from the big-bang of the digital shift has yet to settle. Musical culture is in transitory motion, groping for a foothold in a new unfamiliar cultural space created by a series of technological advances. It will be fascinating to see the forms it will eventually take. It will also be fascinating to see whether or not the major labels will be able to reposition themselves, and survey the industry once more, from the top.

The state of the music industry pt3: The effects of hypercommercialism, mass media and anti-cultural policy

3(a) Audience, media and the vicious circle of hypercommercialism


‘Good songs, bad songs, good singers and bad singers, good groups and bad groups, there is no such thing in the music business. Quality is not to be confused with commercial acceptability. The fact that a great song or an artist will command a public of its own and will have meaning to society is highly important to American culture, but it has nothing to do with the music business.’ - Bill Randle (eminent American DJ, lawyer and university professor)

Media-led and industry-controlled hyper commercialization change the form of musical culture, which, absorbed by consumers, produces a vicious circle of increasing commerciality and increasing acceptance of it. Music’s power to perform its cultural functions is then diminished, as assembled music cannot achieve the same articulatory power as organic musical form.
Music has cultural function beyond entertainment value, and can satisfy social needs, but such needs are best met by music springing from spontaneous expression. As previously stated, such music can be appropriated by the industry, yet cannot be created by it. The industry and society both need music with cultural function to flourish. Culture, society and the industry affect each other in a dialectical and circular manner.
Culturally articulate music has transformative potential, with its uniquely potent ability to symbolize and evoke both the emotional and somatically experienced dimensions of people's lives. It can function as a form of social cement. This emotional intensity facilitates affective and emotional alliances where assumptions of social position and feeling can be subverted and, in author Simon Frith’s words ‘express the way we would like to be, not what we are’, allowing for both ‘the fantasy of community and the enactment of it. Thus music’s crucial capacity for political articulation, and its employment in socially emancipative causes. Ethnic groups, gay communities and youth subcultures have all used music in this way. Although the music industry financially benefits from this, such music performs this articulatory function in a non-economic realm, in the absence of a financially – concerned bottom line. Music has proven itself capable of encoding and communicating quite specific cultural meanings, which in turn has empowered it to empower cultural/political movements by articulating subjectivities –often across cultures. For example, black American music, from gospel, to the blues, to Jazz, Soul and Funk all contributed to communicate black experience and intercultural conversation based on a politics of fulfilment. Bob Marley’s ‘Get up, Stand up’ and Public Enemy’s ‘Fight the Power’ both performed a similar function in a more explicitly confrontational manner.
Music has allowed youth to reinterpret cultural materials in new contexts and to combine them into styles that reflect their own values and to mark a distinct identity. The recording industry and mass media gate keepers may control which products are distributed, but they cannot control how such texts are used. Participants will often reappropriate mainstream culture for their own expressive purposes. This subcultural appropriation of commodified culture back in to forms that can then put to bona fide expressive and/or subversive use is the very opposite of commodification (even though such uses can be commodified themselves). Often more traditional codes and modes of music are employed in novel combination with new technologies to create original musical forms. Subcultural theorists (especially of the ‘Birmingham School’, e.g. Hebdige) have demonstrated how audiences have continually and actively transformed mass produced products by employing them for novel expressive purposes, for example record turntables in early 1980’s rap music. (Often accompanying fashions will reflect the subversive use of items, such as punks using safety pins as facial decorations). David Riesman believes that such activity has a ‘double articulation’ social function, enabling youth to both participate in parental modes, and to develop new modes of response that allow them to confront and solve inherent problems and contradictions in the parent culture, resulting in an emancipated and distinctive generational identity that prepares them for the challenges of their age. The empowerment, direction and vision supplied by such a force is of increasingly vital function in late capital secular society where religion, family and school all have less guiding influence on young people’s lives. The original Rock ‘n Roll movement (1955-57) helped perform this function and was seized upon by the youth with a fervour perhaps unsurpassed since. They embraced it as an authentic expression of their desires, resonating ‘youth’s common feelings and experiences in a shared public language.’ It served to map ‘the specific structures of youth’s affective alienation on the geographies of everyday life.’ In John Lennon’s words, ‘Rock ‘n Roll was real, everything else was unreal.’
Yet although subcultures may be able to appropriate industry created music for their purposes, continued recycling of raw material for either industry or subcultural appropriation must eventually exhaust the material’s intrinsic use value for either side.
Only music springing from organic expression is capable of producing the new forms of music that can adequately perform such cultural functions, and its creation depends upon the presence of the organic conditions it requires to develop.
‘Cultural cooling’ can be said to be the spiritual twin of the physical damage caused to the world by the onslaught of industrial production. As Keith Negus comments, commercial music itself ‘loses its link to non-commercial forms of expression and its forms lose their radical potential when co-opted, de-contextualizing and therefore de-politicizing them. Roy Shuker believes that although popular music once articulated genuine rebellion, it has now become ‘thoroughly commercial and appropriated into postmodern capitalist order.’
Ian MacDonald illustrates this in discussing how the phrase ‘Higher and Higher’ has been appropriated in to oblivion. When Sly and the Family Stone used it at Woodstock with a largely white audience, it signified a ‘transcendental dissolution of social, racial and sexual barriers’. Now, as a threadbare cliché, it represents only dead culture, and is gutted of significance, reduced to ‘a crudely erotic sound accessory.’
Culture should provide a reflection by which we measure progress and direction not a photo opportunity for business interest that are in may respects its natural enemies. Yet in hyper-commercial late capital society the speed of cultural turnover allows even reflections themselves to become absorbed and appropriated, and resistant ‘traction’ becomes difficult to find. As Fredric Jameson observes, co-optation leaves the arts with nothing to ‘push against’. ‘Even overtly political interventions like those of The Clash, are all somehow secretly disarmed and reabsorbed …… as they can achieve no distance’. Culture has in this way become both visionless and cannibalistic, and analogous to artificial intelligence. On the surface it may appear perform its task adequately, but there is no subjective, living, conscious realm. Living culture has purpose. Processed culture becomes a zombie - mindless.

The onslaught of hyper–commercialism is continuously progressing into popular music and deciding the ‘nature’ of its content. Consumerism and hyper-commercialism converse in a feedback loop that effects consumers, artists, the industry and music itself dialectically. Major labels are now increasingly looking to brands to help them fund new acts, their answer to the failure of their model to re-intensify their efforts in the same direction rather than to question the direction itself. EMI have stated that branding will be key to their future musical projects and have appointed Elio Leoni-Sceti as CEO of EMI music as he came from a brands background.According to Music Ally, Sony are now ‘deciding at the A&R stage what type of career (and, hence, how much marketing spend is available) it can deliver to a new artist depending on how willing they are to work with brands’. Branding potential is seen as the most important aspect of a new signing and 360o deals make its benefits crucial to industry earnings. For example, in 2008 Beyonce earned £53 million, yet only £13 million came from record sales - the rest coming from alternative sources such as touring and merchandise (£8 million), endorsements (£12 million), and £9 million from her clothing range. Clothing lines, for some time common amongst hip-hop stars, have become almost de rigueur amongst big names in general, e.g. Sean John (P Diddy), LAMB (Gwen Stefani), H&M (Madonna, Kylie Minogue), New Look (Lily Allen) and Evans (Beth Ditto). Take That endorse Marks and Spencer clothing, and even ‘rock bad boy’ Liam Gallagher has started his own range – ‘Pretty Green’. Many pop acts are multiple endorsers - Girls Aloud, The Saturdays, The Black Eyed Peas and 50c seemingly (according to Music Ally) ‘putting their names to any product, often simultaneously’. The priority ability for these acts is their cash-generation ability. They function as shelves rather than as creators. Major labels are becoming primarily ‘brand managers’, where the musical element is reduced to the role of an ambient background or theme accompanying the particular product’s continuous cross-promoting advertisement.
More and more, mainstream music and artists are thus being mutated by being subjected to the logic of advertising, even at grassroots level. Top Man and NME work together on the TopMan ‘CTRL’ campaign using new acts to target the NME readership demographic, in an attempt to wed fashion to new acts and grassroots live music. Music increasingly reflects marketing processes, as decades of dialectical interaction between music and media formats have had a direct impact upon form and reception. To quote Marshall McLuhan, ‘the medium is the message’. The manner in which culture is delivered will mutate its form and meaning into that of a compatible nature. The industrialization of music and its delivery through the mass consumerism platforms of multi media now characterize music itself. Culture and commerce have never been such happy bedfellows.
Marketing also serves (even if unconsciously) to create a field of reference which draws in the listener as an active participant. A secondary (incorporeal) existence is created and hyper-commercialized via combinations of radio, TV, film and music press. Here, the language of advertising attempts to project associative images on to the consciousness of its buyers, which is integrated with the music to build up a context around the release that the demographic will hopefully literally buy into. The ‘holy grail’ is to create meaning in the buyers mind so that they have the feeling that they are participating in something important. This will then (again through the associative function of advertising language) transfer into the brand. From there the band name or a symbol becomes linked to and thus articulates the values of importance (or the empowerment fantasies) of the targeted demographic - ‘Girl power’ for the Spice Girls adolescent female followers, for example – or physically/sexually powerful alter egos of gangster rappers for boys. Capitalism, consumerism and the music /advertising hybrid they have created all harmonize in perfect pitch where marketing mechanisms reconstruct social reality in consumers’ minds in a way that appears to correspond to their interests. Here the buyer becomes subjectively invested and feels that the industry is realizing his interests rather than vice-versa. The more unconscious such processes are, the more effective they are.
Popular music is now inbred with the capitalist value it came to serve. Artists frequently pursue links with advertising for publicity, a practice considered shameful by the previous generation. Music journalist Don Watson believes that ‘never has the world of pop culture been so close to the world of advertising – the world of lifestyle sales.’ Music culture academic Sarah Cohen studied young British bands and found that there was a significant number of them who had very little musical ambition per se, and who were focussed on attaining the ‘pop star lifestyle’ they have viewed in the media and were welcoming of any industry ‘manipulation’ that might help them achieve it. When ‘artists’ themselves can be so willing to ally business interests with their own, consumers are far more likely to accept increasingly commercial culture. In this way, the goals of the industry become those of the consumers and artists – and the vicious circle is complete as together they form a dialectical symbiosis.

Major label driven media have directly contributed to culture’s functional decline. Mass-media by nature deals in representations rather than realities. The onus is then on creating the constituents of the representations rather than the constituents of the underlying substance, thus the creative order of media-ready creations becomes inverted. Rather than representation being a gloss or wrapping paper on a package, the content has become the optional extra. Musical ability becomes an afterthought to the modern popstar’s potential (marketability) as an accepted visual presentation of celebrity. Rather than marketing those with musical potential, music is produced for those with marketing potential. Newspapers and magazines are now littered with pages covering the lifestyles of self-styled famous-for-being-famous celebrities. This reflects the cultural triumph of both representation over reality, and style over substance.

Jean Baudrillard observed that in commercial culture ‘the commodity is produced as a sign and signs (culture) are produced as commodities.’ Mass production and consumerism allow culture to be circulated and consumed as commodities in a system of ‘sign exchange value’(substitutable and part of an interchangeable fashion system). Culture is a hollow illusory vision of what it once was. It has been codified and rationalized to fit capitalist production and reproduction. All is now hyperreal. Just as pornography is ‘more sexual than sexual’ yet utterly devoid of any real sexual communion or nature, so is culture. The sign eventually kills off all referent meaning by absorbing even representation itself as a simulacrum.
This is how the rise of MTV, the industry focus upon video-friendly acts and the continuation of video culture via on-demand internet formats (such as you tube) have been instrumental in the creation of today’s musical culture. Once video became a highly influential format, the format began to dictate the content. Video-compatible artists became much stronger brands, formulating new rules and new aesthetic strategies which linked musical performance to new technical and economic requirements. It is here that signs and images were able to do to musical culture what they had to other forms of visual culture.
Just as the conversion of analogue to digital recording technology codified music into a form compatible with the computer systems that had begun to run industrial businesses, video helped to make music freely interchangeable with other forms of commercial culture where sign value is of prime concern (this code however, would eventually allow music enough freedom to escape through file-sharing). Video music is overlayed with advertising’s language of images which follows its own aesthetic, necessarily permeating the music and depriving music of its traditional meaning, swallowing up and blending referent images styles and symbols. It creates (to coin Peter Wicke’s phrase), ‘an aesthetic of the synthetic’. The combination of picture and sound allows for the potential of a powerful art form, yet videos tend to stick within the paradigm of advertising language. Today MTV Europe concentrates upon mainstream top 40 Hip Hop and ‘R&B’ videos (a term now referring to hip-hop beat-driven ballads). Greil Marcus accurately describes the majority of such videos as being typically characterized by a narrativeless ‘pornography of money, fame and domination, all for no reason outside itself.’ This is not to say that video music’s reception is standardized, but to emphasize how the translation of previously ‘logical’ referents such as text, music and pictures into the ‘aesthetic of the synthetic’ via the integration of visual, verbal and musical stereotypes leads to the dissolution of meaning rather than a progressive pluralism.
Essentially, video gave priority to visual appeal over musical. The cultural function of an artist’s music (substance) became secondary to the economic function of the appeal of the artist’s representation in mass media (style). Musical form itself is thus altered via the marketing mindset of video – another example of how the form of the media through which music has been marketed has directly affected musical culture.

3(b) The effects of the visual media upon musical culture

Video has increased the popularity and acceptability of standardized artless popular music culture where a trash aesthetic kitsch-value supersedes any concern for artistry. The most popular music programmes on both British and American television – The X Factor and American Idol- frequently debase the concept of artistry by referring to its impressionist performers as ‘artists’. The results of the pervasive ‘aesthetic of the synthetic’ could not find more powerful expression than in The X Factor, where contestants are systematically and ritually ridiculed or eulogized by judges who have no artistic pedigree of their own beyond involvement in manufactured -for -television pop acts. It only makes sense in the logic of advertising where, as Baudrillard has explained, detached referents (‘signs’) refer to each other only. One judge, Cheryl Cole, is a splendid example of this. Her job is nominally as an authoritative talent judge, yet she is actually present due to her celebrity and concomitant viewer figure- pulling power. Her celebrity is nominally due to her talent, yet it is in actuality due to her place in a TV-created pop group, which she was awarded only due to her potential as a celebrity (by another set of TV talent judges of no musical pedigree), and now she passes the baton. At no time is this chain of events interfered with by what the programme is nominally concerned with-the potential of talent. Rather, it is quite apparently and blatantly driven by earning potential and marketing logic. Yet this is accepted by millions. This can only be possible where corporate logic has festered within culture to the point that that it has superseded (or at least can continually suspend) millions of people’s sense of reality beyond its dictum. If they do realize the difference, then the pervasiveness of corporate logic has denied them any concern as to the benefits of the marginalization and reduction of the arts to entertainment forms. Nor could they be seriously concerned that the primacy of the quantitative and objective development of businesses over the qualitative and subjective development of individuals may not constitute progress.
Some believe that such programmes such as The X-Factor are ‘harmless’/ ‘just a bit of fun’ etc. But The X Factor has 12 million viewers. It is effectively Britain’s largest regularly shared ‘cultural’ experience, yet it is both cynically formulated and utterly banal. It actively encourages the rehashing of other performers’ material and even standardized performance poses, (not to mention choreographed ‘emotional moments’) and allows no musical creativity whatsoever. Culturally it performs no function other than to reflect its own simulacra world of pop stars with no musical talent, artists with no material, and judges with no authority.


3(c) Anti-cultural legislation


The assembled musical culture led by major label practice major is so pervasive that the value of articulate musical culture and the comprehension of the conditions necessary to its continuity would appear to be specialist knowledge. Sadly, the British Government have a worryingly confused grasp of these issues. In 2008 Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister and David Cameron, the shadow Prime Minister both decided to seek an audience with Simon Cowell (co-creator of The X Factor and American Idol) in order to ‘get in touch’ with today’s youth culture. According to journalist Alice Thomson, the Prime Minister blocks all calls when The X Factor is on and during the last series ‘became so immersed that he wrote to a dozen contestants urging them on’. Steve Hilton, Director of Strategy for the Conservative Party has called the series a work of a ‘genius’- an opinion only possible if the admiration of the creation of wealth takes precedence over all other characteristics or concern for the creative culture. This is the hallmark of the marketing mentality, where all qualities are surrogate to financial success. The X Factor is, in fact, a work of genius - as a piece of cynical capitalist opportunism. Millions pay to inform the programme’s parent company which act they would like to spend the most money on. However, as a contribution to culture it is remedial. Thomson believes that the political interest is in fact due its audience being able to provide a superior barometer of taste – ‘political insiders are analysing the fans. Who do they instinctively like?’It is a depressing and a damning indictment that politicians could be choosing candidates or handing out political roles based upon such findings. Even where the ramifications could not be more serious, the marketing rules of late capital can decide what is given an opportunity. At least in this sense the X Factor will be culturally representative, as culture’s function of representation is increasingly lacking in modern society.
It is this gap that is the crucial factor in the immense popularity of heritage acts and file sharing. There is evidently a need that processed culture is incapable of providing for.
The Government perversely looks to manufactured culture for cultural policy advice and to learn which candidates are most marketable, but seems disinterested in protecting Britain’s truly cultural heritage from demise. Politicians praise and participate in The X Factor, yet participate in the destruction of the creative infrastructure that has not only produced arguably the greatest cultural achievements in modern British history, but has had a fundamental role in creating the financial foundations upon which the modern industry and its financial might (and tax contributions) depend. Communal musical cultural space is increasingly difficult to come by in Britain. The same conservatism inherent in the big 4 record companies that prevents the risks being taken that could kick start a new musical movement is reflected in Government legislation.
In 2003 the Government introduced a music licensing system that required any venue or stand-alone events to apply for permission. The Guardian claimed that the application process is so laborious that the number of venues may be ‘more than halved’, as ‘pub, bar and restaurant owners were likely simply to give up’.
More recently, in late 2008, London has seen the introduction of the Metropolitan Police Form 696, to which all 21 London boroughs have signed up. This is a compulsory risk-assessment form that requires the declaration of the names, addresses, aliases and telephone numbers of all musicians and other performers, and (initially) the ethnicity of the expected audience, 14 days in advance. Failure to do so allows the police to shut down the event, and venue owners can lose their licences, suffer fines and even be imprisoned. In November 2008 an afternoon charity concert of school bands in a public park organized by a local councillor was shut down by police, as not all the personal details of the performers were available to the councillor. Such a draconian approach impacts dramatically upon the grass roots of musical culture. For example, this particular event would appear to be very similar to one that took place in Woolton, Liverpool in the summer of 1957, where Lennon and McCartney met. In a statement, the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors has drawn attention to the ‘serious implications for the future of the live music industry’. If, for example a band member was to be replaced due to illness, an event could be shut down. Communal creative spaces, with open mike nights and ‘jamming’ would become impossible and performers would be denied the perennial breakthrough opportunity of filling in for a cancelled act.

The state of the music industry pt2.: The real problem

2. The True Nemesis


The future, therefore, would appear on the surface to be reasonably rosy for the majors. Yet despite their undeniably potent capability to maximize profit from what they have, unless they begin to fully consider the long-term, they are vulnerable to true disaster. All their catalogue exploitation and cross-promotion activities are premised on the continuing replacement of monetisable catalogue, as copyrights will expire. They are also becoming dependent upon live revenue from large tours, revenue which is likewise dependent upon successors to today’s most enduringly successful acts. Yet the big 4 are alarmingly failing to produce new artists with the necessary long-term appeal to drive these areas of the industry, and are increasingly reluctant to invest in new talent (due to breaking costs).
A no.1 single in the USA during the 1980’s would typically require 600,000 to 1million sales, today it takes less than 100,000. In the UK, between 1982 and 1992, annual single sales fell by 25 million, and by 1993 a no.1 was achievable with 20,000 sales, a figure which would have struggled to attain a top 50 placing in 1966. Single sales have, however, picked up in recent months. Back catalogue (in both record and licensing revenue) is now the industry’s most dependable earner. 2009 is expected to be a vintage deep catalogue year as all The Beatles albums (remastered in mono) will be re-released in September. Publishing businesses share of total industry revenues dramatically increasing – by as much as 29% between 1996-2006 (now standing at 41%), whilst the new recorded music share fell by 17% during the same period. Despite the latest August 2009 US market figures, where album sales have fallen by a dramatic 37.2% compared to August 2007, the US publishing group BMI has announced record $907 million revenue for August 2009. This cannot be entirely blamed on file-sharing and competition from other entertainment forms, as the public taste in live music illustrates.

It has been suggested that heritage acts are most popular during recession as people demand more ‘bang for their buck’ and that is best achieved by hearing hits from an act they have grown up with, rather than risk it on an unfamiliar contemporary, yet this trend outdates the onset of the recent recession. As contemporary acts struggle to capture the public’s imagination, the coinage of those who have done so is raised and nostalgia has become big business. Each summer amphitheatres across Europe and the USA now fill their schedules with recession-proof veterans. Will Page, the chief economist of PRS for Music, believes that this is the major issue facing the industry -“The question the industry should be asking is this: who’s going to invest in the career development of artists to create the ‘heritage’ acts of tomorrow?”
There are a few enormously successful acts with little musical pedigree, but with with longevity, such as Madonna. Her recent appearances however, were described by Times critic Lisa Verrico as constituting ‘a concert only in its most modern meaning’ as the ‘not-quite-live music takes a back seat’. Ironically, Verrico claims that ‘Madonna faltered only when she tried to look credible, notably pretending to play guitar during half a dozen tracks. Her faux soloing, complete with taped feedback, was excruciating to watch.’ Despite such exceptions, the artists with long term appeal are almost exclusively made up of artists of musical prowess, who play their instruments and write their own material. Alternatively, performers such as Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra (who were largely supplied with their material) had huge quality and interpretive ability as live performers, and a wealth of quality catalogue to draw upon. Both models appear to be a dying breed. This has as serious ramifications for the future of catalogue exploitation as it does for the future of the live music industry.
Although the British live industry grew by 14% last year, Page says that this can be ‘almost entirely explained by rock and pop veterans.’ This issue is equally problematic in the USA (the largest live market) where Billboard’s list of the top 25 worldwide tours of 2008 shows results that would not look out of place if they were from 1985. Bon Jovi tops the list, selling out 99 shows and grossing over $210 million. Bruce Springsteen was 2nd, with Madonna, The Police, Neil Diamond and The Eagles all featuring in the top ten. Only one act from the top ten had released its debut recording in the new millennium (Rascal Flatts, a pop act with ties to Disney who released their debut in 2000). However, the most recent results are also the most damning. The results for the top 25 worldwide tours of 2009 show that 6 out of the top 7 grossing acts have a recording history dating back more than 35 years (AC/DC, Tina Turner, Bruce Springsteen, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Elton John). The exception, Britney Spears made her recording debut 12 years ago and had not toured for several years (and neither writes her own material nor sings live). A further 7 acts in the top twenty positions have a recording history dating back at least 25 years. This leaves Coldplay, Pink, Nickleback and the Dave Matthews band as the only four acts of the top 25 2009 worldwide tours to have both recording histories of less than 25 years and to be more than peripherally involved in writing their own material.


2b. Why is the industry failing to produce artists with longevity?


Major label’s corporate environments follow the industrial models of businesses dealing in the production of standardized units of product, a task for which such models are far better suited. A major’s chief concerns are its stock value and its responsibilities towards its shareholders. Consequently, according to industry lawyer Kenny Meiselas, “There’s a lot less imagination at the [major] labels as they can’t afford to have too much imagination.” Sony is structurally typical of the majors in that only a fraction (9.1% in 2001) of its overall revenue comes from musical sources. Music labels are only a division of a conglomerate that must ‘synergize’ with the workings of the other divisions in order to be profitable and for the business as a whole to function harmoniously. Ed Bicknell, manager of Dire Straits has claimed that the board of Philips (then owners of Polygram) did not understand the music business side of their company. Ahmet Ertegun (co-founder of Atlantic records) has claimed that Majors are typically ‘run by non-music people’ who, although insistent on relevant experience for other areas of business, ‘would take anyone and let them run the music’. When mergers take place, artist rosters are decimated to nominally improve efficiency, illustrating how musical creativity is not perceived as an asset. For example, in 1988 Universal bought PolyGram and within a month had cut the artist roster from 65 down to 20 as part of its consolidation process.
Author Peter Wicke’s research suggests that production departments ‘consider themselves in manufacturing rather than the music business.’ The internal structures at majors are bureaucratic and hierarchical with each department having a ‘next in chain’ approach and A&R (Artist and Repertoire) managers overseeing releases as commercial projects. The bottom line has always been, (as far back Thomas Edison’s phonograph), concerned with quantitative rather than qualitative outcomes as, in economic terms the industry product was the record rather than music. Achievement and success for majors is measured by market share, with executives being incentivised by quarterly performance bonuses which exacerbate the endemic short term focus.
At industrialized major labels the creative process is subsumed into rationalized procedures. Conversely, independents are often expressly founded to provide a platform for marginalized and less formulaic music. Majors cannot base the structure of its contracts with its artists upon creating the psychological conditions most conducive to creativity when its entire operational procedure is necessarily run according to rationalized business practices. Creatively ambitious artists relish control and thus often make independents their first choice, or increasingly avail of home recording and set up their own distribution through their own websites (pocketing all profit and therefore often being financially better off than if they had had a major label deal). A major’s business model can only allow full creative freedom in rare circumstances, and then usually only to an artist with an established commercial pedigree, whereas independents can afford to be far more art and artist orientated. Majors must meet sales targets, independents have the luxury to aim to ‘make some great music together and see how far we can take it.’ They can choose music for its quality rather than for its saleability. A major can hire the best producers, musicians, studios and songwriters to help its artists, yet as part of an industry that chases profit with such an unpredictably performing product, its adopts ‘ruthless and exploitative’ organizational procedures (which are extended to their creative divisions) in order to maintain stable market performance and control the flow of production. Artists are ‘systematically exploited’ as record companies seek to limit the costs of production and the risks involved in any innovation. Artists seeking a wider audience are forced to compromise - ‘succumb to the sausage machine and be compensated with cash’, leaving no place for artistic principle in the industry production line. Risk is not an option traditionally and the ongoing decline in global music sales has exacerbated this institutionalized conservatism, resulting in further implications for creative quality.

This mechanical model impacts upon musical form itself. Chris Blackwell, (founder of Island Records) believes that the major labels’ consolidation and centralization since the late 1970’s has had a crucially detrimental effect upon the diversity of the music they offer. (Due to their 78% control of the world market, and stranglehold upon multi-media platforms, one could extend this concern to musical culture in general). Blackwell states that major labels ‘used to have people everywhere’, but are now so centralized that they prefer to assemble music ‘in-house’ rather than source quality ingredients- an assembly model.

There has always been an enormous difference between music that has been appropriated by the industry (Blues, for example) and music created by the industry (e.g. 1990’s boy bands such as Take That or The Backstreet Boys) – the creative and the created. In the opinion of musicologist Richard Middleton, author of the wonderful ‘Studying Popular Music’, although major labels assemble this music, they ‘do not create. They cash in they intensify a taste or accentuate a trend, they cannot start either. They are not leaders, but parasites’. Music that has been appropriated begins organically, created by people in order to express themselves and has (originally at least) practical cultural value and function. It then builds in to a movement, and if it achieves sufficient popularity to appear monetisable to the major labels, is absorbed by them. At first its originators are recorded, and then its musical nuances and style are formulated and standardized into a stylistic code that can be employed as the industry pleases. It is this stage that industry created music proceeds. Here, performers are selected for their video appeal with a target demographic with A&R teams frequently commissioning a small number of production teams, (such as the UK’s Metro productions and Sweden’s Cheiron) to both write and produce hit songs for them. Such teams typically ‘provide acts with entire packages minus vocals.’

Pre-appropriated popular music contains the energy and feel that was responsible for the initial marketing-free success that drew the attention of the industry, and can be considered culturally authentic. Music of this order has historically tended to stand the test of time, whereas the ‘assembly model’ has fared significantly less well, despite often huge initial success (return). Assembly practices have however,been commonplace in the music industry for decades (e.g. Larry Parnes’ stable, The Monkees etc.) and there is a commonly held view that every generation has critics decrying the state of culture and eulogising times gone by. Theodore Adorno, writing in the 1930’s, bemoaned how popular music is divested of ‘spontaneity and promotes conditioned reflexes’, being ‘frozen under the centralized conditions and copycat policy’ of the music industry. Adorno saw popular music as simply another commodity with no extra- market autonomy (and therefore no resistance capability), nor any true expressiveness. Yet Adorno viewed nearly all popular music as such, including Rock ‘n Roll, and is criticized for being incapable of appreciating how forms of music other than classical can be genuinely expressive. Author Ian Macdonald more plausibly believed that the end of the 1960’s and the rise if consumerism allowed the major labels to create an overwhelmingly assembled musical culture. Any claims, he believes of the reduction of creative quality in popular music, is always a partially subjective matter, yet ‘clear to anyone with a modicum of musical instinct and an ounce of commonsense’. There is no doubt, however, that culture has become significantly more commodified since the second half of the 20th century where mergers and a general trend towards centralized powers in business has led to a vertically integrated oligopoly of conglomerate colossi who control content. By the 1960’s, the music industry had become a vast international complex only significantly divided geographically. This was the beginning of where, according to Russell Sanjek, ‘a bottom line orientation (began to have)a stultifying effect on the development and growth of the most basic raw material –creativity.’ Since the early 1990’s (assiated by the recent rise of MTV) assembled acts have been produced on an industrial scale. Accordingly, the overwhelming impression is of an industry with an implicit view that quick profit is paramount and driven by marketing mechanisms rather than by musical creativity - resulting in artists being encouraged to stay within the borders of musical boundaries rather than to transcend them.

Marketing strategies have made the language of advertising the mother tongue of popular culture, and have dramatically affected the form of major label music. In 1977, then newly appointed CBS President Walter Yetkinoff, claimed that ‘things are considerably different today. Every album has a complete marketing plan, with details on advertising displays and sales targets.’ By the late 1970’s, according to Russell Sanjek, major labels typically employed the ‘sophisticated unified advertising, promotion and marketing practices of producers of more mundane consumer products’. Today, industry control, standardization and mass production lead to a ‘sanitized commodity form’ of music. Stylistic conservatism rules, with marketing departments often directly intervening to change the sound, length or presentation of recordings. Majors conceive of their musical releases as marketable ‘units’ of ‘product’ to be aimed at clearly delineated demographics, such as saccharine ‘boy bands’ for the teenage girls and ‘rebel’ rock bands and hip hop ‘hard men’ for the boys. Conglomerates are able to target specific demographics and to encourage brand loyalty from an early age. In recent years a ‘tweenage’ market has arisen which treads a fine ethical line between providing entertainment and economic grooming, but as the 9-14 year old bracket are worth 260 billion per year in spending power, it is certainly good business. In 2008 Sony were successfully sued for illicitly recording various personal details of over 30,000 children under 13 years old. As Peter Jamieson, former managing director of EMI confesses, ‘The art in our business is finding out what people want to buy.’ Yet Jamieson’s ‘what the buyer wants’ stance is misleading. Marketing does not so much locate what people want to buy, as it does locate which people are able to buy, and thus cues the industry as to which demographics to target.
The recent recession seems to have only encourage the major labels to focus upon reactionary projects to the detriment of the diversity of musical culture. Economic setback has historically exacerbated the inherent conservatism of the industry, often to its own detriment, and the reaction to the file-sharing issue is no exception. On many occasions it has been a new musical movement that has lead the industry to recovery or prosperity, yet due to the industry’s financial and psychological investment in its model, its musical investments are becoming even more centralized. Majors are focusing on creating blockbuster artists with cross promotional potential and perpetuating the careers of established artists rather than addressing the problem of the creation of new catalogue and artists with musical longevity.
As strong brands, heritage artists represent sensible industry investments. They have dependably monetisable popularity with an older demographic with relatively high income. In recent years, typically less than 30 artists will sell over 1 million CDs per year, and only approximately 250 will sell more than 10,000 (worldwide). Sales and promotion are concentrated around a handful of multimedia marketed ‘blockbuster’ artists. Breaking costs are nil, and marketing costs are often minimal: The Police were able to sell out their entire British tour in less than 30 minutes. Shrinking revenues in recording divisions have resulted in the major labels now being reluctant to support a broad range of releases and blockbuster artists can also guarantee a return off their recordings, despite file-sharing. Crucially, they are typically also a powerful celebrity brand which makes them ideal for incorporation into cross-promotional activities. They are therefore extremely attractive guarantees to naturally conservative businesses where steady performance of stock is the generalized goal. In such environments it is in everyone’s (business) interests to, as far as humanly possible, negate risk. Yet development of a new generation necessarily suffers. This lack of sustainable creative development is the key issue. The infrastructure and marketing practices of major labels are objective and quantitative, leaving no room for the nurture of the subjective and qualitative. U2, and Bruce Springsteen and Aerosmith are just three examples of acts with immense popular appeal and longevity who, according to Don Passman would surely have been dropped by their labels in today’s corporate climate. All three had very disappointing sales figures at first (Aerosmith’s first album initially selling a disastrous 30,000 copies only), yet went on to become some of the world’s most enduringly popular acts. All have had lasting appeal across trends and generations – an achievement beyond any teen idol so far created. Artists need to develop in order to reach their potential. To place instant success above potential is to prioritize both trend above quality and commerce above culture.

The state of the music industry pt.1: The file-sharing fallacy

Abstract

The advent of mass file-sharing is problematic for the music industry as it is forcing rapid evolution in how music for sale is distributed, yet the problem itself is exaggerated and surmountable. The truly insurmountable and largely unrecognized problem for the major labels is that as a result of file-sharing they have become increasingly dependent upon licensing catalogue and live revenue, yet are increasingly failing to produce artists with the necessary longevity to drive these areas of the industry. The internal structure and direction of their business models and the nature of their mass media platforms leave the majors ill equipped to tackle this issue, which issue necessitates change in the way major labels produce music. The short-term and ‘assembly’ minded approach of the major labels has left them unprepared to adapt to the new paradigm without radical structural overhaul. They must realize that in 2009, what is for good culture is now what is necessary for their businesses. Only by developing a long-term approach and a nurturing model of music production will they deliver catalogue with lasting value and the artists capable of succeeding those driving today’s live music industry.
All facts and quotes contained within this post have been carefully referenced and their sources are available upon request.

Introduction

This post aims to refute the received wisdom that file-sharing in itself constitutes a doomsday scenario for the music industry, and to highlight and discuss the causes and ramifications of the true problem; that the industry is struggling to produce artists with mass long-term appeal. The industry is equipped to adapt to the file-sharing issue, but will not be able to function without a monetisable product that is in demand. With the shrinking of the recorded music sales market, the major labels are increasingly reliant on catalogue licensing and live music revenue, yet the clock is ticking for both these sources. Due to copyright expiration, catalogue has a monetisable shelf-life, and the vast majority of the acts driving the live industry are ageing. Contemporary artists are increasingly unable to match the appeal of their predecessors and the major labels are not currently equipped to provide a solution to this problem as their practices are driven by large multi-national conglomerates that subject musical culture to reductive assembly line procedures. Such models deprive culture of its social power and articulation capabilities,reducing it to impotent decorative entertainment forms. Major labels must now restructure their music production practices along the creativity-centered lines of independents if they are to survive. They must recognise that only a long-term, nurturing approach to musical production will allow for the necessary conditions for the ongoing development of artists and catalogue with longevity.
Music is of fundamental importance to society as the dominant western cultural mode for the past century (film is dependent upon music), and our identities and essences (both personal and communal) are intimately related to it. Major labels have had huge control over formats, content and platforms – but the file-sharing phenomenon has provided a cultural space free from industry marketing influences that is effecting a paradigmatic shift in how music is being consumed. The results of this transition will profoundly affect the future of musical modes.

Several models have been proposed for the future of the music industry, and although I will refer to these, the discussion will be primarily concerned with the anti-cultural effects of the major labels’ practices and the opposing criteria upon which future forms should be modelled rather than with the peculiar forms of the potential models themselves. As 78% of the world’s music market is controlled by westernized late capital business conglomerates, the focus will be narrowed to the late capital western world and the popular music produced by its businesses. I will also contextualize contemporary popular music by considering the position of the music industry within ‘late capital’ consumer society, and how the industry dialectically interacts with society to affect musical culture.
Where I will discuss how the industry must refocus upon music with culturally articulate force, I will refer to examples from 1955 (the original youth movement of rock ‘n roll) up to the present day. However, when historicizing the file sharing issue it will also refer to crises that precede this date, from throughout the industry’s history.
File sharing has yet to be defined as a cultural phenomenon, but I aim to show how it has not only created a statistical sales problem, but has created an entirely novel cultural sphere, which the industry can choose to treat as a potential ally or, at its peril, continue to alienate. Previous studies have tended to focus upon business practices and sales statistics or alternatively the sociological make up of musical movements to explain musical culture. I will attempt to address this gap by showing explicitly how the music industry’s business practices interact with musical culture.I will not engage in the debate over whether or not the quality per se of popular music has deteriorated, as that is essentially a separate, albeit related musicological and more subjective debate. However, in explaining the industry’s failure to produce new popular artists it must discuss in depth how the structure of major record labels within a hyper-commercial environment has a detrimental effect upon musical creativity and diversity. This will include a section discussing how mass media and industry infrastructure disrupts and inverts the creative order of popular culture.

Part 1 will assess exactly how damaging file-sharing has been. I will begin by placing the file-sharing issue into perspective by historicizing it to demonstrate how the music industry has proved itself to be highly adaptable. I will then show how it has dealt with piracy throughout its history and how it has adapted to successive format changes and competing media platforms. Part 1b will address how the industry has already offset file-sharing losses through increasing its performances in alternative revenue streams, and part 1c will discuss the most recent industry attempts to compensate for its losses.
Part 2 will demonstrate how the more fundamental issue is in fact the industry’s failure to provide new artists, citing the diminishing value of new catalogue and the popularity of ‘heritage’ acts. Part 3 will attempt to identify the reasons behind the major labels’ failure in this regard by examining the infrastructure of their business models and how they impact upon the music that is produced. Part 4 will expand upon part 3’s findings to place the industry in its social context in contemporary consumer society. I will discuss how music can function culturally for the benefit of society (drawing upon subcultural theory), and how the music industry’s practices have impacted upon musical culture in general, causing a cyclical effect which has dialectically weakened music’s cultural function. Here I will draw upon the somewhat dystopian perspectives of the political economy approaches of Baudrillard, Jameson and Adorno. Finally, part 5 will suggest progressive criteria for a healthier, sustainable model.


Part 1 – The File Sharing Fallacy

“Technology has destabilized us, it has hurt us….but now it’s going to take us to new heights” - Doug Morris, Chief executive of Vivendi-Universal Music Group

On Saturday the 5th of September 2009, The Times published a letter co-signed by the general secretaries of the TUC, the BECTU (the media and entertainment trade union), Equity and the Musician’s Union. In it they proclaim their support for the British Government’s proposals to work more closely with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to prevent illegal file-sharing. They claim that ‘as many as 800,000 people work in the creative sector, and with piracy depriving businesses of up to 20% of their revenues every year, many workers will be at serious risk if action is not taken.’ The file-sharing issue, it appears, is a threat to the creative industries as a whole. Yet none of them have been as affected as the music industry, where MP3 and WMA copies of its product flow through file-sharing sites like water.
In 1996 global music sales were worth $39.8 billion, yet by 2001 had fallen by over $6 billion. That same year, for the first time since 1966, no album reached 5 million sales in the U.S. Tellingly, 2001 also saw the sales of blank CDs (which had been effectively useless to the consumer until circa 1998) outnumber recorded CDs for the first time. Consumers were now taking the lead in a new wave of technology–driven music copying as home computer owners became able to send, swap and download music files through basic internet access. After years of CD-driven ascendancy, the music industry was faced with a new nemesis that would rapidly alter how music is consumed and would decimate the business model of musical distribution via physical units. August 2009 showed an incredible 37.2% decrease in the US album market (the world’s largest) versus the same period in 2007.

This mass illegal downloading of music is widely regarded as having dealt a mortal blow (or more accurately, death by a trillion cuts) to the recorded music industry, and certainly the major labels enjoy playing the victim having been for so long cast as price-fixing villains. There are, however, other causal factors involved in the downturn - chiefly the end of the CD replacement cycle (where the public replaced their collections with CD versions) and ongoing recession. The ramifications of the effects of what has become commonly known as file-sharing upon the modes of musical consumption will have profound consequences, yet the major labels are managing well in dealing with its initial threat, even though illegal music downloading is still rife. File-sharing sites such as Limewire continue where Napster left off, providing internet users with the ability to share and own music for free. Recently, UK Music (an umbrella body representing the interests of British music businesses) claimed that 61% of 16- 24 year olds admit to downloading music through peer- to –peer networks, 86% admit to copying CDs for friends and 75% to uploading music to send to friends. UK music’s Chief executive, Feargal Sharkey (ironically of ‘Teenage Kicks’ fame) claims that this youth demographic understands very well the concept of intellectual property copyright, but that ‘They just don’t care’. There are legal services which do excellent business, chief amongst them iTunes - which in April 2008 surpassed Wal-Mart as the biggest retailer in the United States. Yet although iTunes alone has already sold well over 5 billion tracks, it is estimated that 500-600 million tracks are downloaded for free each week.

The industry is undeniably in a state of structural transition, having reconfigured its business strategies (if not its models or direction) in the face of both recession and the changes in how music is being consumed. Yet these changes have taken the form of funding reshuffles rather than the necessary shift in how major labels conceive of their product. By increasing the branding and cross- promotion of their products they have betrayed a failure to recognise underlying issues that will become increasingly problematic into the future. Regarding file-sharing specifically, the main problem ihas been that the industry’s structure and business practices were heavily invested in a model where the bottom line is the sale and marketing of physical units. Yet both history and the fact that all major labels are now controlled by large international conglomerates with wide ranging media interests would suggest that, regarding the file-sharing issue, the industry is well equipped to make the transition. They have already taken great strides.

Of all industries, none could be more comfortable facing forecasts of its impending demise than the music industry. Time and time again, since inception, the music business has lurched from one (so called) crisis to another, yet has always emerged stronger. Neither world war, nor the advents of radio, television or mass illegal taping could prevent the industry from strengthening the position of its products in our hearts and on the stock market. It has managed a continuity unmatched by other businesses, always finding a solution - whether by expansion, consolidation, invention or litigation. It has a proven track record of uniquely capable adaptability, with every slump being followed by lucrative innovations and a return to dominance.

The music industry’s remarkable resilience has even allowed it to enjoy boom during recession. When, for example, the 1970-1 Wall Street crash saw investor interest drop, Warner was able to increase its music earnings by 25%. Even when world war threatened the industry it responded and learnt to thrive. World War 1 saw the opportunistic but financially necessary mass production of patriotic records, the industry cynically informing the public that, in a time of scant employment, the ‘buying of a single record is contributing a quota to the alleviation of unemployment terror.’ This success enabled the industry to be ready for World War 2, where the American industry actually increased its sales value from $44million to $109million despite being cut off from its European subsidiaries. The Great Depression was also surmountable, albeit in Britain only by mergers and consolidations. The two largest record businesses in the UK at the time (HMV and Columbia) saw their sales fall catastrophically and survived by (in the words of author Louis Barfe) ‘huddling together for warmth’ and merging for efficiency. This was the earliest British example of a continuous and natural process of centralization that has helped the industry increase its efficiency in controlling expenses and prices, thus allowing it to both make and save more money. The British music industry is currently experiencing the boom-during-recession phenomenon. 2008-2009 in the UK has seen a 13% increase in the value of the live music sector and a 4.7% increase in the overall value of the UK Music industry. During the same period ‘PRS for Music’ (which collects royalties and pays them out to composers and performers) reported a 14% rise in its revenues.

Piracy in various forms has in fact been a perennial issue. As far back as the 1895 the Publishers Association of America announced its war on piracy and intention to ‘ameliorate evils which may affect the trade’. Every town in the United States had a black market and laws were brought in to protect copyrights. Although copying recordings became a misdemeanour, its practice increased 163% in the 6 years after the law was passed. By the 1930’s, the bootleg trade had increased so much (up to 30% of returns were found to be counterfeit) that the ‘National Association of Performing Artists’ was formed especially to combat it. The ensuing decade was characterized by continuous complaints that piracy was responsible for declining profit. It was not until 1974 that the counterfeit market was brought to heel to the industry’s relative satisfaction (until then pirates had been able to employing a legal loophole which had allowed them to avoid harsh penalties by paying mechanical royalties to publishers). Yet the industry had not suffered enough to stop it becoming worth $1 billion by 1967, and between 1968-1972 alone had in fact doubled its sales in some formats.
Fast forward to the late 1970’s /early 1980’s to the ‘home taping’ issue, and there are many parallels that can be drawn with today’s file sharing problem. Industry giants such as Sony and Philips supplied the hardware to make it possible (and off-set their losses in the process). Sony benefited here from the Sony Walkman and its involvement in blank tape production, 150 million of which were sold in 1975 alone.Sony have today also offset file sharing revenue losses with sales of Sony manufactured blank CDs, CD burners and mp3 players, and according to the International Recording Media Association (IRMA), 3.7 billion blank CDs were sold in 2001. Yet taping was a cottage industry driven by consumers.As early as 1975, 23% of the US adult population were said to have illegally taped in the past year, and by the mid 1980’s the British Phonograph Industry (BPI) was claiming that the British music industry was losing £1 million per day through taping losses. Like today, taping caused the industry to fear for the future, but it could not afford (either financially or publicity-wise) mass litigation against its customers. Jay Berman current head of the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic industries) concedes that now, as then, this makes it ‘much more difficult as an investigative issue.’ The industry has, however, pursued a few headline-grabbing cases so as to appear as ruthless as possible.

Music-copying is, however, frequently innocuous and even in some regards beneficial to the music industry. In the 1980’s a Merril Lynch report found that home taping was in fact having a positive effect on the market, which was ‘likely to continue to grow exponentially as higher record processes combined with enhanced consumer technical capability of making high quality home recordings encourages such growth.’ Those found to do the lion’s share of home taping turned out to be those who were spending the most upon pre-recorded tapes. Today many people will use file-sharing sites to search for and sample music that they cannot obtain through iTunes or local shops, or even legal websites. Often file-sharing sites can be the only places where rare or live racks can be found as the industry has not provided access. A Harvard study recently found no correlation between downloads and sales of CDs when tracking the popularity of 680 bestsellers across file-sharing sites. The study concluded that it would take at least 5,000 downloads to equate to one sale.
Major label wealth, reach and ties with the establishment dating back to the 19th century allows them a somewhat privileged position that they exploit to their advantage. In the United States in particular, the Big 4 have been pushing for market regulation rights through political channels, moving explicitly into active participation in law enforcement. The 1998 digital millennium copyright act allows the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to attain a subpoena against file-sharers upon suspicion, rather than pursue normal judicial process, where probable cause must be demonstrated. Approximately 75 subpoenas were being applied for per day by 2003, and ISPs have also been forced to hand over suspect details. The RIAA has also filed lawsuits against college students, in many cases successfully being awarded between $12,000 and $17,000. It spent $4 million in 2002 on ‘governmental relations projects’ and ‘federal legislative support’. In the same year the RIAA’s Political Action Committee spent a further $1,185,000 on politicial campaign contributions. Beneficiaries include US Senators such as Orrin Hatch, who has supported the RIAA’s draconian potential legislation for the remote destruction of suspects’ computers. 2003 saw the introduction of a US ‘Deterrence and Education’ act, which can impose a sentence of 3-6 years for a 2nd offence. The RIAA’s intent is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that they hired Bradley Buckles, the director of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2003 to head its Anti-Piracy Unit, consisting of 4,800 employees and an $800 million budget. By donating over $200,000 to certain American police forces (such as the New York Police Department) and accompanying police and the secret service in raids, the RIAA has been accused of operating a privatised ‘pay- per –arrest’ system within public agencies.

The file-sharing issue combines a piracy issue with the threat of new technology and musical format beyond the industry’s control. New technologies have alarmed the industry many times, yet the major labels have always found a way to thrive off them. When radio began to affect sales in the mid-1920’s many manufacturers believed that the end of the business was at hand, yet radio was to quickly become their most important ally in promoting new products. Between 1921-1930 The American Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) increased its music licensing revenue from $250,000 to $2million and radio became (according to music business historian Russell Sanjek) ‘the chief soapbox on which American business could make its honey-coated appeals to the broad base of consumers.’ Jukeboxes were also feared until RCA realized they had helped effect a 300% increases in business, the ‘jukebox effect’ being credited with an additional 1.22million sales per month. Television gave the industry perhaps its biggest fright of all (as it feared the visual medium may render audio-only obsolete), yet by 1953 television was the main income source for both major American royalty collection bodies, ASCAP and BMI.
File-sharing is a result of the format change to digital file storage without physical copy form - a change which has engendered new modes of consumption.The industry does not see it in these terms as it is not in control. If it had had a more progressive view, it could have turned the change in to a positive, profitable one rather than alienate its customer base by resisting their new found freedoms. A historical perspective could also have led the industry in a more productive direction.
Format succession has in fact been the most reliable boost to the music industry as new developments have reliably created replacement cycles. Major labels historically used their economic dominance in gaining ‘something-for-nothing’ with continual format updating, which not only forces sales of its new hardware (by making new releases available exclusively in the new format and through promises of a qualitative leap that renders its predecessors obsolete), but also forces the resale of its catalogue to those who have already purchased the same content. In 1942, When Capitol began to offer records playing at all 3 speeds (45, 33 and 78 rpm) its sales increased from 192,000 units to 18 million by 1948. The stereo replacement cycle (beginning in 1961) allowed the major labels to push the LP format and was ideally placed to ‘make the counterculture pay.’
The music industry plays down the fact that it has suffered enormously from its failure to provide for the end of the last great industry-led format change. The end of the CD replacement cycle is a huge factor in the contemporary drop in sales. The invention of the CD was in fact premised on an assumption that baby boomers would be likely to replace their vinyl collections with CDs, and indeed they became the music industry’s fastest growing customer group with over-35 year olds accounting for 35% of sales by 1999. In author Mark Coleman’s words, this boom that ‘stimulated the music business like nothing before or since’ was doomed to end in a particularly painful bust. When the album market began to decline in the late 1970’s, the Sony/Philips format CD provided an enduring (20 year plus) cash cow. By releasing new titles on CD only, it forced sales of players and CDs. In 1983, only 0.8 million CDs were sold in the USA. 288 million were sold in 1990. The cycle now appears to have run its course with most baby boomers having completed their re- purchasing, and the industry had simply failed to prepare for this.
Having been in control of formats for so long, it would not have occurred to them that the next format change would be implemented by the public.


1b. How the industry has already compensated


The file sharing ‘issue’ has being tackled, economically at least, in a variety of ways.
The fact that all major record labels are now subsidiaries of international conglomerates has served to increase their adaptive powers and make them, to a certain extent, recession proof. Since record sales have lapsed, they have taken full advantage of the myriad of interconnected media interests and mechanisms available to them to kick-start compensatory activity in alternative revenue streams. Whereas an independent label’s financial health and growth is dependent upon the reception of their artists in the narrow range of platforms realistically available to them, majors have many options.
The ‘big 4’ music industry giants consust of Sony (until recently Sony BMG), Time-Warner, Vivendi-Universal and EMI. Together they control 78% of the world market, with the remaining 22% consisting of thousands of smaller labels. Even though, for example, music sales fell globally by 7.6% in 2003 (to $32 billion) the actual stock of most of the ‘big four’ parents rose during the same period. Time Warner’s stock rose 37% from the previous year, whilst the parent company of Universal Music, Vivendi enjoyed a stock increase of 51%.
Publishing and performance royalties from catalogue exploitation (chiefly from radio and television) for now remain a growth area, and thus constitute the chief alternative revenue stream for the majors. The US royalty collection group BMI recorded record ‘big 4’ revenue in 2004, and averaged a 9% growth from 1995-2004 (the steepest period of record sales decline). In 1986 BMI publishing revenue stood at $186 million, yet had risen to $637 million by 2004.In August 2009 it reached an all-time high of $907 million.
In an increasingly commercialized world, consumption is ubiquitous, and major labels are aiming to take employ every facet of their multi-media interests in publicizing their wares. Vertical integration enables major labels to create a market for its chosen promotions, as gatekeeping resistance and advertising costs are negligible where an artist can be cross-promoted in magazines, websites, television shows and film soundtracks entirely ‘in house’. A growing number ‘co-branding’ (or ‘synchronization’) enterprises illustrate a trend towards further concentration of industry control and power. Commercials are the main area of synchronization, as a company can advertise more than one product at the same time (more exposure for less investment) and tie them together in positive mutual associations. Synchronization grew 20% in the year 2000-2001 alone. Macy Gray’s (Epic) and Aerosmith’s (Columbia) music have both been recently used in US commercials for Sony electronic products, filmed on Sony equipment in Sony studios. In 2004 Sony was able to use 11 different versions of the Spiderman 2 soundtrack in order to promote different acts in different countries. EMI has a deal with ‘American Idol’ where the performers must choose songs from its catalogue, which has accounted for millions of sales of EMI catalogue, and American Idol also has a deal with Coca-Cola where its judges drink from cups bearing the Coca-Cola logo. EMI also license their music to Coca-Cola for free download offers. In the words of Richard ‘the man who turned down the Beatles’ Rowe (now ironically of Sony/ATV publishing which owns the bulk of their catalogue); “we are, as much as anything, in the film, television and advertising business these days.”
Ring tones are key for the future, and a $3.5 billion industry. They operate as an audio fashion statement on one’s phone where people will pay $2/3 dollars for a 30 second tone, yet will steal a 99c download rather than buy the full original recording from iTunes. Many phones have a cross- promotional function, such as the Sony Ericsson phones that come ‘pre-loaded’ with Sony music content. Ringtones are exceptionally popular in Asia. In China, 70% of adults are estimated to listen to music on their mobile phones at least once a month, compared to 27% in the UK and 10% in the USA. In the first half of 2009 alone, China Mobile announced over $1 billion in Caller Ringback Tone (CRBT) revenues, up 10% on the same period in 2008.

The big four labels now also frequently cooperate to maintain economic dominance. By sticking together labels are able to consolidate control and to both make and save more money (the Bertelsmann’s (BMG)/Sony merger was expected to save the newly merged company an estimated $300-360 million annually). The rise of online advertising for independent artists has resulted in the majors closing ranks to protect their power, and they often decide prices together. Sony for example, defined rates for ring tones and DVD rates in conjunction with EMI, and before its 2004 merger with BMG it co-owned ‘Columbia House Record Club’ (a publishing venture) with AOL Time Warner. The big 4 now litigate as a group in their often successful attempts to shut down websites hosting file-sharing platforms and to force ISPS to report users’ details.
All these advantages demonstrate how the conglomerates’ economic stranglehold on the industry appears unbreakable for the foreseeable future. All four operate in over 50countries, (Sony in 60) and still largely control what is promoted or rejected by the powerful platforms of commercial radio and television. When in 2000, independent labels made up 71.1% of all album releases, it was the majors who accounted for 83.4% of all sales.Yet the industry still plays the martyr. As Louis Barfe states, the industry’s official position is thus ‘at best a grotesque oversimplification of the real state of affairs and at worst a sickening piece of moral blackmail.’



1c. How The Industry is Compensating


Industry expert Don Passman believes that control of a significant portion of the music accessed through the internet is still well within the grasp of the major labels despite having lost valuable ground through their reluctance to accept the inevitability of the consumption mode paradigm shift. It may take decades to gain the level of control they may have achieved initially had they had the foresight to purchase Napster and to put its model to work rather than to resist it and to alienate their customers. This crucial error has resulted in profound consequences. By positioning themselves in opposition to their potential customers they made it unnecessarily difficult for themselves to win ‘hearts and minds’. The attempts to criminalize downloaders quite possibly exacerbated the problem, both contributing to an ‘us vs. them’ mentality against corporate big business and highlighting how the youth (in particular) might go about scoring points against them. Even more dangerously, whilst the majors dragged their heels, a new generation of potential customers became accustomed to a musical culture of free access and will not be easily persuaded to change their ways. Yet Passman believes that piracy will be at least minimized (if not marginalized) if the industry can offer a service that is high quality, easy to use and reasonably priced as “most people will follow the path of least resistance”. Peter Mandleson, the British Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills concurs: ‘Provide customers with a good quality, cheap, safe and efficient experience and they will ditch illegal downloading’. In fact there are several models that are currently being floated, which can be divided into ‘licensing’ models (where catalogue access is rented and content streamed) or download services which give ownership and allow transference from computers to other devices (such as the standard digital music route from iTunes to computer to iPod).
The success of iTunes (over 5 billion tracks sold and counting) and other purchasing site has not been sufficient for the industry, who believe that they can monetize the activities of a much larger slice of the 16-24 year old demographic if they can offer ‘an all you can eat’ download service. 78% of respondents to a UK Music poll would not be prepared to pay for a streaming service (presumably for cultural reasons, as they had grown accustomed to portable ownership). Universal and Virgin Media announced in June that they will be launching an unlimited download and streaming service, allowing subscribers to help themselves for £10-15 per month. UK Music’s chief executive Feargal Sharkey makes an attempt to appeal to youth ‘hearts and minds’ by drawing attention to how much artists suffer through the file sharing process. Artists want to make the “music they love and take it out to the world without having to live in poverty in the process, I think that’s the part we need to make some people sensitive to” he claims. Sharkey should be well informed. He is an ex-artist now heading a pressure group of British music businesses (the aforementioned UKMusic) who will earn up to 88% of download revenue, typically leaving only 12% to the artists (at present, although this model is under revision). One has to suspect that the file-sharing majority consider themselves to already have an unlimited service – for free.

Catalogue licensing over the internet appears to be the mode of consumption that the industry will adopt and has found a model acceptable to the big 4 catalogue owners with ‘Spotify’, a Swedish website which became available in Britain in 2008, where it has quickly amassed over 2 million users. Record labels and artists have welcomed it as an alternative to piracy. It allows free on-demand high quality streaming of several million tracks licensed from all of the big 4 (although certain blockbuster artists such as The Beatles and Led Zeppelin have so far refused to allow their material to be included). Free users will have their song choices occasionally interrupted by advertisements, or can silence them by paying a £9.99 monthly fee and becoming a ‘premium’ user.
In July 2009 Spotify announced the creation of an iPhone application (or ‘App’) for their service, which having been recently accepted by Apple inc. meaning that Spotify is now mobile. Users are no longer required to be at their PCs to avail of the service, and a temporary storage system (‘cacheing’) allows for a continuous service if the user is on the underground (for example) and unable to access the internet. However, users must have first subscribed to the premium service, paying £120 per year on top of the cost of owning an iPhone. Due to its high cost and the fact that both Virgin and HMV have recently closed their music streaming services, Murad Ahmed (the technology correspondent of The Times) believes that the industry is anxious, although hopeful that this will fare better as ‘the record companies, desperate for any legal online music services to work, simply cannot allow it to fail.’ Very recently (August 2009) it has been announced that, as part of their respective licensing deals, the big 4 had been allowed to buy Spotify stock at knockdown prices. Sony own 5.8%, Universal Music 4.8%, Warner 3.8% and EMI 1.9%

As the most reliable growth area of the industry, live music has become increasingly crucial to artists’ incomes, and now, with ‘360o’ deals becoming standard practice, the major labels are also beginning to enjoy its benefits as a reliable source of revenue. An established artist can command a 90/10% split of ticket sales with venues and also command 70% of the merchandizing revenue. Tours are frequently sponsored, providing free promotion and lowering marketing costs (such as the iPod deal with U2, which provided mutually beneficial promotion although money did not change hands), and artists are often guaranteed 100 million dollars or more. For example, only 5 shows at a 20,000 seater amphitheatre will typically generate $10 million, plus escrow account interest as the sales will usually have been made several months before. Currently the main revenue source for larger acts, there has been a curious flip in the relation between record releases and concerts. Jeff Dorenfeld (Associate Professor of Music Business and Management at Berklee College) points out that whereas once “artists used to tour to sell records, now many will give away records to sell concert tickets” (as Prince did at his recent residency at the London O2 arena, and also Radiohead through their website). Dorenfeld believes that it will soon become commonplace to receive a free CD with the purchase of a stadium ticket, and indeed, stadium support acts already frequently send free MP3’s of their latest tracks by e-mail to ticket purchasers ( as The Answer recently did when supporting AC/DC at Wembley stadium).
360o deals have recently become the standard model when major labels sign new acts. Historically major deals grant first-time artists a 9-14% cut of profits (after studio and merchandising expenses have been met). Today, they will also demand a share of live revenue (often circa 35%), merchandising, image rights and publishing. In the words of Jason Flom (CEO of Capitol Music Group), ‘basically we want to pay less and get more rights.’ The assumption behind this strategy is that labels, (although they had never previously considered themselves deserving) should share in other revenue sources as they are largely responsible for a particular artists success in the first place, having launched them. As ‘breaking’ an act in today’s saturated market is expensive and difficult, if successful the label’s marketing abilities should be rewarded with a cut of all ensuing revenue streams. If the ‘blockbuster’ artists continue to earn the majority of their money from live touring and seem increasingly likely to treat their recordings as flyers, then into the future live music will become a prime revenue source of labels too.