Robert Sharp

The GCap network has decided to close a couple of its radio stations, claiming that there is “no future” in digital radio. I think, for the moment at least, there is a place for DAB, since no other medium is quite as portable. To achieve the same effect via internet radio, one would need wireless devices that were much more durable than laptops, with much more powerful sound than PDAs and mobile phones, as well as a prevalence of open wireless networks. None of these innovations exist at present, but it would be foolish to suggest they will not emerge in the next few years. Indeed, since broadcasters can switch from DAB to the internet comparatively easily (many, including the BBC, broadcast via both mediums anyway), there may not be sufficient incentive for them to promote DAB.

Nostalgia of CDs

A correspondent of mine, currently at university, has observed that iPods may be killing off nostalgia too. Previously, in halcyon days gone by, she and her friends would listen to a CD or mix tape on their stereo, while they were all hanging out together in their shared flat. Since changing a CD is an inconvenience, they would often listen to the same album for months on end. These days, however, they are much more likely to be listening to their iPod (perhaps with one of those sound station amplifiers), with its near infinite playlist of tunes. No one CD evolves to become the ’soundtrack of the summer’ which reminds them of days gone by, nothing to bond them to this time and that place. (h/t Harri)

I’m busy watching the Royal Variety Performance, and one of my bug-bears has reared its ugly head: The trans-sexual song. You know, one of those songs popularised by a person of one gender… yet performed by a person of another gender. And rather than simply sing the song as was written, they take the decision to swap the words around so they don’t sound, y’know, gay or something.

Sometimes, it’s fine. For example, ‘The Power of Love‘ is a serial trans-sexual, and “You are my lad-ee, and I am your man” does not sound so unnatural next to its opposite (”I am your lady, and you are my man,” which I assume is the original).

At other times, however, the sex-change makes a mockery of the song and its lyrics. In tonight’s gala, young crooners Teatro gave a harmonised rendition of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ from Boubil and Schonberg’s private mint, Les Miserables. But, the song was given a sex change, and such poignant lines such as “he slept a summer by my side” and “he was gone when autumn came” were emasculated. Since the song is about stolen innocence, broken trust and the crushed dreams of a teenaged girl, the emotional intensity of the song was dropped into the surgeon’s waste bin along with its gonads.

Its irritating that these guys are making a living by taking this kind of liberty, and calling it art. I would rather they kept to the original lyrics, and made a stab at trying to convey the original emotions. Voice and music are powerful enough to communicate such things, regardless the gender of the person singing.

(more…)

Sometimes its nice to return to those sites where one has left a comment, to see if anyone responded to it. Some blogs have a feature which notifies you when someone else responds. There is even a Web 2.0 application which does that job for you.

It was in such an act of trawling that I happened across a comment on Dave Hill’s post about the Amazon Kindle. The comment is a week old now, but still worth a response. Chip says:

I do fear that it would mark the death of novels in the way that MP3s are destroying the recording industry.

I think this is to mistake evolution for death. MP3s may be breaking the Music Industry’s current business model, but I see no reason why the model cannot change, to adapt to the new technology. At present, the way music is created and published is an anachronism. The standard album of about twelve tracks is a hang-over from the vinyl days - that was all you could fit on a 12 inch playing at 33 1/3 rpm. These days, since most music is released on CDs, you can fit a lot more than twelve three minute tracks onto an album. Double, in fact, yet the artists rarely use this free space.

Likewise with the three-and-a-half minute ’single’ track, so designed for convenient radio airplay. If, in the future, most music is advertised online (via MySpace, say, or Last.fm) then time constraints are less of an issue. Control is returned to the artist, who can play on for five or ten minutes if they feel the need, without being labeled ‘indulgent’.

So, the idea persists that a musician should produce a coherent body of work of about three-quarters of an hour, cut up into twelve tracks, and that they should do this about once every eighteen months or so. The costs involved in this (studio time, a big marketing drive, and maybe a tour) have to be recouped by the label. All these considerations feed into the business model… and when the income demanded by this business model is undercut by MP3 downloads and sales, the new technology is blamed for killing off an industry.

The way music is published clearly needs to change, and embrace the new digital formats. Instead of producing an album per year, why not simply release a new MP3 track each month, or each week, maybe as part of a podcast? This would actually be more interesting, since fans could observe the development of an artists style over a much longer period. If the artist publishes a blog, and maybe a dynamic playlist (”Currently listening to…”) then the fans will be able to engage with the artist and their work on a much deeper level. Its no longer a case of ‘the difficult second album’ so much as the ‘difficult second year’.

As computer software becomes better, and computer hardware becomes cheaper, publishing high-quality audio becomes easier too, meaning that more people can create music. It is no longer the preserve of the elite, in their ivory studios, backed by big labels. If production costs go down, then break-even points are much lower, and fewer sales are required in order to recoup costs. And by releasing fewer tracks at a time, but with greater frequency, musicians will see a quicker return, too.

Finally, this model should also foster greater creativity, and better music. A favourite essay of mine, by a digital artist named Momus, discusses this point at length: For something to be ‘mainstream’, he says, it necessarily needs to be generic. Artists have to smooth their edge if they wish to appeal to a diverse audience with its own tastes (A pop music track of any given era sounds much like any other pop music track from the same era. This is because they are all compromises, attempts on the middle-ground). However, in the digital age, the global audience is big enough that a small yet viable audience can be achieved without the compromises of ‘mainstream’. Musicians can find a fan base, and give it what it wants. Even better, with a weekly or monthly MP3 release, the cost of ‘flopping’ is greatly reduced, allowing more risk-taking, experimentation and collaboration.

The MP3 format may be killing the music industry, but it is also the stork of a new kind of social market for music, where the money is spread amongst a greater number of artists. The distribution and pricing models are not in place yet, but at least musicians are trying new methods. Radiohead offered fans the chance to pay whatever they felt like for In Rainbows. Prince gave away his latest album free with the Mail on Sunday.
(more…)

The father-in-law of Amy Winehouse has urged people to boycott her gigs. It is entirely appropriate that fans should do this, if they want to fully emulate the young starlet. After all, Amy Winehouse has been boycotting Amy Winehouse gigs for months.

Meanwhile, Chris at Stumbling and Mumbling explains why role models matter.

[photopress:outoftheblue.jpg,full,centered]

The artists/musicians from FOUND remix some of the melodies created by Kimho Ip’s Yang-chin, a traditional chinese instrument.

We were at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Leith for a content gathering event, watching a chef prepare some Dim Sum (which we then ate). FOUND will use the audio and video they captured for a new composition, to be performed at the end of the Fringe Festival.

In the meantime, they will be launching their Ettiquette project at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop this Saturday. I can’t make the event, but it will apparently feature an entirely new set of music. Its always fun to see what these aimiable and slightly hairy “pop chancers” come up with…

One interesting (although highly incidental) aspect of FOUND’s various projects is their use of a blog to document their activities. The advantage of this is that they do not need to write a lengthy essay at the end of each project, justifying their activities to their funders and sponsors. The blog acts as this documentation.
(more…)

A very muddy Charlton Park during WOMAD 2007.

I did hear a few voices of dissent about the organisation of this year’s festival, and how those in charge should have better anticipated the wet weather. However, I think this was probably just teething problems at the new venue. Thank goodness the festival was not at Rivermead again - I hear the Thames has flooded there and the entire festival would have been cancelled.

I am in agreement with Stephen Dalton at The Times:

But it was the Senegalese hip-hop trio Daara J who virtually hijacked his show, bounding around the stage in flowing white robes like hyperactive Jedi Knights.

Seth Lakeman and Dhol Foundation also had me jumping.

A further problem with Live Earth is the much publicised waste of energy used to power the event. The Arctic Monkeys recently spoke out against the ‘hypocrisy’:

“It’s a bit patronising for us 21 year olds to try to start to change the world,” said Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders … “Especially when we’re using enough power for 10 houses just for (stage) lighting. It’d be a bit hypocritical,” he told AFP in an interview before a concert in Paris.
…
Large parts of the band’s hometown of Sheffield were flooded at the end of last month after a deluge of mid-summer rain that some blamed on global warming. Two people were killed.

But the band wonder why anyone would be interested in the opinion of rock stars on a complex scientific issue like climate change.

“Someone asked us to give a quote about what was happening in Sheffield and it’s like ‘who cares what we think about what’s happening’?” added Helders. “There’s more important people who can have an opinion. Why does it make us have an opinion because we’re in a band?”

Much of the Live Earth message is about changing our lifestyles, to cut down on planet spoling emissions. As well as reducing power consumption, we should reduce our carbon footprint by travelling by car and plane less, on foot and bicycle more, and through the purchase of locally produced goods with fewer ‘food miles’. Why, then, was the Live Earth event not concieved with these ideas in mind? Instead of highly centralised concerts, with artistes imported from all over the world, the Live Earth brand should have been used to promote dozens, if not hundreds, of more parochial concerts. Big Name bands could curate a gig in their home town, discovering the latest talent via MySpace and the recommendations from the local scene - an easy ask for the Arctic Monkeys, say. These big name bands would, of course, headline the gig, and the crowds that they attract would be able to walk to and from the venue. Beer would be supplied from the local pubs - and it would be the local economy that recieved a financial boost.

Instead of a distant and mythological Al Gore, local politicians could re-engage with their electorate by explaining what the council is doing to recycle, and on what day the blue bins are being collected. Instead of a Jonathan Ross and Kate Silverton overload, local radio journalists could host the concert, and perhaps inspire some of the community cohesion that many towns lack.

The Live Earth website, instead of being a promotional tool for Madonna and Bon Jovi, could instead carry YouTube clips from thousands of concerts from all over the world. The most popular, as voted for by the Internet viewing audience, would be broadcast on network TV. Sure, these would probably be mostly the big acts (the Sheffield gig for the Arctic Monkeys, the St Andrews gig for KT Tunstall), but this method would undoubtedly throw up some interesting, idiosyncratic acts with a little local flavour, which nevertheless prove popular with Internet users. Some exposure for these artists would be welcome change from the smooth-edges required of any musician who wants to go ‘mainstream’.

Such an approach would also mean than millions more people could actively participate in the event, rather than passively via the TV as some of us have done this weekend. This would still inspire a collective memory, even though individual recollections would depend on which concert you went to see. The question “Where were you for Live Earth?” would not be about which pub you chose to sit in to watch the TV, but about what bands you saw and which friends you went with - an altogether more interesting question, and one that could travel the world.

Much as I applaud the ideals of Live Earth, I think I have been afflicted by GMEF (That’s Global Music Event Fatigue). The frequency that we have huge telethons and transatlantic concerts means that we also need TV presenters to remind us just how historic this concert will be:

“Just how historic is this concert going to be, Jack Osbourne?”
“Its going to be very historic, Jonathan…”

The eagerness to define and document this kind of history, as it happens, is a particular symptom of the 24 hour news culture world in which we live. As we watch these programmes, we (and their producers) seem ignorant of the fact that they will not persist in our collective memory like the original Live Aid concert in 1985. Why? The clue is in the word “original” - Live Aid was the first event of its kind.

These other concerts are mere fakes, fabrications, exercises in nostalgia. They may be bigger, and they may even have better music. But the lack of novelty in the idea renders them free from the radicalism and urgency which characterised Live Aid. The result is a cruel pastiche, and each global music event yields diminishing returns for longevity, historical impact, and probably money too. And with so many other channels to watch, they are also ineffective as a shared cultural moment. This last point is crucial when there is a wider political message to be communicated. If people do not feel an ownership for the event, then the message is less likely to be discussed.

And to see acts like Duran Duran and Kanye West playing on two consecutive weekends surely devalues both events. There is little incentive to tune in for the event of the year/decade/century/your life, if you’ve seen the same event the week before.

[photopress:simon_le_bon.jpg,full,centered]
Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran sings at Wembley Stadium for Live Earth. or was it Live Aid? Or the Concert For Diana?

After watching the annual song contest, beamed to us this year from Helsinki, I cannot help but think that we British are very different from the rest of our European neighbours. There must be something in the water. I thought the commentary of our own national treasure, the Irishman Terry Wogan, epitomised these differences — although perhaps not in the way he might expect.

Year after year, he and we mock Eurovision with glee, pointing out how seriously everyone takes the contest, while we participate with our tongues in our cheek. This year, however, that same attitude boomeranged back to slap us in the face. For example, when the song that was destined to win was performed by the Serbian delegation, those of us watching the broadcast with the translations could see that the song was a personal account of someone coming to terms with a lost, forbidden love. But the only words Terry could find were to mock the “owl like” lead singer, noticing the contrast between her rather androgynous appearance and the Amazonian femininity of her backing singers. She was baring her soul for the continent, and all Terry could do was chuckle.

The Serbian singer had the last laugh, however, when the rest of Europe voted in her favour, dumping the British effort into a “nosedive”. This was not a surprise – our song about low cost air travel was never going to be popular. What was noteworthy, however, was that the UK was one of the few countries that did not give the Serbian owl-woman any points. Instead, we gave ‘douze points’ to the terrible Turkish offering, which matched the British entry for vacuity, but with the added eye-candy of belly-dancers.

Indeed, we had already been told that the belly dancers were British, so in fact, my fellow countrymen had voted as jingoistic as possible, given the rules. A familiar and hilarious theme for Sir Terry is the bizarre block voting which has always characterised the competition. We find that the neighbours in the Scandinavian cul-de-sac all voted for each other; the handful of countries that made up the former Yugoslavia gave each other maximum points; and Russia exchanged top marks with her former Soviet states. This is particularly alien to the British mindset. While our own neighbours Ireland and France were kind to us in their point allocations, we did not reciprocate. Do we imagine that an independent Scotland or Wales will vote for England, or vice-versa, if the UK were to break up? No we do not, not even out of pity.

I am often criticised on this site for my apparent insistence on the relativistic, without any anchor of objectivity to judge and compare different peoples and cultures. Well, let me satisfy those critics by throwing all that relativistic nonsense out the window for a moment. Let me say that the British have this weekend shown themselves to be nothing less than a drone of boors. I mean that quite sincerely and objectively, since there is no room for irony when we talk about Eurovision. We are like the idiot at the party who initially misses the joke, yet bores everyone by repeating the same punch-line when everyone else has moved on to being serious for a moment. We are the misers who show no camaraderie or neighbourly love, who bring nothing to the party but noxious fumes and bullying laughter. We are the social inepts of Europe.

Except for me of course, because I voted for Serbia.

Roschekno at Smokewriting has similar feelings: “The subsequent massive failure of the song may have had something to do with said eurotypes having got used a long time ago to the increasingly smug unfunniness of official British ‘humour’.”

Another photo from the summer festivals. That’s my self portrait in the reflection.

[photopress:womad2.jpg,full,centered]

I hear today that WOMAD will not be at the Reading Rivermead Centre in 2007:

we have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the festival has now outgrown the available land at the Rivermead site … WOMAD implemented substantial changes to the festival site in 2006. However, despite these improvements, a perception of overcrowding remains.

Persoanlly, I did not find it too crowded, and always found a place to sit or stand to watch the acts. But in any case, isn’t a bit of bustle part of the fun of festivals? The alternative is a lengthy trek between music tents… which would at least be consistent with the nomadic theme which characterises this particular event.