I was just saying "wtf?" because they don't identify him at all, and he's the most normal looking guy, so I'm guessing that like 100% of people who see that ad don't even clock it. I mean, I did, but there can't be more than, like, 200 working music bloggers who live in this particular neighborhood. And because I'm an anti-social shut-in, I've been using Seamless since it launched! They are wasting their money with this one.
I actually can't figure out what he means by that. A streaming service "that features new music only from the artists of each generation"? Like ... what is that? Only new music? Or new music and catalog stuff only from a single generation of musicians? Would those records be exclusive to that service? How would that work? How many of those musicians own their masters? (How many are still alive?) Why would they choose to move their music behind that wall when they could be on EVERY other service? Who would actually pay for that service? Assuming he could work out the licenses (which is a total non-starter), this seems like a great way to isolate older artists from all contemporary relevance (and revenue streams), not least because a lot of people who are really into '60s and '70s music still own and play CDs, or listen to the '60s and '70s stations on terrestrial/satellite/Pandora, or maybe they don't want to feel like they're so goddamn old and hopeless that somebody made a special app just for them. "It's the '60s and '70s app, Mom! It's not all confusing like Spotify, it's just the stuff you liked when you were a kid, don't worry. It even has bigger buttons so you won't press the wrong one and get all flustered!" I mean, maybe that's not his vision though.
Mastodon haven’t released a record on Relapse since 2004! (I don’t totally disagree with you, though, on Relapse’s and/or Mastodon’s respective diversifications.)
I dunno, you gotta consider the source here. Why wouldn't Beggars include that detail in their open letter if it were an actual stipulation? If it were true I would say it borders on extortion. Having said that, Apple did claim at the announcement that subscribers would be allowed to stream everything in the iTunes Store; therefore, if labels chose not to opt in to Apple Music, I guess Apple could just say they have no choice but to at least suspend those artists from selling their music via iTunes. Still probably tantamount to extortion considering iTunes' market share, but that would probably be their justification for such a decision.
I'd honestly be guessing blindly. Basically one of these three things will happen, and for those of us on the outside, it's anybody's guess which one:
(A) The vast majority of indies will choose to opt into this particular agreement.
(B) The vast majority of indies will choose NOT to opt into this particular agreement.
(C) Apple and Merlin et al. will come to terms on an alternative agreement prior to launch.
I know what my guess would be, but I'm not gonna say it. When this is resolved we can revisit and I'll tell you then if I guessed right. You're free to guess away now though.
I don't think it's that nefarious; I think it's an opt-in and labels or aggregators can choose to participate on those terms or not. I don't think it will affect their standing with Apple Music going forward. It would just mean that for three months their records aren't featured on Apple Music. The problem is, labels are in a no-leverage spot. If they opt out, their records don't get the exposure that will come while all the free-trial members are getting familiar with Apple Music. If they opt in, they get the exposure but set a horrible precedent for similar terms on "free trial" periods going forward. Even Spotify's free tier pays royalties. It's a really shitty spot for labels to be in.
I reached out to her PR for clarification but haven't heard back. In the meantime, if I had to guess based on the songs here, I'd say he's referring to "Onde Børn," which really sounds like it could have been included on Bergtatt (it's also my favorite song on the album at this point, so I could be projecting a little bit).
Damn man, good eye. Yeah listening to both, it certainly appears that the Myrkur song is a version of that lullaby. "Dybt i skoven" is definitely not related to "I troldskogen faren vild" as far as I can tell, though. According to the press materials she's the only credited writer so I wonder if maybe they recorded a cover of an Ulver song that didn't make the cut or will turn up as a B-side or something -- or maybe they sort of borrowed a melody from an Ulver song but didn't credit it. In any case, there are a few songs here that feel like tributes to Bergtatt, so maybe that's what he's talking about. I'll try to find out; let me know if you figure it out in the meantime.
"Dybt i skoven" is actually a track from her EP that she re-recorded for this album (and it's definitely one of the more Bergtatt-sounding songs on this one). I don't get the Ulver reference though?
I haven't heard the record in full so I'm not endorsing it (yet), but I'm super excited -- Myrkur and Garm together (with Teloch!) is not just an embarrassment of riches, but also a really good pairing, IMO. I love the demo version of "Skadi" which we posted in January's Black Market, and I think this is excellent, too. She's got a really weird approach to structure that I want to hear over the course of the album, because I don't think it lends itself well to individual songs, but on a pure sonic level, I love this.
Could be! I think the last verse lends some merit (or at least context) to Tom's reading, though:
You go 'quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack quack' like a little rubber duck
Like a pathetic, whiny, sad little child, hater-boy fuck
Going on your endless little petty bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch
Be glad you’re not out motherfucking sleeping in the ditch, sleeping in your own vomit, sleeping in your own piss ...
He's addressing a whole segment of his fanbase, definitely. But in one verse, the song mocks numerous specific points made in my essay (including the stuff about "Williamsburg" and "clones," which were notably absent from that San Francisco show review) and he threw in the thing about a sleeve tattoo, which seems like an especially deliberate detail. But I'm not claiming ownership of the song -- he absolutely could have come up with those details at random! (Even though most of the lyrics on the record are not especially random; e.g., as Tom notes, “We watched part three of the HBO series The Jinx: The Life And Deaths Of Robert Durst” or “How the hell did I end up playing myself in an Italian film set in a ski town in Switzerland?”) It's possibly a strange coincidence or a reference to another writer's work, and if either is the case, you have my apologies for assuming otherwise.
Thanks man! There's no hidden meaning behind the term "scheduling reasons," I promise. I'm not going anywhere. It's just that my job as managing editor of Stereogum makes certain demands of my time, and putting together the Black Market increasingly conflicts with those demands, and I didn't want this column to become a secondary priority, because I felt that would eventually begin to erode its value. It takes a ton of work to produce this column, and I don't want to cut corners. I'm still gonna contribute to both the curation and the writing of the column, though, and if anything, it's going to get better from here.
Could be. Pretty coincidental though! Leaving aside the fact that I do have a sleeve tattoo, these are the lyrics in the first verse:
Went to see a band tonight and they wouldn’t play my favorite tunes
It’s 2012 but I like the ones from 1992
There was no place to sit, and goddamnit I could’t use my phone
and fuck, the singer did a joke that we all looked like cookie-cut-out clones
And they played too long and I didn’t like his new words about guys in tennis shoes and moderately talented yet attractive young girls
When I get home, I tell you just what I’m gonna do
I’m gonna cry me a river Williamsburg sleeve tattoo blues
And the essay I wrote included this:
You talk at a Mark Kozelek show — you take a picture, request a song, whatever — you’re gonna get the stick. Hell, you don’t have to do any of those things. The last time I saw him was in 2010, at Brooklyn’s Music Hall Of Williamsburg, which is a pretty big room — and it was totally sold out — but the crowd was silent, motionless, reverent. And he still trashed us! “Williamsburg is a town of clones,” he said from the stage, between songs. “Like they just cloned themselves from everyone who just walked by.”
By “they,” of course, he meant “you.” That is: us. Anyone who cares enough to actually turn out to see Mark Kozelek is, in his eyes, deserving of mockery. He’s sung about it! It’s in the song “Sunshine In Chicago,” from Sun Kil Moon’s 2012 release, Among The Leaves. He was comparing the crowds who came out in the ’90s for his old band, Red House Painters, to his crowds today: Back then, there were “lots of female fans, and fuck, they all were cute/ Now I just sign posters for guys in tennis shoes.”
[snip]
I stopped going to see Mark Kozelek after that Williamsburg gig not because of the “clones” crack, but because his shows seemed to me increasingly sadistic in other ways: He was playing for well over two, sometimes well over three hours, which I found to be a physically punishing experience when I could neither sit down nor move in any way to the music. He refused to play large chunks of the Red House Painters catalog, and the songs he did play were reworked to the point of being unrecognizable, often stripped of their melody and sometimes, seemingly, any melody. (I was stunned and delighted when I saw him do an album-esque version of “Mistress” with the Roots on Fallon.)
I’m not saying these are objectively bad things, but I had personally ceased to be moved or excited by them. I felt like I was going to the shows out of loyalty, not enjoyment. And frankly, I don’t connect with his new records the way I did the old ones.
There are so many factors, I'm not even sure you could guess accurately. Here's a TIDAL-related example:
According to Rolling Stone, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs cost $500,000 to make. In an earlier interview with the New York Times, though, those costs were broken down a little bit:
The band took its time recording The Suburbs, working and reworking songs for much of a year in homes and studios, using 24-track tape. "I'd hate to take a guess at the budget," [Win] Butler said, but he added that part of the cost was equipment the band would continue to use, including a 1940s mixing console with vacuum tubes.
However, also per the aforementioned RS article, Arcade Fire spent $1.6 million making Reflektor. Who even knows how that money was spent? Presumably some of the equipment they bought while making The Suburbs was still usable, and Win Butler said the castle where they recorded it was rented to them "cheap." Maybe James Murphy charged them a fortune.
In any case, Butler initially thought $500k was ostentatious enough to make him "hate to take a guess at the budget" (and then he went out and spent three times that much for the next album), so I'd say that $200k is probably on the high end for most bands who aren't budgeting for the purchase (not rental) of vintage equipment, 24-track tape, and a year of re-working their material on and off in the studio.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-unforgettable-fire-can-arcade-fire-be-the-worlds-biggest-band-20140116
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/arts/music/01arcade.html
Yeah exactly. "TIDAL is going to help a lot of artists out. I'm talking about the punk band that has 50k hits on Youtube and doesn't see a dime."
OK so the last few Screaming Females videos posted on YouTube have averaged about 50k plays each. How, specifically, will TIDAL "help" Screaming Females?
I was gonna sit here and frustratedly break down this whole Q&A but it's taking too long and it's not appropriate for the comments section anyway. I'll chime in on this one though:
I think TIDAL is a noble cause, I don't understand the backlash that it's getting.Jack: There's a lot of misinformation about music in the last decade, people know that it costs a lot of money to make a super hero movie, but they don't know that it costs millions to make a country album too.
TRUTH: Talk about "misinformation." It does not cost "millions" to make a country record. In 2011, NPR did a great report breaking down these numbers, and they concluded it costs about $78,000 to record a Rihanna song. (They did allow that it costs roughly $1M in rollout to make that song a "hit," though.)
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2011/07/05/137530847/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-hit-song
That's a fucking RIHANNA song. For her to record a 13-song entire album at $78,000 per song, it would cost $1,014,000. About a million. Not "millions." FOR RIHANNA. You want some context for that? Here's a quote from that story:
"It's like an all-star game," says Ray Daniels, who was at the writing camp for Rihanna ... The writing camp for Rihanna's album "had to cost at least 200 grand," Daniels says. "It was at least forty guys out there. I was shocked at how much money they were spending! But, guess what? They got the whole album out of that one camp."
That's not at all the norm. Nobody is spending "millions" to make a record. Here’s a breakdown for non-Rihanna-level artists:
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2015/03/how-much-cost-to-record-album/
Taking it as a given that I don't know if ANY of this is true -- whether you talked to him, whether he said that, whether he was being sincere, and/or how he would define "personal collection" -- there's something really hilarious in the abstract idea that some guy would start a record-curation club with his insanely massive personal collection, get covered in Billboard and Rolling Stone pre-launch -- "IS THIS THE FUTURE OF HOW WE WILL LISTEN TO MUSIC?" -- and then as soon as it rolls out ... like, it just turns out he has the worst, weirdest taste ever. "You didn't like that Henry Mancini Great Race soundtrack? You're nuts! It KILLED me to part with that thing ... What do you mean 'Uriah Heep isn't dinner music'? I used to play that during dinner with my wife, at dinner parties with guests, I mean, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one ... Well I'm sorry you didn't get any Nick Drake records or the Smiths records or Sleater-Kinney records but what can I say? I don't have that kind of stuff in my personal collection. Why? Because I have TASTE."
Again, nobody ever said anything to me about VNYL stock drawing exclusively from one man's "personal collection," so I'm not suggesting any of the above is true, it's just cracking me up to imagine such a scenario.
I can say with confidence that commenter was not Nick Alt; that commenter is a real VNYL customer who's apparently satisfied with the service. I tried to represent that point of view in the story -- there is truly no accounting for taste. I personally share Vincent Chang's outlook: "I think almost every record in the world is amazing or horrible; it all depends on what we are listening for."
That said, IMO "curation" is an inaccurate description of the service provided by VNYL. Curation, to me, is like: If you said to me, "Hey I really liked the new At The Gates record and I've been getting into Swedish melodic death metal. What should I listen to next?" I might recommend Entombed or In Flames or the Crown or Disfear or Tribulation. I would alter those recommendations depending on what you knew already about Swedish melodic death metal, and/or what it was that you liked specifically about the Swedish melodic death metal you'd already heard. I would not hand you a used copy of Def Leppard's Pyromania and say, "Listen to this." Not because you wouldn't potentially like Pyromania, not because I don't like Pyromania, but because Pyromania is almost entirely irrelevant in this context.
But that's a question of semantics. I suppose there is a chance VNYL staff have a reasonable familiarity with, and genuine fondness for, the records they're curating. Maybe Sid is a huge Michael Quatro fan; maybe he honestly thinks any fan of Spiritualized and LCD Soundsystem needs to hear Lionel Richie's first solo record. Music is so strange and subjective it's impossible to say.
We didn't cover the story at all till now! And you are totally correct that they aren't doing anything illegal. But the record-rental service they described while crowdfunding absolutely would have been illegal. In reporting this article, I talked to a guy who looked into starting such a service in the '90s. He called Columbia and WEA to discuss licensing, and they told him, without hesitation, that if he attempted any such thing he'd be getting a call from their lawyers. Obviously the technology has changed but in this case the law hasn't.
Yeah, I'm honestly not sure, and I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone. Legality aside, there are numerous other reasons why they might not accept returns (e.g., the cost of shipping vinyl is really high). But considering they pitched the service to crowdfunding as "Netflix for vinyl" and never really clarified that they WEREN'T a rental service, there might be some scrutiny of their practices by the RIAA or something. Maybe Nick Alt will comment on this question. I should have asked him and I didn't.
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