Nov 20
Nov 20
At a MusicTank conference on Tuesday night, I had a chat with Simon Wheeler, Director of Digital at Beggars Group, about what it's like running an independent label in these changing times for the music industry. He said: "When it comes to negotiating deals with new digital ventures like Nokia Comes With Music and MySpace Music, we can't compete with the majors when it comes to money and might. But we can compete when it comes to talent and signing great artists. And that is our main focus."
Independents have always championed some of the most interesting acts, acts that have even defined genres. Maybe it's because indies don't have to report to stockholders. Maybe it's because starting a label is so time consuming and expensive that you would only do it if you absolutely love music and the artists you sign. This is why indies tend to stick with their artists should a record fail to hit the charts.
At last month's Musexpo, two of the most successful UK indie-label owners explained what drives them, and how they operate. Daniel Miller, president of Mute, put out his own electronic record, Warm Leatherette, during the punk era in 1978. "People think you're a label when you put out a record. I didn't think I was." But as he started receiving more and more demos, the label developed organically. By the beginning of the 80s, Mute was home to bands that went on to redefine the English sound: Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Nitzer Ebb and Erasure.
"I like things I've never heard before and I only sign music that I like," says Miller. "I'm lucky, cause there's not much music I do like. My record collection is small. We went through years without signing an act in the middle of the 90s."
Richard Russell, CEO of XL Recordings, concurs. "Not signing much is a good idea. The problem in this business is that too many records are put out. There can only be one great artist in every scene. Scenes tend to create a lot of mediocrity. To me, signing is instinctive. The more I think, the worse it gets. I'm not signing people for who they are, but for their potential. I have to believe in the person."
XL (now part of Beggars Group) was launched by Russell, Tim Palmer and Nick Halkes in 1989 to release rave and dance music. They've now grown into one of the most commercially successful and influential independent record labels in the world, with artists like Adele, Basement Jaxx, Beck and White Stripes on their roster.
"The more interesting the acts are, the more difficult it is to get it on the radio. MIA, for example, doesn't have a lot of craft. She's all ideas and originality. The response we got when we put out her first single was extremely negative. Jack White, on the other hand, is all craft," says Russell. "I am so drawn to misfits; people who don't fit the mould."
"Adele," Russell continues, "more than any other of our artists, had strong views on starting big. And she knew how to do it. Liam Howlett (of XL act The Prodigy) is all instinct. There's no analysis. He has a way of dismissing almost everything. But as long as you trust them, the most difficult artists are the easiest to work with." No wonder Radiohead decided to go with XL once they had fulfilled their contract with EMI.
Russell says that he loves pirate stations and drives around every weekend to catch their broadcasts on his car radio. Somehow I can't picture EMI chairman Guy Hands doing that. His record label announced during MusicWeek that they'll be investing hugely in researching more about music fans and how they interact with music. They also want to "regain leadership in innovation of how music is experienced", mentioning the iPod as an example of the kind of innovations they'd like to develop. How about focusing on finding and developing incredible, unique talent? I don't think Beggars, Mute and XL Recordings have to worry about being pushed out of the business any time soon.
Nov 20
We're playing Late Night w/ Conan O'Brien Friday night (11/21) at 12:35/11:35c. I'm psyched!!!-CB
Nov 20
Entertainment Weekly went backstage with The All-American Rejects at their recent show at Irving Plaza in New York for a feature that includes an exclusive video interview. Watch as they discuss their new album When The World Comes Down, which will be available everywhere on 12.16.08.
Check out the feature now by going to EW.com. Click HERE
Watch the video interview direct right now by clicking HERE
Nov 20
Matt and Kim and Cool Kids are set to team up for a college mini-tour, kicking off in Carrboro, NC on December 8.
Nov 20
Nov 20
Do singers - or lyrics for that matter - mean much to jazzers? And should they? As a quick scan of the current London Jazz festival's packed programme reveals, jazz remains a
predominantly instrumental music, despite the fact that when it makes its rare incursions into the world of chart hits or mainstream acclaim, it's usually because a singer has taken it there. After all, you don't have to be one of the cognoscenti to have heard of Jamie Cullum, Norah Jones or Diana Krall - or their giant predecessors Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan.
In general, however, singers have mostly been peripheral to a music dominated by the sax sounds of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, the trumpets of Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or the pianos of Thelonious Monk and Keith Jarrett. The message seems to be that these artists have said more by those means than words ever could.
It's not a simple issue, however. The imaginative British
saxophonist Iain Ballamy was one of the jazz musicians invited to participate in the Guardian's Radiohead-cover project, and in discussing the venture afterwards, he rather unexpectedly revealed that when he improvises on a familiar song, he likes to bear the lyrics in mind, and to avoid sax-phrasing that scrambles the meanings, or the way the words would have been sung. Even the members of the edgy free-improv ensemble Trio VD thought about the moods suggested by the lyrics of Radiohead's Nude as they worked their way through a succession of instrumental interpretations.
The American singer Kurt Elling played the festival on Tuesday, with a programme dedicated to one of John Coltrane's few excursions with a singer, the 1963 recordings with vocalist Johnny Hartman.
Elling took care to foreground the lyrics of a programme of classics including Lush Life, as well as subjecting them to an improvisational barrage of sax-mimicking scat, whoops, growls, gibbers and all the other jazz-vocal gymnastics that the more commercially popular Cullum, Krall or Jones
avoid, sensing that their less jazz-committed public doesn't want to go that far. The crowd erupted for Elling's virtuoso improv flights, and applauded more politely for his straighter renditions of some heart-on-sleeve songs that are increasingly showing their age. Crooning doesn't really suit Elling, despite his lustrous baritone voice and startling range. His gestures look forced, and the emoting he adds to some already tearstained lyric-sheets gets cloying. He seems to sense this himself, often leading him to then assault the sentimentality of the song with abstract improv, as
if applying the antidote. Elling is really an instrumental singer, in a band of very classy instrumentalists, that on this occasion also included the former Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock saxist Bennie Maupin. Maybe his performance simply added weight to the theory that in the often enigmatic and evasive world of jazz, the less said the better.
Nov 20
In a band? Got a song you want to share? AAR wants you to enter this battle-of-the-bands contest for a chance to win two concert tickets in NYC, backstage passes and an Olympus LS-10 recorder!
Visit www.getolympus.com/?audioproofs to enter your band’s song in the contest.
Visit www.getolympus.com/?audioproofs to enter your band’s song in the contest.
