October 2010
33 posts
“There’s probably exactly the same amount of talent out there but for the consumer it’s so much harder to pick through. I find it so daunting that I tend to shy away from the thousands of new bands you read about on Pitchfork every day and just end up listening to Revolver again.”
—
Lawrence Arabia, in “Come Back, “The Man”, All Is Forgiven!” (Mojo)
While I understand the point that Lawrence Arabia is making, the truth is that many people routinely skip the whole ‘see what’s on Pitchfork’ step and just listen to Revolver again. So the question is not only, “how do we choose what to listen to?” but also, “can we encourage people to explore new music?”
Rhymes to retire from pop music lyrics
The following rhymes have given pop music lyrics decades of useful service, and it’s now time for them to be honourably retired.
maybe/baby
money/honey
rain/pain/gain
love/above
cry/die
fire/desire
knees/please
Any more rhymes that you want to add to the list?
How to disappear (almost) completely
Over at zed equals zee proper, I discuss how there are a small number of artists who’ve decided to make themselves inaccessible online, using a variety of approaches. Some pick unGoogleable names. Some hide behind Unicode characters. Some pick names that will deliberately be confused with other bands. Read more about strategies for obscurity: How to disappear (almost) completely
“If one of my children was doing a life sentence in prison for a crime I knew they hadn’t committed, I would do my best to get them out, no matter what. Having the recordings of my songs owned forever by someone else, with no chance of getting them back, is a little bit like that. So re-recording them is, thanks to a contractual loophole, a little bit like breaking that proverbial child out of prison. Those songs are free now, and back where they belong….We can’t own the original recordings, but we can own flawless re-recordings that are the next best thing. We’re fortunate in that our songs have outlived both the original recordings and the restriction on re-recording them – and that we were financially able to have another go. Most bands don’t get that lucky.”
—How iconic British 80s band Squeeze ended up re-recording their songs, in order to own the rights. Read the full article here.
Music and the Brain Podcasts →
loc.gov
The Library of Congress is in the middle of a two-year lecture series on Music and the Brain, and there is an associated podcast with short (<30min) talks by researchers in the field.
“
There are two models of how originality could be used up. For both let’s say there is a song that is popular to remix, and it has already been remixed 100 times.
In the first model, there is diminishing returns to remixes in the utility function. Consumers values originality and so they experience diminishing returns to listening to additional remixes. Here originality being “used up” means that you’ve already consumed all 100 remixes, and therefore the 101st provides zero utility. Thus consumers have to experience the first 100 songs in order to be affected by the zero marginal utility of originality, and they will only be affected if they are fully sated. In contrast, if copper is entirely used up, consumers will be affected by consuming none of it. Thus the non-rival nature of music is key here. In general, it seems people worry about the sustainability of rivalrous goods, not non-rivalrous ones.
” —When economists argue about music.
The above is part of a convincing rebuttal to this blog post, which addresses the sustainability of music, and the possibility that we are ‘using it up.’ (“Each new song sits somewhere in a range of originality, from very original to very derivative. The more new original songs are developed and marketed, the harder it gets to develop and market new songs that will be seen as relatively original.”)
Thanks to David Boy for pointing me to the posts!
“The [Inception soundtrack] showcases the hybrid electronic, orchestral and guitar sonics of award-winning composer Hans Zimmer and guitarist Johnny Marr, the ax master mostly responsible for The Smiths‘ continuing musical influence….Marr pored over Douglas Hofstadter’s Lewis Carroll-like neurotheory classic Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid for guidance.”
—
The brain of sixteen-year-old me just exploded. Seriously, grey matter everywhere.
(from this post on the sexy, sexy clear vinyl release of the OST. I’m going to have to own a turntable soon, aren’t I?)
“
1. People who enjoy a work understand something about it that people who don’t enjoy it do not (initially) understand.
2. There is no cultural, aesthetic or critical question that can be resolved by asking whether a thing is art.
3. If someone thinks they enjoy an artwork, they do.
” —D. Fennel - axioms (via douglaswolk)The test of a good set of axioms is the fruitfulness and usefulness of the corollaries.
“As much as I detest the expression, it goes without saying that music lives at Hack Day and dies in the sinking coffin that is every major label (including those that are finally, reluctantly employing these technologies). But if you need further evidence, consider that SoundCloud and Echo Nest are hiring like mad, while the last three A&Rs who tried to sign your band are squeegeeing soiled stalls at Peep World. Meanwhile, the geniuses they once called thieves spent Saturday night at Echo Nest’s Davis Square offices partying with Javelin and toasting the wacky notion that sharing is a more effective strategy than suing.”
—From Chris Faraone’s roundup of last weekend’s Music Hack Day, in the Boston Phoenix.
