Circa 2014, rock band Muse declared the album dead. One of music’s most lasting legacies since the emergence of recorded music, the longest format, with its relative simplicity, the band claimed, in the face of the digitalisation and ubiquity of music on the internet, had perished.
They weren’t entirely wrong. A statistical study published on the website Statistica recorded the annual music album sales from the year 2007 to 2017 (with ‘album’ including “CD, CS, LP and digital albums”). Most years, total album sales fell lower than their preceding years. Between the years 2016 – 2017, album sales dropped by 9.4 million units from 205.5 million albums being sold in 2016 to 169.1 million in 2017. In fact, only in the year 2011 did album sales see a marginal bump up from its predecessor (from 326.2 million to 331 million, a rise of only 1.5%). Overall album sales had fallen from just above 500 million units in 2007, to under 200 million in 2017. With streaming today giving many people the choice between paying $20 for 12 tracks or $10 a month for access to a seemingly infinite music database, the shift is hardly shocking.
In today’s age of digital music, where the number of streams and views on a song online is bigger news than an album’s garnering platinum success, the standalone single has emerged as the most popular format. It’s almost logical: give a time-pressed world a short three-minute catchy song with a video that looks good on YouTube (but perhaps not in your mother’s hands) and sticks in their head, and the world will reciprocate with its attention. It’s as simple a thing as giving people what they need. The radio will take care of the rest.
Will it run for forty minutes? Credits: thrillist.com
In today’s age, people want variety, entertainment and familiarity rolled into one, and they want it quick. The fifty-minute Length Play can hardly keep up with anything less than a traffic jam. The concentration asked of most experimental records won’t keep your eye on the road during your morning jog. And it’s no fun trying to keep up with something completely unfamiliar in rhyme or rhythm in the shower or on the dance floor. This is where the album, with its structure, discipline, and some may say, conformity, loses out in 2018. It’s also where your curated Spotify playlist wins.
Listening to the modern chart radio reveals a few patterns. Either in the contents of the lyrics, vocal and tonic technique, baselines or drum machine patterns; something seems homogenous. Something sounds familiarly like the last fifty songs you’ve heard. Something in the song knows what makes your foot tap from past trials and is here to serenade you again. Out-of-breath crooners are back in fashion. Trance baselines have been in for a few years and stubbornly refuse to leave the charts alone. Acid bass drops get you moving. Minimalistic drum taps interfere the least with your dance floor groove. (As a disclaimer, this is all terminology coming from a rock music listener who’s spent way too many holiday car trips with the Tops 40’s radio.) There’s always a story, either vocal or instrumental, that you’ve heard before and it becomes easier to fill in the rest. But there’s always something almost obligatorily new: a synth melody in a new key, a different chord progression (Hmm, perhaps playing ‘A#-D#’ this time instead of playing ‘D-A’ will sound extremely novel), a new instrument thrown into the mix; something to make a case for your argument in favour of variety.
What this sums up, to me, is a tired, wary society. We like our variety, in fact we’re wired for it, but only in micro dosages. We cling to familiarity and will take our blankets and pillow along with it. This is a generation that has seen more than its fair share of experimentation and variety in life and wants no more hard surprises. Yes, you can dye the cat purple for all I care, maybe the colour will even look good on her. Just don’t let me know that I can’t afford my rent this month. Don’t tell me my student debt has doubled and that I’ll probably never be able to retire. Keep the papers away. Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t mess with my music.
Pop music—historically short for popularmusic—is in this sense still quite a good reflection of society and its current mental state. Most of today’s adults the teens and preteens of the mid-00’s, a generation that grew up under the dominant reign of Disney Channel. This decade’s rise in (or perhaps, resurgence of) Disney artists in the popular music charts could well mean a generation of now-grown kids holding onto the last of their childhoods—a time when things seemed simpler, or were at least taken care of, and there seemed a lot more to look forward to in the future than they grew up to realise—through their childhood stars.
So are we holding on to something that’s over and smearing its remains onto our music– a large aspect of our cultural lives and legacy? Does the ‘death’ of the longest format of music represent a breaking down of barriers, the handing of the reigns to the listener to modify their listening experience to their own comfort, the result of our collective wishes as a generation to find familiarity; or is it the death of music as we once knew it?
Come on over and write yourself the next chart-buster. Anyone can do it, no lie!
First up, welcome to the Anyone Can Write Deep Poetry series.
Have you spent all day and all night, listening to Pink Floyd, obscure French music and frantically pulling up your old English notes from school searching for all the phrases and idioms that may have passed you by in twelve years of worthless education, and sit there scratching your head wondering where deep, meaningful poetry comes from?
Are you walking around town in low-waisted, ripped jeans with shades and a bedhead with a purpose, looking around for someone to pass you a few tabs of acid to unlock the sheer poetic creativity that sleeps passively in your soul?
Are you following all the latest yoga fads and rewatching every John Lennon interview in existence to find the meaning of life and finally turn it into that soulfully-worded song you know you should have written by now? (Come on, you’ve been searching for a year already!)
Well, fear not, for I have ended your woes! Here is a step by step guide to getting in the frame of mind most fertile for sprouting pearls people will quote for years, read and reread to really grasp the inner meaning of, that people will cry upon deciphering.
Basically, I’m gonna turn you into Radiohead.
So let’s begin. Echoes 2.0 ain’t gonna write itself.
What time is it? Did you just get back from work? Are you tired of the structured life, does the hypocrisy of society frustrate you? Yeah well, you’ve already tried writing about it. And yelling, “down, down, down with the governmeeent!” clearly hasn’t helped your SoundCloud grow.
Try the indirect approach. Orwell neatly shrunk society into a farm. Look at how many musicians quote his books. You want that, don’t you? What can you come up with?
Ditch the obvious! The LSD ain’t gonna help your head if it isn’t thinking!
Here’s a start: you think people shy away from self-contentment, don’t you? Let’s find you something a level beyond “We’re all sad fucks.”
What’s the least obvious thing that could represent fulfilment?
Yes, now you’re using your 3 AM brain, good work! Cream cheese.
Why not?
Satisfaction is cream cheese. You know it’s what Jagger wanted. But none of you can get it, you sad fucks, you’re afraid of getting it!
What would shake up society more than anything else? That’s right, someone getting it! And not just getting it, but enjoying it!
Attaboy, my Dylan! You’ve got yourself a full verse already! Should’ve come to me last year, don’t you think?
So here’s your first verse.
Cream cheese is good Real good food I put it in my mouth Until it’s all gone
What’s more torturous than just getting, and enjoying good cream cheese? Getting it again! And again! And again! You rebellious soul, what will you do to the planet!?
You loop it. You say the same thing, again, and again, and again. You drive your bloody point home. You’ve got some fucking cream cheese out there. And you’re gonna eat it, period.
What a symbolic middle finger in the face of the establishment.
Yeah, how’s your acid working out for you?
Freedom can be trippy. Make sure your listeners—and the damned Establishment—know it! Put the trip and the trap into your music: echoes, delays, fades, until you’re so high on your own freedom that no one can hear you anymore.
You’re a quick learner. Let’s put that onto your draft now.
Cream cheese is good Real good food I put it in my mouth Until it’s all gone
Yeah, cream cheese tastes good! Is real good food I put it in my mouth Until it’s all gone!
CREAM CHEESE IS GOOD, YEAH? Good food, yeah? See me put it in my mouth And watch it be all gone!
YEAH CREEM CHEEZE IYYY OOODD EEEZZZZOOOODDD FOOOODDD PUUUIIINN MAAA MAAAAAUUTHH TILL ITS ALL GOONNEEE
Now, you and your group break away: there’s strength in numbers! Free your mate, and free your girlfriend, free your neighbour’s dog! Give ‘em some cream cheese.
(song continued)
And my mate likes good cheese My girl says it’s good food We put it in the dog’s mouth Until my neighbour’s gone
How’s that for emancipation of the people, sir? Could the establishment have an answer to that? Now all you need is to seal this with a kiss.
I rise up, raid the pantry! We rise up, raid the factory! Wake up, eat up, Wake up Wake up!
Who’d have expected that? You’ve got the critics in tears, reviewers raving; you’ve put together something nonsensical enough for the radio, deep enough for the underground, heady enough to score you that dream collaboration with Post Malone, you star!
Take a look at your final product and be proud.
Cream cheese is good Real good food I put it in my mouth Until it’s all gone
Yeah, cream cheese tastes good! Is real good food I put it in my mouth Until it’s all gone!
CREAM CHEESE IS GOOD, YEAH? Good food, yeah? See me put it in my mouth And watch it be all gone!
YEAH CREEM CHEEZE IYYY OOODD EEEZZZZOOOODDD FOOOODDD PUUUIIINN MAAA MAAAAAUUTHH TILL ITS ALL GOONNEEE
And my mate likes good cheese! My girl says it’s good food We put it in the dog’s mouth Until my neighbour’s gone
I rise up, raid the pantry! We rise up, raid the factory! Wake up, eat up, Wake up Wake up!
Now, about the music, jeez, aren’t you exhausted? This song’s already a chart buster, why don’t you send your A&R guy to sample the neighbour’s dog pissing? It’s so meta, I can’t even. It probably even sounds good on record. About the actual rhythm section? Scratch some pads, man, anyone can make music.
(In case the point was lost, this was pure satire. If you actually do write a song about cream cheese, and if it actually does hit the charts, I want in.
This is not a generic attack on lazy songwriting, and is neither a diss on any of the songwriters mentioned above.
To write or not to write- that is half a question
To go over in the mind asleep;
Slings and arrows of wakefulness
To surface from its sea to consciousness
Or suppress them, end them. To sleep, to sleep–
No more– and by a sleep to say release
Let go of a thousand and more thoughts
That the mind is heir to- ‘tis euphoria
Devoutly to be wished. To sleep, to sleep–
To sleep, perchance till twelve. Ay, there’s the rub,
Of an eye, for ‘til the fresh rays come,
The thought has left this mortal coil.
This gives us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long and dark a night.
For who would bear the glares and ticks of time,
The spacing out, the offended glares,
The pangs of a body hungering for sleep, and its arrival’s delay
The sleep deprivations and the spins
This patient merit of th’ body takes
When he himself his bed made,
With bare hands? Who would fardels bear,
To fumble in the dark, for the light switch
But the dread of losing that thought,
It’s departure to new-found lands
From where it never returns, puzzles the will
And makes us pick those quills we have
And have them fly over flapping sheets
Thus does the clock above make fools of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
To shut the eyes tight, and ward off all thought
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of another thought
But enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard, their currents hasten
But sleep must lose the name of action– Sleep-deprived you now!
The fair inkiness! Black, In thy testament
Be all my sins remember’d.
P.S. as you can probably guess, it’s that time of the year again.
Exams draw near, and it brings out the worst in me.
In my defence, I get bored.
Is this a real pile? Is it just fall-acy?
Caught in a landslide
Of books sliding down on me
Open your eyes
Look up to the ceilings and see
I’m just a poor student
Pile of books taller than me,
Knowledge easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows,
The answers seem to blow with them
Away from me
Mama just killed a man
Just the turn of a page,
Now he’s confused and filled with rage
Mama, the lesson’d just begun
But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away
Mamaaa ooooooooooo
Didn’t mean to make you cry
But I won’t be done with this by tomorrow
Grind on, grind on
As if nothing really matters.
Too quick
Its time has come
Sends shivers down my spine
Eyes shutting all the time
Goodbye everybody
I’ve got to go
Gotta leave the world behind and face the books
Mama, oooooo
I don’t wanna die
And sometimes wish I’d studied a bit before
I see a little silhouette of a book
Scandium, scandium, can you be less scandalous
Thunderbolts and lightning are just electrons flying at you
Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo Galileo didn’t see this coming,
No-o-o-o-o.
I’m an unpaired electron, nobody loves me
Unpaired and Lost from his metal was he
Spare him his life of unfulfilled valency
Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
Bismillah! No, we will not let you go
Let him go!
Bismillah! We will not let you go
(Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go
(Let me go.) Will not let you go
(Let me go.) Will not let you go. (Let me go.) Ah
No, no, no, no, no, no, no
(Oh mamma mia, mamma mia) Mamma mia, let me go
Bismuth has an orbital put aside for me
For me
For mee!
So you think the plain ground state was made for I?
So you think I’ll just keep spinning here till I die?
Oh, gaining, velocity baby,
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here
(Put down the book, and)
Nothing really matters
All the prep there can be
Nothing makes the difference
For me.
I was reading an article on how the population equilibrium on the planet will be maintained- a cycle of events that supposedly take place, that ensure a balance in human numbers on the planet.
Very roughly, they cycled as follows:
At first, there was a medium-ish population, and a small, hand sowed-and-reaped produce just enough to feed it.
If the population increased, the food supply was the limiting or checking factor, maintaining our population size.
Then came the mechanisation.
All of a sudden, with industrialisation, machines were reaping more crops than ever.
For once, an increasing population had enough, and even surplus food in store. (Cue: the Great Depression of the late ’20s, where the grain produce was so much, it had no more value in the markets.)
With this, and advances in technology and medicine, the so-far tight check on population growth loosened, and what began was the third phase of the cycle: something we call the population explosion.
In this stage, life conditions look relatively hunky dory, people live, live, and keep on living.
We’re accelerating too much, the problem of today.
Well, here’s what the cycle says.
This is where a fourth phase in the cycle kicks in.
There will then follow a stabilisation, wherein, with lower mortality rates and more longevity, humans will start reproducing less.
There simply won’t be a need for people to have as many kids anymore.
[Also, I may add, the lack of a libido, as seen in the Japanese, and the introduction of AI into the sex sphere, may play big roles in bringing down the very need/urge for human sex, and indirectly, reproduction.]
Now, I’m not economist or researcher. But I have another theory.
The human race will advance further in the intelligence sphere, and we’ll soon be delegating our intelligence to algorithms.
We’ll progress to the point where we’ve become far too comfortable.
(And trust me, we’re on our way there.)
The human body was designed for action. We were predators and prey once. Now we prey on the supermarket.
We use to be on the move.
Heaven knows we may adapt to inactivity. But mostly, I think that would fall apart.
Soon, non-movement-related illnesses would begin to take control of the human race, and human numbers will fall, because most likely, we won’t be able to reverse the damage.
Lifestyles mostly only progressively change, not regressively.
Now birth and death rates will balance out, and for all you know, despite improving technology, we may not have the problem of food surplus, because of the growing importance of (and money diverted to the production of) medicinal precautionary drugs, etc. in the human diet.
We come back to Step 1 of the cycle, i.e., balance. (Birth = death ≤ food supply).
There is another way, though.
Human beings’ strongest claim to the top of the hierarchy has always been their superior thinking ability. We’ve outsmarted and ousted almost every other dominant species on the planet. We call it civilisation.
But, of late, we’ve been handing over the reigns to the Golden Age bearers; with a machine to do everything a human can, the human needn’t work anymore. We have submitted to the idea of the Reigner Supreme: the now preferred machine.
Soon enough, the machine takes over the thinking aspect as well. Like a rusting machine, the now-useless human brain rots away in wastefulness.
No longer the well-oiled machine it once was, the evolution of the human brain stops.
With our front running claim to the top, our biggest weapon blunted, we will slide lower. Rationality and logical thinking will be lost, one bad decision will lead to another, till we’ve effectively dwindled down to the last human.
Ain’t that hard to kill the last dodo, is it now?
At last the cycle will end, and the winners, created by the ones they destroyed, the Reigning Machines, the victors, would stand tall, perfect and purposeless.
Hey, I’m only a science fiction writer, but who’s to say that dolphins won’t rule our planet one day?
Honestly, if one of the first things everyone knew about me was that I spent 35 years pining for one woman, and later said woman and her daughter because she married a long time ago, then forget the fact that she inspired a lot of my poetry, I would simply burn it all and bury myself from the burning embarrassment of being such a loser.
But such was the life of William Butler Yeats.
Every one of the poets from that period seemed to have led a bit of that life, didn’t they? T.S. Eliot too— he had a fascinating fear of decay and mortality. You see it in his work of course, but he also left his wife when she fell mentally ill, for a younger hot thing— some 20 y/o when he was in his 40s or 60s. We see you running away from facing the inevitability, man, a profound line about death doesn’t change that.
So it’s fascinating to read their works with this background context available to you, it’s such an insight into the human psyche. I’ve talked about this a little before, on how we sort of look to our poets and songwriters for answers, to help make sense of all the madness, and without fail, they happen to be some of the most flawed human beings in history. Or in less intense cases, they don’t have the answers we seek from them. It reminds me again of an interview with Grian Chatten from the band Fontaines D.C., in the NME back in 2022. He’s a poet for the modern day, I’ll grant him that easily. He convinced me recently that lyrics can work quite well standing alone as poetry and not come off as naff or aloof, or can still feel quite prescient and not pretentious or removed from the live setting in which they will be performed, making eye contact with you in a sweaty theatre (slowly getting larger, as I’m pleased to see, with the U.K. and Dublin arena shows planned on their tour this year for their upcoming fourth album Romance). They can still connect with the loud guitars and drums pounding behind them.
Grian said to the NME, in light of their debut album Dogrel and his painting of a Dublin life, presenting you with the characters, the contradictions, the scenarios lived in his Dublin, his portrayal led to people turning to him for answers, when I think what you and him would both know deep down is that you’re really looking to him for a depiction of your world in the words that hit the soul, in a way that romanticises the moments you want to remember, and can beautifully frame the injustices of the bad ones. Not answers. Just a painting.
He said, people are looking to me for answers. What the fuck do I know?
Same as it had always been, hasn’t it? He doesn’t have answers. Yeats didn’t have answers. T.S. Eliot didn’t have answers— despite his vivid depictions of loss and decay, he still couldn’t deal with the thought of it himself. But all it does do, is let you read a work through the lens of your own life, and then look at it again through the eyes of a complex human being, the poet. It’s an option that is available to you. Some people do subscribe to ‘death of the author’, but if you’d like to explore the mind of someone who isn’t you, if you aren’t afraid to feel uncomfortable, different, or in the skin of a very different person, it’ll open you up to new thoughts, which don’t have to be yours.
I guess what I’m trying to say here is, don’t be afraid to read something you don’t agree with. Bad thoughts aren’t contagious. You can approach someone else’s work knowing it’s a complex read, and that can be an intriguing and insightful read. However, I do still hesitate to put this post before the poetry people on WordPress, because I don’t think most people on the poetry canon side of the internet will appreciate me calling one of the crown princes of 20th century Irish poetry and literature a loser. Oh well.
Hello if you still remember this old blog, I certainly do! I haven’t been writing quite as intentionally of late, a lot of my writing has sort of tumbled out of my soul and fingers and I have only realised in hindsight that I have Done A Write.
Here’s one of those. I overdid it and went to about four gigs in the last 30 or so days— I say ‘about four’ because it’s entirely possible I went for other smaller shows played by friends around town, smaller, yet still triumphant gigs made sweeter by the fact that you have some idea of the work, hopes and fears poured into making some of those shows possible. But smaller, local shows aside, I had been to see the Belfast hiphop-punk trio KNEECAP, a revolutionary young band who keep it very real, singing and rapping about their lives in Belfast, the problems faced by the city, the feeling amongst the Belfast youth, and package all of that in a bilingual mix of English and Gaeilge, the Irish language.
Of course things get political with them, but admirably, they keep it very local, often addressing their local representatives and MPs in delightfully witty bars often rhyming an English line with an Irish one. I got to chat very briefly with one of their MCs, Móglaí Bap after the show, and the whole band also seems like extremely lovely lads.
Things get political with KNEECAP! On a sidenote, this picture is like a modern Renaissance painting to me.
My next show was seeing The Last Dinner Party, only a few weeks after. So many gigs! A real indulgence on my part. But they were majestic and opulent and put on a grand show: they aren’t very tall girls, but as the show went on, they just seemed to grow taller and command the whole crowd with confidence and a fire in their bellies! An incredible live act.
Singer Abigail Morris in action
The band’s music connects the dots between Queen and Freddie Mercury, and Florence and the Machine, who they have supported in the past. They bring together rock music, decadence, evoke Edwardian and lavish opulence, even if just for one night, even if constructed themselves as a façade, as many of their talented fans did, creating their outfits from theatre props in the most DIY fashion, and I listened fascinated as they explained their choice of threads to me (it was a long wait at the doors, so I got talking to folks around me).
The band also draws on singer Abigail Morris’ experiences of growing up going to a Catholic girls school, and her thoughts and feelings on realising she was a lesbian in that setting. A lot of their music touches on themes of being a misfit, and that really connected with large parts of the crowd that night.
Guitarist Emily Roberts takes a guitar solo
And their guitarist Emily Roberts is a totally cool person and an inspiration!
Then came a slew of local shows: everything from farewell shows for bands playing their final shows before graduating, some capping off a big year by selling out a crowd of nearly 800, to local acts honing their skills on the circuit. But then came the big one this week.
I saw Queens Of The Stone Age this week. They’d normally play a routine stadium show on tour in a bigger city like Toronto. The End Is Nero tour came to Toronto last year, but I didn’t feel it justified travelling and staying over, as much as I loved the riffing, the weirdness, the performanceship of a seasoned rockstar like Josh Homme! But then late last year, the Queens announced something very strange, very different, very special. They were going to embark on a tour across Canada, playing only second cities, places that no international touring band would ever play: cities like Edmonton, Calgary in Alberta, Saskatchewan; Winnipeg, Manitoba! The tour also happened to be stopping by my city, and that’s when I decided I had to go.
Small town shows tend to be quite special: the venues are smaller, just because they often are less populated than the big cities of millions, and sometimes crowds in LA, London or Toronto can get a bit complacent with what they have: a QOTSA show is a regular night out to a city that knows they’ll never be skipped on tour. Queens of The Stone Age are sort of competing with 50 other events around town, and maybe even four other notable headliners playing elsewhere the same night. Local icons! International bands! American rock icons! European indie legends; so much to choose from! I know when I went to see The Last Dinner Party, right next door, I ran into a friend from uni who had also travelled to Toronto to see a different band, Flipturn, the same night. We were in the same building.
But when shows go to small towns? Queens of the Stone Age were certainly the talk of the town! We were so excited for this gig, and I think that translates to much better crowd energy. The band were having fun for sure, Josh was in a great mood, chatted a lot with the crowd, had a moment of deep realisation that he conveyed to us by saying, “you might be thinking, who are these weirdos? I’m standing up here, and I often don’t know what I’m doing, but looking at you all, I’ve just had a realisation. Aren’t we all just weirdos? It’s great! I hope you all have a very weird night! I hope this is just the beginning. I hope you step out tonight after this and get hit by an Uber driver on mushrooms. And that’s just the beginning of your night. I hope it gets weirder.”
I can very seldom say that I have been told with the most love it’s possible for a heart to hold that someone hopes I get hit by a taxi, but it was just one of those nights!
Josh Homme, self-proclaimed king of the weirdos
It was a fun night! I’ve been to many smaller, indie/independent bands’ shows recently, even those who are on the rise are still well limited by their budgets. So it was refreshing to see the QOTSA live show and production, which was immersive, drew me in completely and really complemented the performance. Flashing white lights synced to the drum kicks! QOTSA and Josh seem quite drawn to reds and a bit of devilish imagery sometimes, on previous album artworks. I must say, red does suit Josh. When the lights flash red, every movement he made fell into place. It all seemed right and natural. He gets lifted out of the elements of reality and becomes a character. It all becomes a bit surreal!
(Look, I know I talked about how TLDP ‘got taller’ as the show went on, and how reds made Josh Homme seem otherworldly and surreal. You may think I might have been tripping on LSD throughout these gigs, but—maybe even embarrassingly? I don’t know—I did all these gigs stone-cold sober. Not high, not even drunk. I’m just really, really excited about music, and you must forgive me for that. We only get one life to enjoy it all in.)
Anyway, speaking of poisons of choice, as was the case with Foo Fighters, who I saw play a small arena of 4000 in Montreal last year (when a band that regularly plays to 50,000 people plays 4000, it sure becomes an ‘intimate’ show! Perspective is everything), you’ve got to be a certain level of rockstar to let a modern day venue allow you to smoke indoors—on stage! But I think Josh Homme and co. earn the right to smoke indoors. It’s also a bit of a fan moment to say, ‘I was close enough to the stage that I could smell Josh’s cigarette’, that’s a line that maybe belongs in the ’90s, doesn’t it? 😛
Anyway, I wish something that noxious didn’t look as cool as it does, but I did manage to get a really cool shot (and a short video clip) of Josh puffing a cigarette on stage, mid-guitar solo. And I think it’s one of the coolest gig pictures I’ve ever captured.
Coolest picture of the night, me thinks
Anyway, so! What was this post all about anyway? It was about reflection. Reflecting on some great shows I got to see, in a move of indulgence that saw me attend three major concerts in a 30-day window. All of this was just setting the scene. I’m sorry my writing gets this long, there’s more to where that came from!
I felt I had something to learn from these very, very different gig experiences. You can learn something from people at every stage of their careers. Someone like the band The Struts, who opened for QOTSA, had more to prove to this audience than the headliner who everyone had come to see. And they put in the work. They pulled out all the stops to put on a tireless, energetic and very engaging show, encouraging singalongs of ‘woah!’ (ah, a classic UK indie rock band from the 2010s!), working the crowd, telling them, “our job tonight is to warm you up for QOTSA, and that’s what we’re gonna do!” Fair play to them, they did, and from word I heard around me, they’ve picked up a few new fans!
Someone like KNEECAP, a hip hop trio, obviously have a very different style of performing than QOTSA. A five piece band with instruments can fill up a stage. Can two MCs and a DJ with a laptop fill a dauntingly large stage? KNEECAP could! They were masters of engaging the crowd, hopping around on stage, drawing the crowd in with their energy, shouts, engaging lyrics and all. No mean feat all the hobbling around, given one member, Mo Chara had just broken his foot! He was on every corner of the stage with a giant plaster on his leg, and I commend that because that was definitely painful!
And so, some reflections on what I as a performer can learn. I wrote this on my Tumblr initially, and a friend who read it told me parts of it helped them get through a presentation, which I hadn’t thought of before, but isn’t it also just a performance put on for an audience? That’s now my favourite piece of feedback. But I want to put it up here on my WordPress blog too, just to stretch those writing fingers again. Let me know what you think!
Just reflecting on the vast and varied live show experiences I’ve been able to have in the last thirty or so days… I’ve moshed with Kneecap, danced with The Last Dinner Party, cheered my friends on at their band’s last show as they decide to split up and go their separate ways on graduating, and experienced the grandeur, rock n roll-in-the-stewardship-of-the-weirdos of Queens Of The Stone Age. All, you’ll agree, very different experiences.
First I’m even lucky to have them all— I’m lucky that I’m in the situation where I’m able to enjoy liking a broad palate of music like that. I was able to take a friend to every single one of these gigs (although I guess the bands themselves were my friends in the local band’s case…). That’s never been the case before, so I’m glad I have friends with whom I share these tastes.
I remember a while ago it wasn’t possible to have some of these interests at the same time. You couldn’t like hip hop and rock at the same time (goodbye 2015, I won’t miss you). I chose the rock side back then, being a guitarist. I’ve moved to the middle of the road now, and I’ve seen brilliant performers on both ends of the musical spectrum.
Both energetic, engaging shows led by musicians with a keen sense of showmanship. Both things that I as a performer want to learn from: both how to fill a stage/space and be comfortable in it. To draw attention to your strengths, and maybe endear people to your weaknesses, or put on such a show that the audience never realises something may be missing.
All so different, but showing me a different aspect of performing and receiving performance. Of lighting, visuals, the whole sensory experience. Knowing how to build a show that’s entertaining even without having eyes always trained on the frontperson: how do you build a show can be experienced in the seats, in the back row.
Josh Homme and Emily Roberts though, they make me want to start a band right now. QOTSA make me want to fill stadiums. Kneecap make me want to inspire. The Last Dinner Party make me want to connect. My friends make me want to fill that gap of not enough girls in rock bands.
I swear this happens every time I go to a gig, but here I am and I’ll say it again. I want it all. I want it all.
Who wants to live forever? Who wants to live forever?? Oh ooohh oh There’s no chance for us It’s all decided for us This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever? Who wants to live forever? Ooh Who dares to love forever Oh oo woh, when love must die
But touch my tears with your lips Touch my world with your fingertips And we can have forever And we can love forever Forever is our today
Who wants to live forever Who wants to live forever Forever is our today Who waits forever anyway?
I saw the chance, and I had to take it! It appears there’s a new feature on WordPress since I was last here, that of a daily prompt to inspire posts. Personally I’m a bigger fan of flying over to my laptop, typing “wordpress.com” into the search bar in a tense frenzy, head bursting with one-liners so bad that if they had to wait another moment before spilling out into the editor, I might lose faith in them, and then unleashing fury on unsuspecting readers’ dashboards.
But hey, if WordPress prompts can spur on full-throated Queen singing, then maybe they aren’t so bad!
Some folks were recently talking about how the ’80s, 90s and 00s all seem to be no longer than “20 years ago”, and how recent everything felt. There was some excellent discussion with one person attributing it to how better media preservation and availability, and how we were still actively hearing and seeing references to our childhoods (I say “our” using the royal we, though I wasn’t exactly around in the 1980s, but came to love ’90s alternative music growing up– all of which feed into this argument). From 80s music still gracing the airwaves on radio stations and pop- and rockstars turning to a healthier life—and realising you can have a career past the age of 45, a really good one at that, to older films of the 80s and 90s being available to watch online or stream, it can be easy to feel like our youth never left us, and so how could it have been 30 years when the music you heard as a kid is still around, and not lost to obscurity, as it would have been for people of the 80s and 90s, who grew up in the 1960s?
How long ago was this?? (Duran Duran, credit: NYT… from 2016!)
For what it’s worth, I recently learned that the BBC only began taping and archiving live television broadcasts from the late 60s and 70s. There’s a fascinating list of episodes from programmes, entire volumes of which are lost to history because it was the norm back in the day to wipe a tape clean and reuse it for a new taping: it was cheaper, it didn’t need extra physical space to store, and many programmes weren’t thought of as important enough to preserve for the future: this included classic Doctor Who series from the 60s, many early episodes of the BBC’s flagship chart music programme, Top Of The Pops, which began in 1964 but was broadcast live and wasn’t recorded until the late 60s—including the Beatles’ only live appearance on the show! Incidentally, the BBC does not have a copy of its live broadcast of the moon landing anymore either. (Fun fact: I’ve been researching Top Of The Pops all week to dig out classic performances from their Christmas Day specials: my radio show happens to have the Christmas Day (well, night) and New Year’s Day (ditto) slots this year! I was planning to do a rundown of some classic year-end studio performances, but I hit a wall when I remembered how most TOTP performances were mimed—sometimes to hilarious outcomes with deliberate goofs from musicians unwilling to mime—but ultimately, an endeavour that my radio listeners will be blissfully oblivious to! Oh dear.)
The lost TOTP tapes… an old silent tape was found in 2015. The BBC lost theirs.
The availability of everything from everywhere that we have now, and improved digital restoration abilities can make media from 60 years ago feel like it was published last year. It’s something I largely agree with: when I see high-resolution pictures of musicians from the 80s, 90s, or especially the 00s, the decade on the brink of all the big technological advancements to follow, they do often look very modern. Fashion hasn’t changed altogether, and 90s “grunge revival” was at its peak when I was coming around to alternative music in 2014. “Y2K nostalgia” is in full-swing this decade (a separate post which I swear I’ll make), which I won’t mind as long as they bring back colourful clothing. Black makes up my first 15 favourite shades of clothing colours, but it’s nice to brighten it up occasionally!
The only things in a picture that really (and abruptly!) date them for me is seeing a piece of technology in the picture. There’s a picture of Damon Albarn, the frontman of Blur in the late 90s with a wireless telephone. There’s a picture of Muse’s frontman Matt Bellamy from 2005 with the old iPod earphones. Colour pictures from radio stations with broadcasting equipment also do this for me. I’ll admit that while we still certainly have, and regularly use CD players on air, and vinyl to a lesser extent, the digital library is the most-used at our station. That is, when it’s not upended by someone playing a song off YouTube! (I listed off those example images from memory. I’ll add them in if I win the nightmarish battle with Google Image search terms!)
Still, I think there’s more to this ubiquity of pop culture from the past than simply availability. Regarding pop culture, and music and radio stations in particular, I think there is also something to be said about the current ownership of pop culture simply focusing on safe and proven, profitable hits rather than taking a chance on anything new.
I can speak to music more than to any other area so I won’t try to generalise it to other forms of media, but radio stations used to be focused on playing up-and-coming talent. Record labels used to have A&R teams who would scout at 50-200 capacity gigs and discover artists who seemed to have potential, and take a chance on them. This isn’t to say that the record industry of the ’80s and 90s was in any way benevolent. It was an exploit fest in itself, but that’s a different discussion.
Festival bills used to change quite a lot from year to year until about 2010. It’s an example I use very often, but the Stone Roses were one of the most widely credited bands for laying down the foundations of the Britpop scene of UK alternative music in the 90s. In 1995, they had to pull out of a Glastonbury headline slot at the last minute, a highly anticipated gig. The replacement the festival found for them was an indie band that had hung around for some 10 years without much success, but had recently had one single that was rising up the charts…
Glastonbury has no reason to take a chance on Pulp in 1995, but they did. That gig virtually relaunched Pulp’s career. They are still one of the most widely recognised alternative bands of the UK 90s.
Nobody is taking those kind of chances anymore. Not to slander anyone, but it’s a safe bet that Liam Gallagher will headline a festival like Reading rather than artists who have been proving themselves as live mammoths ever being given the top slot (yes I am talking about Wolf Alice).
Some festivals are so afraid of taking a risk, they’d rather change their festival’s identity and shoe in proven pop stars than take a chance on up and coming artists in their genre. Sometimes it works gloriously, e.g., I genuinely loved Stormzy at Reading Festival. I really want to see Little Simz headline Reading next time! But ah, the difference between Reading and Glastonbury was that Reading was a rock festival, wasn’t it? It would be like getting Download fest to start playing other genres. They are a metal festival! Download is meant to be a place where new metal artists get a stage, a platform to reach out to new potential metal fans!
In the name of a “safe” hit, we’re losing the avenues that artists in more niche genres used to have available to take a shot at becoming big, becoming a part of our pop culture, which woefully, remains in the 80s and 90s.
Labels won’t look at anyone who doesn’t already have a million followers on TikTok. Historically, the way a new band could get the sort of exposure that might cross their paths with a million fans would’ve been evening music television programmes, like the aforementioned Top Of The Pops, who, while they largely played music that was already in the charts, were known to shine a spotlight on non-charting acts with promise as well. Other television programmes like the Old Grey Whistle Test in the 80s did a similar thing. Top Of The Pops was reaching 15 million people during its popular days, and about 1-3 million towards the end of its run. Now, you’re relying on an algorithm analysing segments of your video to decide who, and how many, should see it.
There was a big implosion at this LA rock station called KROQ a few years ago. Back in the 90s, they discovered and broke a lot of the artists that went on to be key players in the alt rock scene of the time. Many of them were independent bands when KROQ was spinning them. Next decade came corporate ownership. The station was more of less stuck in the 90s. In 2016-17, you’d still hear them playing Under The Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers 5,000 times a day. It was Smells Like Teen Spirit-fest. Of course they were losing listenership and bleeding money! Even their own DJs weren’t able to mix things up and play newer artists. In Los Angeles! Do you know how many artists are local to Los Angeles? How many good new artists they’d have been able to find to play, in any genre they wished, if only they wanted to?
But no, again, instead of taking a chance on new music, expanding our pop culture, they bottled. The ownership fired all their regular DJs and called a rebrand: they would begin playing Top 40s pop hits now in a desperate bid to pull in younger listenership. I could name other cases of indie station death-by-corporate-sponsor (XFM).
There needn’t have been a complete disconnect. There are young people amongst these new and unheard artists. There are young people amongst the listenership of old bands. There are people in their 40s at lots of cool new bands’ gigs I go to. So many of the champions of new music happen to be people who witnessed music rise to cultural heights in the 80s-00s, and want the same for the next generation (fans, presenters, musicians, so many more! BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson, who does the BBC Music Introducing shows and is himself a national treasure and icon who wrote the UK queer anthem, Glad To Be Gay. Tim Burgess of the 80s Madchester band The Charlatans, lover of new music, Bandcamp enthusiast, and the guy who launched Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties, initially a way for people to get together and listen to their favourite albums in lockdown, now, a way for new artists and fans to sit around the fire while musicians tell fascinating stories about their new work, and admiring music lovers get impressed by albums they may not have otherwise found: just some examples of lovely people!)
It may have saved your lockdown… it may also kickstart the career of a band that becomes your life! (Credits: @listening_party on Twitter)
But with no one in those important places pushing to modernise popular culture, it becomes a dangerous feedback loop: if you pay no attention (or money) to what’s happening with artists right now, don’t contribute any coverage to a growing scene, it has no avenues to grow. It is stifled. There’s no money in it. Excellent bands split up, pull out of tours, cancel shows: it doesn’t make financial sense to carry on. The mad amount of touring you need to undertake to make ends meet on tour pushes you to your physical and mental limits (sources and examples because I am not in the least exaggerating: Santigold, Animal Collective, Little Simz, who won the Mercury Prize for the best album of 2022 in the UK. If someone making the best album in the country can’t tour North America, does any of this make sense? There are more: Arlo Parks, Stormzy; plus so many artists who’ve had to cancel smaller legs of tours for various similar reasons: Wet Leg, Yard Act, even Placebo).
Present-day independent music scenes struggle, all the while a radio station owner get to turn to the past and say, “I don’t see any good new music. Guess there’s been nothing good new since the 90s.” That coupled with nostalgia, the world crumbling around us and a longing to return to the past—a perceived ‘simpler time’, can be a death blow to modern music!
The short version: at least where music is concerned, new pop culture very much exists! It’s not being promoted in more popular media outlets because they are prioritising old profits over investing in music’s future.
But I’ll tell you what, grab a mate and go to a gig. Go see a new band who are up and coming. It’s the best feeling in the world: you’re not pining for a period that’s over, or living through a younger self that might not exist anymore. You’re in the present, you’re alive, there’s good music. You are making new memories, you are happy, alive and in the now!
(And if you want to chat more about something like this oh god hit me up)
Mmm, gigs… I saw these incredible guys, Fontaines D.C. this summer. I’m seeing them again next year!
Pete Doherty, frontman of ’00s English indie rock band The Libertines knows a thing or two about being a talked-about rockstar in a band making a buzz.
But putting aside his heady early days as a Libertine and accepting his place as a spearhead of the “indie sleaze” scene, he was recently talking about some new bands that he’s been listening to that he thinks sound really impressive, what stuck out to me was he said if those bands had been around 20 years ago, they’d have been huge, because he’s not wrong and I’m sure I’ve heard other people say that too.
People complain about there not being “any great new bands now”, and I’m not sure that’s in any part because bands have been lacking. I’m not sure what it is, but for better or worse, there are bands and groups now, but fewer rockstars, to use a clichéd word.
I wishfully thought that was because there’s more self-awareness in musicians right now, hopefully hopefully, a decline in the sort of idolisation that created delusions of grandeur and groupie culture or whatever; a bit more respect for fans? It might play a part, but then I also remember that with social media now, we seem to have made parasocial projection worse so that might not be it…
I think it might be the lack of a cultural narrative. Rock and alt bands are more likely to “keep it real” and be less on social media. You’d be far less likely to see a “funny, candid” 8-second TikTok from a rock band go viral.
Most of the rock bands you love who got big in the ’00s and ’10s, the beginning of the age where what you post is as important to your career as your creative output, I just think their fans are the hardest workers in the world. The flower-crown-thumbnail “Arctic Monkeys being a mood for 3 minutes 43 seconds” compilations on YouTube did more for Arctic Monkeys to me in 2016 than any press release. Their fans work hard, but today’s problem is that you need those fans first; you need to introduce yourself to people, and the way a lot of musicians who (in the words of music’s nemesis and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek) “engage more with their market audience” do that is through hoping their songs or other videos go viral.
I don’t think that certain guitar-based genres that were very popular until the mid-00s are unpopular or “dying” because people aren’t interested in them anymore. Kids are interested in rock music. Look at Måneskin! I just think it’s far less likely for a guitar band to be constantly making and uploading those sort of videos, for whatever reason: “we keep it real, we aren’t going to partake in this artifice of social media popularity; come see us in the flesh” etc., or maybe just a lack of inclination to do it. If I’m already on a computer doing stuff, I’m far more likely to just hit New Tab > tumblr.com than if I were sitting with my guitar in my lap and no phone in sight. Maybe some bands still believe in the air of mystery that not broadcasting every segment of your life weekly provides… or provided, back before pumping out constant (needless) content began feeling like something people needed to do just to fight for your attention in an ocean of content. Something, anything, a small cry of “hey, remember us!”, but on an app that doesn’t let you remember anything beyond two scrolls of a page.
What I was saying about a “cultural narrative”: the death and decline of music journalism. Music magazines used to hold a lot of power: they were people’s first introductions to who so many bands were, as people, as artists with motives and driving philosophies. People used to read these magazines, ready to take a chance on artists because someone whose taste in music they trust thinks they’re good, so it must be worth giving it a shot. Magazines were also crucial to the kind of magic and mystery (or myths and lies, your call) built up around being a musician in the industry that gave so many music fans a sense of… subculture identity I think?
I mean, I’m glad that people aren’t as deluded about what goes on in the music industry now. I think back to how artists speaking out against injustice in the industry were derided and never believed because we were all set up to believe that musicians had the rock ‘n roll lifestyle! Luxury! Wealth! Fragile egos! Fame and adoration!, when a lot of those were more of a facade rented for a video than a lifestyle, and in fact artists were stuck in record deals that were going nowhere, deals taking 80% of their income. I think of artists facing mistreatment, the various ignored cries for help in the face of rotting mental health that artists have endured. I think back to protests by Prince against the rights to his literal legal name, and Pearl Jam’s criticism of Ticketmaster… fans were not supportive of their moves at the time. Ask the Taylor Swift fan in your life how they feel about Ticketmaster today (not that artists hadn’t been talking about it before). Pearl Jam were right, weren’t they?
And so I’m glad that there’s a bit more transparency in the industry, and musicians’ careers aren’t undone by one biased interviewer or by an unnecessarily mean review by a writer who fancies themselves a playwright rather than a journalist (*ahem* Pitchfork *ahem*). All the same, as either an artist or a listener, it’s a bit hard to navigate how much is going on on social media and get a sense of what it’s like out there. And sure, magazines (now websites) are also sailing the same choppy waters. Unfortunately, sometimes clicks and engagement mean more to a website’s finances than a well-written article about an artist or a scene, which doesn’t help with skewed impressions of a scene.
So yeah, Pete Doherty’s right. Some of the artists coming out today would’ve been the biggest bands in the world 20 years ago. They’d have had a legendary interview in like, NME that would still be scanned and shared today. They’d be able to continue making their music without having to spend time sculpting their whole persona to be internet-friendly, clickable or viral. They could thrive off songs that you can sit back and enjoy as a full piece, rather than wondering which 30-second clip could soundtrack the most tiktok funny videos.
I don’t know. Maybe I slag off TikTok too much, I don’t even go there. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about curation. I’ve been thinking about how music moving to the internet was all about freeing it from the grip and arbiting of snobby music journalists on TV, radio or in print, who thought they could dictate what music was good and what was not. (Could it be that rock music was genuinely just mediocre and we had 5 decades of circlejerking just promoting a certain kind of music—notably, music that was predominantly white, while historically non-white and especially black-dominated genres of music were written off as lesser art? Absolutely, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that there is certainly a racial element to it: guitar band culture has always been super white, with the rest of us as occasional guests. Social media certainly has broken that down, giving music fans the power power to make up their own minds, and they have spoken!)
Still, I see that in a sea of content that no one person can possibly get through, there returns that old need for curation, and this I certainly know TikTok has. TikTok channels that talk about and recommend music are doing what music journalists did in print with a sampler CD attached, but as a 2 minute video instead. I know rock music fans in particular have always hated when an external piece of media makes a song popular and send over new fans “from” a popular source (see: 2008 Muse fans about people who came through Supermassive Black Hole being in Twilight, and for example people being introduced to goth subculture from the Netflix show Wednesday).
Hating song snippets being in popular tiktok videos is nothing new. But at the end of the day, it is a form of curation in a way too, because it’s almost impossible to “organically” discover something new on social media nowadays. I’d say you certainly could go on a blind Bandcamp deep-dive and actually find really good artists—that’s how I stumbled over Dry Cleaning and Fontaines D.C.: quite blind, on Bandcamp! Live, “in the flesh” (:P) at a music venue is another way to stumble into good music (I’ve found a few good bands this way too). But mostly, you need some curation, some direction these days: even Bandcamp has lists, interviews, features and Bandcamp Radio to point you in a specific direction. Bandcamp made it compulsory for artists to add at least a broad (real) location where they were based, so that fans looking for city and country-wide music scenes would be able to discover other artists from around there. It has worked!
I wonder if this will lead people back to some older forms of media: magazines, radio? I suppose those have been updated in the form of YouTube/TikTok channels, tweets and podcasts, in some sense.
But Pete Doherty is right. In a different world, one where a musician didn’t have to do the job that 20 separate people would’ve once done: music journo, PR, print & publish, A&R, a billion things in admin; there are plenty of acts today who would’ve been huge if only they’d been able to exist 20 years ago.
Today I found out why no two people to cook Indian dishes have ever achieved the same taste. It all comes down to one “ingredient”.
One “ingredient” I say, because it’s garam masala (which translates roughly to hot spice), which isn’t one ingredient. Sure, you can buy it as a single ingredient, but it’s essentially a mix of a bunch of Indian spices: crushed peppercorns, cumin seeds, red chilli powder, two types of cardamoms (green and black), coriander seeds (not coriander leaves mind! That’s garnishing and belongs in the trash I hate it so much), and a few more: cinnamon powder, nutmeg powder, curry leaves, a bunch more, even I don’t remember them all.
But the point is, the amount of each spice determines what your garam masala will taste like, because there’s no one dominant ingredient really. So it comes down to your tried and tested/passed-down-family proportions, rather than the ingredients themselves, and this is just talking about one single ‘ingredient’ of a dish. Some people use ginger and garlic/ginger-garlic paste, others feel tomato and onions will suffice, some parts/cuisines of India use more sugar in cooking everything (Gujarat), some eat drier, spicier food (Rajasthan, possibly because it’s mostly desert. Little grows there!), if you head down south, the ingredients used are entirely different: they prefer rye, tamarind, round chillis (no idea what they’re called)
**Update: I found out what they’re called. Ramnad chillis, or locally, ramnad mundu, or gundu. They’re native, naturally, to a village called Ramnad in Tamil Nadu, and they’re used in the state’s famous Chettinad cuisine.
These are dried gundus, as they are when used in cooking.
Fresh gundus. Look like cherries, don’t they? Don’t mistake them for cherries when you eat them!
Oh… saying that to myself over and over I just realised, gundu in Tamil means fat. Gundu chillis. Really. That’s what you came up with, Chennai? Fat chillis? Keep it right up…
It’s funny, because I had to google what red round chillis are actually named and learned that chillis aren’t even native to India, no matter how they’re the first thing you’d associate with Indian cuisine (general). They were introduced from Portugal in the 1500s (Vasco da Gama, etc.). Before that there was just… black pepper. Even then, north Indian food, which is even more heavily associated with spice (dried red chillis are called Kashmiri chillis, afterall!), was in the dark about chillis until much later, when a Maratha king (mid-west-ish) decided he’d had enough of northern ignorance.
Aesthetic™. Don’t you dare rub your eye. (Kashmiri chillis and corresponding red chilli powder)
(Note: that above is poetically and comedically great, but historically inaccurate. His move north was to challenge the Mughals, then emperors of India till just before the British takeover (and partly directly responsible for it), who contributed their lot to cuisine. A lot of what you think of as stereotypically heavy Indian food/takeout, is in fact Mughal and is called that in India. So while you’d “takeout Indian” in the US or Canada, “go for a curry” in the UK, you’d be “eating Mughlai” were you to order the same in India. It’s assimilated into Indian cuisine comfortably enough that people sometimes use the words synonymously (or who are we kidding, use “Indian” to exclusively mean “Mughlai” and may not have heard of the latter word. Unrelatedly, I was quite pleased when a friend told me the town he lived in, which had a fair Indian diaspora, did some excellent south Indian food!)
Garden variety green chillis, “locally” called hari mirchi (hari = green, mirchi = chilli/spice). I say, ‘local’, but there are at least 200 local languages in India, so obviously, it’s not local to them all…
Unfortunately I cannot tell you much more about them, even after spending an embarrassing 25 minutes googling. I am still not sure if they are grown in Andhra Pradesh (Andhra Pradesh? Telangana? I don’t even know any more… and whichever of the two it is; the new Andhra Pradesh or the new Telangana, or if it was pre-split Andhra Pradesh then that, but whichever it is), it is one of the largest exporters of chilli in the world!
But green chillis could well be grown in Kerala. Or Gujarat. Or, as the one thing all of google unanimously agrees upon says, in your back garden from chilli seeds! I should grow chillis from chilli seeds. I love green chillis. Then again, all the magic of a green chilli lies in the seed: that’s where all the spice, flavour and capsaicin is! I might end up eating it before we’ve even begun…
Anyway! I could go on for hours about chillis: there’s a variety of lighter green coloured green chillis which have (allegedly) all the flavour of a green chilli and none of the spice. They do still have the seeds, they just don’t bite. They’re for LiteTM enjoyers of spice. That sucks the joy out of my life. That they specifically bred chillis for mildness makes my head whirl. Still, with the sheer variety in Indian chillis, it’s quite passable as just Another Type Of Indian Chilli.
Light green, devoid of any juice, joy or purpose.
Disgust.
Anyway, I could absolutely go on about chillis for hours and this post wasn’t even about chillis, it was specifically about the Indian enigma and unique kitchen handshake that is garam masaala, and we’ll never figure it out. That is the conclusion. Thank you all for reading.
The DCMS’s inquiry into the impact of streaming on the music economy is out
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in the UK has released findings from its months-long inquiry into the impact that streaming has had on musicians, and it is scathing. It agrees with most of the points that artists have been raising (particularly in the last year or so). Here is a short recap of it by the BBC,
Labour MP Kevin Brennan also posted his recap of the report on his Twitter. He has been pushing a private member’s bill to amend the UK digital copyright laws to treat streams the same way music used in TV and radio is, where the royalties are split 50-50 with labels and artists (equitable remuneration), and also was involved with the committee that heard evidence from musicians earlier and that cross-examined streaming and record label UK bosses, in the lead up to this conclusion.
(Sony recently announced it was dropping unrecouped remuneration from its legacy artists. It kind of goes without saying, but it just goes to show again that the record labels really… don’t need 70 years worth of 80% of your income. They don’t. It’s not a “risky investment into undecided talent”, it’s exploitation. Don’t listen to the BPI, they’re talking through their arses (again). I bring up the BPI because the BBC have quoted their “cautious” response to the inquiry and they’re too polite to point out this isn’t the first time the BPI has spouted this clownery under the guise of defending “risky investment” into talent; you don’t say the same of traditional investments BPI, pipe down)
Some of the standout stats which were shocking to me were that:
80% of music consumption in the UK came from streaming.There is no alternative. For a streaming company to shirk responsibility and say people can just “opt out” is barefaced lies, and streaming is not a level playing field.
I know YouTube pays out the lowest rates for music (less than 0.05p—not pounds, pence), but YouTube makes up 51% of music streaming, while it paid only 7% out to musicians.
Tom Gray, the musician behind the Broken Record campaign that played a big part in an investigation like this ever being conducted, also found that the inquiry confirmed what musicians had been saying all along about the paltry payouts from streaming.
In general, Tom Gray is someone you should follow if you want to keep up with the ongoing issue of fair payments and royalties in music, and his Broken Record campaign.
It remains to be seen what the larger impact of the committee’s recommendations will be, Spotify has always felt to me like a company enjoying the 7-day free-trial version of exploitation benefits. It’s well known to anyone familiar with the history of music technology, or even tech in general, that laws are always about 10 years behind existing technology. We saw this happen with sampling as well, for example, where record labels were suing left, right and centre but the courts didn’t have a unanimous definition for what legally constituted a sample.
Spotify always felt to me like a company whose 5-year plan was to make a profit off the fact that we don’t have a legal definition for a stream, and it’s starting to feel like the law is somewhat catching up. Of course, any changes will only be applied to payment in the UK, but such decisions are known to ripple around the world (see for example, Australia’s legal suits against Google and Facebook over payment of royalties to news publishers whose articles both companies used for little compensation as google news results and the facebook news feed, has been followed by the EU suing Google €500 billion for failing to negotiate a fair deal with news publishers there in the 2 months it was allotted)
I want to write about David R Edwards today. He was a singer and Welsh language revolutionary, and passed away last week from health complications, and I wanted to highlight his impact on Welsh music.
Dave performing on stage. Image via welshnot
David was a Welsh pioneer, singer in experimental post-punk band Datblygu (pronounced Dat-bluh-gee), sometimes (kind of reductively) called ‘the Welsh Fall’. While Dave was a big fan of Mark E Smith and the Fall, Datblygu didn’t sound like them very much. What they sounded like often depended on what Patricia Morgan, other half of Datblygu, was listening to.
What Dave did so well was encapsulate his experiences of life in Welsh-speaking Wales with such minute detail, yet so succinctly, leading to many calling him a poet rather than just singer and lyricist.
Dave sang in Welsh, simply because it was his mother tongue and because he was bored of everything else being done in Welsh prior to that (prior to the Anhrefn revolutionisation of Welsh pop (as in popular) music, which Datblygu were a part of. There’s currently an excellent radio documentary about it narrated by BBC radio’s Huw Stephens and Sian Eleri called The Story of Miwsig which I recommend)
Dave is cited as a direct influence on so many bands that went on to break through in the 1990s and bring Welsh language music to the forefront of British pop culture: Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Catatonia, and many of the bands that emerged during the 00s and even today regard him as a Welsh hero.
I remember a Welsh music podcast talking to Elis James, Welsh broadcaster and comedian, who was a musician before he switched routes to comedy. He talked about being a bilingual teen in Carmarthen starting a band and wondering which language his band should perform in. English was the obvious commercially accessible route, but Welsh felt more familiar, yet it seemed a bit unusual because no one was really doing that at the time. He described then hearing Datblygu for the first time, and how it changed things forever for him, how Dave words expressed thoughts that he had had, but had not heard expressed in his language. Lines written about his lived experiences, and his opinions on life in Welsh-speaking Wales.
Because Dave, prominent speaker of the Welsh language, was not afraid to criticise the small community that was listening and able to understand him. He brought the Welsh language down from this mythical, untouchable pedestal, and in a way, made it a breathing, living, human language: touchable, open to criticism, unfragile; as any other language would be. (Is unfragile a word? Or is it just robust? You know what I mean though). As he said in his own words, he was ready to drag ‘Sgymraeg’ kicking and screaming into the new century, but always with ready humour and razor-sharp wit.
Dave more recently. On the left is bandmate and friend Pat Morgan
I talked about him a little and paid my tribute by opening my radio show this week with a song by Datblygu, although to have to choose just one is painful! If you’d like, you can listen to highlights of the show in podcast form. For various legal reasons, we aren’t allowed to have music playing in our podcasts, but I am absolutely allowed to link you to playlist of every song played on the show. We’ve been doing queer music history all month and this week’s was about the 1990s, I might write a whole blogpost about that separately. The 90s are my favourite period of music, and incidentally, Datblygu’s first three albums, considered essential listening, were released in the 90s (album 1, Wyau, was in 1988, which is close). Anyway, all music played on the radio should be available as links in the podcast description!
There were obviously many Datblygu songs I could have played. Rife with astute observations and character sketches breathed life into, many Datblygu songs are mini-experiences. I chose to go with Y Teimlad though literally meaning “the feeling”, a slightly mellower song, a hopeful and optimistic song about love. It’s a fairly simple song, but don’t let a glimpse of the lyrics/translated lyrics deceive you: it’s profound, it’s touching. Many will point out a melancholic touch to it, but so versatile was the writing partnership of David and Patricia.
Of course, there will be others out there who know much more, and know it more intimately, through the experience of growing up Welsh, knowing exactly what Dave was referring to, hearing him describe someone and knowing exactly what he’s talking about. Some will know just through knowing David himself. I can’t lay claim to either. I got into Datblygu only a year ago, and am not Welsh. I don’t know if a write-up by me can do him justice. Elis James wrote a wonderful and touching tribute in the Guardian, if you are looking for something better. But hopefully we can agree on the genius and nuance of David’s writing and impact on Welsh music, language, and even culture.
If you’re interested, there are the lyrics to Y Teimlad, followed by a translation.
Y teimlad sy’n hala pobol i anghofio amser Y teimlad sy’n halwch chi i feddwl nad yw’r dyfodol mor fler Y teimlad sydd yn dod a cyn sbarduno gobaith Ti’n gweld y tywod llwch ond ti’n gweld fod yno flodau
Y teimlad, beth yw’r teimlad? Y teimlad sydd heb esboniad Y teimlad, beth yw’r teimlad? Y teimlad sy’n cael ei alw’n gariad Cariad, cariad, y teimlad
Mae hapusrwydd yn codi ac yn troi yn wir rhywbryd Ac mae’n dangos fod yno rhywbeth mewn hyd yn oed dim byd A pan mae’r teimlad yno mae bywyd yn werth parhau Ond yn ei absenoldeb mae’r diweddglo yn agosau
Y teimlad, beth yw y teimlad? Y teimlad, sydd heb esboniad? Y teimlad, beth yw y teimlad? Y teimlad, sy’n cael ei alw’n gariad
The feeling that makes people forget time The feeling that makes you think the future isn’t so bad The feeling that comes before sparking off hope You see the sand dust but you see that there’s flowers
The feeling, what is the feeling? The feeling that’s inexplicable The feeling, what is the feeling? The feeling that is called love Love, love, the feeling
Happiness rises and turns true sometimes And it shows that there’s something even in nothing And when the feeling is there, life is worth continuing But in its absence the end approaches
The feeling, what is the feeling? The feeling, which is inexplicable? The feeling, what is the feeling? The feeling that is called love
Nos da, Dave. Cwsg mewn hedd. RIP, you will be missed. x
That’s an old performance of the song by the band. Super Furry Animals included a cover of this song, done in their own inimitable style (Dave approved) on their 2000 Welsh-language album Mwng (pronounced Moong), which is still the best-selling Welsh language album of all time.
Datblygu’s first albums, should you want to check them out further (and that’s a recommended position to take!), are called Wyau (Eggs), Pyst (Post) and Libertino. John Peel loved them and played them endlessly. Easy to see why. They’d just put out a new album last year, August’s Cwm Gwagle, meaning Void Valley. Take a listen to that as well and you will see, Dave never lost form.
P.S. there’s always been some trouble with embedding stuff into wordpress, so here’s the radio show podcast in case it didn’t embed. Do, do tell me if you thought anything of it, the thing with radio is it’s you talking to a wall, I appreciate the phrase “radio silence” a lot more after doing this! Unlike chatting with someone or, oh I don’t know, livestreaming probably, you don’t hear anything back when you talk. You can’t see anyone’s faces. It keeps you awfully on end: ‘I wonder what they’re thinking as they hear this!’
So if there’s something you’d thought to say, do it, don’t be shy! (, said the terribly shy one)
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I was thinking about the 9-songwriters-on-an-album phenomenon.
One person per string?
When you look at people who rise to be chart-hitting pop makers, their first material is often written by them, or with a band or a friend or two, someone who will contribute a different instrument (heck, I can write tunes but cannot for the life of me ever figure out how drums work), or maybe write/inspire a line of a chorus. It’s not usually written in a room full of professional songwriters who “know the market”.
So obviously these are people who know how to write a song and have some talent, otherwise they’d never get any industry attention.
(I know this is simplified… obviously there will be some people who know the right people in the industry, know people who have obligations to their parents, etc. or come in from an acting/modelling/influencer background, where it’s more likely that the record industry wants access to their base rather than them needing exposure from labels and the industry, or in some cases, simply that someone looks good or talks to the papers well. I don’t know how often you’ll get the last one… I imagine there’s a lot more good looking influencers out there for the industry to see incentive in someone similar without the follows? As for someone who talks, I’m imagining someone like a Liam Gallagher, keep yourself relevant by always having something to say, but thanks to the internet, I can guarantee you no one knows how to “talk to the press” anymore. Just because a phone is 5 cm and two finger taps away, we overshare, and I’m not using that word lightly)
‘Know wha’ I mean?’ Credits: Pinterest
So why would someone who obviously is talented enough to set themselves apart from the crowd, need 9 songwriters on a song?
Digging into historic music trends, I’m going to make a guess: the Curse of the Sophomore Album.
You know the phrase? “You have your whole life to make your first album, and 18 months to pull out the second”.
I think the (non-independent) industry has figured out how to avoid the mediocre second album. Get those writers on your album who aren’t on record #2. You can talk to them about what you’re generally feeling, give them the outline, and then they can write it like it was your first. It just keeps the investments from, I don’t know, showing less profits than they like I guess.
Are they then just delaying the Second Album? Is Sophomore Album Curse inevitable? Do music labels then stay in this loop of employing veterans and debutants every time, so that you get a fresh first album, a hardened, gritty tenth album, but never the Second Album Where It All Went Wrong? (I mean, this is rhetorical. Of course they do.)
It does, of course carry the valid concern that if the same set of songwriters and producers who work on one album work on a different one (say, for an artist on the same label), and there’s some 7 of them, you’re bound to find people in songwriting partnerships that have been done before. Of course, it’s not the end of the world if two musicians who have written together before, write together again. Have you met rock bands? They do this for decades!
But in a short space of time, this does mean that songs across artists of a similar genre might have very similar sounds, or at least feels. It’s why many bands’ albums in the past tended to have a particular vibe to them, and why someone who wasn’t an ardent fan could dismiss every song on the album as “sounding the same”. While I’d hate to admit it, I’ve also simultaneously used the phrase “[album name]-sound”, and there is some truth to being in a certain frame of mind, or at a certain point in your life, that gives your music a certain flavour. But it does become a bit same-ish if every musician out there was writing from the same vantage point, we wouldn’t have fifty artists, we’d have one.
I guess it also means that when these songwriters inevitably come out of the shadows, decide to pave their own path and tell their stories in their own unique voice, we’d have already heard it before. And that’s a shame.
Owing to the pouring spells of rain we’ve had of late, I found myself face to face with a massive beetle this week.
It was just sticking to the window, minding its own business and trying to go unnoticed, but with the sun spotlighting it like the next runway model meeting the bigtime, you couldn’t really help notice it. Trouble is, it nearly gave me a heart attack, since I couldn’t see it too well against the harsh sunlight, I almost mistook it for a cockroach and freaked out.
How, you ask, can I so seamlessly mention harsh sunlight and pouring rain in the space of a paragraph? To answer that, I’ll have to explain to you the four seasons experienced in my city: mild summer (December to February), summer (March to May), wet summer (June to August) offensively out-of-place summer (September to November). Hope that handy guide helps.
My dad decided to play uppity landlord and promptly evicted the beetle. I don’t blame him, this guy was huge. But if that was to be the end of the story, I’d have to fill the rest of this post with fluff. Safe to say readers, that was not the last we saw of it.
This beetle instead goes the clever route and decides to try its luck again later that night. It slipped under the door. How a creature that big manages to fit itself under a door frame baffles me but after watching an eight minute video compilation titled Cats Are Liquid, I don’t question such things anymore.
So I come across this beetle, which my dad has now nicknamed Beetle Bailey in honour of the Sunday comics, later at night walking along the floor. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to watch a medium sized insect walking anywhere, but they’re large enough not to be too quick in their scuttling. It’s a bit hypnotic, because their stride is instead quite rhythmic, so I’ve been gazing at it for about ten minutes.
The original Beetle Bailey. Now imagine this, but entirely different: size of a thumb, brown, stick legs, etc.
Now a tiled floor and a plywooded doorframe is barely a poor man’s substitute for the woodland outdoors (actually who am I kidding, I live in a city), and you never realise this more acutely than when you see an expert climber trying to navigate a smooth wall.
He’s getting nowhere fast. A good reason for that comes down to an old story I must first bring up: we once had an event I cannot remember now that needed some prettying up around the walls. Now we live in a rented place, so getting anything permanent on the walls was out of question, so what did we do? Whacked on some smooth, shiny gift-wrapping paper. The perfect quick-fix. Of course years later, it’s still stuck on there, so don’t let the “nothing permanent” bit trouble you too much, but I digress.
No Spider-Man he, he puts a tentative foot up the wall and ingloriously slides down.
Never mind. With the conviction of a beetle who cannot understand why a smooth, yellow gift wrapping paper should be any different from a tree bark, he tries to scale the foil wall again.
I’m not sure what beetular physics is at play here, but the effort of trying to hoist himself up front first onto a shiny vertical surface dealt him the decisive blow of flipping him over onto his back. Beetle Bailey is in trouble here, me thinks, as flipping onto the back is usually some sort of endgame for insects, since it leaves them fairly helpless. I have absolutely no intention of touching it, fraidy cat as I am, but from afar I can’t help thinking, what is it going to do now?
Well I didn’t have to think for long and neither will you readers, because here’s what it did next— It flopped right over, doing a 180 degree turn, not by rolling over its side, but as close as I can describe it, by arching its back and propelling itself up lengthwise, from the head. Just imagine your favourite action person (or rather, their unsung stuntsperson) but you’ll need to mentally shrink them down to a round tiny brown bug.
All this happened in the blink of an eye, twice it did this and twice I was astonished. It’s not something to get used to quite easily!
But if you thought that was the end of its athletic achievements, it then demonstrated some A-grade thievery stunts and gave a 101 in burglary by showing me exactly how it got in, by slipping under the door to my grandparents’ room. A mere slit of a gap. Conquered by this tall, fat beetle.
Now I haven’t much to say unless you have an active imagination, but I’m just saying that if limbo was an Olympic sport, and if the rules of sport could’ve stretched a bit to allow a beetle raised on home soil to represent the country in the Games… I’m not saying it’s very likely, but we’d certainly come home with more medals. Namely, gold for strangest competitor (gender neutral), world icon (Beetle Bailey as he is, according to my dad) and perhaps even deadest contestant (squash. He’d do our squash team some good I imagine.)
Look, I know I know, if we focused on the possible, we’d work on getting limbo recognised as Olympic sport.
It’d probably be a very aesthetically appealing sport, sort of like diving, synchronised swimming, ice skating, with the judges giving “limbees” a score out of ten. Most graceful beetle might be in the cards.
Anyway, the point of all this is, I’ve lost a beetle. Now as I’m writing this at 2 AM, one can only imagine the many possible directions this post can take by the time dawn breaks and shines its light on the tiled floors of my grandparents bedroom…
Update: I awoke this morning to hear the tale from my dad. Far from counting its stunts as luck, this Beetle decided to journey further, and was found by my dad early the next morning in his bathroom.
MattWilliamsonLive 