Ho Hum

Today's writing goose came in the form of a Sunday New York Times article, which went on at considerable length about the current era's lack of a defining sound in popular music.

One working theory is atemporality: because artists and listeners both are overwhelmed with the internet's vast offerings of musical history to gobble up, sounds these days seem rooted in other times. Here is a key paragraph:

'Those who don’t have much personal investment in the idea that popular music should always be pushing forward probably won’t be especially troubled by the current pop scene’s muddled mix of stasis and regression. But those whose expectations have been shaped by growing up during more fast-moving and ever-changing pop decades — which is basically all of them to date except for the 2000s — are likely to be perplexed and disheartened by these developments. In particular the innovation-obsessed ’60s and the cyber-optimistic ’90s instilled an ideal of pop music as herald of the future, a vanguard sector of the culture that was a little bit ahead of the rest of society.'

Well, maybe. More time must pass, I think, before we have a real handle on that. Perhaps we gotta plow through the Bachmann and Cuomo administrations before we have enough perspective to see whether we are in a lull or whether 1955-1995 represented popular music's one and only extended period of landscape-altering creativity.

For there is a phrase in that Times paragraph that is treated as a rule-defining exception when in reality it may be the new standard: '...all of them to date except for the 2000s...'

Perhaps we should consider that there has not been an era-defining sound for over a dozen years and there may never again be one, save the occasional novelty hit or American Idol homogeneity for the masses. Could it be that the boundaries have been forever drawn and now it's a matter of endless permutation within those boundaries? And if so, does that matter?

I think the big change in those dozen years has been a power-shift from the industry to the consumer. The plus: more choice. The minus: less guidance.

Now more than ever, musical-taste progression is an individual proposition. It must come from within. No one gets to gets to lean back in their listening chair, suck on a mentholated Tiparillo, and proclaim musical ennui. 'Music today sucks' or 'There's nothing new under the sun' simply doesn't cut it. This attitude is akin to deciding that Earth is boring and that the only thing for it is to vacation on Jupiter.

What's boring is staying within one's own comfort zone.

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Some Three-Dots and a Small Diet Coke, Please

Count me as one who is sad to see Borders go down. There was good sport in knocking the Big Box media specialists (hey, I worked for one), especially for their effect on local indies. Fact is, though, whether large or small these stores offered a crucial shopping experience for anyone not inclined to endlessly compare and contrast, say, shoe designs and colors. All that's left for us now is wifi, a nearby bench, and funnel cakes in the food court...

Yes, Borders went with the same tactic that Tower did in the face of the digital revolution: double down on physical locations. I'da been no help had I been among their decision makers. For while I made the switch to mp3 files years ago and will never look back, books are a different matter. They represent a more sensory experience: holding the book, turning the pages, and (especially) being bullied by books' passive-aggressiveness. 'I'm still here were you left me. Bookmark in the same place. Helloooo...'

Plus, the move from the printed page to digital reproduction is too big a jolt. One reason that the digital music bandwagon was so easy to board is that CDs were such a miserable medium. What a cold product it was, clinical. It's no coincidence that vinyl nostalgia trips pervade. No one will be waxing about the decline of the compact disc. 'Oh, I so miss the small, sealed, difficult-to-open packages with their microscopic liner notes and disc you couldn't see as it was playing...'

So, t'other day, for some reason, I needed to hear 'The Dwarf Nebula Processional March' from Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Didn't have it (never ripped it and gave away all three copies I once owned, all readily identifiable by their rattling jewel boxes), and so went trolling online. Rhapsody, Rdio, Spotify: nope. Hit paydirt on Grooveshark. I'm seeing this over and over again: while the race for all-you-can-eat buffet subscribers has entered a new phase with Spotify's arrival, if it's something truly oddball and, dare I say it, unlicensed for such purposes, go to Grooveshark. I am ever more convinced that they shoot first and ask questions later. ('Oh, a cease-and-desist letter? We'll take it down right away, Mr. Rudin.') The interface is slow and, shall we say, inelegant. But it may be your best chance to listen to, say, Bill Nelson. Or anything on the Drag City label...

Speaking of Spotify, many of my social networking friends are raving about it. I understand their excitement, to this extent: the site is speedy and looks great. But they have miles to go to catch up with the oldtimers (e.g. Rhapsody) for selection. And some stuff will never make it, as certain content holders just don't like the concept. I recommended  that folks get a membership with Spotify UK, as there is much music available there that is unlicensed here. I met resistance from some (ex-industry types, mostly) who were concerned about copyrights and such. Fair point, but if you handled product for a major music retailer for a good long while, you got to enjoy the pleasure of being enjoined from importing titles in advance of their US release date, as doing so messed with some subgenius's global marketing plan. I'm prolly just bitter; I guess I never understood why the magic of the marketplace could only thrive if it were free of the encumbrances of bureaucrats like me...

One quick 'cloud music' note: boy, the noise seems to have abated, eh? Already starting to look like yet another incremental tech ripple with a great PR department. And even if one returns to the source idea, that the killer app is being able to sync all related devices without tethering, consider: according to Apple, more than half of the iPhone owners who visit the Genius Bar have never synced their devices to anything...

Proof that digital music pricing was developed by a moonlighting tax-code writer, Part 629: the 10-minute rule. Case in point, on eMusic, you will find Moon Duo's single 'Love on the Sea'/'EZ Street (Extended).' The B-Side runs 9:39 and costs 49 cents. The A-side runs 10:20 and costs $5.99. Commentary here would be superfluous...

Finally, it would seem that the RIAA and MPAA have arrived at their piracy solution: have ISPs police their users. AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon have agreed to a five-strike policy wherein users are notified (in increasingly stern ways) that their accounts have shown suspicious activity. After the warnings have been issued, continuing offenders could see their download speeds capped and/or their accounts deactivated. The idea seems reasonable, somehow; it's certainly less abrasive than stentorian legal cases against sad-sack file sharers. The interesting bit will be how this plays out: content ownership and ISP services often fall under the same corporate umbrella. How many ISP customers are the behemoths willing to sacrifice?

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Beanstalks & Boneyards

Some music takes a few weeks or a couple of months to insinuate itself. Eilen Jewell has been slowly chipping away at me for more than five years now. With every album release (six now), she continues to climb my chart. She covers a range of Americana roots music; for my money, she does so about as well as anyone. Love affair: burgeoning. This is a quick little ditty from her latest album:

Many consider Lady GaGa an heir to Madonna. Okay, an obvious connection, but maybe Danielle Dax is a more accurate choice. Very arty and quirky was this woman, but also massively talented. She was a multi-instrumentalist and a whiz in the studio. (And for a small sense of her theatrical flair, do a Google Image search of 'Danielle Dax Comatose Non-Reaction.' When you see the cover (which is from her career-spanning retrospective), you must remember that it was shot more than 20 years ago.)

I was tempted to choose one of her signature tunes, 'Big Hollow Man,' notable for its Elmer Gantryesque lyrics. Instead, I went with best song I know of with Charles Manson as its lyrical center. Danielle, I miss you dearly.