It used to be that my daily listening included audio drama, music discussion, book discussions/audiobooks and a lot of politics. These days I’ve dropped to politics for the most part and have happily found more music discussions.
Discord & Rhyme has been running for seven years (164 episodes as of this writing) and is one of several music panel shows I listen to regularly. The format is usually three or four out of a group of seven regular panelists (plus occasional guests) discuss an album that one of them has chosen for the episode. The person who chose it tells the history of the artist up to that point and why they picked the album. They then talk individually about their histories with the album/artist (if any) and then dive in, talking about the album song by song. Finally, they suggest to listeners where to go next if they liked the album in question.
All of the panelists have a great love for a fairly wide variety of music, though most of the albums they’ve covered are in the pop realm to some degree (with a fair helping of prog – including seven (and counting) Moody Blues episodes). Once they get down to the tracks it’s primarily a matter of ‘I love/don’t love this track, and here’s why.’ And they really dive in – recent episodes run well over an hour. They took two for Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral and over three (divided into two episodes) for Prince’s Sign O’ The Times. The thing that makes this podcast even more interesting for me is the various digressions into the sources of songs, who played what on each track, where a track has been sampled, and so forth.
The discussion of Prince’s The Cross is a good example of the variety of opinion they bring to bear. One panelist commented that he didn’t like the song because there’s no musical development in it – it’s the same short piece of music over and over. Another (John McFerrin, I think) went into how it appeals to him because it accumulates, like Ravel’s Bolero. It starts with something very quiet and then the instruments just pile on one by one until there’s this grand explosion of sound. And I always joke that as a Jew, it’s weird that The Cross is my favourite song on that album. While I’d never thought about it that way, I’m quite fond of that kind of music as well, no matter the genre.
I’ve mostly listened to episodes on albums I know but I look forward to going back into albums I don’t. They clip generously so even a newcomer to an album can get what they’re talking about.
Another interesting thing that comes up in their discussions is what makes a perfect album opener, what makes for a great track two. The idea of a good album having a statement of purpose that sets up what’s to come. For many pop albums this is an ideal rather than something put into practice, but given the entire crew’s love for progressive rock (probably the genre that set the stage for this kind of musical analysis), this comes into their discussions pretty regularly. In considering my own efforts (some on this very blog) into album reviewing, this isn’t something that has come to my mind before. At least not in so many words.
I have a variety of responses to their analyses based on how well I know or love an album or an individual track, but that’s not surprising. The hosts are all about my same age (mid 50s) and part of what I enjoy is the common experiences we have with the albums that came out in the 80s and 90s. There’s something comforting in that. Or amusing when one of them might say, ‘My first experience with this album was when that week’s host chose it for this podcast.’ The fresh ears they sometimes bring helps to open my ears to things I may have forgotten.
Last night’s adventure was the first date on Italian progressives The Watch’s ambitious tour alternating performances of Genesis classics The Lamb Lies Down On Broadwayand Foxtrot/Selling England by the Pound. And they pulled it off admirably, save for the occasional opening night glitch. The tour also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the release of The Lamb.
The Watch currently consists of Simone Rossetti (lead vocals, flute, keyboards, synthesisers), Valerio De Vittorio (keyboards, synthesisers, guitars, vocals), Mattia Rossetti (bass, guitars, vocals), Francesco Vaccarezza (drums, percussion, vocals) and Andrea Giustiniani (lead guitars). My friend Cheryl and I were stood right at the front of a mostly sold-out venue (Boerderij in Zoetermeer, a pretty friendly room that hosts a lot of prog/tribute acts) just to the right of Rossetti with Vittorio and Vaccarezza in clear sight.
Now, I listened to The Lamb a lot as a kid, though mostly the first two sides of this double-album set. I read the notes and lyrics assiduously, and the way Cheryl tells it, she listened a lot as well. It’s a daunting, musically ambitious album that had a lot of appeal to me for the crazy storyline (found in small print across the inside of the gatefold; if you only had the CD, it was impossible to read) and weird theatricality. For those unfamiliar with the plot, Rael, a small-time Brooklyn hood, finds himself trapped in a weird fantasy world, one step ahead of or behind his brother John. Each experience is told more than shown, but that’s fine, it’s prog rock. At certain points of the show, a voiceover gave the audience occasional snippets of that text.
The whole show was an admirable recreation of the album with no effects, save for lighting and a backdrop reminiscent of the album’s cover.
The sound mix from my perspective was good, but Giustiniani’s recreation of Steve Hackett’s intricate guitar work was too low. This may have had something to do with how close to the stage I was. Simone’s vocals took a little while to get up to the task – this might also have had to do with mixing, but he was also, I think a little nervous. After the third or fourth song, he was in full Peter Gabriel form. Extra shout-outs for backing vocals from Mattia and especially Francesco from behind the drum kit. Simone, as an Italian performing for a Dutch audience, didn’t do much of the between song banter that Genesis-era Peter Gabriel was known for. The exception was the introduction to Counting Out Time, a tale of teenage pre-sexual experience angst, solved with the help of a book on the the erogenous zones. This he read out from a sheet with admirable Dutch pronunciation. (This, however, was also an opening night glitch – he read it before Back in NYC, the song that precedes Counting Out Time. Whatever. He still gets points.)
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is an attempt at a rock opera (released not that long after Tommy and Quadrophenia), and makes attempts at theatricality in its bombast. The Watch held our attention from an otherwise bare stage for the duration. While the story might bog down a bit in the second half, the recreation was fantastic. And this music (prog, after all) is not easy. I spent much of the show watching Francesco’s drumming. There was a moment during The Waiting Room which brought me joy – he was concentrating on a pretty complex figure and when he completed it, his face had a huge smile. Whatever the phrase ‘nailed it’ is in Italian, he did.
After a fair amount of musical meandering, Rael emerges into daylight and the main show concludes with the pure 4/4 rock and roll joy of IT.
For the main set (broken by a short intermission), Mattia only played one instrument, a double neck bass/12-string (and several effects pedals). However, there were two more guitars on stage. What else are they going to play. After another short break, the band came back and Simone looked confused for a second, then tapped the tablet on his music stand before saying something like ‘ah, that’s the encore.’ Yes, he had a tablet and a couple of notes at his side, but barely looked at them through the whole show. Not that I blame any singer with a massive piece of music to sing the crutch of the occasional lyric sheet. The band kicked into The Musical Box, a multi-part epic from 1971’s Nursery Cryme (and possibly my favourite Genesis song, though there are other candidates) which they hit out of the park. (Here’s The Watch performing it at Boerderij two years ago.)
I left the venue with a massive grin on my face – Seeing this formative soundtrack of my adolescence performed in full by stunningly talented musicians who obviously also have a love for it was definitely one off the bucket list.
The other night I had the time to finally watch Marco Porsio’s 2019 Swans documentary Where Does a Body End. First off: Five stars. Well done. Rock docs follow a certain pattern that this didn’t really deviate from – interview the principals, interview their comrades present and past. In this case the principal is Michael Gira, who founded Swans in 1981 or so and has been the only consistent member across 40-plus years. He was generous with his time and his own assessments of his strengths and faults. I was excited early on that there was a clip of Einsturzende Neubauten’s Blixa Bargeld expressing some praise. Alas, he only gets the camera once more near the end. Other key interviewees included Lee Ranaldo and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (who toured with Swans at the beginnings of both bands’ histories), and Jarboe. Jarboe drove up to NYC from Atlanta in ‘85 or so having written a fan letter (shared in the doc) to the band after hearing an early recording on college radio. She joined as keyboardist and occasional vocalist appearing first on the 1986 releases Greed, Holy Money, and Time is Money (Bastard). We learn from the doc that she and Gira were partners from that period until Gira disbanded Swans in 1997. (He would reignite Swans in 2010 without Jarboe. An impetus for the film was Gira’s announcement that the newer incarnation of the group would halt after four albums and the accompanying 2017 tour. Last year, a new lineup released an album and are touring – I’ve seen them twice this time out.) Her participation in the documentary is generous and alone worth the price of admission if you’re interested in how bands work.
Thurston Moore’s memories of their bands’ tours together is poignant in the descriptions of just how difficult life on the road was/is for independent acts. In his thoughts on the re-invigorated version of Swans, he admits to a little jealous that Gira’s band was still going, ‘He’s got Swans. I don’t have Sonic Youth.’ (This is a little disingenuous – Moore and SY’s bassist Kim Gordon had been a couple/married for 27 years until Moore fathered a child with their nanny. That put paid to SY.)
One of the most interesting thing about how the film is constructed is the wealth of live footage of the band, both their earlier incarnations and the more recent tours. I was amused of a clip from their 2011 appearance at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in London because I was there. Not that I could have picked myself out in the audience. My favourite clip (which I hope to find online) was Jarboe joining the new lineup in 2016 or so to perform Blood On Yr Hands (a highlight of the ‘95/‘97 tours.)
And of course I can write paragraphs and paragraphs about the interviews and the clips and so forth, but as always, it’s a case of dancing about architecture. Swans have always been about the intensity of the musical experience and their music isn’t for the faint of heart. I think Screen Shot is representative.
I tell a story about my sister having two tickets for Talking Heads at the Pantages in Hollywood in December of 1983. She was already in college and her boyfriend begged off the show she’d bought tickets for. She asked me if I wanted to go. Of course I did, but those gigs were a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and the hard fast rule for me was no gigs on school nights. Our parents were out of town, and there was no way they’d find out. But I went to Hollywood with my sister and watched her sell the tickets around the corner from the show. How many of you have regrets that have lasted for four decades?
Eight or nine months later, that series of gigs was immortalized on film as Stop Making Sense. I went to see it in the theatre three or four times in its initial run (once with friends who were flying on LSD – I didn’t partake of that either) and I’ve seen it at least three or four more times in the intervening decades. And I’ve listened to the album hundreds of times. I’ve had it on tape, CD, and download.
So ever since that teaser of David Byrne picking up his big suit from the dry cleaner came out, I’ve been keen to see it again on the big screen. And I finally did this week with my friend Cheryl (who hadn’t seen it since that initial run). From that beautiful moment when Byrne walks out on a bare stage with an acoustic guitar and a boom box and says “I have a tape I want to play for you” and we hear the backing of Psycho Killer, we know we’re in for something special.
With each of the next several songs, another band member comes on: Tina Weymouth to play bass on Heaven, Chris Franz to play drums (the drum riser rolled out by crew all in black) on Thank You For Sending Me An Angel, and then guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison on Found A Job. Two backup singers, Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt, percussionist Steve Scales, and guitarist Alex Weir join the action for Slippery People. Finally keyboardist Bernie Worrell joins on Burning Down the House.
On seeing it in 1984, everything was very new to me in terms of how rock and roll was put on film. The first surprise, having been far more familiar with the music than the visuals, is that there are two capable singers on stage for the song Heaven, but Tina Weymouth doesn’t have a mic. Lynn Mabry sings harmony from offstage. (Later in the film, Byrne leaves the stage to Weymouth and Franz, aka Tom Tom Club, to perform their hit Genius of Love, on which Weymouth sings lead. It’s not as though she couldn’t have harmonized on Heaven, as she was already on stage.)
As the film moves forward, there’s wonder in how long the cameras linger on Byrne, and occasionally on the other musicians. There’s none of the jump-cut editing that so annoys me on Strictly Come Dancing (and, to be honest, most movies these days), which is nice. On the other hand, there are nine really capable musicians on stage for most of the performance and the joy of a good performance film is being able to see them interact in the context of their art. The most egregious example of the hyper-focus on Byrne is the song Once In a Lifetime. The camera doesn’t move for five of the song’s 5 1/2 minutes, and when it does, we see Holt and Mabry out of focus doing interesting dance moves that Demme didn’t think we’d be interested in, somehow. (Then there’s this Siskel and Ebert review in which all they talk about is Byrne.)
There are other places in Stop Making Sense where we get wider camera angles and see the interplay of the performers, most notably in the gorgeous Naive Melody.
In ‘83, Talking Heads were touring their fifth album, the damn near flawless Speaking In Tongues, which provides six of the film’s 16 tracks. The sound on all of the songs (especially from the third song onward) is fuller and deeper than on the studio albums (and even the versions found on earlier live compilation The Name of this Band Is Talking Heads. When you can see the other members of the band, you can tell they’re firing on all cylinders, having performed as quartet for several years before expanding in ‘80 and ‘81 to a much larger touring act.
Even in ‘83 there was animosity between Byrne and the other Talking Heads, and they continued for three more very interesting albums (Little Creatures, True Stories, and Naked), but they never toured again. While the music on Stop Making Sense is obviously a collaboration of brilliant and capable musicians, one can only wish that the band and film makers had seen fit to share more of that collaboration with the audience.
Of course the music industry wants streaming prices to rise. They’re in the business of maximizing shareholder value by hook or by crook. Raising streaming prices, of course, doesn’t mean they’ll pay the artists any more, but the coffers of those at the top will be enriched. More.
The BBC article has an interesting table of the top ten earning artists worldwide last year, with the assumption that these are the artists who make up the bulk of that 26 billion in the headline. Four are from Southeast Asia, four from North America (including Taylor Swift at the top of that list), and two from the UK. The table doesn’t include their earnings.
Who the artists are and where they’re from aren’t very useful metrics for understanding the position or state of the music industry as a whole.
To get closer, sure I want to know what those artists earned, but the music industry is massive. What the artists earned might be peanuts compared to what the labels earned on the backs of their work. Also, the music industry is comprised not just of artists and labels, but of touring and ticketing organizations (dominated by LiveNation and Ticketmaster), distributors, agents, and all the people and infrastructure around secondary markets such as television and film.
Once upon a time, there were about a dozen major labels. When I was in high school, the shop I worked in sold almost entirely 45s. (When, you ask? I worked at American Pie on Venice Blvd from 1983-1985. I don’t know when it eventually closed.) The business model included a storefront, but was mostly dedicated to wholesaling. The records were organized by label and then by record number. It was MCA, Polgygram, WEA (Warner / Elektra / Atlantic), CBS (which was Columbia and Epic, later subsumed by Sony), Capitol/EMI, A&M/RCA and a small scad of independents. We dealt entirely in reissues of the oldies and the current top 40. Even those six conglomerates have shrunk to a smaller number. The thing is, at the time, they were all doing well as separate entities.
Fast forward 20 years for an anecdote about the times they’d fallen on. In 2005, EMI (and whatever agglomeration it then belonged to) pinned all of its financials on one release. One. The release in question was Coldplay’s X&Y. Great pop album. It did really well, but EMI, once home of the Beatles, Duran Duran, Kate Bush, and Pink Floyd, sold its recorded music division to Universal Music Group. UMG, by my own finger in the wind estimate, accounts for about 40% of the recorded music business. A list of UMG’s labels is here.
(A side note regarding EMI’s accounting: In 1985, coming off the massive success of Hounds of Love and The Whole Story, someone at EMI dropped the ball and forgot to renew Kate Bush’s contract. Her next albums came out on Columbia.)
My perspective is (as is usual) different than that of the BBC. The larger metrics I’d like to have at my disposal are those associated with the independent music sector. While I enjoy a lot of pop, I was amused by the fact that I could hum exactly one song by one artist on that list up top. (To get Shape of You by Ed Sheeran out of my head, a friend sent me a link to BTS’s Butter which is a straight-up banger, no doubt about it.) As noted, I don’t listen to a lot of pop, but the artists I do spend a lot of time on have carved out their own interesting niches.
The folks I discuss here are ones I’ve long been fans of – Bandcamp and other such platforms support thousands and thousands of artists, many of whom are more or less successful on their own terms as well.
Michael Gira finances the recording of Swans albums by releasing limited edition CDs of demos and live material. The fan base snaps them up and the band goes into the studio every few years. Gira owns his own label, Young God Records and has been known to manage his own distribution by hand (though they inked a distribution deal with Mute for their last album, 2019’s leaving meaning which I think is still in effect for the upcoming release, The Beggar).
Laura Kidd, whose first several albums came out under the moniker She Makes War, and now records as Penfriend. Her most recent release, One In A Thousand came out under the name Obey Robots with Rat from Ned’s Atomic Dustbin), runs her own label, My Big Sister Recordings. She does all her own marketing and promotion and her last two albums have debuted in high positions on the UK’s independent music charts. She’s been doing things her way for almost 15 years without major label support. Check out the Obey Robots track Elephant.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is another band who run their own label (Constellation Recordings). I’m well aware that music that falls under the rubric of post-rock aren’t going to be raking in the big bucks. Even as a fan, I was unaware of their last album, G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!, until about a month after its April, 2021 release. They’ve been recording on and off since 1997’s F♯ A♯ ∞ (there was a break between 2002 and 2012 since which time they’ve released four insanely good albums) entirely on their own terms. When they tour, they sell out decent-sized venues without a lot of promotion. Given the chance to get their music to an even wider audience, the band holds to its principles. They allowed Danny Boyle to use a track in his film 28 Days Later but wouldn’t allow its inclusion on the soundtrack. My guess about this is that they stick to a singular artistic vision. Their albums, much like their concerts, are best experienced as full pieces, but there’s probably more to it. GY!BE are also one of those bands that allows taping of their shows and there’s an extensive list of concerts posted at archive.org. Here’s Job’s Lament from a gig last year in Minneapolis.
Unwoman, who creates cello-based music which is ostensibly pop, reaches her fans through Patreon and judicious use of social media. I’m not sure how I would have found her had she not been part of group I belonged to who met regularly at a pub on Haight street back in the 90s. She releases independently, using Bandcamp as a distribution tool (as do most of the artists I mention here). One way she keeps her fans engaged is by polling them to choose which covers she’ll record. The music itself tends to emotionally bare electronic/goth sounds (which is really reductive, I know), but she’s an experienced enough musician to have fun with songs like Everything Is Awesome.
SUNN O))) is another one of those acts who make difficult music for the benefit of an ever-expanding audience. Two guys who drive their sound with feedback-heavy riffs, performing in hooded robes behind waves of fog to keep their appearance hidden. Like the other artists I talk about here, they’ve been in this game for a long time. Evolving from acts such as Burning Witch, Goatsnake and Engine Kid (by way of Thorr’s Hammer), they created Southern Lord Records to release their own material and since 1998 of cultivated quite a roster. (Around 70 acts call or have called Southern Lord home.) Interestingly, Southern Lord’s distribution is handled by UMG. SUNN O))) also post audience recordings of their shows to Bandcamp. As was said about the Grateful Dead back in the day, the albums are fine, but the best way to experience them is live. That said, the in-studio set they recorded for the BBC, Metta, Benevolence, isn’t a bad intro.
To bring the thing full circle, the acts I mention here have been actively engaging the music industry for anywhere from 15 to over 40 years. (Swans evolved out of the same early 80s No Wave scene that gave the world Sonic Youth.) Many learned the hard way or took the hard way to satisfy the drive to create unapologetic music. Taylor Swift, according to Wikipedia, wanted to be making pop from a very young age and with the help of parents who were in a position to do so, she worked within the industry to develop her skills and create music that would sell. And sell it she has, by the truckload.
I know I’m not Swift’s target audience, but I recall my boss at American Pie telling me that the ability to write pop music that sells is a skill. I believe we were talking about Van (“The Hustle”) McCoy who had just passed away, but the same holds true of many such artists, Swift among them. She took her early successes and has continued to build on them. While she’s not my cup of tea, I can’t help but appreciate that. There are, however, massive communities of creators of hundreds of different musical styles who I’d like to see accounted for in these discussions.
Joe Jots 