Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is an undisputed classic. Arguably the greatest album ever made by The Beatles – who, by general consensus, are the greatest band the world has ever seen – it was a milestone release in terms of studio innovation, cohesiveness and even album art. And the music? Sgt. Pepper's sounds remarkably fresh in a modern context – every bit as brilliant and engaging as it was more than 40 years ago.
Apparently, Vegas quartet Panic at the Disco (observe the freshly removed exclamation point!) are fans of Sgt. Pepper's as well – so much so that they've modeled their latest album, Pretty. Odd., after it to a tee. They've got the same thick atmospherics, gobs of back up instrumentation from horns and strings and even the same sort of faux-live album introduction. The resemblance between the two albums is uncanny.
This is hardly a surprise, of course – My Chemical Romance aped Queen for Welcome to the Black Parade, and The Killers borrowed the songs on Sam's Town from the Big Book of Bruce Springsteen. At this rate, it was only so long before the Fab Four became the next target for an super-popular pop-punk outfit. What sets Panic at the Disco apart, however, is that their album is actually quite good.
Repeated listens reveal the band's similarity to The Beatles is, for the most part, superficial. Panic doesn't have the ability to write pop songs the way The Beatles did, and in all likelihood, they never will. While the group borrows heavily from the psychedelic atmosphere of Sgt. Pepper's, they are still writing the same variety of unabashed pop-punk music they always have – if only in a markedly different context.
This newfound focus on texture pays off in spades. Regardless of what the band's detractors might say, ambition suits Panic at the Disco wonderfully. Pretty. Odd. maintains the pop sensibilities of Panic's mediocre debut but reframes them in lush orchestral flourishes and ornate production techniques. The group's songwriting may have improved only marginally – brilliant songs such as "She's a Handsome Woman" and "When the Day Met the Night" excluded – but their songs sound much better framed with trumpets and violins than the flavor-of-the-moment synthesizers that characterized A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. If nothing else, Pretty. Odd. is worth listening to for its exorbitant production – this album must have cost Pete Wentz's label a fortune to make.
Panic at the Disco - "Nine in the Afternoon"
There are problems, to be sure. Frontman Brendon Urie's emo yelp doesn't quite gel with the band's new sound – although back-up singer Ryan Ross sounds great when he takes center stage in album highlight "Behind the Sea." Pretty. Odd. also suffers from a lack of songwriting variety toward its tail-end, in spite of quirky interludes such as "I Have Friends in Holy Spaces" and "Folkin' Around." However, the whole of Pretty. Odd. congeals into an album that is mischievous, clever and (most importantly) lots of fun.
Although Panic is far from reaching the same heights The Beatles once scaled, they have released a follow-up album good enough to match their immense popularity. Sure, music fans might be better off dusting off Sgt. Pepper's instead of purchasing Pretty. Odd., but Panic's latest far outpaces the superficial glitz of their debut and indicates that these Vegas post-teens might actually have something worthwhile to share with us.
The Starbucks nearest you may have been selling copies of In Rainbows since early January, but that doesn't mean that Radiohead is done promoting their new album just yet. Way across the pond in England, Radiohead has just released the woozy "Nude" as their second single. To commemorate the event, the band is hosting a remix contest that's open to everybody – including you! All you need to do is (1) buy the raw tracks from iTunes, (2) do a bit of mixing and matching on your own and (3) upload the results to radioheadremix.com. The best remix will be determined by an online vote.
Resting somewhere between classic rock and new wave, Television's 1977 debut Marquee Moon played a crucial part in shaping the sound of the still-nascent post-punk movement. At the time of its release, Joy Division was in the midst of cleaning up their sound somewhere in Manchester, and the convention-challenging act Sex Pistols would not release Never Mind the Bollocks for almost another year. Television was one of the first – and most important – punk acts of the 1970s, having formed at the scene's very inception.
Even if Television is widely identified as a punk band, however, they didn't really fit the ethic. In contrast to the dogmatic amateurism of colleagues such as the Ramones or Sex Pistols, Television flaunted their technical chops with virtuoso guitar lines and intricate songwriting. Throughout each of Marquee Moon's eight tracks, frontman Tom Verlaine's guitar sets the song's groundwork with spacey and highly impressionistic guitar work, while his counterpart Richard Lloyd pounds out immaculate, superhumanly precise solos. As a team, these dueling guitarists brought out the best in one another and created music that was revolutionary in its day and still sounds fresh to modern ears.
So forget the historical context of Marquee Moon – what really makes this album a stone-cold classic is the timeless guitar work. Simply put, Marquee Moon is a collection of the eight greatest Guitar Hero songs that have yet to be licensed by RedOctane (excluding "Stairway to Heaven"). The fantastic interplay between Verlaine and Lloyd simply cannot be understated, nor can the fist-pounding awesomeness of their music. Just listen to full-on rave-ups such as "See No Evil" or "Friction" for evidence – it's nigh impossible to chart the ebb and flow of the guitar work on these songs. This complexity serves to enhance the songs' driving force rather than obfuscating it.
Television - "See No Evil"; live (???)
The effect of these guitars is greatly complemented by the album's production, which is crisp, simple and unfettered. Marquee Moon is an album of economy and precision, bursting with guitar hooks that are complex but rarely indulgent. Bassist Fred Smith and drummer Billy Ficca deserve a lot of credit as well – while guitar work is clearly the cornerstone of Television's sound, these two musicians provide perfect accents to the guitar lines with simple, effective bass flares and supple drum fills. Verlaine's elliptical songwriting also fits perfectly with Television's intricate guitar work. His impressionistic, pseudo-poetic lyrics and nasally vocals may irritate some listeners, but they are refreshing elements of humanity and imperfection in an album that is otherwise immaculate and precise.
Perhaps Marquee Moon doesn't sound quite as original as it might have in 1977. Up-and-coming post-punk revivalists continue to rip off Television's double-guitar attack, and as a movement, punk has somehow devolved into thinly concealed boy bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. After a little over 30 years, however, Marquee Moon still sounds bold and fresh. Television wrote music that doesn't need context or history to appreciate. They simply wrote great songs with some of the greatest guitar work of all time to complement it. Or perhaps cultural relevance is important. All the album needs now is an endorsement in the next Guitar Hero.
Following in the footsteps of Radiohead's In Rainbows and Saul Williams' Niggy Tardust (which was, in fact, produced by Trent Reznor), the latest Nine Inch Nails release is currently available in its entirety online. Dubbed Ghosts I-IV, the album consists of several ambient movements that were composed over a period of 10 weeks last autumn. The first movement of the album can be downloaded for free, the next three movements can be downloaded in high-quality audio for $5. The disc is expected to see a physical release sometime in April.
These days, it seems that everybody wants to offer their interpretation of Rihanna's massive single "Umbrella" – Mandy Moore, Chris Brown and now the British indie outfit Klaxons. However, the Klaxons had the special honor of covering the song with Rihanna herself last night at the annual BRIT Awards. Their interpretation was well-received, the Klaxons offering a more electronic, guitar-heavy backing for Rihanna's pop inflections. Both were nominated for awards – Rihanna as best international act, and the Klaxons as best breakthrough act. Despite their awesome performance, neither one of the artists ended up taking home an award.
Klaxons & Rihanna perform at the Brit Awards; 2/20/08
Murder by Death is not a band known to shy away from ambitious concept records. For their sophomore album, Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?, the group composed an intricate song cycle based on a story involving the devil, Mexico and oil. Equally ambitious follow-up In Bocca al Lupo consisted of songs detailing various characters struggling through each level of Dante's version of hell. These hyper-literate stylings, backed by saloon-rock and cello swells, have earned the band a passionate (if relatively small) number of followers.
Although the band recently signed a new record deal with Vagrant Records, it seems their old habits have remained intact. Their forthcoming album, Red of Tooth and Claw, sounds every bit as elaborate as their past efforts. Frontman Adam Turla described the new record as "Homer's odyssey of revenge, only without the honorable character at the center." Fuego!, a three-song EP, is meant to whet our appetites for the band's forthcoming full-length.
The Fuego! EP starts off strong with its title track. Here, Turla dusts off his best Johnny Cash croon for a song of gin, flames, bones and lust. It's a bit disorienting to hear Turla proclaim licentious phrases such as "I want you!" as he imitates Cash's voice, but ultimately, the song works. Jangly guitars, muscular percussion and a subtly danceable bass line coalesce into a classic Murder by Death piece. Although the energetic cut doesn't quite live up to the band's best moments, such as the hair-raising emotional climax of Who Will Survive's "Killbot 2000", it's a great song in its own right.
Murder by Death perform "Fuego!" in Washington DC; 4/10/08
Following "Fuego!" is a live cover of Cher's 1966 hit single "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)." Here, Turla drops the Cash façade for vocal stylings more in line with Jeff Buckley. Clocking in at 2.5 minutes, Murder by Death offers a bare, uninteresting interpretation of the track. For the most part, the song consists of vocals and a few light strums on Turla's electric guitar. Ultimately, the song is a pleasant-sounding yet forgettable interlude, segueing nicely into the EP's final track.
Fuego!'s three tracks are capped off by "Theme (for Ennio Morricone)," a shout-out to the composer of such legendary spaghetti Western film soundtracks as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. The track is an attempt to re-capture Morricone's epic musical statements, using full-time cellist Sarah Balliet to the band's fullest advantage. Balliet's gorgeous string balladry is easily the strongest part of the song, passionately played to achieve an acute sense of drama. Unfortunately, producer Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Iggy Pop) leaves Balliet's strings low in the final mix, crippling a song that should have been cathartic and soaring. You can almost feel the band straining towards an epic climax the strings suggest, but instead of achieving the catharsis it promises, "Theme" meanders aimlessly for its 4-minute run-time.
And then it's over. Even though Fuego! is meant to get fans excited for Murder by Death's upcoming album, it leaves little more than an ambivalent aftertaste. To be fair, all of these songs are very solid. At the end of the day, however, they're more ordinary than outstanding. Hopefully the band is holding a few tricks up its sleeve for Red of Tooth and Claw. If not, there isn't much to get excited about.
Blues-rock outfit The White Stripes came under fire this week for an uncleared sample on their album De Stijl, which came out a little more than eight years ago. The track in question ("Jumble, Jumble") contains a 10-second excerpt from Quebec radio host Dominique Payette's show. Payette is currently suing for $70,000 and demanding that De Stijl be immediately removed from stores. Her argument? The use of the recording is a violation of her privacy. It remains to be seen how this case will be settled, but hopefully the courts will flesh out how exactly the re-proportioning of a public broadcast compromises one's privacy.
It's no secret that the digital age is redefining the value of music and challenging traditional distribution models. In a world where songs can be purchased either on an $18 CD or downloaded for free from a P2P client, consumers are increasingly turning to illegal file-sharing. Many digital music vendors have tried to combat the convenience of P2P by setting up online music stores, but because of restrictive copyright contracts, these files have generally been crippled by DRM.
DRM, or digital rights management, is a technology that allows vendors to limit access rights to digital music. Not surprisingly, it's an extraordinarily controversial technology. On one hand, music labels say DRM curbs file-sharing and prevents unauthorized distribution. On the other, consumers argue that DRM unfairly restricts their ability to use the product they have purchased – it often prevents users from uploading to portable devices or sharing a new song with a friend.
However, the tides may be turning in the favor of these consumers – DRM appears to be on its way out. In the first week of January, major online music vendor Napster announced that it had convinced all four major labels (Universal, Sony, Warner and BMI) to allow protection-free MP3 downloads. Previously, the company had offered DRM-protected Windows Media files, which couldn't be played on other computers or uploaded to iPods.
Napster is just one of many companies that have made the leap to the MP3 format. iTunes recently launched a service that allows users to buy higher-quality MP3 files for a little extra cash. Online retail giant Amazon.com also struck a deal with major labels recently allowing for MP3 distribution. Even Wal-Mart has gotten in on the action – the mega-corporation now sells protection-free songs for as low as 80 cents from its Web site.
The idea is hardly a revolutionary one. In fact, these companies are lagging far behind online services such as eMusic, which has offered protection-free MP3 downloads since the late '90s. However, this marks the first time that major labels have willingly allowed royalty-free downloads. Major labels currently control about 80 percent of the American music market and own the rights to virtually all popular music. Thus, these deals mark a serious development in online music.
It is not yet clear how Napster is going to handle a pricing model for these MP3s, or whether its venture will end up turning a profit. It also remains to be seen whether iTunes, Amazon.com or eMusic will be able to make much money as MP3 vendors. Even with the answers to these questions in the air, however, it's refreshing to see these companies at the forefront of another baby step from slow-to-adapt major labels.
In fact, other promising developments are cropping up throughout the Internet. Most recently, social networking site Last.fm has convinced major labels to allow the streaming of an entire song on demand. Previously, Last.fm users could only preview 30-second snippets of any given song. Though CD prices have yet to fall to a reasonable level and major labels have yet to take advantage of P2P's communal muscle, it appears that the record industry is finally lumbering in the right direction.
On March 7th, 2007, the future of internet radio was being hotly contested in the House of Representatives. At the time, delegates were debating the validity of a recently ruling by the government's Copyright Royalty Board. Had the bill passed, it would have significantly raised the royalty rates for streaming songs over the internet. In all likelihood, this would have crippled a fledgling industry that many small-time recording artists and independent labels have lauded as an invaluable promotional tool for breaking music to new audiences. Thankfully, the bill has been delayed, and the oppositional Internet Radio Equality Act has garnered over one hundred Congressional sponsors since (largely due to a highly active contingent of online protesters). Nonetheless, it's been a tense couple of months for internet radio listeners.
However, when Senator Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania assumed the podium to testify on that day back in March, he didn't seem too concerned with the state of internet radio. Rather, he wanted to talk about mash-ups – specifically, the work of one of his Philadelphia constituents, Greg Gillis. Gillis, who goes by the stage name of Girl Talk, has gained notoriety for using samples from as many as thirty different artists in a single three minute song. His 2006 album, Night Ripper, received numerous accolades for its originality and deft manipulation of samples, placing prominently in several best-of-year lists. However, under today's copyright laws, Gillis' work is also totally illegal. Doyle argued passionately in favor of the Girl Talk album, positing that, "some sampling of copyrighted material, especially when manipulated and re-contextualized into a new art form, is legit and deserves to be heard." He proceeded to compare Girl Talk's music to that of the Paul McCartney of the legendary Beatles, who copied a Chuck Berry bass riff for the song "I Saw Her Standing There." Perhaps Girl Talk's mash-up efforts aren't too different, Doyle suggested.
In a government that is generally highly restrictive when it comes to re-proportioning copyrighted works, Doyle's monologue was a refreshing treat that brought attention to an important issue in modern music culture. While his speech was largely irrelevant to the online radio proceedings and had no real impact as far as legislative action goes, it sparked popular debate anew throughout hundreds of internet forums and Starbucks cafés – is sampling a legitimate music tool, and if so, to what extent should it be protected or restricted under today's intellectual property law? Certainly, the practice has had a rocky road since its rise to prominence in the 1980's. On one hand, it single-handedly revolutionized electronic music and practically birthed the genre of hip-hop. Proponents have hailed it as a creatively liberating and transformative new art form, one that takes old music and re-contextualizes it into something new and exciting. On the other hand, sampling has been derided as highly derivative work that clearly violates the rights of a copyright owner. These critics argue that sampling is hardly a boon to creativity – rather, it does little more than illegitimately abuse the creative output of other artists.
In this essay, I will argue that sampling is a legitimate and transformative form of music, and that artists should be given more legal freedom to use the technique. My thesis is backed by two crucial points. First of all, I adopt the stance that sampling has allowed for the creation of new, horizon-expanding music that stands on its own legs as original and transformative. Secondly, I posit that the chief goal of copyright law is to promote creativity – when it is used restrictively (as it has been with sampling), it unjustifiably inhibits our cultural vitality and blocks the creation of new, artistically viable work. This is both dangerous and unacceptable – as Tim Wu bluntly summarized in an article he wrote for Slate magazine, "Vibrant cultures borrow, remix and recast. Static cultures die." If the two proposals I suggest are assumed to be true, then it is clear that copyright law should be revised to allow provisional sampling usage (dependent on a couple qualifications that I will discuss later in the essay).
Copying another's music is a cultural practice that extends back to the very beginning of the medium's existence. Themes, song structure, rhythms and note patterns are often repeated within different genres of music – blues is largely based on the constant re-imagination of the same three chords, and many classical music composers wrote pieces that clearly built upon the work of their predecessors. Using old music as a building block for new is not a new concept – in fact, it is deeply ingrained into our culture. To use a more contemporary example, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain famously proclaimed that his band's hit single, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," was a rip-off of the alt-rock pioneers Pixies – without that band's influence, Nirvana probably wouldn't have explored the loud-soft dynamics and vocal eccentricities that characterized their hugely influential seminal album Nevermind.
The way that these musicians build off of previous music is roughly analogous to sampling. Sampling is the act of taking a small element of a music recording and re-proportioning it into a new piece of work. The most obvious difference between these two methods is that sampling is digital, whereas previous musical quotations have been analog. Namely, one approach replicates the notes of older music by replaying them with actual instruments, whereas the other replicates more precisely through the use of a digital sampler machine. The first of these machines were introduced in the early 1980's. They had the ability to record any sound – from the slamming of a car door to a human voice – and covert it into a digital signal. Once a recording was made digital, it could be easily manipulated by a computer and incorporated into a new piece of work. By the middle of the decade, samplers were relatively inexpensive and readily accessible, which corresponded with the late 1980's rap boom. Sampling has opened the door to a wide variety of new techniques in music – the usage of loops, digital manipulation, complex layering of vocals or instrumentation – that have all had a huge impact on the music scene today. However, most of these techniques are non-controversial. In this essay, when I use the term "sample" or "sampled work," I will be referring exclusively to the re-proportioning of pieces from other music recordings.
Many sampled works have gained widely acknowledged artistic legitimacy. For example, DJ Shadow's 1996 debut Endtroducing...... was lauded as the first album ever released built entirely from samples. Blending snippets of jazz, funk, psychedelic and hip-hop with dialogue from old television shows and interviews, Endtroducing..... was completely unique at the time of its release. As written in the Allmusic review of the album, "the effect was that of a hazy, half-familiar dream – parts of the record sound familiar, yet it's clear that it only suggests music you've heard before, and that the multi-layered samples and genres create something new." It also unanimous acclaim from critics as one of the best albums of the 1990's, and went on to inspire an entire sub-genre of electronic music – instrumental hip-hop. In 2000, Australian musical pioneers The Avalanches released Since I Left You, a remarkably cohesive melange of sounds assembled from over 3,500 vinyl samples. It too received widespread critical acclaim, with many critics citing the nostalgia that the samples evoked as one of the record's key strengths. In a glowing review of the album, Italian music historian Piero Scaruffi said that, "their recombinant art... was both hilarious and illuminating, as if shedding new light on the values of an entire civilization by de-constructing and de-contextualizing its fundamental attributes."
Both the aforementioned works are completely sampled – neither band plays any instruments or sings on record. Nonetheless, they have also been widely recognized as original, artistically legitimate statements. They are also excellent examples of sampling at its finest – bits and pieces of old songs have been re-contextualized into new music that stands on its own as distinct and original. To hear the work of either DJ Shadow or The Avalanches is to hear music that is both strikingly novel and disorientingly recognizable. It's somewhat saddening, then, that the initial international pressings of Since I Left You were printed only after the removal of several unapproved samples. While the work circulated throughout The Avalanches' home country of Australia unadulterated, international fans of the band didn't get the opportunity to hear the album as it was meant to be heard.
The reasons for this are simultaneously clear and unclear. On one hand, the band had not been able to clear all of the samples that it had used on the record, and thus did not have the authority to publish the original music in countries such as the United States. On the other hand, it's not at all clear why that this should have happened. Since I Left You had widely been acknowledged as a transformative piece of work – should copyright law really be used to restrict the distribution of original, creative content? Yet the case of Since I Left You is almost laughably insignificant when held up to the dozens of music labels that have been aggressively sued by profit-hungry corporations, or artists who have had injunctions filed that prevented the distribution of their critically acclaimed music – all in the name of copyright law.
In order to understand how copyright has led to this restriction, we must consider two things – (1) the original purpose of copyright law, and (2) how this definition has been warped over the past several decades. Classically, the goal of copyright law is to encourage creativity. In order to do that, it must offer incentives for artists to create new work. If artists are given no legal control over what they have created, then their work is instantly devalued because it can be distributed and used freely by anybody, anywhere. This is problematic in that no artist would ever be able to profit off their work. On the other hand, artists cannot be given absolute control of their output. This could potentially prevent anybody from using their work, which would prevent culturally valuable criticism, supplementation and augmentation of other creative works. One of the most crucial concepts here is that of originality, which "implies that the author or artist created the work through his or her own skill, labor and judgment." The law wants to encourage the creation of further original works, but also protect against unauthorized derivative works. Determining a work's originality is useful in that it helps distinguish whether it is overly derivative or sufficiently creative.
This is where the fuzzy concept of fair use comes in. Courts are charged with the responsibility of determining whether or not a piece of work is legitimately transformative or original, or if it is a violation of the original copyright holder's rights. In the case of sampling, there are a number of questions to consider. However, two clearly stand out as the most important. Firstly, does the new song compete with the original work, thereby hurting the original artist? Secondly, is the sample used to supplement a new, creatively engaging work, or does it rely too heavily on the original (ie. is it both transformative and creative)? With highly imprecise questions like this, it becomes apparent than fair use is a rather sloppy concept, one that is extraordinarily subjective. Nonetheless, we can still give these questions some consideration and see where sampling might fit into the legal scheme of fair use exceptions.
In the vast majority of cases, the answer to the first question is "no" – sampled music almost never competes with its original counterpart. Generally speaking, it is completely re-contextualized and appeals to completely different genre markets. For example, hip-hop predominantly samples from unrelated 1970's funk and soul, and those ubiquitous big beat remixes of Top 40 songs generally appeal only to a separate niche market of techno fans. For an extreme case, let's take a look at the aforementioned work of Girl Talk – no one would ever want to buy Night Ripper as a replacement for The Beatles' Abbey Road or James Brown's In the Jungle Groove, even though both are sampled in his work. This is because Girl Talk's music is totally different from songs that it originally sampled. Night Ripper is neither a classic pop album nor a delicious slice of funk and soul – it's a mash-up dance album, and that's an entirely different animal. To imagine that somebody might buy his CD as a replacement for any of the sampled artists is completely absurd. As Congressman Mike Doyle said before the House of Representatives in defense of Girl Talk, "mash-ups are a transformative new art that expands the consumers experience and doesn't compete with what an artist has made available on iTunes or at the CD store."
In fact, far from offering competition, sampled music is often a useful promotional tool that gets artists even more deserved attention. In 1987, Suzanne Vega released her sophomore album, Solitude Standing. The opening track, "Tom's Diner," was a gentle a capella song that clocked in at a little over two minutes. At the time, it didn't receive much attention. However, in 1990, the song was retooled by the fledgling British techno artists DNA Disciples. The remix re-contextualized Vega's vocals over a dance beat by Soul II Soul, and used the ad-libbed vocal on the original song's outro as the hook. Vega was incredibly pleased with the remix, and asked her label to release it as a single. It became a top 5 hit that year, and served as great cross-promotion for both artists. Admittedly, the Suzanne Vega example is one of rare synergy between the sampler and the sampled, but given that sampling only very rarely competes with the original artist's music, it can only bring more attention to it.
The more crucial question, then, is the second – is the work both transformative and creatively engaging? As Guy Garcia wrote in a 1991 article for TIME magazine, "The arts have a long tradition of allusion and quotation, often with resonant effects. In pop music the only danger of sampling is that performers will use it as a crutch for the imagination, rather than a tool to help liberate it". In many cases, the creativity behind a work is readily apparent and widely acknowledged – for example, both the aforementioned albums by DJ Shadow and The Avalanches were heralded as excellent and worthy examples what can be done with samples. However, originality isn't always present. In 1981, Vanilla Ice came under criticism for heavily sampling David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure" in his number one single, "Ice Ice Baby." Under pressure (honestly, no pun intended) from the original songwriters, Ice retroactively gave them songwriting credit, and it is speculated that an agreement was reached out of court. Songs such as "Ice Ice Baby" have been widely derided as highly derivative, riding on the catchiness of the sampled music instead of original creativity. When listening to the song, it is clear that a significant portion of its appeal ride on the catchiness of the sample it uses, using it as the kind of "crutch" that Garcia feared. Copyright law should not be protecting artists if the work they create isn't both transformative and creatively engaging. Similarly, one should not broadly condemn such a vibrant and colorful vein of creativity in today's music culture – fair use should certainly be granted to valid works.
Historically, however, the courts have not agreed with this reasoning. Over the past few years, the judiciary may have granted immunity to almost all works of parody, but fair use exceptions are much harder to come by in sampling cases. Largely, this is because copyright law has come to stand for "property right" – it tends to tends to protect the interests of established artists far more than those of future artists. Obviously, this runs counter to copyright's original purpose. Copyrighted material shouldn't be treated as property, but rather, it should be looked at as a potential source for culturally and artistically valuable new work. Unfortunately, corporate media interests are among the most powerful voices in government today, and they are far more concerned with turning a profit off their current assets. Thus, instead of looking forward and offering rewards to creators of new material, copyright law has come to look backward and reward the people who already own copyrighted material. This is violently contrary to the original purpose of copyright law, and threatens a serious stagnation of our culture.
Yet you'd be hard pressed to convince major labels to change – the new face of copyright law is licensing, and it has given them a potent new source of revenue. In a move that is revealing of their greed and disregard for upcoming artists, music labels make sure that sampling is an incredibly expensive process. Today, all "legitimate" music acts must "clear" every sample that they use, which generally involves paying an up-front fee and guaranteeing the sample owner hefty royalties. Therefore, sampling becomes an incredibly restrictive industry. Artists on independent labels never have enough money to invest in the clearing of samples, and the immense amount of legal red tape is enough to dissuade any artist without a legal team behind them. Obviously, this makes sampling an incredibly restrictive art form, and puts upcoming artists at a gigantic disadvantage. Bigger artists such as Eminem and Kanye West can get their labels to cover sampling costs, but small-time artists like Girl Talk have absolutely no means of legally sampling their work in today's culture. As Marjorie Heins articulately phrased in "Trashing the Copyright Balance," "independent artists, artists who can't afford fees and rebels who just don't want to get permission for every chord or riff they copy are silenced in a system that ignores their free speech rights."
A system like this can lead to some pretty horrible abuses. Bridgeport Music is likely the worst offender, being the most powerful "sample troll" working in today's music market. Sample trolls are companies that acquire the rights to numerous recordings and proceed to "troll" the music industry for artists who use these samples, no matter how insignificant or marginal their use might be. Bridgeport Music is actually a one-man corporation that was established in 1969 by former music producer Armen Boladian. The company has no assets aside from its copyright holdings and earnings from related court cases. Technically, Bridgeport is a "catalogue company" – a corporation that owns the licensing rights to various media and sells them to interested parties. However, Bridgeport takes a much more active approach in its approach to licensing. Instead of waiting for clients to approach his company, Boladian actively "trolls" for instances of sampling and sues all those who re-proportion songs under his jurisdiction.
In the 1970's, Bridgeport Music acquired the rights to the vast majority of funk musician George Clinton's music through a serious of dubious court decisions. In a couple of cases, Boladian actually wrote his own contracts and then forged Clinton's signature. These acquirements soon proved to be a boon to Bridgeport Music, as Clinton's songs are among the most widely sampled in hip-hop. Ironically, George Clinton is actually in favor of sampling. In an interview with Rick Karr, he said, "I was glad to hear it [hip-hop sampling], especially when it was our songs – it was a way to get back on the radio." However, Clinton has absolutely no input as to how Bridgeport Music uses his songs. Mostly citing his Clinton assets, Bridgeport filed nearly 500 counts of copyright infringement against over 800 musicians and labels in 2001. The corporation assumed the position that every sample, no matter how minimal or manipulated, constitutes a copyright violation. Sadly, the courts upheld that stance. While many of the cases were dismissed or settled outside of the courtroom, Boladian's company won a landmark victory against N.W.A. in 2005.
The case in question was Bridgeport Music vs. Dimension Films, which centered on N.W.A.'s 1990 single, "100 Miles and Runnin'". The song sampled Funkadelic's "Get Off Your Ass and Jam," even though use of the sample was entirely non-obvious. Producer Dr. Dre had taken a two-second guitar chord progression from the song, significantly lowered the pitch, and the pitch, and then looped it five times throughout the song . The original sample was barely distinguishable, but the court ruled in a 1994 appeal that the copyright owner of any sound recording had the exclusive right to publish it, or any variations thereof. Specifically, the court said, "Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way." Furthermore, the court removed the prior de minimis standard on sampling. Many previous sampling cases had dismissed based on the fact that they were so insignificant that they couldn't possibly be violating copyright law. The Bridgeport case revised that policy to a "bright line" stance, which said that all music samples were protected under copyright, no matter how insignificant their usage was. Obviously, this makes things easy for the courts – it eliminates the troublesome vagueness of the "fair use" concept altogether. However, it was profoundly frightening from the viewpoint of sampling artists.
This case is troublesome for several reasons. First off, the opinion that restricting sampling doesn't restrict creativity is completely ridiculous. N.W.A.'s off-kilter brand of intensified street-rap probably didn't appeal to the musical tastes of the white, aging jurists, but that is hardly grounds to dismiss the creativity of the work. In fact, the decision was widely derided as racist, as it refused to recognize hip-hop (a predominantly black art that depends on sampling for its vitality) as a legitimate art form. If there is one form of music that depends on sampling more than any other, it is rap – its very creation has been tied to sampling since its rise to prominence in the 1980's (with a few exceptions, such as the instrumentally-based hip-hop jam band The Roots). While there is certainly a significant amount of hip-hop schlock that permeates our airwaves today, a huge roster of hip-hop artists have been widely recognized as extraordinarily talented and artistically gifted. However, in spite of the hip-hop's critical and popular legitimacy, the Bridgeport case completely dismissed it.
Secondly, it allows for censorship at the discretion of copyright owners. People may argue that the music industry is probably not interested in censorship, but historically speaking, this has not been the case. In 1994, the vulgar rap collective 2 Live Crew was sued for mimicking Roy Orbison's classic "Oh, Pretty Woman" and allegedly defacing the song with their characteristically misogynistic lyrics. Certainly, 2 Live Crew's take probably "ruined" the song for many people by putting it into a highly unappealing new context, but the courts rightly upheld the notion that the song was transformative and original. However, with the Bridgeport decision, labels do not need to sue artists that they don't like – they merely need to deny them permission to use the sample. That this sort of power currently rests in the hands of labels is frightening, and flagrantly contrary to the purpose of copyright law.
Thirdly, "musical quotation" remained a viable form of sampling – the courts specifically acknowledged the legitimacy of re-recording a sample and using that in place of a direct digital copy. However, this completely ignores one of the chief sources of creative potential in sampling – re-contextualization. As DJ Shadow said in an interview with Keyboard magazine, "Cutting and pasting is the essence of what sampling culture is all about for me. It's about drawing from what's around you, and subverting it and de-contextualizing it." To be fair, the N.W.A. song was not an example of this re-contextualization – the Funkadelic sample was manipulated beyond recognition, such that nobody listening to the song could have recognized it, or drawn any cultural merit from its usage. However, for artists such as the Top 40-sampling Girl Talk, re-contextualization is a vital part of the music's message. The courts are clearly ignoring the vital basis for creativity that they should be protecting anyway.
In the time since, labels and copyright owners have unfairly wielded their newfound copyright powers against numerous critically acclaimed artists. In 1997, the Verve released its hit single, "Bitter Sweet Symphony." The song used an inverted sample from an obscure orchestral tribute to the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" for its hook. The Verve had actually asked verbal permission to use the sample, but they were sued anyway for using "too much of it" in the song. To be sure, "Bitter Sweet Symphony" leans heavily on the sample, but it also featured completely original lyrics, structure and instrumentation. Nonetheless, the band was successfully sued by the Rolling Stones. They lost all profits to the band, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were inexplicably given songwriting credit, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with the recording. Another more infamous example is DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, which used cut-up samples from The Beatles' The White Album as a musical bed for vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album. EMI, who held the copyright to the Beatles recordings, immediately filed an injunction to prevent distribution, even in the face of the album's enormous popularity and critical acclaim. In protest, Danger Mouse fans organized Grey Tuesday – On this day of digital civil disobedience, participating Web sites and blogs offered Danger Mouse's mash–up for download in defiance of EMI's legal threats. Aside from these two examples and numerous others, many speculate that even more great works haven't been realized because of copyright law – record labels frequently nix ideas for heavily sampled works before their musicians are even given studio time.
In the meantime, Bridgeport continues to work in the background of the music industry. Just last year, Boladian's shady corporation was awarded $4 million for illegal sampling in Notorious B.I.G.'s landmark debut, Ready to Die. But, as the prominent west coast rapper Ice T might say, don't hate the player – hate the game. It's not the corporations who are truly at fault here, as they are simply taking advantage of opportunities to earn money – we live in a capitalist system, and this sort of entrepreneurial behavior is to be expected. Change is not going to come from the corporations, who always have and probably always will be predominantly concerned with profit. The true villains here are the courts, who have supported a copyright system that clearly violates the very principles of creativity and originality that it is supposed to protect. Assuming that sampling is a creatively viable music technique (as I have argued here), there is no reason that the courts should allow commercial interests to have jurisdiction over how samples are used. In such an environment, the focus inevitably shifts from the generation of new, creative content (ie. art) to the protection of old material (ie. profit). While odds are low that we are going to see significant political change anytime soon, forward thinking politicians such as Mike Doyle do lend us a certain degree of hope – perhaps a moment of change is on the horizon. With any luck, upcoming samplers such as Girl Talk will gain legitimate legal standing within the next few years – until then, the gross perversion of copyright law will seriously cripple what should be a vital source of creative new music.
It's safe to say tensions between Radiohead and their former label EMI are pretty high right now. Soon after the band snubbed EMI by self-releasing In Rainbows, the label announced it would re-release Radiohead's entire back catalog in a deluxe box set. Interestingly, it has the exact same price tag and release date as Radiohead's deluxe In Rainbows disc box. Last week, EMI's actions took an even more outrageous turn – the label placed a misleading Google advertisement for an album called "Rainbow" that re-directed to a site selling EMI's box set. EMI has since retracted the advertisement, calling it a "data source glitch" (which might be something like a wardrobe malfunction).
Let's not split hairs – Jay-Z's Kingdom Come was bad. No, it wasn't awful, and yes, it did have a handful of redeeming qualities. All the same, it was bad, and as a comeback album from one of hip-hop's biggest and most talented figures, it was a huge letdown.
In large part, the album failed because Jay-Z was too comfortable. Chock full of uninspired rhymes about expensive brands, it lacked any sense of urgency and utterly failed to engage listeners. Kingdom Come may have triumphantly announced the return of one of hip-hop's most celebrated figures, but Jay-Z didn't seem to have much else to say.
Can we really hold it against him, though? His finest work has always revolved around conflict or aspiration. But with Kingdom Come, Jay-Z was totally content. Maybe he just didn't want to fake intensity where there wasn't any. Right or wrong, it's simply what he was feeling at the time.
It's no surprise, then, that American Gangster is an entirely different animal. Inspired by Ridley Scott's film of the same name, Jay-Z's latest is a concept album that loosely details the rise and fall of his fictional drug-dealing alter ego. Far from the comfy, secure themes of Kingdom Come, it sees a return to ruminations on crime and inner-city life that Jay-Z hadn't thoroughly explored since his classic 1996 debut Reasonable Doubt. Tapping into an old vein of creativity revitalizes him, lending him a legitimate, sincere reason to return to the intensity and passion that made his seminal work so compelling.
Jay-Z - "Roc Boys (And the Winner is)..."
Jigga Man's newfound vigor is evident from the get-go with the stunning album opener, "Pray." Perhaps the most emotionally resonant track on the album, it follows the childhood of Jay-Z's protagonist in the New York City projects. The song's observations are disarming in their simplicity and specificity, ranging from used needles on his classroom floor to his father leaving the house in search of his uncle's killer. When Jay-Z proclaims, "I didn't choose this life/ This life chose me," it's strangely easy to empathize with alter-Jay's decision to pursue a life of crime.
To complement his gift for vibrant imagery, Jay-Z employs some of his most vibrant, flexible rhymes to date. Jaw-dropping tracks such as "No Hook," "Ignorant Shit" and the advance single "Blue Magic" all stand among Hova's finest, effortlessly pounding out complex internal rhyme schemes and clever puns. Similarly stunning is the production work, largely handled by Diddy and the Hitmen. The samples are focused on 1970s soul, a fitting touch for an album inspired by Frank Lucas' life.
All these elements congeal into what may well be Jay-Z's best album in half a decade, which makes all the talk of corporate synergy surrounding this release frustrating. True, the fact that Universal is putting out both Jay-Z's album and the related film raises some good questions – is all this just another corporate media scheme to earn some more money?
Maybe, but let's not get caught up in the media politics of the release lest we miss out on some great music. American Gangster may not reach the same heights as his greatest work (Reasonable Doubt and The Blueprint), but it rests comfortably next to The Black Album and In My Lifetime as one of Jay-Z's great second-tier albums, and one of the most resonant, accomplished hip-hop albums of 2007.
There's been a lot of hype surrounding Joy Division lately. Control, a biopic that dramatically details the sad story of frontman Ian Curtis, is burning up film festival circuits worldwide. The eponymous documentary Joy Division has also premiered recently, offering a more objective look at the band's history. And now, Rhino has decided to re-issue the group's seminal albums, Unknown Pleasures and Closer.
Not too bad for a band that's been defunct for almost 30 years.
It's anyone's guess as to where this newfound surge in popularity is coming from, but at least everybody can agree on one thing – Joy Division's legacy is a deserved one. Widely recognized as one of the influential punk bands of all time, the band's sparse, primitive stylings have been a crucial influence on bands as varied as LCD Soundsystem, The Killers and Franz Ferdinand.
In contrast to other punk groups of their day, Joy Division made the revolutionary decision to emphasize space over density, and played their music much more deliberately than their than their fast-paced peers. The resulting music was, and still is, eerily spacey and frightening, made all the more dramatic for Ian Curtis' dark imagery.
Unknown Pleasures, the first of Joy Division's tragically short two-album career, is a dark and intensely focused masterpiece. Taken as a whole, it's an album of lonely desperation – each track serves as a new dialogue, a new person trying to overcome some nameless fear. Unsurprisingly, Unknown Pleasures can be immensely depressing, but it's also awe-inspiring in its scope and creativity.
Joy Division was adept at creating an emotive atmosphere, and each band member was excellent at playing off the other. Uniquely, bassist Peter Hook usually carried the melody, while guitarist Bernard Sumner played rhythm with an occasional cathartic solo. With such a taut, expressive band to back his words, Ian Curtis' monotone vocals took on an otherworldly potency. Visceral yet deliberate, emotive yet cold, driving yet resigned, Unknown Pleasures is a work of stunning paradox.
Joy Division - "She's Lost Control"; live (???)
Follow-up Closer, which unintentionally became the group's last album, was a reflection of Joy Division's ambition. Compared to the monochromatic Unknown Pleasures, it is a vibrant explosion of textures and influences.
Though the group retained its core potency and atmosphere, the use of keyboards and fuller production allowed the band to create an album that is lusher, more confident and more powerful than its predecessor. Fantastic songs such as "Atrocity Exhibition" and "Decades" could never have been as stunning as they are without the textures that the band masterfully employed. Impossibly, Closer actually topped the legendary Unknown Pleasures in its ambitiousness, scope and accomplishment.
And then, at the height of his band's career, frontman Ian Curtis committed suicide, putting a definitive end to the Joy Division legend. His lyrics, marital problems and worsening epilepsy had long been sources of concern, but nobody is sure exactly what motivated his suicide.
Turning back to the music, it's obvious that Curtis was channeling some deeply rooted desperation and angst. Perhaps it was a creative force too powerful for him to contain. Joy Division's discography lends some credence to that theory – it is perhaps the most potent, awe-inspiring punk music ever written.
As easy as it is to get caught up in the music of our own time, these Joy Division re-issues remind us that we should always keep an open mind to the past. Some of the greatest music we will ever hear has already been written.
Whether you subscribe to the church of Radiohead or not, you have to give the group credit for its earnest devotion to music. Far more than contemporaries of their status, they are committed to the production of fresh, creative albums that push their sound in new directions.
Unfortunately, this attitude has led them down a creative path that has alienated many of their former fans. After 1997's widely acclaimed OK Computer, Radiohead wasn't sure how to follow up what is still the greatest album of their career. The mounting pressure led the band to deconstruct its anthemic guitar-rock in favor of electronic experimentation. While many heralded their next effort, Kid A, as an artistic triumph, others decried its inaccessibility and wished the group would return to playing guitars properly.
Ten years after the fact, In Rainbows may well be the follow-up to OK Computer those estranged fans were looking for. Though it heeds the experimental lessons of Radiohead's last few albums, the group has made a pointed return to traditional songwriting. Excellent new songs such as "House of Cards" and "Reckoner" could easily have been highlights in Radiohead's pre-OK Computer catalogue, featuring traditional guitar hooks and inviting, accessible songwriting.
Of all the directions Radiohead could have taken, this seems the least likely. Songs such as "The Gloaming" and "Backdrifts" on 2003's Hail to the Thief pointed toward frenetic glitch-pop territory, while Thom Yorke's solo project The Eraser suggested a pretty mess of homemade agit-pop.
In Rainbows, however, is notably warmer and simpler than anything the band has done in its career. Strange electronic effects still haunt a few of the tracks (see the fractured drum introduction of "15 Step"), but the clear focus is on guitar, percussion and supple string arrangements.
So breathe a sigh of relief, OK Computer fans – Radiohead has decided to embrace actual songwriting again. Whether it's with the incredible love-sick buildup of "All I Need" or the frenetic, infectious guitar freak-out of "Bodysnatchers", it's clear this is Radiohead's most unabashedly melodic material in more than a decade. Many songs are among their greatest.
Radiohead - "All I Need"; live in studio 12/31/07
Sometimes, however, In Rainbows feels maddeningly basic. Though each track sounds great in the moment, the album as a whole may leave listeners unsatisfied. Compared to all of Radiohead's previous work, there is noticeably less substance to the music. Is the simplicity here an artistic choice, or indicative of a dearth of new ideas? The album's frustratingly short run-time (at a little over 40 minutes) does little to allay listener's doubts.
But fans know it's impossible to thoroughly evaluate a new Radiohead album in less than a week. Perhaps, given time, In Rainbows may prove itself equal to Radiohead's greatest albums (The Bends and Kid A, and of course OK Computer). Certainly, it's clearly superior to 2003's great-but-not-amazing Hail to the Thief, and an excellent return to form. Only repeated listens, however, will reveal whether In Rainbows will achieve "classic" status.
It's no secret that the Internet is slowly but surely bringing music labels to their knees. Physical record sales are dropping by phenomenal amounts, online services like iTunes are converting more and more customers every day and consumers continue to turn to sharing programs to download new music. And now, as if the industry didn't have enough problems, one of the biggest-selling musical acts of our generation is giving their new album out as a free download.
The music world was shocked last week when Radiohead multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood announced that his band's new album, In Rainbows, would be self-released as a DRM-free MP3 download. What's even more startling is that the band is allowing fans to pay however much they want for the files. In effect, Radiohead is handing out their music for free and asking for a donation. In case you'd prefer to buy something physical, the band is also contracting the release of a box set (which includes the album on vinyl and CD, with bonus content) for £40 (roughly $80). All profits go directly to the band.
After 2003's Hail to the Thief capped off Radiohead's six-record contract with EMI, many speculated the band would take an unorthodox approach to the release of their seventh LP. Almost no one, however, had suspected the band would so totally ignore the traditional means of music distribution. Radiohead's market plan cuts out every single middleman in the business – there will be no single for radio promotion, and critics will not receive advance records for review. There will be no label to manage the printing and distribution of the album, and promotional companies will play no part in the hype surrounding In Rainbows.
Does this approach mark the beginning of a massive retooling of music distribution?
Not for all bands. There are only a select few artists who would be able to pull off a coup like this. Radiohead, with more than a decade of major label promotion and critical acclaim behind them, is in a particularly enviable position. As one of the biggest bands in the world, it boasts an extremely devoted fan base, one that is willing to pay for music even if it doesn't have to. Would the latest *emo* boys on Pete Wentz's Fueled by Ramen imprint be able to do this with any degree of success? It's doubtful.
Radiohead could, however, be blazing a new promotional pathway for other, similarly gigantic music acts. In fact, the Oxford-based quintet is not the first to try a stunt like this. Just a few months ago, pop superstar Prince had label managers pulling their hair when he handed out free copies of his new album Planet Earth with issues of the British tabloid The Mail on Sunday. At first blush, this might seem like an odd and expensive way to promote one's music. Prince's critics, however, were quickly silenced when he proceeded to sell out no fewer than 20 shows at the London's O2 Arena. With a capacity of 20,000 people and ticket prices roughly five times the price of Planet Earth, Prince found himself raking in a tidy profit.
Forward-thinking musicians such as Prince and Radiohead are embracing a distribution approach that has the potential to cut the music industry out of the loop entirely. Will their bold experiments spark change in an obviously outdated system?
Guy Hands, the president of Radiohead's former label EMI, as quoted by the Telegraph, recently described Radiohead's move as "a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy" before going on to declare EMI will have to either embrace the online medium or go out of business.
We can only hope other labels will take his words to heart. In the meantime, we have the incredible opportunity to listen to the latest album from a great band without the critical bias of music reviews or the commercial hubbub of radio singles and unneeded promotion. For once, it really is just about the music and the musicians who created it.
Greg Gillis gained national recognition last year under the pseudonym Girl Talk for his unique mash-up compilation, Night Ripper. Though mash-ups are generally considered little more than a novelty, Gillis brought some artistic legitimacy to the table by creatively mixing up to 30 samples into three-minute songs. In anticipation of his forthcoming show here in Charlottesville, the Cavalier Daily recently caught up with Greg to ask him a few questions about his work.
Greg Gillis: Hello?
Ethan: Hey, it’s Ethan again, from the Cavalier Daily.
GG: Hey, how are you doing? Sorry about that. Were you the one who called the other day too?
E: Yeah.
GG: Man, I’m sorry. I normally don’t schedule interviews, and I don’t normally schedule extended tours, so I’ve been a bit busier than expected. I apologize.
E: Well, I’m a really big fan of Girl Talk, so I appreciate you taking the time out to talk with me.
GG: No problem, man.
E: Well, I guess we might as well get started... I heard that you quit your day job as a biomedical engineer. What do you like best about a full time music artist by comparison?
GG: It’s so hard to pinpoint one thing just because the whole lifestyle is so different. I mean, I hate waking up early and I hate going into offices and I hate dealing with people that I want to be friends with on the rise. I enjoyed the engineering aspect, but the whole "job" thing just sucks for a lot of people because you are forced to do a lot of things you don’t want to do. Now, I wake up whenever I want and just do something that I really enjoy, which is make music and hang out with my friends.
E: Well, certainly it’s a very different job. What exactly inspired you to start Girl Talk?
GG: You know, I was always attracted to the music. I think when I was 15 or so I started my first band, and it was more experimental stuff. That's kind of how I got into doing electronic music. Once my high school band was done with, I was 18 and I got my first computer, so I decided to just start doing electronic music. I liked guys like Negativland and people who did sample-based works, so I kind of wanted to get involved in the same things they did.
E: How exactly do you decide what samples go well with each other? Your mixes seem very robust, but at the same time, it seems like it would be a very delicate process.
GG: For me, it's never really intuitive — it’s always very trial-and-error based. I’m always isolating samples and not really worrying about what I’m going to do with them. I have a program, which I perform live on, which is kind of an easy way to match up different samples and time-stretch and things like that. I try out tons of different things. Every show, I change up small little aspects of my songs and after a year or two of experimenting, certain things pop up and start to sound really good. It’s a guessing game for me, and I just spend a lot of time doing it. It’s just whatever sounds good to my ears.
E: Since you use so many samples without permission of the artist, do you ever worry about the legality of what you’re doing?
GG: With my other albums, I was really doing it on an underground level, so I wasn’t that concerned. A lot of people do sample-based works that fly under the radar. I think with the last record, with the attention I got, I had to be a little bit concerned. I don’t feel morally wrong about anything I’m doing. I don’t feel like I’m negatively impacting any artists. I feel like the work is transformative and stands on its own feet. There is a thing called Fair Use in the United States law that allows you to sample without permission if it falls under certain criteria, and I do believe my music should fall within what would be Fair Use. So I worry about it, but at the same time, I feel good about it. It’s not as though I feel that I'm ripping anybody off in any way.
E: Would you consider yourself more of an artist, or more of a DJ? Your music has definitely received its fair share of critical acclaim, but at the same time, most of the people that I’m going to the concert with are just looking to dance. I think your music kind of has that kind of dual appeal to it.
GG: I don’t know if I would pick either, as far as "DJ" or "artist." I’d hate to call myself an artist, because then I just sound like a pretentious dude, you know what I mean? But I would definitely not consider myself a DJ, not in a traditional sense. For me, a DJ is somebody who mixes songs, and there’s a specific art to that. But when I perform live, people don’t come out to hear me play songs — they come out to hear me remix and make new songs out of that. The style that I perform them, I’ve never really seen a DJ perform that way. I’ve seen other sound-collage artists do it, where you get up there and you manipulate samples to make something new, but when I see DJ’s play, even the most creative ones will queue up a track and can step away and let it play out. With me, any change in the music I’m actually doing by hand. Every kick drum, every individual sample is kind of isolated, and I’m actually mixing and matching on the fly. I’d say I’m not a DJ, with a lot of respect towards DJ’s. For me, I’ve always kind of considered myself an electronic music producer that happens to be based in samples.
E: What’s your favorite part of performing?
GG: For me, one thing that’s cool is that I’m always trying out new music, so I get to play it for new people and see how they get down. Making the music is very isolated — I’m sitting in my room for hours working on things, it’s not a very social thing. The shows for me are very big — there’s a huge social part where I like to interact with the crowd. I like to get them on stage, I like to get into the crowd. I’m working for hours and hours and years and years and years. I mean, I like what I’m making, but then I get to get up on stage and see how people get down with it. You get to have fun with that. Really, I just like partying with people.
E: Looking into the future, have you got any ideas for your next album yet? I’m really hoping to hear snippets of songs like [Rihanna's] "Umbrella" and [Justin Timberlake's] "SexyBack".
GG: Like I said before, I really like to preview new material all the time. The way I perform live is that I take out one sample and put in something new. When I’m a performer, I’m showing about 80 percent new material, so I think I have a lot built up for the past year and a half or so. I think I should be able to pump out another album within a year. I think it will be in a similar style to Night Ripper, but I’ve worked on music more this year than any other period of my life, so I think I can put something together that’s a bit more cohesive and tighter than Night Ripper. I think I may have found my niche with that particular style, and I haven’t really heard anyone else view music in that style, so I’m going to try and put out another album before people start jumping on the bandwagon.
E: Just a personal question here. I had heard you were doing a remix of the of Montreal song, "Gronlandic Edit." How’s that going?
GG: It’s good! I was doing it as Girl Talk for a while, and I do remixes with a friend of mine named Frank Musarra under the name "Trey Told 'Em." It was supposed to be a Girl Talk remix, but I was actually having problems with a few parts of it, so Frank and I have been working on it together. It’s just about done now. We’ve actually been out for a couple of weeks, so we’ve been holding off on it, but it won’t be a Girl Talk remix. It’ll be under the title Trey Told 'Em. I’m into it, we disco’d it out a little. There’s not a lot of heavy sample work, but I think it’s cool. I actually think it’s the best remix I’ve done with Frank so far.
E: Awesome, I look forward to hearing it! Thanks again for your time. Do you have any final comments before I let you go?
GG: No, I just want to apologize again for being so busy over the past couple days, I feel like a dickhead. But yeah, it was nice to get to chat.
E: It’s no problem, it was nice to get a hold of you. Thanks a lot for your time, Greg.
This summer, Roc-A-Fella Records moved the release date of Kanye West's Graduation up a week to Sept. 11, the same release date as 50 Cent's heavily anticipated Curtis. Almost immediately, talk show hosts, radio personalities and bloggers were alight with speculation – which of the two hip-hop heavyweights would move more units?
On one hand, 50 Cent has sold 11 million records during his career, which is roughly twice West's still impressive 6 million. On the other hand, West is the critic's choice – many consider his last two albums to be bonafide hip-hop classics. As 50 Cent so eloquently put it, "I get checks. He gets the trophies."
Kanye West - "All Falls Down" (feat. Syleena Johnson)
Perhaps taking note of the hype, and certainly hoping to earn even more big checks, 50 Cent proceeded to up the ante. First, he challenged West to a presidential style debate on BET's 106 & Park and next, he proclaimed he would never record another solo album if Graduation outsold Curtis. Even though West declined to participate in the debate (saying on TV that it was "the stupidest thing [he] ever heard"), and 50 Cent has since retracted his promise to leave the music industry if he is outsold (a good idea, since Graduation is well ahead of Curtis in pre-sales), the trick worked. This Tuesday was undoubtedly one of the biggest music events this year.
Despite all the hype preceding the release of the two records, however, it doesn't seem like the most likely clash. Even if Kanye West and 50 Cent are arguably the biggest hip-hop artists in the market today, they aren't exactly competitors. In fact, they represent radically different personalities. 50 Cent is the filthy rich gangster, whereas Kanye West is the socially conscious backpack rapper. Would there be a competition of this magnitude in the rock industry if, say, Nickelback and Radiohead decided to release their new albums on the same day? Doubtful. Sure, beef is an important part of the rap industry while it is more or less irrelevant to rock and pop (unless your name is Brandon Flowers), but it seems that the 50 Cent/Kanye West battle is little more than a publicity stunt meant to jump-start floundering hip-hop record sales.
Indeed, music industry profit is currently at an all-time low. Compared to 2006, overall album sales are down 14 percent this year, which undoubtedly has major labels getting antsy. Hip-hop in particular is suffering, experiencing a shocking 30 percent decline since last year. Where does the problem lie?
50 Cent - "In da Club"
A frequent criticism of Top 40 hip-hop is that it is too focused on getting a great single as opposed to a solid fan base. In a world where consumers can steal a hit song or two with a few mouse clicks, there is little motivation for people to lay down money for artists to whom they have no connection. At the same time, independent musicians with staunch followings such as Arcade Fire, the Shins, Modest Mouse and Interpol are now claiming top spots on Billboard charts. Could the competition between 50 Cent and Kanye West compel consumers to pledge allegiance to their rapper of choice, thereby establishing the solid fan base indie musicians are currently enjoying?
Maybe. Or perhaps it is simply another publicity stunt. It's certainly impossible to deny that this competition has raked up an incredible amount of press attention. Practically everybody is poised to see how consumers react to this great experiment in consumer mobilization. It even jolted the rock-based Rolling Stone magazine into focusing on hip-hop – 50 Cent and Kanye West stare each other down on the cover of the current issue.
The two hip-hop titans go head-to-head this week in what has been dubbed "the battle that will save the music industry." Cast your vote and support your rapper of choice by buying his album and help the floundering record industry while you're at it! Either that, or make a futile protest of major label dominance by grabbing that great new Animal Collective album. Your choice.
For almost a decade, Ian Bavitz (best known by his Aesop Rock moniker) has been turning heads on the underground rap circuit with his articulate, nicotine-tinged delivery and dense, hyper-literate lyrics. He’s also been rather consistent throughout his career. Considering that he’s been on putting out material for ten years, Bavitz has a surprisingly solid discography under his belt.
However, it’s been four years since the release of Bazooka Tooth, the last Aesop Rock full length. Since then he’s reached his 30th birthday, moved from New York City (whose slums have served as his constant muse) to San Francisco, and gotten married. Does Aesop Rock have another great album in him?
The short answer to that question is “yes”. From the outset of None Shall Pass, Bavitz makes it clear that he has lost none of his enthusiasm. Opener "Keep Off the Lawn" kicks the album off with an infectious combination of funk sampling and live drums as Bavitz belts out a boisterous call-and-response chorus. ("How alive?! Too alive!")
Of course, it’s not at all clear what the song actually means. Ostensibly, it’s a preemptive declaration of vigor in spite of age, but Bavitz's lyrics are completely indecipherable. Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Aesop Rock is that it is almost entirely futile to try and grasp any meaning. While he insists that they are meaningful (a small minority of people believe him), his penchant for bizarre, eccentric imagery is far too dense to be bothered with.
One shouldn’t focus on understanding Bavitz's words, but rather the rapping itself. What exactly do lines like "notice that the phobias appropriately procreate" mean? Who knows, but it’s difficult to deny the appeal of the tongue-twister tumble when Bavitz spits it out in his trademark nasally monotone.
Most promisingly, sometime between Bazooka Tooth and None Shall Pass Bavitz developed the ability to write a truly excellent chorus. Aside from "Keep Off the Lawn", the hooks for "Catacomb Kids", "Getaway Car", and "Five Fingers" practically beg to be awkwardly sung by white frat kids. It lends a pleasant degree of catchiness to Bavitz’s work, which was often monotonous at first blush.
Aesop Rock - "None Shall Pass"
Bavitz also branches out with a formidable arsenal of production talents. Unlike previous Aesop Rock projects, None Shall Pass employs a wide variety of producers (such as Blockhead, El-P, Rob Sonic and Bavitz himself). The diversity of beats creates an awkward flow of songs, but it also keeps things interesting and lively.
While all contributors to the album make solid, well-realized beats, Bavitz’s own work steal the show here. Having refined and tightened his production noticeably since 2005’s Fast Cars EP, the music is nervous, jittery and well suited for Aesop Rock’s neurotic delivery. It’s unsurprising that the best fit for Bavitz’s own flow is his own production, and one finds himself wishing that he had come to the same conclusion before hiring so many other rap talents to help him out.
Even so, the other producers pull their own weight admirably. Blockhead’s calls to mind Aesop Rock’s breakthrough Labor Days, particularly the darkly ominous "Fumes". El-P does an excellent job on both the hook of "39 Thieves" the socially conscious "Gun for the Whole Family". Rob Sonic’s lone track, "Dark Heart News", is decent but forgettable by comparison to the other tracks.
At the end of the day, None Shall Pass is a solid entry into the Aesop Rock’s rap catalogue. It lacks the freshness or cohesiveness of a stone-cold classic, but it’s sure to please Aesop Rock’s oldest fans and win over plenty of new ones.
Conor Oberst, the prolific songwriter behind the ephemeral Bright Eyes collective, is growing up, and it's not clear whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.
On one hand, his latest work is his tightest and most musically proficient to date. On the other hand, it's his least interesting. Pick up his band's brand new album, Cassadaga, if you want evidence – Oberst's latest collection of songs may be his best-crafted and most capable, but it also lacks the emotional depth and immediacy that made his seminal work so compelling. This means that Cassadaga is simultaneously the best and worst Bright Eyes album ever written.
Let's start with the good stuff. Oberst is one of the best American songwriters alive today, and his talents still shine as bright as ever. Cassadaga is, without a doubt, his band's fullest and most confident effort to date. This is partly due to the album's polished production, which nicely complements Bright Eyes' cleaner, tighter sound. For example, the lush orchestral flourishes in ballads such as "Make a Plan to Love Me" and "No One Would Riot for Less" add a pleasant degree of depth and warmth.
Oberst's lyrics are as strong and evocative as they've ever been, even as he moves on from his iconic self-degradation to harsh criticism of both religion and government. Advance single "Four Winds" is unusually and insidiously catchy for a Bright Eyes song, and thus has the potential to win over a throng of new fans.
Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"
In spite of Oberst's clear maturation as a musical craftsman, however, Cassadaga won't please every Bright Eyes fan. Don't pick up the new album with hopes of hearing any of Oberst's signature off-key pleading or compulsive musical indulgences – he's cleaned up his music quite a bit. While Lifted-era Bright Eyes was best played in the lonely seclusion of your high school bedroom, Cassadaga's sultry inoffensiveness could easily find a home in your mother's stereo.
Around the time of I'm Wide Awake, Conor figured out what his limits were, and Cassadaga works well within those boundaries. Before that point, Oberst pushed and strained with overly ambitious ideas that were just beyond his grasp, leading to the fevered, imperfect masterpieces Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted. To many Bright Eyes fans, the pitched failures on these albums only accentuated the brilliant successes and gave Oberst's music a refreshing degree of humanity. Imperfection is inherent to all of us, and Oberst once embraced this fact more than any other popular musician.
Of course, this is exactly why many people never liked Bright Eyes to begin with. His ambitiousness was frequently written off as overwrought pretension, and many found his cracking adolescent yowl endlessly annoying. Those critics will be pleasantly surprised by Cassadaga, as Oberst has shed those aspects of his music. Cassadaga is less a reflection of Oberst's heart and more a reflection of his musicianship.
The ironic thing is that as Oberst gains more confidence in his musical ability, his work loses the neurotic insecurities that earned him his earliest fans. It's depressing to think that at the tender young age of 27, Oberst is already losing his edge.
Nonetheless, Cassadaga is a solid entry in the Bright Eyes discography and has a good chance of winning Oberst even more fans than he had before. Be sure to recommend this album to your mother, but that kid with the black eyeliner has doubtless moved on to the next underground emo sensation.
Ostensibly, the music video for Fall Out Boy's "Thnks fr th Mmrs" is about the band's growing disillusionment with the record industry. Music executives, represented by orangutans and chimpanzees, manipulate and compromise the band throughout the entire video. But is Fall Out Boy really worried about losing its image to the corporate world? Blatant product placement for body sprays and cell phones suggests otherwise.
Between Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" and Justin Timberlake's three #1 hits, 2006 was a banner year for Timbaland's slick, futuristic production. In fact, you could hardly turn on the radio without hearing one of his latest hits.
Given this astronomical success, you can imagine the excitement of major-label executives when Timbaland announced his first solo disc in nearly a decade. Not only does the disc feature his incredibly popular beats, but there's also an all-star cast of guest vocalists. Everybody from 50 Cent to M.I.A. to Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Nelly Furtado to The Hives to Elton John was willing to spit on his tracks. Holy shit! Is Top 40 radio ready for this?!
Indeed, when it comes to popular music, Timbaland Presents: Shock Value delivers on its promise. Almost every last one of Tim's latest tracks could, conceivably, be a hit. Were the album's tracks divided into individual singles and slowly released over the course of the next two years, it's likely that almost all would worm their way into the Billboard 100.
Listening to all these songs at once, however, deadens their individual impact. At first listen, it's difficult to tell one song apart from the next -- Timbaland's consistent musical aesthetic makes each track sound much like the last. This is particularly problematic in the case of Shock Value, which features no fewer than 17 tracks in a row. It may require several listens for one to appreciate each track's individual strengths and weaknesses. Luckily, such efforts are worth it. Shock Value finds Timbaland's production skills to be in top form.
There isn't a weak beat to be found on Shock Value, though some songs will certainly stand out from the pack. "Way I Are," in spite of its atrocious grammar, is easily one of the most danceable songs released so far this year. Advance single "Give It to Me" showcases one of Timbaland's most seductive club beats to date. "Bombay" is an excellent and surprisingly successful fusion of traditional Indian music and slick hip-hop. "Apologize" is an oddly compelling combination of melodramatic Coldplay-pop melody and a catchy R&B rhythm section. "Bounce" is a fuzzy power-bass monster that will doubtless shatter a few dance floors in the future.
Timbaland - "The Way I Are" (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.)
Still, Shock Value will never sit quite right if you take the time to listen to the lyrics. Timbaland's slick, well-realized beats do little to mask a dearth of lyrical content. No matter how good a song's production is, there is almost nothing that can mask the worthless nature of lines like "Bounce/ like your ass had the hiccups", or "I piss and take a shit on your beat for fun."
In fact, most every line in Shock Value is cringe-worthy. Timbaland seems to have nothing to talk about except sex and how endlessly awesome he is compared to everybody else. Sure, it's great to hear Justin Timberlake stutter, "If sexy never left/ then why's everybody on my shit?", but that single amusing line hardly compensates for the rest of the schlock that permeates Shock Value. Then again, we live in the era of "Fergalicious." These days, the message behind your music is hardly a factor in your success, and it's not going to hold a power producer like Timbaland back.
When you finish listening to the album and peel your headphones off, it becomes apparent that Shock Value is a bit of a misnomer. Timbaland's latest doesn't really shock at all. Rather, it's the kind of album that you'd come to expect from one of hip-hop's greatest connoisseurs: a collection of catchy, radio-friendly tunes. Somewhere, an Interscope executive is getting a raise.
