A Year In America November 20, 2008

[koganbot]

Thought on my mind today, as the stock market plummets another five percent and credit freezes up again: in 1933 "race records" pretty much disappeared, as its audience got too poor to buy. I don't yet expect a depression, and I know that r&b and hip-hop travel beyond demographics, and its core demographic reaches into the middle class. But I do wonder what genres will be hit hardest by the slowdown.

Taylor Swift "White Horse": A gorgeous purr of sadness in her throat, sudden snaps of the whip from her tongue. Gentle guitar chords at the start have the same quietly hair-rasing effect. The chorus can't maintain the mood, so the song loses itself, but the mood returns when the verse returns. TICK.

Guns N' Roses "Chinese Democracy": Dramatic chords to start, then an Axl squeal sampled from "Welcome To The Jungle," same dance rumble from the bass that was all over Appetite For Destruction 21 years ago, same subtle half-growl as in "It's So Easy." What's missing is any kind of release in the chorus; also missing is the high shriek with which Axl could have delivered it. Good song, exciting, even, but ought to have been far better. TICK.

Nickelback "If Today Was Your Last Day": Gremo? Grunge emo? Or would that term be redundant? Good tune, at least in the verse, and Chad's tonsillectomy gargle is less bothersome than on the track I hated on poptimists on Monday; but the deep sodden guitars sink these guys once again. NO TICK.

Jazmine Sullivan "Bust Your Windows": Man, another album I need to get to. Once again Jazmine's vocals overmatch her material, end up busting its chops even when she's stepping delicately. That's a drama to look forward to when I get the album: a bull of a voice dressed in a gown, trying not to rip the apparel. TICK.

T-Pain f. Ludacris "Chopped 'N' Skrewed": Mr. Autotune walks through a nondescript melody, while voice and beats are chopped and screwed to an annoying degree. Novelty number done wrong. NO TICK.

Comments

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

Isn't country generally a working class taste? That's the impression I have from thousands of miles away, anyway.

[koganbot]

Good question. My guess is that in, say, Colorado, country racks up its big numbers in the suburbs (which is where most of Coloradans live); but it gets people who want to identify rural and - somewhat - traditional. And when, say, farming is brought up, a theme is often whether the family farm will have to sell out to the guys in suits. And there's of course identification with beer drinkers and ordinary people (except also an emphasis on how one's good ordinary values are in the minority nowadays!). I don't know how often the explicit word "working class" appears - country is more likely call someone in the working class a "working man" or (less often) a "working woman," with the word "class" generally used in swipes at people who are socially "high class." And of course there's Garth Brooks' "I've got friends in low places." And of course the lyrics are full of social and class resentments and social and class affirmations, with the assumption that the choices in life are either to be an underling or out on your own. But as for the buying power of this audience, I don't think I know.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

There was some chat about this kind of topic (the economics of pop, not the quality or otherwise of Taylor Swift alas) on the P4K message board - the decline in 'race records' in the 30s apparently led to a boom in black clubs and venues as they became the only transmission medium for the music - so spending on music shifted, and combined with spending on socialising/escapism, rather than crashed. But of course today 'going out' in whatever form - eating, shows, movies - is thought to be one of the first day-to-day discretionary cutbacks, and most consumers have in-home entertainment pipes that are free (TV if not internet). The record biz - in the sense of people selling physical artefacts - is already screwed, and the recession is likely to hit the concept that the music industry (including musicians sadly) can claw back revenues through shows, clubs etc.

http://aceterrier.com/?page_id=1033 - Speaking of 1933, I linked to this on FT a bit ago, though haven't had time to delve into it yet.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah - a (world music) record label owner who spoke at a Guardian lunch I went to recently said that the bottom has already completely fallen out of the live sector. Shows right now are sold out, because the tickets were bought 4 months ago, but shows for next year are selling on average something like 40% of what they'd be expected to sell, and many acts are being forced to cancel entire tours. Given that touring is basically the main matchstick still propping up the industry, it looks like everyone will be a bit fucked next year. Maybe we'll see more success through DIY, cost-effective channels?

On a nicer note, Frank is otm about Jazmine - as stunning as her voice is, I don't think she's quite learnt to use it in the right way all the time, and she can just blare and blare away when the song doesn't call for it. But this never detracts from the power of the song, and sometimes the overdone presentation is a bit disorientating, in a good way (eg 'Dream Big': most singers would have done this coquettishly or yearningly, but Jazmine blares away and ends up sounding appropriately massive). And of course it serves her amazingly well on the more emotionally raw tracks.

[koganbot]

Several weeks ago when I was randomly checking some of the new Jazmine tracks on MySpace Music "Bust Your Windows" was one of the ones I liked least, and it sounds pretty good now, so I'm looking forward to the album. And I'm not assuming that the mismatch between voice and style is necessarily a bad thing. It does seem, though, that she hasn't really given herself the option of thinning her tone (compare to Mariah, who can go from thin to thick at will, whereas Jazmine always draws with thick, heavy lines)(from what I've heard, obv.).

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

also NB that Beyonce review you linked to on your tumblr is DREADFUL and made me ANGRY (temporarily)!!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Things I learned from watching Never Mind The Buzzcocks last night:

- I want to marry Alesha Dixon
- Beyonce plays Connect 4!

[koganbot]

I wonder if there will be a shift from concerts to clubs, the admission to the former usually costing more than admission to the latter (though actual expenses might not be different; but people are more aware of initial outlays than of their actual expenses). I recall the general opinion of histories of Hollywood was that in the depression movies continued to do well,* so presumably entertainment won't go through a complete collapse; but movies weren't special events in the Thirties whereas now the industry relies on either being big and special in a way that home TV isn't or trashier than you could ever get on home TV (though "trashier than what's on TV" has become harder to achieve over the last quarter century in now that there's cable).

An interesting division would be between people who feel they have the option of consuming at home (married couples, families) and people who want to or need to get out of the house (those on dates, high school kids).

I haven't seen this week's Billboard Hot 100, since I'm not a subscriber to Billboard.biz, but Billboard article I gather that Taylor Swift has six new tracks in the Hot 100 (two of these are in the top fifty, which I can see), so that would mean four more are in the next fifty, not to count the Taylor three tracks from the Taylor new album other than the single "Love Story" that had already been released over the last few months in the runup to the album (I've not got an understanding of what happened in the album runup where new songs from the album would appear for download and jump in and out of the top 50). So that means nine tracks or so from the alb have been getting individual download action, at least some of this action presumably being instead of people buying the album. I don't know if this should be seen as specific to the financial crisis, since the Jonas Brothers album was out before the crisis really hit big and had the same type of promotion, though the week it came out you didn't get six new tracks in the Hot 100.

And the Taylor album, Fearless, opened well, came in at number one, selling over half a million copies (six newbies in the top ten, and of the remaining four, none has been in the top ten for more than seven weeks, and three were in for fewer than five weeks; this has to do with Christmas action, I assume, but I don't recall there being such a turnover in the top ten last November; I wouldn't say that my memory is reliable here, however; sales overall are down 24% from the equivalent week last year, but that might have happened crisis or no crisis, given the way things have been going with the shift from albums to singles and with the ever growing ability of consumers to download illegally).

*I wouldn't necessarily assume that the standard opinion is true, however, and I haven't read movie histories in about thirty years.

[koganbot]

I miscounted. Four Taylor tracks not counting the focus single "Love Story" were released for download and hit the Top 40 before the album was released, so that means ten of the album's thirteen tracks did or are doing significant action as individual downloads, and if you add in "Love Story" that makes eleven out of thirteen. Again, I don't know if or to what extent this is economy-related.

(Also, the Taylor album still has a shot at my P&J despite having only one clear winner ("You're Not Sorry"), the relatively weak songs being beautiful nonetheless, especially in the singing.)

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it may be more demographic-related than economy-related: Taylor and the JoBros both appeal mostly to tweens and teens, who are accustomed to downloading individual tracks rather than buying whole albums and may be more apt to just keep downloading single songs as they hear them. (Also, and this is just conjecture on my part, they probably have pretty limited funds -- their parents probably only let them spend so much per week or month at the iTunes store, so they might be less likely to blow all that money one artist's album when they could buy several songs they already know and like by several artists they already know and like.) Have any artists without ties to Disney seen the same individual track action?

[koganbot]

This seems right, and it took Taylor a while to reach the teenpop audience the first time around, whereas now with the album coming out and the audiences she's built jumping on it all at once. Of course, maybe older audiences will start acting like the teenies in this regard, with money tighter. (And anyway, the markets overall are shifting from albums to songs, and this was happening even without a financial crisis.)

Was the Jonas Brothers the first album to release a whole bunch of different songs week by week in runup to the album? I noticed it especially because I'd started dong A Year In America, whereas if it had happened a few months earlier I might not have.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Lots I'd talk about here (and in the previous DDR thread) if I had more time and wasn't on constant deadline and baby duty (i.e.: I'm not so sure music listened to by "working class" fans would be hardest hit by an economic downturn in the first place, but if so, you might want to look at the differential between sales and expendable income {country sales have been slipping for the past couple years, and hip-hip sales have been plummetting drastically long before there was economic crisis; post-high-schoolers listening to metal and indie-rock -- both of which have still been comparatively selling okay in the past couple years, as I recall, notably physical product in metal's case -- will probably be hurt even more than most demographics in the job market as older people pick up service jobs that traditionally went to younger people {but that's already been happening right?}; the Latin market, which has still yet to adapt to the digital market, seems like it could be hit hard too {though again it's already been hurting}; I think Frank's generalizations about country music lyrics are oversimplified as usual {i.e., yeah, lots of country songs do what he says, but lots don't, too}; I'm still basically bored and pissed off by Taylor Swift's hookless new Lisa Loeb album though parts are starting to grow on me a little and I expect they'll do more so after I stop taking a break from it}; still have not consciously heard a single song off the new GnR album, which I'm sort of dreading, though I'll listen to it if a copy falls into my lap. May get around to checking out the title track on youtube in the next few days, or maybe I won't.)

Taylor songs in the current Hot 100 are below. Yep, six debuts ("White Horse" is the week's "Hot Shot Debut.") Really don't see how this phenomenon has *anything* to do with the economic downturn, though; seems to me it's just how teen pop has been marketed at least since *High School Musical,* which I believe is when this sort of download deluge started. Happened with Hannah/Miley, too, right? (And maybe with David Archetta or however you spell his name just a few weeks ago? I dunno, I was paying less attention then, I may be wrong about that.) Or maybe Taylor's deluge is differs in some way I'm not getting?


13 1
White Horse, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift,L.Rose ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 13
18 14 16 10 Love Story, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 5
49 NEW 1 Forever & Always, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 49
72 NEW 1 The Way I Loved You, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift,J.Rich ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 72
79 NEW 1 Fifteen, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 79
87 NEW 1 Breathe, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift,C.Caillat ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 87
94 NEW 1 Hey Stephen, Taylor Swift
N.Chapman,T.Swift (T.Swift ) Big Machine DIGITAL | 94

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

And "hookless" is a hyperbole, obviously. There are a couple really good hooks. They just seem few and far between, and most of the album just really seems to be bigtime missing....*something* I can't quite put my finger on.

[http://users.livejournal.com/xyzzzz__/]

The government-funded corner of the music world, always cash-strapped in comparison with mainland Europe, will be hit really hard over here. That was already the case before the financial crisis as the Olympics was taking a lot of the money but now even more funds will have to be diverted as the private sector may not end up making as big a contribution. Many British composers in the 80s (whom I consider really great and all) had to move to Germany to have their work supported but as this is a global situation there won't be any hiding places.

I wonder if I'm gonna see a lot of music borne out of sheer anger as people might be denied opportunities/credit -- or if that's gonna be a lot more visible to everyone else via music? I suppose it will all depend upon how bad and for how long all of this lasts for. And again, as this is a global situation it should be easier to access rumbles of discontent from around the world.

[koganbot]

I like Taylor's "Forever & Always" at 49 more than "White Horse" at 13: is rolling along in pissy heartbreak and interrupts itself with a dramatic instrumental flourish that reminds me of the dramatic instrumental flourish in Lou Reed's "Ocean."

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I'd just compared Taylor's "The Best Day" to Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" on the ILX Rolling Country thread the other day. Still think Lou's is a whole lot better, though.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

And I still kinda wish her "White Horse" said "If you wanna ride, you gotta ride the white horse" and "If you wanna be rich, you gotta be a bitch" and things like that.

[koganbot]

I'm barely paying attention to the new lyrics yet, but from what I've noticed they seem strenuously expository (compared to the first album's), take a long time detailing just what the song's conflicts and situations are.

I never was interested in Lisa Loeb's music, but I remember her (like Taylor) looking good in dresses. Or anyway, that's what most of the Radio On discussion of her hit single seemed to be about. Or perhaps the discussion was about a lot of things but all I remember is the dress.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Really??? I actually thought Lisa was more famous for her Sarah Palin glasses. (And her cat, maybe. Don't remember the dress at all.) (And actually, I only really know her one hit, "Stay," which I never liked. Which somehow hasn't stopped her from repeatedly come to mind when Taylor's album is on.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

"Coming to mind," that is.

(And actually, Taylor may well sound nothing like Lisa per se'. I guess the comparison is just indicative of my newfound nostalgia for the long-lost early '90s, when the kind of confessional music that teen girls maturing beyond pop hooks regularly make these days was rightly dismissed by *Radio On* people as "boring singer-songwriter alt-folk" or whatever. So who knows, maybe Taylor is way more Natalie Imbruglia instead.)

[koganbot]

Well, what I remember was that Rob Sheffield's review - was it Sheffield's - went "Nice dress."

The glasses really made her look cute, now that you remind me of them. Sort of dark and scholarly, which somehow made her more winsome.

As for Taylor's lyrics that I haven't really paid attention to yet, she seems to be making a bigger thing of her demographic (her demographic not being "country" but "I used to be thirteen, or am thirteen, or will be thirteen"); though the first album surely had some self-consciously teenage lyrics, e.g., "A Place In This World," but this one seems to be hewing more to the idea of "specifically teenage romantic concerns." Or maybe, since that's what so many people are talking about ("Taylor Swift sings of high school and specifically teenage romantic concerns"), I'm noticing how much she's continue to sing of specifically teenage romantic concerns. And of being picked-on in middle school. (Was that from the perfect day song?)

What's wrong with the songs? Something about their pacing, maybe, the same revved-up instrumental and vocal blare in a lot of the choruses? Melodies just not that great in ways that I'll never be able to specify? But I'm up to six songs that are better than pretty good: "You're Not Sorry," "Love Story," "Hey Stephen," "Breathe," "Forever & Always."

Btw, two things I've talked about on other people's locked comment threads so you won't have seen them but (1) t.A.T.u. album not that good on first listen, (2) Bronx Mowgli Wentz wtf? (I use "Mowgli" as an excuse to quote "Damn, I Wish I Were Your Lover" where Sophie says "Come Inside My Jungle Book.")

[koganbot]

Um, I can't count, that's five songs better than pretty good. How about "You Belong With Me" as a sixth?

Are there a lot of teen and formerly teen singers maturing away from hooks? Britney, Lindsay, Avril, Ashlee, Aly & AJ, and Hilary don't seem to be - in fact Avril seems to be veering towards hooks. Some of them may be using hooks that aren't as good as previous hooks, but that's a different matter. Maybe the sound is just wearing out. Michelle Branch was always going to try to sound "mature," as was Vanessa Carlton (whose third album had more and better hooks than her second, and I never heard her first). Mandy Moore is the main person who really comes to mind here, though maybe there's someone obvious I'm just not thinking of. (And I only remember a few of Mandy's tracks from the old days anyway.) I felt that Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee etc. were working under the assumption that going "confessional" in the '00s didn't mean you had to forgo hooks. But as I said, maybe the sound is just wearing out. The new Taylor album doesn't seem to be a maturity move; it seems more like a blatant pop move, actually. Hooks weren't forgone, just weren't achieved. In fact, I think the nonhookless parts (the verses) tend to sound better than the hook-attempted parts (the choruses).

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...You may have me there actually. I'm certainly under the *impression* that ex-teenpoppers have been heading in a more confessional direction, but it might help if I come up with actual examples. (Veronicas go for more hooks and less confession on their second album, too, I guess.) Need to give this more thought....(But then, where does my impression come from? Maybe you're right; the hooks just aren't as good anymore. Not sure I agree with you, though, that Taylor's followup isn't a maturity move. It certainly sounds more singer-songwriterly and less bubblegummy to my ears; I kind understand how "less country and more pop" would be a smart marketing plan, and I also get what you've been saying about blatantly teen oriented lyrics I guess, but that doesn't mean the album *sounds* more teenage. It definitely doesn't. It sounds like a college girl with a creative writing notebook.)

Actually, her glasses aren't dark, and they make her look like a cat

[koganbot]

[koganbot]

Well, Marit Larsen, obviously. (Interesting that I didn't think of her.) Except she's full of hooks, it's just that they're singer-songwriter approved artistically ambitious hooks. I mean, she's arty up-the-butt at this point. And generally pretty good, though I'm afraid to go back and listen to the new one and find out I've been fooled.

The thing is, the whole teenpop genre went singer songwriter for a while starting with Michelle Branch and Pink and Vanessa Carlton and Avril in '01 and '02, with M2M as precursors, but thanks to Shanks and Max and the Matrix etc. and probably the girls' own proclivities, the move towards singer-songwriter didn't associate itself with hooklessness. And as I said, I don't think Taylor's hooklessness is deliberate.

[koganbot]

In fact, this is what I wrote about Bronx Mowgli Wentz (first part is in response to someone complaining about the name by imagining what it would be like in forty years or so when president-elect Bronx Mowgli Wentz comes out into the arena to receive his applause:

koganbot:
Clearly, a weird name is a prerequisite for President. They are doing the child a favor. I mean, should they have called him George?

But since everyone is doing the weird name thing these days (at least everyone black is, and everyone who wants to be black or hip), any seemingly normal current name will be weirdly archaic by the time the current year's crop reaches adolescence. "Your name is Andrew? That's like from the Middle Ages! [snicker snicker] Sir Andrew and Lady Genufluct rode to The Lake. [snicker snicker]" (you know how cruel 13-year-olds can be).

Though once, when my mother was relatively young, like in her thirties, she met a young couple with their child Como, and my mother said, politely, "That's a lovely name," and the wife said, "We had our honeymoon at Lake Como, so that's why we gave him that name," and my mother thought to herself "It's a good thing you didn't honeymoon in Ocean Park, New Jersey."

I hadn't previously been aware that the Simpson-Wentzes had honeymooned* on the Grand Concourse, however.

*Would have been a pre-nuptial honeymoon, however, so that must have been why it wasn't widely reported.

Damn, I wish I was your middle name

koganbot:
As for Mowgli, it's likely that during the Simpson-Wentz honeymoon on the Grand Concourse they were listening to Sophie B. Hawkins' "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" and they were taken with the line "Come inside my jungle book."

[koganbot]

(Btw, a thread I need to start when I've got the time is about singer-songwriter confessional moves in genres that generally aren't considered singer-songwriter. Country and r&b for instance. Country is often a storytelling genre, but usually the stories don't include "These are specific events that happened in the life of me, the singer." As for r&b, it seems to me that Mariah's new album has her sometimes making statements about herself, but those statements fit into what the genre would have her sing even if the statements weren't about herself. Have to go take a shower so I won't elaborate.)