I've never been a huge fan of hockey. I know. How un-Canadian. I should have my passport revoked. I should be taken into the nearest Tim Horton's, dunked in a pot of fresh coffee and stuffed with timbits and maple dips until I come around.
But it's true. I grew up on soccer and that's where my loyalties lie.
It will amuse my hockey-obsessed friends to know that recently, I've started doing the recording/engineering/sound design for the Montreal Gazette's weekly podcast about the Montreal Canadiens. The show features prominent sports columnists and editors discussing the state of the team. And me sitting there with headphones on thinking about whether I'll ever get hired for a soccer-cast.
A friend of mine sent along this interesting post the other day from Kathy Sierra, one of two people who run a blog called "Creating Passionate Users". The blog is mostly focused on marketing issues and is not really my bag, but the above graph caught my attention.
Sierra describes the fine line in music and film between low production values as an aesthetic positive or simply low-budget. It's an argument that is easier to make now in the world of podcasts, video blogs and YouTube. Lo-fi, at least in music, is a major basis for many authenticity arguments.
I would like to add another axis to this graph, one based on popularity. That is, as an artist or film gains popularity or recognition, user happiness increases to a point and then decreases until it has "lost its edge". This doesn't apply to all genres of music equally, and I am speaking primarily of rock/indie-rock/alternative/whatever label you prefer.
We'll use the new Arcade Fire album as a test case. It's due out soon (check out the single by clicking on the "Black Mirror" link here). Funeral took the band from indie to mainstream and there are incredible expectations for the new release. There are rumours of secret shows at high schools and their 5 night stand here in Montreal sold out in 3 minutes. But will the sheer existence of a swollen fan base lead to tepid reception of the new album?
I had a song in my head the other day. I think I picked it up from a movie or TV show. It has a great chorus, with harmonies and a vocal line that just sticks to the insides of your brain. It's an old song, and I could only remember it had the word "love" in the chorus (that narrows it down, huh). To top things off, I'm really bad at remembering the names of songs and artists, especially when it comes to songs before 1987, which is around the time I officially started caring about music (don't ask me what I cared about for the first dozen years of my life). I think it has to do with the connection (or lack therof) I have with songs that I don't consider part of my growing up experience (but I'll save that line of inquiry for another post).
My first guess was Radar Love. And I'm glad it was. As you can see from the incredible video above, it was a happy diversion. I emplore you to wait until the 3 minute mark of the video, where a beautiful stare-down occurs followed by a lovely display of true-love-induced skipping. Add to that a perfect bass line, driving drums and exuberant horns (maybe played on synth) and you have yourself a pretty good song. But, it wasn't the right song.
I typed in some other guesses but to no avail. So I called a friend and sang the chorus. Turns out it was "Long Train Running" by the Doobie Brothers (sorry, badass techno mix is all I could find on YouTube).
About the same time I was scouring the net to sate the song in my head, I was reading this post by a music industry insider who seems to be stuck in the songs of the sixteies and seventies. For a lot of industry veterans, the current woes of the music industry can be blamed on the quality of today's music. People don't want to pay for today's music because today's music is shit. Or people don't want to pay because music is everywhere..it is no longer important or special like it once was.
It's a line of argumentation that infuriates me. There's a lot of crap out there today, sure. But to say that today's music has less meaning for today's listeners than yesterday's music had for yesterday's listeners is judgment value I just don't have time for. I had fun listening to Radar Love and the Doobies, but they mean far less to me than a song that I feel I am a part of (I feel included because I remember when it came out, because it was at my high school dance, because I made out to it etc.).
If we're going to talk about the woes of the music industry, let's talk about why it's effed and how to fix it. Not about why the sixties and seventies were the pinnacle of music, rebellion, freedom and how today's music stands no chance of matching up.
