Shed no tears for the giants though: They’ve been quietly buying shares of the digital service startups and offering access to their large music catalogs. And guess who’s (still) getting screwed on the deal? See below.
And, as per usual in Capitalism, it’s the artists – erm, content developers, who’re getting pimped out of existence. The corporate predators, in this case the streaming services, are doing well. In fact, Spotify’s first earnings report for 2018 claimed revenue of $1.36 billion. The artists are now little more than buskers on a seasonal, corporate entry-level salary. (To prove the point, check this mid-level metal band’s income for a 30-day tour.)
We’ll have to wait and see if the parasites actually kill their hosts this time.
Just an FYI: It takes 1,500 streams for an artist to recoup an equivalent of the royalties afforded by of the sale of one album. Even royalties from digital downloads from songs via iTunes – not streamed, but bought – are pathetically scant. The only real wage available to artists is touring – great if you’re Smashing Pumpkins (who came from a pre-Napster era), not so if you’re the average garage band starting out. So, this is what music is being reduced to: An amateur’s enterprise.
As per tradition, even today the heavyweights are feeling the burn: It’s reported that Drake has brought in $100 million in revenue for Apple and Spotify. At a royalty rate of $0.005 per stream, that makes his take $500,000. Even by old record royalty standards, a legendarily chiseling system, that’s an egregiously pathetic rate.
For those who’d flip back through the earlier posts of this blog, they’ll note the slavish attention I’ve give to the hoary old nuggets from long bygone eras. Well, No more! I vow to concentrate only on (mostly) Millennial Era music from here on in.
With that in mind, enjoy the selections below before the talented tenth bail and the whole music industry becomes overrun with hobbyists and amateurs: These I submit for your playlist delectation. Think of it as your savory Swamp Sausage for the day:
1) Mr. Jukes (AKA mr jukes), Angels/Your Love (2017):
A solo/collaborative project from Bombay Bicycle Club's Jack Steadman. Speaking of sausage, this is very much a sound file Pro Tools sausage in a sweet skin brass. This track could fit in nicely with those old Verve Remixed collections. Nice horns, nice vocal, an incessant, driving and hypnotic groove – as George Clinton would say, it’s all good for your earhole.
2) M83, Wait: From an album released in 2010 by “French electronic musician” Anthony Gonzalez who’s currently holed up in Los Angeles, DBA M83. Originally a duo but it seems to be down to him now. M83 has enjoyed some mainstream success and institutional props – they’d a Grammy nom – but don’t hold it against them. As you’ll note, the joint starts chill, meandering a bit and patient build before ascending into the swirling cauldron of ethereal drama it becomes by the fade. Grunge tried to do this far more impatiently and abruptly (think Smells Like Teen Spirit); this is the grownup version: Measured, mature, and more heartfelt. Like the difference of screaming triggered at a loved one versus the long and carefully-crafted drag you can give someone when you really put some thought into it, loading it with all those targets that only a loved one with history can know. I know I just went dark there, and I’m not sure that’s what M83 intended for themselves, but those bird-like squawks near the end come from somewhere considerably south of heartwarming. You know what I mean.
3) Superfood, Raindance (2017): Music of the 60’s was often brash in its mixing of sources and genres – think Sly and the Family Stone, Ellen McIlwaine, Santana, on and on. Rock was still relatively infantile at the time. In that sense, Superfood is refreshing and doing that thing that Brits have a history of doing so well, colonizing music as if they were lands and people. On Raindance the Birmingham duo has mixes up American styles in way we haven't heard in a while, since, I don't know, rap metal? This is Brit-pop does best – attempting an imitation and ending up leaving their fingerprints all over it, in a very good way.
4) Bloc Party, Banquet (2005): Crafty, spunky, spirited, with hooks to grab your loins – nice production too. And they’ve got a portfolio loaded with such songs. If ours was a universe that didn't laugh at human injustice, these guys would be big as Radiohead, or at least as big as those twee bands twenty øne piløts, The Postal Service, The National, Snow Patrol, Imagine Dragons, yecch al. They may not quite have the range or ambition of Radiohead but they do make a stunning noise.
Bonus! Two More Years (MSTRKRFT Remix): One of the few remixes I've heard that far exceeds the original.
5) Sufrajett, Love Me More: From 2003 – a band so old they still have a MySpace page. The song may not offer anything new to canon of beleaguered-girlfriend-with-loser-boyfriend trope, but it does add some fire. The chorus is an ear worm of anaconda proportions. It’ll dig straight to your brain’s center without mercy if you’re not bothered by its its retro 70’s punk vernacular. As for the video, it’ll be hard to miss the central message: Check out those shorts!
The band is long gone today but singer Simi Stone is still with us and has work to imbibe, including on Spotify. Sufrajett also has three songs available (still) for download, including this one here.
6) The Knife, Pass This On (2003): An electronic music brother and sister duo (Karin and Olof Dreijer) from Sweden – and, no, that’s not them in the video: Sister Karin also fronted a project called Fever Ray. First time I heard this, I completely fell for the whole I’m in love with your brother schtick. I fell so hard I got past the whole new agey steel drum sound which usually puts me off. I love the breathy, conspiratorial vocal conceit and the layers of squeaky background vocals that sound like a squadron of haunted dolls. Also, the spam-email syntax and the generally opaque lyrics together make for a juicy ambiguous cocktail that only adds to the mystique: A seriously danceable Swedish confection bomb.
7) Deerhoof, Spiral Golden Town (2005): Another relic from the early naughties – 2005. To start, the opening horn fanfare is pure and irresistible steroid for your music nodes. Once past that, the fanfare embroiders itself into song’s circusy middle and by then you should’ve fallen deep into the juicy tiger pit. I’m going to guess the word quirky is the go-to scribes will resort to label their sound, but usually quirky isn’t propped onto a foundation as powered up and, at times, funky as they are. A lot of the debt must go to the thunder of drummer Greg Saunier, though his pounds here are chill. (Check out their live in-studio performances on YouTube.) Deerhoof hails from San Francisco and there are deep traces of local quirk are in their mix – The Residents, Mr. Bungle, Primus, Jonathan Richman, some folkrock, some horn bands, etc. Bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, who’d joined the band within a week of arriving stateside from Japan, shares her native countrymen’s affinity for cutesy lyrics and precious themes and they’re mostly delivered in a kind of legato bark that befits her serviceable but unsingerly vocal stylings. What she does deliver, is well-engineered into the songs. The two guitarists intertwine well together, though they’re low-keyed here. On a hotter mix, the guitars can delve into a kind of sonic hot oil wrestling.
We need more bands like this.
8) Eels, Souljacker Part 1 (2002): I grew up a big fan of the blues but, generally speaking, I’ve moved on. Souljacker takes the form and reworks into something fresh and surprising, even. I discovered Souljacker from the soundtrack of The United States of Tara. I knew of Eels (essentially the work of Mark Oliver Everett) from the 90’s when Novocaine for the Soul was hitting. Hadn’t paid much attention much after. For most anyone born after GenX, Eels catalog is probably going to sound like something you would’ve heard on your grandpa’s iPod. Their music tends toward the slow and ponderous though the emotions are often a little rawer and naked. Obviously, Souljacker is something else entirely – a bit out of character. Souljacker is hot, direct, succinct, and a li’l off it’s meds in the best way possible.
9) Headshy, Coma (2014): Once, long ago, I did a job at Johnny Depp’s house. On that day I’d meet Johnny and his sister who worked as his assistant/coordinator/major-domo. A fine person but, clearly, there wasn’t enough of Johnny’s ice-sculptured jaw and cheekbones to decorate the entire family tree. Music too can be like a family of siblings. Some are just prettier than others. Somehow those minute genetic adjustments can make for profound differences.
Songs can be much the same. The sources, the influences, the construction, and even DNA can be much the same but the differences can vary wildly. For Coma, the DNA of Headshy had all of the chromosomes lining up just right – Headshy is their Alex of the Baldwins or the Kim of the Kardashians. Digging through their catalog, the music seems to favor the slow and subdued. What I might call bong loaded music – too many bowls to muster up the energy to bang out a rocker. The rest of their catalog is a bit diaphanous if dark.
10) Molice, Android Said (2010): I’d guess Tokyo-based Molice hired some (American?) PR hack to craft their musical description: “... [their] East/West hybrid sound has a wide appeal by being both catchy and edgy, incorporating rock n’ roll, classical, dance, shoegaze, alternative, and post-hardcore elements.” That’s pure sales fluff and mostly fictional: I’m not hearing that. Except for the Japanese lyrics, their sound – at least on Android Said – is pure Western retro seasoned with a spoonfuls of surf punk twang. This may be why it attaches to my (very Western) receptors so hard. I’ve poked around a bit on Spotify and I can say, sadly, Android Said isn’t typical – that aside, this track kills like a ninja.
And, gawds, that riff! Taut, concise, caffeinated, sounding just incomplete enough to leave you hanging before coming around again. If that doesn’t seize your senses like the waft of McDonald’s french fries as you drive past then whatever other pleasure nuggets are to be found here, they won’t be for you.
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