Roundup
KANYE WEST’S GOOD FRIDAYS
If I hear one more oldster talk about his damn ALBUM I’m gonna send ’em back to the "Flintstones" and make ’em play their vinyl records with a quill.
The album evolved into a long playing statement because of the format, the 33 1/3 vinyl LP. And despite great concepts like "Sgt. Pepper" and "The Wall", one can argue strongly that the album has allowed too many self-indulgent artists to go on ad infinitum, making music that in most cases will never be listened to, so they can feel satisfied.
Yes, the most backward people are the artists. Even worse than the labels. They want to jet back to some land where they did nothing but sit around the house getting inspired whilst others took care of their business, ripping them off along the way. This is paradise?
Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist, don’t tell me how you do it differently, how many Facebook and Twitter followers you’ve got. The point is, are you willing to sustain on THE MUSIC? Are you willing to acknowledge that your customer is your fan, not TV, radio or the media?
That old paradigm is overrated. You know, the one in which your name is plastered everywhere and you think you’re hot shit but you can’t fill the House of Blues. Do you want to be rich or famous? Chances are, you’ll be a lot wealthier for a much longer time if you focus on your fans. Once hooked, they’ll give you their money time and again, follow you for years. Does anybody want Katy Perry NEXT YEAR? They don’t want Jewel now!
By releasing a track every week, Kanye is keeping himself foremost in the minds of his fans. They’re going to eagerly anticipate the releases, they’re going to check them out. Who can’t check out a track a week? But get me to listen to a whole album? But in fifty two weeks, that’s FIVE albums… Sure, newbies can always go back and check out the previous releases, but fans want ’em now.
And we live in a singles world.
And if you think you’re making a statement… You’re cracking me up.
And speaking of cracking me up… Did you check out the marriage between Kanye’s Tweets and "New Yorker" cartoons?
This shit don’t make the mainstream, but it’s vacuumed up online. The mainstream is a day-old smorgasbord, sometimes two days old… Online is immediate, like your single. HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!
PANDORA ADDS GENRE-BASED STATIONS
Hallelfuckingujah!
Took forever to build a station on Pandora. What we always wanted was a pre-built station that we could tune into and skip the tracks we don’t like. Pandora has finally delivered this.
Years after Slacker.
Yes, Slacker is far superior to Pandora. There are stations, they’re curated, you can loosen or tighten them so you get known cuts or unknown. But Tim Westergren is a force of nature, he got Pandora in the public eye, whereas the face of Slacker is..?
So marketing isn’t completely dead. Especially when it’s done under the guise of benefiting the consumer. Yup, that was Westergren’s campaign, please help me defeat the copyright bullies, please help me save Internet Radio! Westergren made it a crusade, a protest, us vs. them, positively brilliant.
RAY LAMONTAGNE "BEG STEAL OR BORROW"
I heard this on the Sirius Spectrum. Blew my mind, it had the intimacy of the seventies, felt like an updated Stephen Stills song. But then I read a review that talked how lame the lyrics of this album were and now I’m creeped out listening to the track. Reminds me of America compared to Crosby, Stills & Nash.
WILLIAM TOPLEY
I know this guy. He got his chance with the Blessing and then subsequently blew it with solo albums with inept production and now…this.
Self-released, this has got no traction. But it’s SO GOOD!
Sure, this material is not all new. And it is a cliche to record your "greatest hits" acoustically, but I actually don’t know all these cuts and the feel is just amazing and the lyrics run circles around Ray LaMontagne. But Ray’s the fresh face…
J.J. GREY & MOFRO
"Orange Blossoms". Not from the new album, but I didn’t even have any idea who this act was until I heard this last night on the aforementioned Spectrum.
Now don’t listen to this with radio ears, deciding whether it’s a hit. Listen with live ears. Imagine being at the gig, the band playing and you grooving in the audience.
There’s a cornucopia of great music out there, we just need people to point us to it.
