Alabama Shakes
This is just the beginning.
Who wouldn’t love a rock band fronted by an overweight black woman? It rings true in an era of overhyped, overmassaged, oversurgeried TV music stars who are no different from the citizens in "Wall-E", fat on the past and unwilling to take a risk in the future.
But that doesn’t mean they’re good, that doesn’t mean the Alabama Shakes are gonna last.
The thing is we’re so desperate for something new and different that we pass the information amongst our small circle of friends and give these acts visibility before its due.
The publicity mavens get the "New York Times" and NPR to cover the story, the public becomes energized, but the acts just aren’t ready.
And it’s not only Alabama Shakes. It’s Allen Stone too. My inbox is overflowing with e-mail about these acts, I checked them out, there’s so much to like, but in each case the material is substandard.
Give the mainstream credit, they know it’s about the tunes.
And writing a hit song, a good song, hell one that resonates even if it gets little airplay, like John Hiatt’s "Memphis In The Meantime"
which floored me when I heard it on Sirius XM today, is so difficult. You can learn how to play guitar easily. Buy books, DVDs, but learn how to write a song? You’re in the wilderness, you’re on your own.
Used to be all the development was done off screen. Bands woodshedded in their own little backwaters. And when fully developed, they signed to labels. The labels didn’t build bands, didn’t teach them how to play, they took them from working class status to stardom, in the best of cases.
And the acts back then were all influenced by the Beatles. And the Beatles not only played, they wrote. Everybody was writing, not that the initial songs were any good, but now the emphasis is on playing, getting gigs, it’s backwards. We see these acts before they’re ready.
So maybe Alabama Shakes develops into an act we love that lasts. I certainly hope so. But just because something’s coming from the right place doesn’t make it great.
In the Internet era, we’ve got tons of flashes in the pan. It’s easy to get the word out, it’s hard to sustain.
Watch this Alabama Shakes YouTube clip, the band locks into the groove, you can feel the energy, you’re drawn in:
But then listen to more songs here and tell me what you think…
They’re not bad, but they’re far from riveting.
And play a bit of Allen Stone. You love the voice, you love the look, but take your eyes away from the screen and ask yourself if you’d like to hear the songs ever again…
It’s easy to prop something up.
But everything gets shot down.
The only thing that survives in the Internet era is excellence.
So we have a lot of people shoveling shit.
And then when something great comes along, it’s undeniable, both in artistry and success.
The Adele story is confounding. In an era when no one’s supposed to be able to sell a record, when it’s supposed to be about social networking, Adele sells tons and becomes ubiquitous based solely on the music. Sure, radio played it, but listen to Top Forty, nothing on the stations sounds remotely like it.
This is the future. Something so great that it triumphs across broad demographics, almost sells itself.
Call it the anti-Long Tail.
We don’t want to be able to buy everything.
We just want to be able to buy the one thing.
The one great thing.
And right now, Alabama Shakes and Allen Stone are not of that caliber.
