That Byrne/Eno Album
Personally, I’d rather hear a new Talking Heads album produced by Eno. The Heads were a better fit than Coldplay will ever be. Because the Heads were more about sound than songs…well, sound played an integral part. Compare "Talking Heads: 77" to "More Songs About Buildings and Food" to get the idea. Sure, "77" contained "Psycho Killer", which spawned the great parody "Psycho Chicken", but what blew the band up was its cover of Al Green’s "Take Me To The River" on the Eno-produced "More Songs".
What is that sound, that resembles a guitar pick sliding slowly, but with force, over a guitar’s strings? You could listen again and again and continue to discover quirks that enraptured you. How did the whitest guys on the planet record a rhythm and blues number (thanks Jerry!) that sounded more London than Memphis but still retained so much SOUL! Listening turned you into Gumby. Bending in places you didn’t know you had joints. But moving so slowly you were on a drug heavier than pot, more akin to an animal tranquilizer. It’s like your feet were stuck to the floor and every step was an effort, which you didn’t mind taking, which you HAD TO TAKE!
The apotheosis was "Once In A Lifetime", off "Remain In Light". Which sounded like it was recorded underwater, but in a world more intriguing than what was happening on land. If you don’t constantly ask yourself where is your beautiful wife, where is your large automobile, then you weren’t alive back in 1980, when this track ruled the airwaves on the hip stations that you pledged fealty to, before the advent of MTV and the resurgence of Top Forty radio. This was when there was a clear division between hip and straight, when you were either in on the joke or you weren’t, before we all became members of the monoculture.
But now the monoculture has been blown to bits. Those wearing pegged jeans and horn rims are still ranking out vapid hits not knowing that no one cares anymore and the rest of are licking our wounds, ensconced in front of the big screen, asking ourselves how did we get here?
David Byrne’s been a has-been for almost two decades. He’s an artist as well as a musician. But visual artists don’t have quite the same impact as musicians in our society. But at least he’s aged. In a world where forty sends you to the plastic surgeon, David Byrne looks his almost sexagenarian self. Even Eno’s face has gone oval. And they’ve decided to work together again.
Yes, Eno’s given up sculpting hits that no longer challenge limits for U2 to do something outside with his old partner, the one who truly built his producer cred. I’ve been reading about it for a month. When I saw the story in Sunday’s "New York Times"
I winced. The mainstream loves the has-beens. But this is where my demo goes to find out what they should listen to.
But they’re not being driven to Wal-Mart. They’re being driven to the duo’s site,
That’s today’s store, that’s where the discussion takes place, that’s where you go, not to a retail establishment where the clerks insult you. Online you find a home, ever-changing in the best of circumstances, that you can visit whenever you need a HIT, of fresh air! (Thank you Dino Valente!)
And I didn’t expect this modern collaboration to be as good as their previous one, "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts". But, I went, because Ian sent me there. What I liked best about his e-mail was his link to the Twitter chatter…
But reading Ian’s blog about his deal with Byrne and Eno, about how the company he runs powers the project,
what struck me was the following:
"I’d run this team against anyone in the business. And we’re adding four more rock star engineers in the last two weeks of this month? Damn. Look out. Look out."
I don’t know who got the story in the "New York Times", that person is important. But soon, mainstream mention will be almost irrelevant, everything’s going to the ever-expanding Web, does your PR person know the Web? How to really work it?
Probably not.
The geeks have taken over the business. Everybody’s sophisticated. Everybody knows the SoundScan numbers, which are published. Everybody can run a record company. Distribution is a dying gig, you just pick up the phone and make a deal with Wal-Mart or get the tracks up on iTunes. Radio promotion only works for those Top Forty numbers that don’t generate careers, that render instant heat and rain cash only once instead of forever. What is everybody doing at the label? Is the label even necessary?
The founder of Topspin was responsible for Pro Tools. That’s what truly changed our business, the ability for anybody to make a record. And even the big boys use Pro Tools now, it’s not just for hobbyists. And then the Net flattened distribution, and suddenly one has to ask why Doug Morris is making all that money, especially since he missed the Net revolution.
Point is, if they truly wanted to survive, labels would be hiring engineers, not more unskilled labor to fill antique roles. Engineers who are smart, who are closer to the audience than Jimmy Iovine can ever hope to be. The future is software. Written by geeks with a head start on every baby boomer that cannot ever be made up.
The reason Apple rules is software. There’s one visionary, Steve Jobs, and a bunch of coders.
We don’t have a replication of this system in the major label world. Sony’s got a big kahuna who won’t even come to the office. Warner is run by someone who wins via intimidation. EMI is all about A&R, which might be good in theory, but how does that benefit artists who can do it themselves?
You can download one song. You can stream the whole album. You can buy it in FLAC. You can embed it elsewhere online, to help evidence your religion, spreading the word for Byrne and Eno for free. This is the future. Not endless reorgs, not 360 deals, the labels have no idea what’s hit them.
