Re: Stacks
I first heard about Bon Iver from Nigel Grainge, who’s enthusiastic and has impeccable taste. But I didn’t quite get it until today, when Robin Millar sent me a link:
It was playing in the background as I was chomping through the e-mail, reading about Ticketmaster, be sure to read Steve Knopper’s comprehensive story in "Wired":
And then there was that story about the "Daily Show"’s ratings:
Ultimately, I clicked to Deadline.com, which gave a bit of a qualifier/explanation
but still, it’s fascinating how the mainstream media got it wrong. We don’t love Leno. Letterman did come back. But everybody’s ratings are lousy. Yet doing a show he inherited and made his own on basic cable, Jon Stewart is a king, years on. Isn’t that how it used to work in the music business?
Credit Tommy Mottola with creating the modern marketing paradigm. You get the mainstream media to sell your story for free. It used to be acts were dependent on radio, suddenly not only was MTV important, but the "Today Show", "Oprah", anybody with ratings. But musicians are not TV stars. TV stars are two-dimensional vessels. I mean Jennifer Aniston’s one of the biggest TV stars in the world, but if we got her one on one in real life, what exactly would she be like? We’ve got no idea!
But there’s not a musician alive who doesn’t have an element of his songs inside him. That doesn’t mean he can’t be antisocial, that he can’t be difficult, but in order to write this stuff, it has to come from somewhere. And it’s this inside stuff that draws us in. They call it humanity.
So I’m confronted with the news of the day, the disillusionment of the political landscape, and this Bon Iver song, "Re: Stacks", is playing in the background, it’s an antidote, it’s soothing me, it’s a warm blanket making me feel like I’m not alone, that I’ll make it through.
And Bon Iver is not new. That initial conversation with Nigel was years ago. But like an electrical circuit missing a few links, oftentimes the power doesn’t pass through until every connection is soldered. Today I got Bon Iver.
And I went online and researched and learned about the connection with "Northern Exposure", the episode with the first snowfall. I saw that! I can’t connect to "California Gurls", never mind so many of the rap tracks, but the concept of lying on the couch watching this quirky drama…
It’s like the mainstream has got the pedal to the metal. Powering headlong towards the cliff. I guess the drivers are planning to eject just before the precipice, but I don’t understand why they think we want to go along for the ride. No one likes to be a passenger, with no control in a disaster. That’s why we hate being in the back of the plane. We want to be in charge of our own destiny, we want to drive, we want to be in control.
And that’s what the Web is all about. Everybody piloting their own ship, at their own speed. Discovering music is like going to a new country, one that’s existed for years, that others may have visited, but that you’ve never been to. Doesn’t matter when "Re: Stacks" was released, it’s new to me.
But the key element is how different "Re: Stacks" sounds from what the mainstream is purveying. "Re: Stacks" is a tune-out on Top Forty, even Hot AC. Active Rock is too hard. Maybe on AAA, but if you think anybody’s listening to that format, you still believe Alternative is burgeoning.
And maybe Bon Iver works on Jools Holland, but that’s the U.K., where they still believe in the power of music, as opposed to the U.S., where money is paramount. If something sells, it’s good, if it doesn’t, it’s crap. But is that really true?
"Re: Stacks" is music. It touches my soul. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
