Category Archives: Punk

Musical Idolatry

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As a rebooted version of “Australian Idol” appears on network television, I can’t decide whether programs like this are a result of the current state of the music industry OR are they the cause of the industry’s malaise…?

I’ll admit upfront that I know I’m not the target demographic for these shows (Idol, Voice, Talent…), so I’m not even going to comment on the quality of the musical content or the presentation format.

Before we had recorded music or broadcast radio, the industry relied upon song writers selling sheet music, in the hope their compositions would get performed in theatres and concert halls – and audiences would want to buy copies of the songs to perform at home.

Then, radio largely killed the music hall, and with the advent of the 7″ vinyl record, together they eventually displaced the reliance on sheet music sales. From the early 1960s onwards, we also saw more artists writing, performing and recording their own material, which transformed both music publishing and the record industry itself.

Although record labels still exist as a means to identify, develop and commercialise new talent, only three of the so-called major labels have survived – a process of industry consolidation and M&A activity that began in earnest in the 1980s – ironically, a period now regarded as a “Golden Age” of pop music.

A key legacy of the punk movement of the 1970s was a network of independent music labels, distributors, publishers and retailers – along with a strong DIY ethic of self-released records and independent fanzines, thanks to lower production costs and easier access to manufacturing and distribution.

Now, there is more new music being released than is humanly possible to listen to. It is relatively quick and simple to produce and release your own music – record on a home laptop (even a tablet or smart phone will do), upload the finished mp3 files to user-accessible platforms such as Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and promote yourself on social media. However, without significant marketing dollars to buy an audience, those hoping to become an overnight viral sensation may be disappointed. And even if you do manage to get traction on one of the global streaming platforms, the income from digital plays is a fraction of what artists used to earn from physical sales.

So that’s how the major labels (and some of the larger independents) still manage to dominate the industry: they have the budget to spend on developing new talent, and they have money for marketing campaigns (and possibly to influence those streaming algorithms). Plus, they have access to a huge back catalogue that they can carry on repackaging at a fraction of the original production costs.

It’s also true, however, that the shorter shelf-life of many newer artists means that labels don’t have such an appetite for long-term development plans, where they are willing to nurture a new talent for several years, before expecting a return on their initial investment. Just as with fast fashion, the pop music industry has become hooked on a fast turnover of product, because they know only a fraction of new releases will ever become a hit, and they have to keep feeding the beast with new content.

Which brings me back to programs like Idol. First, it’s one way for the music industry to fast-track their next success. Second, it literally is a popularity contest – the industry gets an idea of what the public likes, so they can pre-determine part of their release schedule. Third, hosting these contests on commercial TV means advertising dollars and sponsorship deals can help defray their A&R and marketing costs (or, at least help them to prioritise where to spend their money).

But let’s not pretend that these singing shows are nothing more than televised karaoke. Performers don’t get to play their own songs, or even play any instruments (as far as I can tell). The program content relies on cover versions – usually songs that are well-known, and therefore already road-tested on the audience. Plus, by choosing to perform a particular song, a contestant may hope to win by association or identification with the successful artist who originally recorded it. But contestants are not free to choose whatever song they like – my understanding is there are only 1,000 (popular) songs to choose from, just like karaoke.

In pretending to discover new talent, in part, the industry is simply hoping to re-release songs in their back catalogue, albeit with a new face on the record. Through the restrictive format of these programs, the industry is not discovering new musicians or finding new song writers and composers, and it’s certainly not forging any new direction in music, because of the reliance upon an existing formula, and dependence on a very specific (and somewhat narrow) strand of pop music.

Next week: Eat The Rich?

 

I CAN live without my radio…

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After posting my last blog on digital vs analog music, I saw the media commentary about the decline in Triple J’s audience numbers. There was a suggestion that younger people no longer listen to the radio, and have shifted to digital formats such as streaming and podcasts. As is often the case, the headline doesn’t necessarily tell the full story – and thanks to Tim Burrowes, we also have a deeper dive into the underlying data.

Seems like we CAN live without our radio (especially Triple J…) (Photo of LL Cool J by Janette Beckman, image sourced from Bloomberg)

I’m obviously not part of Triple J’s target demographic (18-24 year-olds), but I find the concept of age-oriented radio (and music) somewhat bizarre. If I was that age again, I’d probably find it highly patronizing that a national broadcaster was trying to force me into a random age bracket, on the assumption that they knew my taste in music, and/or they knew what was good for me. It’s an arrogant, simplistic and reductionist approach to broadcasting. Even now, I may not listen to all the exact same music I liked when I was that age, but my taste in music didn’t suddenly change when I turned 18 (or 24). Humans are much more subtle and idiosyncratic than demographers, marketers and programmers may like to think.

Anyway, it got me thinking about my own experience of listening to the radio, and how it formed my outlook on music. Once I had access to a portable transistor radio, it meant I got to choose which stations I listened to, and what types of music I heard, rather than what my parents or older sisters were listening to in the rest of the house. Although as a young teenager, I still kept an ear out for what was popular, I tuned out of the Top 40 format early on, in favour of pirate stations like Radio Caroline (which played mainly prog rock and psychedelic sounds), and the John Peel show on BBC Radio 1 (during his heyday of 1976-83 – the punk and post-punk era). When I first heard the whole of side 1 of Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn” album played on the radio in 1974 (I was 13 at the time), I realised that the 3 minute, 45 rpm, 7″ vinyl single wasn’t the only option…

Alongside broadcast radio, the UK’s infamous weekly music papers were the major source of information about the industry. With three titles, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Sounds, dominating the market in those pre-internet, pre-MTV days of yore, the inkies were the main way to find out about new bands, new releases, upcoming gigs, as well as album and live reviews. Then there were the listing magazines (which covered more than music), and the fanzines that proliferated in the wake of punk.

As I had more access to live music during my teenage years and beyond, music radio became less important. And although my gig attendance is more sporadic these days (no reflection on Melbourne’s excellent live music scene!) the only music radio stations I currently listen to are ABC Jazz, SBS Chill (especially Sunday mornings…) and Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC Radio 6. I can’t bear to listen to most commercial radio or so-called popular music stations (age-oriented or otherwise) – it’s not only because of the music they play, it’s the actual production quality, programme format, presentation style and the absence of “space”: everything is crammed into every available piece of bandwidth, compressed within a decibel if its life, and the content lacks variety, depth or subtlety.

When I moved to Melbourne 20 years ago, ABC Radio National had a weekly programme called “Sound Quality”, that featured some of the most varied, interesting and challenging new music around – in fact, it was probably the only place to hear this stuff on national radio. It also encouraged listener-contributed content, and I was fortunate to have several of my own pieces played on air (ok, so I’m biased). Sadly, the programme was decommissioned in 2015, and nothing comprarable has taken its place.

In a further twist, I tend to hear about new (and old) Australian music via my local record stores, particularly the ones that specialise in vinyl, namely RockSteady Records, Northside Records, Dutch Vinyl and The Searchers.

Next week: Reflections on The Kimberley

 

From Brussels With Love (Revisited)

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40 years ago this month, an obscure record label in Belgium released a cassette-only compilation album, which became a reference point for many post-punk projects. “From Brussels With Love”, originally put out by Les Disques du Crepuscule, has just been re-issued, so during the recent lock-down, I thought I would exhume my original copy and remind myself of why this was such a landmark album, and why its influence continues to this day.

To add some context, Sony had launched the Walkman cassette player in 1979, the first truly portable device for pre-recorded music. This led to a renewed interest in the cassette format among independent artists and labels, as it was also a cheaper means of manufacture and distribution than vinyl records (and long before CDs, mp3 and streaming services). And in the wake of the DIY aesthetic promoted by punk, some new music was being released on cassette only, such as Bow Wow Wow’s “Your Cassette Pet” and BEF’s “Music for Stowaways” (the title referencing an early model of the Sony Walkman). Some of these cassette-only releases (especially by independent, lo-fi, DIY electronic artists such as Inertia) are now highly collectable.

What made “From Brussels With Love” so significant was not just the format. It was not even alone in combining music with interviews and fully illustrated booklets. Fast Forward in Melbourne also launched their first audio-magazine in November 1980, and other similar projects followed such as Edinburgh’s “Irrationale”, Manchester’s “Northern Lights”, and London’s “Touch” label which began life releasing a series of curated audio gazettes, including both spoken-word and musical contributions.

The importance of “From Brussels With Love” was the cross-section of artists it managed to bring together: mercurial musicians such as Bill Nelson, John Foxx and Vini Reilly; side projects from members of established post-punk bands from the UK (Wire, Joy Division/New Order, the Skids and Spizzenergi); a cluster of emerging European bands (Der Plan, The Names and Radio Romance); and several leading names in modern classical and ambient music (Harold Budd, Michael Nyman, Gavin Bryars, Phil Niblock, Brian Eno and Wim Mertens). Oh, and an interview with actor Jeanne Moreau.

This eclectic mix of contemporary artists (and this deliberate approach to curation) was no doubt highly influential on subsequent projects such as the NME/Rough Trade “C81” or Rorschach Testing’s “Discreet Campaigns” – these were not compilations reflecting a single musical style or even the usual label sampler, nor were they simply collections of what was new or current. Instead, they reveal an aesthetic attitude (curiosity combined with open-mindedness mixed with a high level of quality control and a hint of audience challenge) that is harder to find today. Now we have “recommender engines” and narrow-casting streaming services that would struggle to compile similarly diverse outcomes. And more’s the pity.

I know there are a number of on-line platforms and print publications that try to bring a similar approach to their curation, but for various reasons, and despite their best intentions, they generally suffer from being cliquey, self-referencing/self-identifying, and all driven by a need to capture eyeballs to attract advertising, so they quickly lose any claim to independence or even originality. Which is a shame because there is so much great music out there that we don’t get to hear, simply because it is not mainstream, or it doesn’t conform to a particular style, or it doesn’t meet “playlist criteria”, or it doesn’t have enough marketing dollars behind it.

Next week: Is the Party over?

Joy Division and 40+ years of Post-Punk

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In the aftermath of its 1976-77 heyday, UK punk rock morphed into five main trends: new wave; goth; new romantics; synth-pop; and post-punk. The latter term was applied to a number of bands that had emerged during the punk era, but were not defined by its limitations. Although they were initially influenced by punk, and shared many of the same attitudes, they had quickly moved beyond the three chord thrash, frenetic pace and nihilism of punk to create music that was more cerebral, complex, challenging and enduring. They were not afraid to reference influences outside punk, such as literature, film and philosophy. Key among these bands were PiL, Gang of Four, The Fall, Wire, Magazine, Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire and Joy Division.

Although Joy Division only released two studio albums (one of which came out just after the band’s singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide), their influence has been long-lasting. Rather like the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s, many people who heard them early on were inspired to form their own bands.

Their first album, “Unknown Pleasures” emerged in June 1979. It was just after Margaret Thatcher had come to power following the strike-ridden “winter of discontent”. The sonic palette created by the band and their producer, Martin Hannett, revealed a post-industrial sound that could only have come from Manchester. At times it sounded nothing like their contemporaries, so strong was their unique musical identity. Reflecting the rugged local landscape surrounding the music’s urban setting, the gritty realism of “Unknown Pleasures” demonstrated that as with British society after Thatcher, music after Joy Division would never be the same again. I first saw them live a few weeks after the album’s release, and already the songs made an indelible impression.

The band was incredibly prolific during the next few months, touring constantly, and releasing a number of non-album tracks and singles. I saw them again in early 1980, by which time they were already playing songs from their next album, as well as their forthcoming single, “Love Will tear Us Apart” – one of the most iconic and frequently covered songs of its era.

The last time I saw Joy Division performing was on the second night of the “Factory By Moonlight” mini-residency at West Hampstead’s Moonlight Club (also artfully referencing Maximilien Luce’s late 19th century painting). I spoke briefly to Ian Curtis before the gig, which turned out to be one of the band’s last concerts. He was polite, and came across as rather shy, but probably he was just exhausted, given the band’s work rate and his own physical and emotional problems. Within a few weeks he was dead.

Soon after, the second and final studio album, “Closer” was released. Inevitably, it was seen as a sort of memorial for Curtis, especially given the sleeve’s funereal design (although the image had been selected months earlier). Apart from a couple of uptempo numbers (I am using the term relatively), the songs are melancholic, majestic, and yes, morbid. Whether intentional or not, side two of “Closer” has always reminded me of the mainly instrumental and proto-ambient songs on side two of David Bowie’s “Low” album. (Given that Joy Division’s previous name, Warsaw, owes something to the “Low” track, “Warszawa“, it seems possible that the similarity is deliberate.)

Much has been written about Joy Division over the past 40 years, and a number of commemorative activities are likely in 2020. The band’s presence has been perpetuated not just by the lasting influence of their slim studio output (since bulked out with compilations and live albums) but by the fact that the remaining band members morphed into New Order – one of the most successful bands of the 80s and early 90s who brought electronica to rock music, and rock music to the dance floor.

The other week, my next door neighbour mentioned he had only recently heard “Unknown Pleasures” for the first time – thanks to a playlist recommendation. He hadn’t realised the album was so old, and thought it was a newish release. Hopefully, by now, he has also heard “Closer”.

Next week: Stereolab at Melbourne Zoo