Finding the Rhythm

It’s about the music (and quality shines)

March 17, 2009 at 12:21 pm 1 comment

I’ve blogged about and mentioned cover songs more times than I can count (search the blog for “cover song” sometime, and you’ll see). And here’s another one, but I think it sums-up the matter pretty well. Stay with me on this.

Among the many things I do in this life, I’m the media and technology director for CAPP Records, an independent dance record label out of San Francisco. What that means is that I’m a web geek. And while I do some other things too, I have little to do with promotion, and absolutely nothing to do with production. (In fact, my producing ambitions live in a sphere quite apart from CAPP.) But I do converse with Dom, CAPP’s president, on a wide range of issues and among them is the fact that CAPP releases a lot of cover songs.

There are many sound [bad pun] reasons to put out covers, and CAPP doesn’t only do covers to start with. But with CAPP’s recent release of Andrew Spencer and Lazard’s Here Without You (a remake of a 3 Doors Down song), talking to Dom about the response has been enlightening.

Most people really dig the track, and as was the case with Spencer’s other releases, it’s well-produced, and there are a number of great remixes in the release package. But one of the radio stations to receive the promo indicated that they wouldn’t play it because, as a cover song, it violated their station policy.

I was sort of dumbfounded at that reaction, but I “get” that a P.D. can set whatever rules she wants when programming her station.

Dom was relating a conversation that he had with the incredible Chris “the Greek” Panaghi, a terrific DJ, producer and record label owner out of New York, where this station’s reaction was mentioned.

Chris got it right, so very right, when he said (and I’m paraphrasing here, since the quote is second-hand), ‘It’s about the music. Good music is good music, period.’

It sure as hell is. Of course, what constitutes “good music” is still somewhat subjective, and you’re never going to please everyone. Nor am I going to get my mom to warm-up to jumpstyle techno (although she does seem enjoy trance, actually). But things like the quality of a track’s production are fairly subjective, and that often seems to get lost in this discussion.

But expanding on what Chris said, I think we tend to over-categorize things. Is this track progressive house? No? Then I won’t play it. Or, Is this track around 130 BPM?  No? Too fast, I won’t play it. And now, apparently, Is this a cover song? No? I won’t play it.

Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion. But if we spent a little more time focusing on the music rather than trying to shove things into arbitrary buckets, it’s possible that dance music would be a little more mainstream than it is at present in the U.S.

Entry filed under: Dance Music, Dance Music Industry. Tags: 3 Doors Down, Andrew Spencer, CAPP Records, Chris "the Greek" Panaghi, Lazard.