Archive for March, 2009
Dance music can be clever
Late last week, I mentioned in a blog post, that, “I know [Kelly Clarkson's] work from the dance remixes.” That got me thinking. In addition to that, one of my favorite dance tracks right now further proves an interesting point that sorta struck me this morning.
That current fave is Taylor Swift’s Love Story. Until I heard the dance remix of Love Story, I had absolutely no idea who Taylor Swift was, or why I’d care. Lo and behold, she’s a barely-out-of-high-school country music sensation who had a multi-platinum-selling album at the ripe old age of 16. Who knew?! (Well, her millions of fans, I guess, but anyway.)
Dance music has been my conduit to a lot of big-name recording artists I wouldn’t have know about had it not been for some manager’s or record company exec’s decision to get some dance remixes produced. Alt rockers Keane come to mind, as do any number of R&B artists I wouldn’t otherwise choose to listen to as the music just isn’t my personal taste.
Dance music isn’t a huge part of the overall music industry in the U.S. (One of these days, I need to find some industry stats to quantify that clear but empirical sense of things.) But it’s absolutely a clever move to spend a comparatively tiny bit of money to hire a remixer or two or three, hand them some acapellas and audio stems, and let them go to town. I’ve got some issues with the entire Billboard charting system, but regardless, the fact that Maroon 5, an alt rock act, has the #6 position on their dance chart this week sorta proves that point. (The fact that I’ve not even heard some of the tracks on that chart proves another point, but I digress.)
There are some of us out here that apparently live quality lives without the E! cable network, People magazine, that cheesy TMZ television show, and the like; our own mini-caves devoid of entertainment gossip, so we have no idea who’s who, what’s what, or which pre-teen just scored a hit song. So for us, I do hope the major labels continue to get us up-to-speed by making sure we get a dance remix package for the artists and singles they want to promote. Clever business indeed.
Add comment March 18, 2009
It’s about the music (and quality shines)
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.
1 comment March 17, 2009
Going from DJ to producer
The term “DJ” means a lot of things to a lot of people, but as I seem to recall blogging at one point (although I didn’t go looking for the post), in the club DJ realm, I think I see it as a sort of progression in a way. There’s your basic DJ, a DJ/Producer, and what I’ve coined as a “Producing DJ” (which is admittedly not the best term for it).
A DJ just spins records. (OK, well, maybe MP3 files, but anyway.) A DJ/Producer does that, but also produces or remixes music, which in dance music, is basically the same thing; which is to say, actually creating and arranging the music. And the “Producing DJ” is someone like a Tiësto or Armin or whoever, who DJs and produces, but also brings those concepts together in a “DJ” set, manipulating songs on-the-fly, adding loops and effects, and generally giving a musical performance that’s based on the work of others, and themselves.
As I said, it seems that there is some evidence that these three things are a progression of sorts. Regular DJs—not that there is anything wrong at all with being a regular DJ (unless you ask Deadmau5)—tend to want to start producing music. And if you’re a really good DJ and producer, it’s not much of a leap to start doing both at the same time, live.
This is, in fact, exactly the progression track I’m on. The release of my first commercial remix is merely the first publicly visible mile marker of entering the second phase, DJ/Producer, although in fairness to myself, publicly visible is the key phrase there; I’ve actually written and produced dozens of songs (and not just in dance), but they’ve not been particularly visible. Whether I ever become a “Producing DJ” or not, I don’t know; that’s not really a current aspiration.
In any event, other DJs I know are on the same track, although are farther along than I am. My buddy Jeremy Martorano in Phoenix is producing quite a bit these days through his Majik Boys collaboration, and is sounding good. And Mike Bordes, a DJ I know through coordinating his mixshows on iDanceRadio.fm, has been on this track awhile now. (For the record, Jeremy and the Majik Boys also have a mixshow on iDanceRadio.fm.)
In fact, Mike just released a really superb dance track titled Don’t Know What U Got. It’s well-produced, it’s got a nice vocal (provided by Mike’s fellow New Yorker, Angela Severiano), it sounds good, and well, it rocks!
The most recent work I’m aware of from Majik Boys is their remix of amberRose Marie’s new track Wanna Be a DJ. I do like amberRose, and really dig her track from last year titled Destiny. And I do like the production work that Jeremy and team put forth in their mix of Wanna Be a DJ. Unfortunately, however, I just can’t stand the song; in short, I cannot manage to get past the cheesy, gratuitous lyrics. It strikes me as a song written to pander to DJs, as if the thought was, “Oooo, DJs will love this, it’s about them!” Well, I don’t like it, and I don’t like feeling like I’m being pandered to. But that’s nothing against the remixers on the project, or amberRose, whose vocal talents I really do like. I just wish they all had a better composition to work from. But alas, the track is on the Billboard dance charts, so perhaps I’m alone in this. Or, maybe I’m just jealous. 
But in any case, as Deadmau5 would say (refer to the link above), I’m just a f***ing c**t, so what do I know? 
Have a good week.
2 comments March 16, 2009
Say what you will about Idol, Kelly’s got it goin’ on
So much is said about American Idol in the press, in blogs, around the water cooler the day after the results shows… But however you feel about it, the show has succeeded in its supposedly altruistic mission of exposing talent that might not otherwise have seen the light of day. Without Idol, Kelly Clarkson might still be waiting tables or selling shoes in Texas, for example.
Kelly, the winner of the first American Idol season, demonstrates that cheesy reality television with all its tabloid moments (*cough* Paula Abdul *cough*) really can have some broader benefit to the public good. Sure, it’s an engine of commerce, a money printing machine (for as long as it lasts, anyway), but I’d rather have Idol with its silly Ford music videomercials and have Simon Cowell drinking scotch and water out of a Coke cup than miss out on talent like Kelly Clarkson, because to borrow a theme here, life would suck without her.
Back when Idol debuted, I was a huge fan. I was pitching for Clarkson from the very beginning, and to see her win over Justin what’s-his-name seemed to show that talent reigned supreme, and even viewers could see it to vote for it. But since that win, and despite getting roped by the Idol machine into doing the worst movie in history (anyone remember From Justin to Kelly or whatever the heck it was called?), Kelly has grown and propered.
If the reports are to be believed, Kelly’s got a Madonna-like rule over her own career these days, writing songs, and recording what she thinks is best for her. Yet if her appearance this week on American Idol to be believed, she’s still got that down-home charm and friendly demeanor. Her success and music career do not appear to have sucked the very life out of her.
The single from her latest album, Life Would Suck Without You, is another winner for me. I don’t often hear Clarkson’s songs in their original form; I know her work from the dance remixes, and for this song, as with so many of her singles before it, there’s a number of really competent mixes available that give the song dimension and open it up to a wider audience.
When Kelly sang it live during her appearance, she did a great job with it. It sounded… Wrong, to my ear, not being a dance remix… But I did enjoy it nonetheless. In any case, it was hard not to be happy for her, and her success. And I hope she has a lot more of it in the years to come.
1 comment March 14, 2009
The Damiens have it
Sometimes, songs take time to really penetrate the surface. They can be intriguing, and yet, somehow, they don’t grab me. But with repeated listening, they sorta work their way in. One such song is Glacier in the Sun.
International collaborations also intrigue me, but in this Internet-connected age, and the fact that dance music is constructed on a computer, they’re hardly unusual. This one is between two Damiens… Germany’s Damien J. Carter, and Canada’s Damien Heck.
Glacier in the Sun really isn’t much more than just a well-written, well-produced dance track, which might be why it took me some time to get to know it; sorta like that “average” looking person standing in the corner at a party who you wouldn’t really look twice at until you struck-up a conversation, and then suddenly, you wanna take ‘em home with you. It doesn’t have any sort of “grab me by the you-know-what” characteristics, and it doesn’t have unusual, rarely-heard sound patches or treatments. It’s just a straight-up nice song, well-constructed, with all its parts hanging in just the right places.
Vocals often make a song, and the uncredited female vocals in Glacier in the Sun make the track. Clear, crisp… Sorta like the rest of the track.
Give it a listen and see what you think.
Add comment March 12, 2009
Cool DJ toys
I don’t really write this blog for other DJs, so I guess this post is a little off-topic. But I was struck in an e-mail conversation I had yesterday about how many cool toys there are for DJs these days. I have no idea how big an audience DJs compose as a consumer group, and in this economy, I am even more clueless how many DJs are spending money. But DJs, like musicians, tend to have big aspirations (which is a good thing), and I don’t know about yours, but my local Guitar Center (where both musicians and DJs tend to frequent) still seems to be pretty busy these days.
Anyway, I recently had the chance to play with the Hercules DJ Control Steel pretty extensively so I could write a review of it for it DJ Times. It’s a USB-based DJ controller (i.e., “MIDI control surface” to use the typical parlance) that provides a variety of knobs and sliders and LED indicators to enable better, more accurate control of your DJ software. It has enough of those knobs and sliders to provide direct access to the key aspects of digital DJ’ing, thus freeing you from having to use your computer mouse to manipulate the software. And at around $300, and bundled with DJ software (Virtual DJ), it’s ready-to-use and a steal (bad pun).
You’ll have to wait until the May issue of DJ Times hits the streets to see what else I had to say about it.
As I told the person I was corresponding with by e-mail yesterday, I think what’s cool is that things like the DJ Control Steel even exist. When I started DJ’ing, I started out all-digital, and there were perhaps one or two choices for DJ-specific MIDI controllers at that time. After trying the M-Audio X-Session Pro (which I found to be an overly limited choice, not to mention its cheap, plastic feel; it was truly a toy, not a serious solution), I eventually settled onto using (of all things) an M-Audio Trigger Finger which is actually intended to be a MIDI drum controller. But it served me well for quite some time until my Allen & Heath Xone:3D (and later the 4D) came into my life.
But I digress. The point is that today, there are an increasing number of dedicated controllers already on, or coming onto the market, from Behringer, Vestax, Stanton, and Hercules (among others) at the affordable end that are great for mobile jocks and within reach of even aspiring DJs. And at the higher-end, pro goodies (with price tags to match) from people like the aforementioned Allen & Heath as well as interesting entries from places like Finland’s EKS.
In short, there’s no better time for a DJ to move from the traditional turntable-based approach to the art to the all-digital realm. Great controllers and increasingly great software choices make it way easier, and way more fun, than it was when I started out.
Add comment March 11, 2009
Chart updated 3/9/09
With everything going on in my life and career lately, I’ve not been doing a great job of keeping my dance chart up-to-date, nor saying anything about it when I do. But here’s a late new year’s resolution to do better on this front, especially since some people have been telling me they’ve missed it.
So yesterday, I did update my chart, so here are a few words about that.
At the top position is French producer Junior Caldera. I don’t think I ever heard his name until a couple of months ago, and now I see it plastered on all manner of songs and remix projects. The track is Sleeping Satellite, a song originally by British singer/songwriter (and pretty much one-hit wonder) Tanita Tikaram and her debut 1988 album, and which was already covered under the shortened title Satellite by OceanLab in 2004. Caldera’s take is incredibly solid, and I’ve been getting requests to hear it. I can’t get enough of it myself.
Producer John Kano may have the world’s worst MySpace page, but he’s applied his talents to the #2 song, I’m Done With the Pain, featuring the incredible vocals of Sarah Mattea. I love the funky groove of the song, and the thoughtful, well-written lyrics really make it work.
At #3 is Girls Aloud, the UK girl band, with their track The Loving Kind. I actually prefer the original pop version of the song, and that version sounds reminiscent of Bananarama and countless other girl groups over the years, with tasty harmonies and a very commercial sound. But I’ve been spinning the dance remixes (of course) to good reception. Another song where I like the lyrics, and you just want to sing along while you’re letting loose on the dance floor.
Some other notables include:
- My friend Carol Hahn has a new track out, I Can Stop the Rain, which I blogged about recently. People seem to enjoy this track and its solid range of remixes; it comes-in at #5.
- The latest track from my friends at CAPP Records is at #6, from Andrew Spencer (Zombie) and Lazard (Your Heart Keeps Burning), titled Here Without You. I loved this one the first time I heard it, but then, the young German Spencer been turning-out some really fab tracks in his home country, most of which have found their way to the U.S. via CAPP.
- The #9 spot is held by a song I continue to really enjoy, Trona’s Jaded Love. While technically a cover of the 80′s track Tainted Love from Soft Cell, I think of it more as a reinterpretation, which probably accounts for the change in title. The lyrics and melody are the same as Tainted Love, but the entire approach to the song is quite different, and quite refreshing. I drone-on (a lot) about remakes, but this radical a departure from the original can be very interesting, and it is in this case.
Lots more I could talk about, but I’ll save some for next time. You can see the whole chart on my web site.
Add comment March 10, 2009
I can’t get enough Teardrop
I was listening to newly-arrived promotional music over the weekend, and was struck by the almost uniform badness. Listen, ponder, click “next;” listen, ponder, click “next;” and so on. Then, as if inevitable, a track stuck out, not unlike the entire chunk of sidewalk pushed up by a tree root that almost caused me to face plant yesterday while walking to lunch.
That song comes from the Italian team “Eleze,” confusingly both a project, and the vocalist. “Eleze” the project is Matteo Esse and San, who have been involved with a number of efforts with which I’m not familiar, and Eleze the vocalist. “Eleze” the vocalist hails from Palermo, and its her hypnotic vocal that partially got my attention.
The song? It’s a remake. And I know in saying so, some will groan. I’ve blogged about covers a lot, and I won’t go there again at the moment, except to say that good songs are good songs, good production is good production, and I don’t really care that much whether the track in question is a cover as long as it’s well-done.
Anyway, the song is Teardrop, originally recorded by Massive Attack with the vocals of Elizabeth Fraser, best known for her work with Cocteau Twins. I wouldn’t really know Massive Attack from a hole in the ground, frankly, but I’ve heard the name, and I think you’d have to live in a cave not to have heard this roughly decade-old song with its laidback sound and feel. I do like the original, and I absolutely love this new cover.
Eleze have retained everything that makes this song work, building upon it rather artfully to give it a great dance floor vibe.
I say Eleze have, but frankly, I think a lot of the credit for why I love this track so much actually goes to Aaron “Fonzerelli” McClelland, the Irish producer who created the remix that got my attention. The other available remix I heard, by the frequently awesome Robbie Rivera, leaves a lot to be desired in my view; Rivera’s mix is club-friendly, to be sure, but emphasizes the usual clubby rhythms, rhythmic patterns and filter sweeps over the substance of the song, and in almost completely dropping the vocals, falls very flat for me.
In any case, I can’t stop listening to it, and I’m not likely to stop playing it for awhile, either.
You can hear a sample on Eleze’s MySpace page. The track has apparently been signed to Ultra here in the U.S., so it should be available for purchase soon if it’s not already.
Add comment March 5, 2009
Carol Hahn can stop the rain; and time
Carol Hahn’s latest single, “I Can Stop the Rain,” is out… And sounding amazing.
Continue Reading Add comment March 3, 2009
