To begin, American Idol has uncovered some genuine talent. Most of it has come and gone rather quickly, but some linger on, most notably Kelly Clarkson, who seems to have grown well past her humble beginnings on Idol’s first season. And who doesn’t like (or perhaps lust after) a classic Cinderella story… Someone pulled fresh off the farm, thrust into the limelight, showered in fame and theoretical fortune, etc. Stardom isn’t all it’s cracked-up to be, but lust after it we do, wishing for our 15 minutes of fame, as Warhol suggested.

But what sort of galls me about Idol, and more accurately about Idol contestants, is the prevalence of what I’m just going to call “bad attitudes.” Let me see if I can pseudo-quote some of the contestants:

• “I’m 28, and auditioning because this is my last chance to make it.”
• “This is the third season I’ve auditioned for. I sure hope I make it this time; music is my life.”
• “My son is autistic, and it’s very expensive to get him the help he needs. I’m auditioning because my family could really use the money that American Idol success will bring.”
• Fighting tears after being sent home during Hollywood Week, “I guess a music career just wasn’t meant to be.”

None of these is an actual quote, but they embody the notions many contestants did say on-air. And the common thread, if you can’t see it, is that contestants at Idol seem to almost universally believe that success on American Idol is not only a fame and fortune given on a silver platter, but it’s the only possible route available to them to achieve either financial success and/or a music career. The way most of them act after getting the yellow piece of paper (“You’re goin’ to Hollywood, baby!”), you’d think that piece of paper was the same as winning the season.

Of course, the real objective here is to create good television, and while you could argue that the Idol franchise is dwindling in importance and popularity, in the grand scheme of things, it’s still a runaway television success.

But as for the contestants and their success? Well, I wish I knew what happened to hard work and sacrifice for achieving success in life. I also wish I knew what happened along the way that we started defining “success” as financial and material trappings. Is that more important than the music for these young men and women? It would in many cases seem so.

If music was truly the first love of some of these people, they wouldn’t need American Idol to pursue it. If some of these people were truly interested in bettering the financial standing of their families, they’d be finding a way to make improvements with a method other than scratching a musical lottery ticket.

But the pursuit of one’s 15 minutes of fame (“Yay! I’m on television!”), or the dream of instant success and bypassing actual work and effort by buying lottery tickets (literally or figuratively) is too much for many people to ignore, I suppose. I just find it more than a little sad to see people figuratively spending their last dollar gambling—hoping and dreaming about change, rather than working to make it happen.

Sad or not, I’ll keep tuning-in at least this one more season. Maybe it’s the sadistic joy of seeing so many of those dreams crushed like candy in Simon’s fingers, or maybe it’s the allure of seeing what sort of talent actually does get uncovered. It’ll be interesting in any case.

For those out of the loop, the general thrust of the idea is that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Comcast, Verizon, Qwest, etc. would collect what is essentially a private tax on consumer broadband connections to the Internet. The funds collected would then be redistributed to licensors of music, namely Warner, Universal, Sony/BMG, etc.

The idea is not without precedent. Blank CD media designed for audio use ostensibly have a fee slapped onto them for a similar reason; surely if you’re burning an audio CD, you must certainly be doing so to pirate music, right? Just like anyone with an Internet connection is, by definition, stealing music by the armful, and and therefore, should pay for the privilege.

Whether the notion has any legs is anyone’s guess, but the fundamental assumptions offend me. Maybe most home Internet users do steal music; I really don’t know (or particularly care). But the idea of assessing every Internet user in the country a fee and then giving the money collected to music labels makes about as much sense to me adding a fee to hammer sales and giving the money to major hospital chains because someone might use the thing to beat someone senseless who doesn’t have health insurance, and by God, somebody’s gotta pay!  (Right?)

My big question is how Warner’s Bronfman proposes distributing the money that would be collected. Let me guess—every penny goes to Warner, Universal, and Sony/BMG? So people are then free to steal my music, because of course the legal right to do so is bundled with their Internet access, but I’ll never actually see a dime, because the major record labels get all of it. Do I understand correctly?

I get that music on major records labels account for the vast majority of the action—sales, piracy, Grammy awards, sync licensing, and everything else. But if small labels and indie artists are completely locked-out from the party, then basically all we accomplish is consumers having their theft justified and “paid for” and the majors get to stop whining—while the rest of us just get to bend over and take it like a man.

If that’s not really what Lefsetz or Bronfman have in-mind, then how would they propose it be handled? If we essentially legalize theft, it’s only fair that small labels and indie artists get their share too, since their music is also now being “legally stolen.” But how on Earth can that really happen? Is someone at each ISP going to examine every file transferred over their network and keep some sort of log? Let’s be real.

Of course, what I think doesn’t matter, and neither does fairness. If this idea is allowed to have legs, only the major labels win. The artists on those labels rarely see a dime as it is, and as for small labels and independents, they won’t either. But I have no doubt that Warner, Universal and whoever else thinks this is a great idea will have no trouble lobbying congress to make it happen if they’re sufficiently motivated.

Hopefully, however, that won’t happen. Hopefully we won’t legalize theft. And hopefully we won’t screw the small players in the process of dealing with an acknowledged problem that has no easy answers.

Over a year ago (October 2008), Ableton, the makers of my favorite production software (and perhaps one of the most amazing pieces of software ever developed, right up there with Adobe Photoshop) announced a strategic partnership with DJ software company Serato that promised to extend Ableton Live farther into the realm of DJ’ing.

It’s already possible to DJ with Ableton, and those who do can leverage Ableton’s primary focus (production) and blend it with live DJ’ing performances, elevating mere “DJ’ing” to a higher artform. In fact, it’s precisely what I’d like to migrate to myself in time. So the announcement was exciting to me, because I hoped it would address Ableton’s numerous shortcomings in the DJ’ing department.

In conjunction with Winter NAMM, Ableton and Serato announced their love child—called The Bridge—and I don’t think I could possibly be more disappointed.

Ableton’s announcement about The Bridge calls it, “…a powerful fusion of DJ and production tools, opening a world of opportunities for DJing, remixing, and live performance.” In my view, it’s anything but. According to the announcement (disclaimer: I’ve not used the software), it does primarily two things:

• It allows you to use Serato and timecoded media (or ITCH controller) to control the transport in Ableton Live.
• It allows you to record your Serato live performance into Ableton Live for editing and tweaking.

How can I put this nicely… Big f***ing deal. Essentially what’s been announced here is a sort of DJ-oriented, proprietary version of ReWire. ReWire has always been a kludge at best, and I haven’t actually met anyone yet who uses it regularly. Don’t get me wrong, the idea—getting two disparate pieces of software to work in unison—is a great one. But creating a communications backchannel between a pair of software applications completely overlooks the actual logistics:

• Which application must be started first? (Ableton and Serato have made this concern a non-issue with The Bridge.)
• What happens if one of the applications freezes or crashes?
• How do you physically and operationally interact with two different applications at the same time?
  • Do you really want to constantly switch focus on a single monitor computer? (Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab, Alt-Tab…)
  • What about different user interface paradigms? (Ableton is elegant, and Serato looks like something from 1992.)

I don’t personally believe that anyone truly wants, dreams and aspires to strap together multiple software applications with duct tape and string to achieve some amorphous end-result. What people really want is all the functionality in one place, and the fact they can’t have it, and the fact that they want it so badly, drives them cobble stuff together with things like ReWire… And now, with The Bridge. It’s not the desired solution; it’s accepted only because there’s no alternative offered.

Now, The Bridge is a little deeper than the two bullet points I offered above (which are the same two summarizations offered by Ableton on their web site this morning). But is this revolutionary? Useful?

1. Controlling Ableton’s tempo and playback with a controller, even a virtualized one (decks + Serato) isn’t particularly revolutionary. There are already myriad ways to control Ableton’s transport. But if you really want to do it with turntables and coded vinyl, I guess now you can.
2. Serato gets a sweet “Ableton View,” where a stripped down version of Ableton’s Session View is shown right in Serato’s UI. This basically allows you to trigger clips from Serato in your DJ set. But what problem are we trying to solve here, exactly, that isn’t already solved by just DJ’ing from Ableton in the same, relatively poor way you always could?
3. Recording your Serato DJ set into Ableton for tweaking also looks like a solution in search of a problem. It’s referred to as “the ultimate mixtape production tool.” Recording a DJ set and manipulating it later is a bit of a yawn for me. Admittedly, The Bridge also records a (very) limited number of control movements from the Serato side, so you can fix both audio issues and certain control issues after-the-fact. But if I was really looking for “the ultimate mixtape production tool,” one already exists, and it’s called MixMeister. My point is that mistakes happen in live performance, and if you want to erase them all and make everything picture-perfect, then don’t perform live in the first place.

The fact is, Ableton in its current incarnation isn’t a great tool for DJ’ing, and rubber banding it together with Serato doesn’t change that fact, nor does it address the real shortcomings, which exist primarily around metadata—not vinyl or CDJ based virtual MIDI control, not recording and tweaking DJ sets, not triggering clips during a set.

The reason people use Serato, Virtual DJ, Traktor, etc. for DJ’ing is partially for control (which Ableton does as-is), partially for beat alignment help (which Ableton does as-is), and partially for metadata management (e.g., track naming, selection, tagging, filtering, rating, etc.)—which is what Ableton doesn’t do at all.

That is the shortcoming that Ableton should be working to address, not gluing the software to Serato with a backend kludge. It strikes me rather like putting a trailer hitch on a Bugatti Veyron, hooking-up a pop-up camper, and calling the result a tour bus. Unfortunately, given whatever agreement exists between Ableton and Serato that produced The Bridge (can you say “non-compete clause?”), we’re unlikely to see Ableton do DJ’ing any better than this non-solution, anytime soon.

Ableton, I love you guys, and I love your software. But wow… What a disappointment.

First, it’s important to understand how dance music releases work. Unlike the glory days of the music business, when artists would record and release full albums of different songs, in this digital iTunes / AmazonMP3 age, the world is a pretty singles-centric place. But while that’s new to pop and rock, it’s really the way it’s always been in dance music for whatever reason. An artist (which in dance could really mean vocalist and/or producer and/or songwriter and/or “band” or “group” and/or other things) generally records and releases a single at a time.

Each of these singles generally includes remixes from a range of producers (a/k/a “remixers”). That’s why on iTunes, AmazonMP3, and other places, you see track listings on releases that look something like this:

It’s the same song, in multiple versions, by different producers (remixers). Same artist, same song… But different “takes” on that song. More on that shortly.

In any case, when you see the list like this, those subtitles in parentheses are the remixer credits, usually with a mix type (e.g., radio edit, club mix, etc.) with the remixer name. So, here we see a VisionX mix, a Wesley King mix (that’s me!), a Groove Police mix, etc.

Taken as a whole, these are “maxi-singles” or sometimes “remix packages” for a specific, single song release. Obviously in the digital stores, you can buy and download individual mixes, or you can buy the “album” (the full set of remixes). Most people, I assume, download the individual mix or mixes they like best.

Most dance music releases work this exact way. Sometimes there are fewer mixes, often times more. But the fact is that most dance releases are put out with multiple “remixes” to suit multiple audiences.

Which is a good segue to the second point, different remixes are designed to suit different audiences. There are different styles of dance music, some softer and lighter, and some hard-edged and aggressive sounding. Some are house, some trance, some techno. By having producers create different remixes in different styles, an individual release has a better chance of commercial success. Kids who like techno don’t like the same music as 40-somethings who like filter house. And what works for radio may not work in a club (or vice-versa). And what works on the east coast may not work on the west. But if you release the same song in multiple styles, it’s entirely possible that track will find an audience with all of these people.

And now for the third point, what actually is a “remix” anyway? The term comes from an earlier time, when an artist would record a song on tape. Those recordings had multiple tracks… For example, there would be a vocal track, a drum track, a bass track, a synth track… Each distinct sound would generally have a track all to its own—all of which, when taken together (or “mixed,” literally, using a hardware mixer), form a finished song. A producer could then take that tape, and adjust the levels of each track in the finished mix. Perhaps some tracks would be removed entirely; perhaps new tracks would be added with new sounds. Depending on what the producer wanted to achieve, the finished result could sound entirely different from the original.

These days, everything’s digital. And when it comes to dance remixes, generally speaking, none of the original tracks—other than the vocal—are retained. A producer (a/k/a remixer, such as me) will take the vocal (acapella), and create the rest of the song around it from the ground up. In my software (Ableton Live), it looks like this, visually:

What you see here is time unfolding from left to right, and tracks from top to bottom. (I’m just trying to give this some visual context, not teach you about Ableton; if you want to know more about that, go here.)

In any event, there are still multiple tracks, and so it really is an exercise of adjusting levels, manipulating sound, adding tracks, taking them away… It’s just that the original recording isn’t the source of the work, it’s all rooted in the vocals.

Essentially, being a producer/remixer is being part audio engineer, part musician, part artist and part songwriter. In times past, these were all separate jobs, but with the advent of such powerful music technology for the masses, it’s all rolled-up into a single person when it comes to dance music remixing.

Anyway, I don’t know how other remixers work, but in my remixes, everything you hear other than the vocal is something I created, either through programming or performing. The drums? I programmed those. Synthesizers? I played and recorded them. Piano? I played and recorded that. Bass? Same thing. Some remixers use pre-recorded loops, which is perfectly legitimate, but not how I choose to work. In many cases, I re-arrange the vocal elements, playing songwriter in essence, structuring the parts of the song how I want them. I might retouch the vocal recording… I might create harmonies for those vocals… I might speed it up or slow it down from the artist’s original version. What I do to a track depends on the song, how I feel about it, what inspires me, what hits me in the moment.

I’m sure some remixers work quickly; perhaps many use templates, recycling stuff from older remixes. To date, I don’t do much recycling, and I don’t tend to work that quickly. Each remix is started from a blank canvas, and it usually takes me several weeks to get a foundation put together with the song parts arranged, percussion roughed-in, and other common elements (like the bass) roughed-in. From that point, it’s an exercise of polish… Fixing vocals, adding filters (manipulating sound), adding pads (which are flowing, ethereal sounds), adding other new synthesizer elements, trying things, adjusting levels, adding effects, or pulling things back when I take them too far.

In some ways, it’s like a painting… It takes time to get things roughed-in, and then it’s an exercise of cleaning-up, embellishing, and adding details, and taking it where you want it.

When that’s done, it’s time to get it released. This is where my friend comes back into this discussion; I honestly don’t think he understood that the end point here is making these available for sale. But once I get commissioned to do a remix (by the artist, the label, etc.), yeah, the point is to get it where it needs to be and then hand it off so it can get released to iTunes, AmazonMP3, and other places.

So, the next time you see “Wesley King Mix” (or something like that) attached to a dance track in a digital download store? You now know why it’s there, and what I did to make it happen.

I mentioned it only briefly in that entry, but not only are some producers deaf (apparently), but I’m also guessing most DJs are as well. Before I dig into what I’m talking about, let me rant a bit about hearing.

When I was a lot younger, I did spend more than one night in clubs where I left the place with my ears ringing to the point I couldn’t hear normally until well into the next day. While most clubbers experience this every time they leave a club, let’s be clear: This is not a good thing. If you’re ears are ringing, you have done damage that’s going to subtly add-up over time. Even after your hearing has “recovered,” the damage is done, and it will be additive each time you do more of it.

People like a thundering bass you can feel, and nice loud music to drown-out all the drunk babbling I guess, but I’d prefer to keep my hearing, which is why I use Etymotic’s high fidelity ear plugs at clubs and concerts. They reduce sound levels by about 20 db, and do so pretty much evenly across audible frequencies, meaning that using them is basically like turning the volume down without giving it a muffled quality.

As for DJs, based on the ones I’ve worked with, it’s apparent that most have been doing this so long without any regard for their own hearing that their hearing is already shot. I don’t use booth monitors—that’s why I have headphones—but those DJs I’ve worked with who do, usually turn them up well past my comfort zone, obviously because otherwise, they can’t hear the music. This is why I also end-up using the Etymotic ear plugs while DJ’ing in many cases; it’s just too loud otherwise.

Point #1: DJs and Clubbers—Protect your hearing now, or you will regret it later, and there is no way to fix it once you destroy it. (This goes for DJs, and for the people who listen to them.)

This past Saturday, at my benefit gig, I was paid a high compliment by Mika from Fastlane Productions, who provided the event’s electrical, lighting and audio. (These guys were fantastic to work with, and I hope to do so again in the future.) He told me I’m the first DJ he’s ever worked with who understood anything about signal levels and the need to not overdrive the audio. I was, in a word, nonplussed.

Unfortunately, this says way less about me than it does my fellow DJs. Every DJ mixer I’ve seen has VU meters that show you visually the signal levels. Most have them for the main mix, and many (including mine) have them on a channel-by-channel basis, too. And I would not have thought it was rocket science to understand that the target level for audio is always roughly 0 db on average. If you go past 0 db, the audio will overdrive and distort—on the peaks, if not on the entire signal.

But based on what I hear when I go to most clubs, Mika’s right; DJs just don’t get it. Most clubs I go to, the sound is overdriven into distortion. It starts out the night in good enough shape, but as the evening progresses, it’s pushed higher and higher (probably in proportion to the DJ’s increasing hearing loss) until it’s distorted and unenjoyable to listen to (with or without my Etymotic ear plugs).

Point #2: DJs—If you want it louder, turn-up the amps; don’t just ram the mixer sliders to the stop and crank the main mix level up all the way. VU meters are there for a reason. (And oh yeah, yellow and red? Those colors generally mean “danger.”)

I touched on this in my original post, but there are surprising number of dance tracks that are pushed into distortion, and actually released that way. Proper mastering by a professional audio engineer would never have allowed that to get through to a DJ in the first place; my guess is that these tracks are amateur jobs done by people who just have this idea that “louder = better.”

Yes, to a certain degree, louder = better, because most people expect modern electronic music to be driven pretty hard signal-wise. However, distorted ≠ better. Distorted = amateur. Distorted = crap. Distorted = I won’t play the track.

Point #3: DJs—As computer scientists say, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If you have a track that sounds like crap, don’t play it. In the end, it makes you sound like crap. (Oh, and crap? Crap isn’t good.)

The bottom line is that it really doesn’t take that much effort to sound good. But to be able to discern what “sounds good,” you need to have good hearing. So protect your hearing, for a start. But then use it to take pride in what you’re doing. Learn the very basics about audio, apply them, and the world will be a little better place.

It’s possible that I just don’t get out enough, but it did get me wondering… Where are all the women? Dance music seems to be dominated by men. Obviously they’re out there, as Sonic Kiss demonstrates. And I recently met a new friend, Jessica, who’s a DJ as well (although I’ve not heard her yet). But it’s clear that the DJ scene is way disproportionately dominated by the guys.

It happens on the production side, too. Denise Gurney, better known as Twisted Dee, is the only female dance producer / remixer that I’m personally aware of. There are tons of female vocalists in dance music, and there are probably more female producers that I’ve just not come across. But considering just how much music I listen to in a week’s time, the fact I can name only one is pretty telling.

There are a whole lot of areas where I think we could use more female influence, and one of them is dance music. This isn’t the time or the venue to get into a discussion about the genders, but I think it’s fair to say that men and women typically bring something a little different to any particular table, as do people of different cultures, lifestyles, and so forth. To me, that’s the most important part of diversity to start with… Fairness is important, yes, but whatever we’re talking about—a business, an industry, whatever—benefits from the differing perspectives perhaps more than the individuals involved benefit from the level playing field.

But I digress.

Hey ladies… Wanna be a DJ? Wanna produce dance music? Get your girly selves in here, because while I don’t have issues with the guys, we need you, too.

amberRose Marie - Wanna Be a DJ

I can remember the morning in the car I was listening to the most recent release from amberRose Marie, Wanna Be a DJ. I popped the CD in, and almost immediately, my reaction was, “What the hell is this?” I tried; I really tried. I sampled every mix on the CD, but could stand no more. I pressed “eject” and it went into the “I don’t think so” pile, and got mentioned in a rare negative blog entry.

I heard from amberRose Marie’s record label on that one, respecting my opinion, and encouraging me to try it one more time. And I heard from Harry Towers, the promoter of the track, who also wanted me to try it again. So, I did, and I had the same rather nose-wrinkling reaction. I thought that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

A few weeks ago, I was asked again to listen to it, and rolling my eyes, I got the CD out, again, and plugged it in, again. Only this time, my reaction was, “Hmmm… Maybe this isn’t that bad.” Then I listened again. And again. And I started to like it. It’s sorta like what I went through all those years ago with Brussels sprouts and broccoli.

As is the case with almost every dance track, I still don’t like all the mixes. And while the track still strikes me as a bit of a novelty in terms of its lyric, not every song, let alone every dance song, has to have some deep emotional meaning. It’s perfectly legitimate to have a song that’s there just for the sake of having fun, not taking itself too seriously, and Wanna Be a DJ is just such a track.

This is hardly the first time I’ve been wrong about songs. The one example I keep citing to people is Tod Miner’s Luv N Music. I just could not even stand the song the first 10, or 20, or 30 times I heard it. Then magically, “OK, this is sorta cool!” And I still use that one in sets pretty regularly.

Anyway, some songs wow you the moment you hear them (like the lastest David Guetta track), and some just take some time (sometimes a lot of time) to sink-in. It’s unfortunate, but I just don’t have time to listen to songs 20 or 30 times a piece just to “make sure” my negative reaction is “real.” (And I’m not about to subject myself to that for the truly bad songs, of which there are many.) But I am glad that some people bang on me a little when they’re passionate about a track, vested interests aside.

Because, sometimes… I’m… Wrong. 

For those not following closely, Saucedo’s a former Swedish Idol contestant, signed to Sony, who is apparently enjoying a fair amount of success in his homeland and nearby Poland. In his early 20s, his voice belies his age, with a strength and emotion that works well with a song like All On You.

The problem? Go try and buy the song. If you’re in the U.S., you can’t. No doubt, you can get a Torrent, or use a P2P network and snag copies of it all day long. But you want to take a buck out of your wallet and get it the right way, good luck. I’ve been asked repeatedly by people who’ve heard this track in my mixshows, “Where can I get that track?” I don’t know; fly to Europe and use iTunes there?

I got my copy of the track through legitimate promotional channels. Sony, why are you asking me to play this song when your staff can’t seem to be bothered to take the 30 minutes or so required to make it available to consumers in the U.S. on iTunes?

And while I’ve certainly not read Saucedo’s recording contract, don’t give me some B.S. about territories and rights and what-not. Come on; new, young artist. Major worldwide label. Tell me they didn’t option the entire globe with this kid.

But whether we’re talking about this artist, or any other, this is one of the things that continues to blow my mind about the music industry, in dance and well beyond, and mostly with major labels, but minor ones too:

• Getting hooked-up with iTunes is hardly difficult or burdensome. It takes time, but most of that time is waiting for iTunes staff to process things—not the actual mechanics of posting content. So why so many indie artists don’t seem to think this is important is beyond me.
• To the major labels, if you own the rights, post the content. These days of timing releases to special moments? Making sure music goes out only on Tuesdays? Making sure releases coincide with some sort of press release or marketing effort? It’s history. Nobody gives a crap. There’s a lot of product, and not putting it out for some stupid reason that might have made sense 20 years ago is just insanity. Post it now, and figure out if and when you’re going to promote it later. You can always “re-release it” anyway… This happens all the time with indie dance music. Consumers do not care if it’s new to them now, or (again) six months from now. Release dates mean nothing.

This is really quite simple. The music business is hard. There’s lots of product. Consumers are fickle and have short attention spans. If you hope to make any money at all from your music, and you want to reduce piracy, how about actually offering said music for sale?

Such a novel concept for the 21st century.

So, Sony. Here’s a thought. Get around to having that intern in the digital department click a few web links and make Danny Saucedo’s track magically appear in iTunes, won’t you? I have a few fans who’d love to buy a copy. If they only could.

A classic bell curve plot.

This morning it hit me. I think all of it can be explained with a classic bell curve, coupled with simple supply and demand. (For those bell curve challenged, picture the worst songs on the left, and the very best on the right.)

To be sure, there’s a lot of good music out there. I hear it every day, I play it, I get more of it all the time.

There’s also a lot of crap. I hear that every day too, I don’t play it, and I get more of it all the time.

The really, really good stuff is not that common. I’m lucky if I get one new track that I consider “really, really good”—let’s call it the top 5% of the material—every couple of weeks (if it’s that often).

In any case, a good 65% or more of the music flow being pretty listenable; the left-most 35% of the music probably isn’t. Regardless, some is better than others. But as the bell curve tells us, the bulk of the music is pretty average… In the middle of the curve.

There is a huge amount of supply, judging from the amount of music I get each week, and the amount I see showing-up on the various digital music stores. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of new songs each and every week. Month after month. (I’m talking only dance music here, by the way.) It’s more music than any one DJ can possibly digest. More than any radio programmer can deal with. And certainly way more than any music consumer can even know about, let alone sift through, let alone buy much of. With the proliferation of decent software for making electronic music, the barrier to entry is very, very low, adding to the supply.

Of course, the stuff on the extreme right side of the bell curve tends to get noticed… Stands out from the noise level in the background (literally). Looking back on my annual top charts, it’s songs like Matt Darey’s Beautiful Day and Filo & Peri’s Anthem. A little farther to the left on the curve, popular choices like Lady GaGa’s Poker Face. The good stuff; the better-than-average to outstanding tracks.

As I enter more deeply the world of production, obviously this sort of thing concerns me if I hope to get anyone’s attention with my music. But whether for myself, or anyone else with similar aspirations, one thing is really clear:  There’s a damned high bar, and you better put your game on, because the middle of the bell curve is a really crowded place.

I was going to write about it—until I could find absolutely nothing about the producer, the song, or the vocalist who sings on it.

So instead, and not to pick on The One Hundred specifically by any means, this is now going to be a mini-rant about some issues I see in the dance music industry that are among many that prevent it from commercializing much of anywhere, especially in the U.S.

The Web (it’s about the brand)

You really can’t do much of anything these days that involves reaching consumers of any kind without having a web presence. When someone wants to find you, or learn about you, or buy your product, where do they go?  The web. And usually Google on the web. It’s literally the first look many people have of “an entity” (company, artist, individual, product, service, etc.).

It seems a lot of artists and producers (heck, even “record labels”) are content with their only web presence being a garish page on MySpace, with a crappy looking template generated by one of the hundreds of “crappy looking MySpace template” sources that are a mere Google search away. (And yes, my own MySpace page uses one of those crappy templates because it’s such a pain to customize MySpace otherwise.)

The web is hard for a lot of people, so fair enough. But if you can register a domain name and point it at a MySpace page, you probably have enough sense and skill to do better than letting your “brand” be represented by the ugliest web site on the planet (MySpace, in case you’re not following along here).

But be that as it may, let’s accept for the moment that MySpace actually makes sense, and that it’s a good thing, etc. Then why would you set-up your MySpace page, and then do nothing with it other than drop your music into the player and start making and accepting friends? MySpace has space for a bio. Pictures. It even has a blog feature (the world’s crappiest blog, but it’s there). But these things are hard too, I guess, and allowing other MySpace users to spam your comments with their new release banners and YouTube videos is easy, so there you go. But I wouldn’t call it “putting your best foot forward.”

Hiding the Details (it’s still about the brand)

It is truly beyond me why so many producers and artists (and DJs too for that matter) go completely out of their way to hide their own identities and/or the identities of those they work with:

• Pictures taken with strong backlighting so all you see is a silhouette; oddly-cropped pictures where you see nothing clearly; pictures taken from the back; or no pictures at all.
• Missing or first-name-only vocalist credits. (What, you want to make sure nobody else records with him or her? Give me a break.)
• Missing or first-name-only producer credits.
• No information of any kind about where to purchase the music, or which label(s) a song or artist has been signed to. (If this isn’t an invitation to piracy, I don’t know what is.)

This is, frankly, nuts. Promoting music is little different than promoting anything else, and that’s why people like Coca-Cola and Nike spend so much time and money building and protecting their “brand.” I think it’s even more important with music than shoes and soda, because there’s so much music out there, when a fan finds something they like, they probably would like more from the people who made the track they liked.

When you hide the vocalist’s name, it becomes impossible to find more music he or she has sung. When you hide the producer’s name, likewise on production. When you hide pictures, there’s nothing for a fan to relate to other than the music.

Part of this, I believe, is because in many cases, popular producers work under multiple names for record deal purposes. One producer I’m thinking of in the UK who’s a favorite of mine works under around 12 different names, and the explanation he gave at one point was just that… Some track under some name gets signed for release, and he picks a new one. Sounds like a weird set of contract terms to me, but whatever. It’s not a great way to build a reputation in my view, at least not among consumers. (If people in the industry know who you are, I guess that’s all that matters to some.)

Missed Opportunities

I think the bottom line here is that this is all about missed opportunities. To pick on The One Hundred a little bit here, whoever they are, is that I would have loved to write a blog piece about the song. Talk about what I like, and why I like it. Who’s behind the song. What other work they’ve done. Essentially, help spread the word and promote the track. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing to say. And there’s nothing to say because the artist hasn’t chosen to say anything; at least not anywhere Google can seem to find it.

Music, to me, is more than the music itself. It’s interesting people, with interesting backgrounds, from interesting places, with personal stories. Not unlike the way we feed off of Britney’s dysfunction, but hopefully in a more positive way, many people (myself included) like hearing about all that when we bond with a song’s great production, or insightful lyric, or smooth vocal. It’s part of the experience, frankly. So why deprive an audience of that? It makes no sense.

But then, many things don’t make sense. But I still like Still & Fine from The One Hundred. Whoever they are.