Posts filed under ‘Dance Music Industry’
Idol isn’t the only way
Auditioning for American Idol (or one of its siblings worldwide) may be one way for people with singing talent to get discovered, as I blogged earlier this week. In fact, just tinkering with one’s video camera and posting the results on YouTube has proven to be another way some people get to the spotlight.
One of those people came to my attention on Monday while updating the music on iDanceRadio.fm, and that person is The Netherlands’ Esmée Denters. Just three years ago, Esmée was videotaping herself singing popular songs, Idol audition style, and posting them on YouTube. Apparently the results were impressive enough for someone in the industry to notice.
Denters was eventually introduced to Justin Timberlake, who in addition to signing her to his new Tennman Records label, had her open for his European concerts in 2007. She’s been hanging out with Timberlake since, as a sort of protégé. Fast-forward to today, and she’s preparing for the release of her first album. Not bad for a kid who just a couple of years ago was merely goofing around with Internet video.
Her debut single, which is what I added to the station on Monday, is titled Outta Here. It’s probably exactly what one might expect from someone associated with Timberlake: a nice, pleasant, radio-friendly, pop song infused with R&B, that sits nicely in an iPod playlist next to Beyoncé, Rihanna, or any number of otherwise largely soundalike female pop artists today. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, only that it’s commercial pop music that follows the rules and sticks to the formula that’s proven to work as well as anything does these days in the music industry.
I’ve not seen or heard any extended remixes of the song yet; I hope they’re coming. But the album single works for me. Listen for it on the station and see if you agree.
It’ll be interesting to see where things go next for Denters.
AmazonMP3 and the line between convenience and annoyance
Last night, I was looking for a years-old dance track in a very specific mix that I’d heard on Sirius/XM’s BPM. I went to all the places I might usually go… Junodownload, AudioJelly, DJ Download… Nothing. Since I check iTunes only as a last resort, my next stop was Amazon.com, since I figured that their AmazonMP3 service is emerging as a viable digital download service. Lo and behold, they had the track.
So, I did the simple “buy” process, and that’s where the trouble started. Instead of an MP3 file, an “AMZ” file was coming across the wire. WTF?!
From what scant information that was on the download page, I rather quickly surmised that I was being forced through assumption to use Amazon’s MP3 download tool software. I didn’t have this stupid tool, so the AMZ file wouldn’t open. I had to reject the download, go download and install their tool, and thankfully when I back-navigated to the download page, the download started again, only this time, the AMZ file was recognized.
This was annoying enough, but once the download tool did its thing, iTunes started automatically and crap was added into that, too, without asking me. Here’s a list of my issues with this process:
I don’t want help
First and foremost, single track downloads from AmazonMP3 are not supposed to require the use of their stupid tool. I’m a pretty savvy guy. I don’t need, or want, Amazon’s “help” to make sure I don’t lose a downloaded file somewhere on my hard drive, or to stick it into iTunes (and hence my iPod) if that’s where I want it to go. Why was I required to use it?
I believe at this point that the issue was that I’d tried the tool shortly after Amazon.com opened their digital store in order to collect some free promotional downloads. My account was still marked as a download tool user, so it assumed I still had it. After uninstalling it this time, it directed me to a web page that indicated my account had been unflagged as a user of the tool. Fair enough I guess. But no less irritating.
What is the point?
I find it interesting that other digital download stores don’t have this requirement. Beatport, Masterbeat, Junodownload, AudioJelly, DJ Download, and a litany of others hoping to be the next iTunes don’t seem to have any issue allowing single MP3 downloads as… Shock… Single MP3 downloads.
AmazonMP3 indicates that the use of the download tool is required for albums. Why? Other download stores simply stick all the tracks into a download folder, and let you have at it at your own pace. Others still bundle them into a ZIP file and let you download that. Again, what is the big deal here?
OK, I’ll venture a guess at answering my own question.
First, as a web developer, I understand the technical challenge of confirming successful download using web technology. The bottom line is that it’s not really all that possible, reliably, without a ton of effort. As a result, most download stores allow a window a time in which you can download the track, multiple times if necessary, before further access is barred (as a thin piracy barrier presumably). By developing and offering a special tool for the purpose, AmazonMP3 can easily confirm successful receipt of a file… They could even checksum the download if they wanted to, to ensure data integrity, before marking it “downloaded” in their database. On that level (and that level only) it’s a pretty smart idea.
Second, AmazonMP3 is setting a low bar for customers. One reason iTunes has been successful is because it’s crammed down your throat (you can’t easily use an iPod without iTunes), and because the store is fully integrated with it. It just… Works. Most of the first iPod customers were geeks, but these days, it’s your mom, granddad, uncle Harry, and that sort of person who need all the help they can get. If it’s not easy, they’ll be calling customer service in a heartbeat. AmazonMP3 understands this too.
But I’m still baffled why people who actually know how to use a computer are treated like some idiot who just turned their PC on for the first time sometime last week. Besides… If they can handle downloading and installing the download tool, they can probably handle downloading and using MP3 files.
Ask first
Perhaps the most annoying part of all of this is that I was never asked ahead of time to download the tool. Its existence wasn’t verified before an AMZ file was crammed down my throat that wouldn’t open. And at no point during the tool installation was I asked if I wanted iTunes integration.
Amazon.com just assumed. Assumed I wanted the software. Assumed I had it. Assumed I wanted to integrate with iTunes. I don’t, I didn’t, and I didn’t, respectively.
I have quite enough “assuming” from Microsoft (dear user, we are God, we know what you want to do with your computer better than you do, so we’ll just do it), and I don’t need it from Amazon.com too.
In closing
I’m very pleased that AmazonMP3 is becoming a viable force in the digital distribution realm. I’m very pleased to see more labels, more independents, more artists, more content going there. I’d love to see Apple’s strangehold on the music distribution market loosened a bit, and even though Apple has removed DRM from the iTunes Store, I prefer the MP3 format to start with and will seek it out before alternatives until something better comes along.
But if what I experienced last night is the customer experience AmazonMP3 wants people like me to have, they’ve just ensured that they will be the last place I look for music, just before the iTunes Store.
The global Idol machine
I have to hand it to the folks at Fremantle Media (owned by the media giant Bertelsmann AG): coming-up with the Idol franchise was a stroke of brilliance. While American Idol might be getting a little tired at this point, it’s hardly in danger of cancellation with its millions-strong following, and Idol worldwide continues to chug along very nicely, thank you.
Say what you will about Idol, it brings to the spotlight talent we might not have heard otherwise, and while I’ve written plenty about the stars cranked out by the American version of the show, truth is, there are plenty of artists on the global stage that also have Idol roots, and as we’ve seen in the U.S., you don’t have to win the competition to get benefit of the “Idol effect.”
Take Danny Saucedo. Back in 2006, he appeared on Swedish Idol. While his Wikipedia entry suggests he wowed the judges, apparently his talent wasn’t quite sufficient to get him beyond the top 6 contestants on the show.
Apparently that was perfectly adequate, however, since Sony signed him in 2007, and he’s enjoyed a few #1 songs in Sweden since. Apparently he’s a bit of a sensation in Poland as well, but in any case, I just saw his name for the first time within the past few weeks when I got a promo of his track All on You.
It’s one of those tracks that was sort of, “yeah, this is good” on the first listen, and it’s been growing on me (thankfully not like a fungus in this case) since. As one might expect, it’s your basic polished remix of a basic polished pop song. Nothing wrong with that. And while I might feel a wee bit guilty for embracing another example of the vanilla ice cream of music (I normally prefer a little flavor and texture, figuratively speaking), good vanilla ice cream is still fun to eat, right?
It will be interesting to see if Sony are successful in getting Danny Saucedo to gain traction in North America. His “cute factor” should go a long way to help, but as I said, the music’s not bad either.
Check out his web site (if you read Swedish, anyway) at www.danny.nu.
The language barrier
I was listening to iDanceRadio.fm last night. One of the songs we have in rotation is called Some People, and it comes from Ocean Drive feat. DJ Oriska. I like the song, and I always enjoy hearing it when it pops-on.
But the song stands out a bit, because it has a lead male vocal sung in English, and a secondary lead of a female vocalist sung in French. This makes sense; Ocean Drive is producer Nicolas Carel, a Frenchman. DJ Oriska, one of those rare female DJs, is ostensibly the female vocalist, and she too calls Paris home.
But it got me wondering: Why are there not more songs sung in languages other than English that get played here?
I’ve wondered this for a long time, actually. When you look at pop or dance music charts from other countries, the majority of the tracks are artists I recognize, with songs performed in English, intermixed with some local artists singing in the respective country’s native language.
Are Americans that narrow-minded, or do we just like singing along? I think we’re missing out on a lot of good music.
There are historic exceptions. I recall Nena, back in the day, with her 99 Luftballons, which after the track gained traction here was re-recorded in a poorly translated English version, 99 Red Balloons that caused a great war commentary song to lose all its original meaning. But normally about as close as we get to foreign language here is Feliz Navidad each holiday season (a song which is mostly in English anyway).
Another track playing on iDanceRadio.fm is David Tavare feat. 2Eivissa, and the track, Hot Summer Night (Oh La La La). Like Feliz Navidad and Some People is mostly sung in English, and like Navidad is accented (so to speak) with some great Spanish language lyrics. That song has some great energy and nice “interest,” and part of it is the use of the languages.
Another artist that comes to mind is the sister act Paola & Chiara, an Italian duo unknown in the U.S. I actually spin their big hit, Vamos a Bailar, periodically. Bailar is yet another example of language twists; the original has an Italian verse and a Spanish chorus. I have the Spanish version (all Spanish) and an English version which, like the Italian original, retains its Spanish language chorus.
I’d like to hear more of this stuff here if artists or labels would be bold enough to try promoting it here, and audiences would be bold enough to listen. As I blogged just the other week, it’s about the music… And if a song has great energy, a great beat, and makes you wanna dance, does it really matter if it’s in English, French, Spanish, or Italian? I just don’t think it does.
My, but 25 years goes quickly
In yesterday’s blog posting, I mentioned Carol Hahn and Pamala Stanley, and how I thought it was cool that so many years down the road, they’re still doing what they love, and what they’re good at. This month a new album drops from yet another, somewhat bigger-named example of this: Pet Shop Boys. (The album is titled Yes.)
Their first single from this release, Love etc, is on my Top 25 Dance Chart this week. I’m frankly just not that wild about the song, but I’ve been a fan of the Boys’ work for a very long time indeed.
Which is what the title of this post is about. I’m amazed (or appalled) that it’s been 25 years this month since West End Girls was released, Pet Shop Boys’ first megahit. They had a few powerhouse singles in the 80s and 90s, and while they haven’t really since that I can recall, they’ve certainly never gone away, having worked with numerous other artists including Madonna and Robbie Williams, and producing albums quite regularly throughout the time together.
Which is also amazing… For a non-solo musical act to last 25 years with its original members, let alone keep producing music regularly, is a bit of an accomplishment.
Time flies.
Anyway, learn more on their web site at http://www.petshopboys.co.uk.
A great way not to sell music
This past weekend, I took some time out to update my Top 25 dance chart, and as I was preparing “buy” links, I was rather struck by something. Three listings on the chart come from the UK’s Polydor Records: Junior Caldera’s Sleeping Satellite, Girls Aloud’s The Loving Kind, and The Saturdays’ Just Can’t Get Enough.
All three of these songs also got added to the regular rotation at iDanceRadio.fm.
And all three songs are not available for sale in the United States anywhere I could find.
Before I started DJ’ing, I was struck by how difficult it was to find dance music to buy. It wasn’t for lack of trying; it was almost as if the point for producers and artists wasn’t to sell music, it was just to make it. That’s nice, I suppose, but when you’re a music consumer who wants to be legal, and wants to support his or her favorite songs and artists, what are you supposed to do?
Polydor, once active in the US, is today a UK-only label. But it is part of the monster Univeral Music Group, and Interscope, another Universal label that is active in dance here in the US, could presumably be posting these songs for sale on iTunes. Why the hell aren’t they?
Yes, I know, licensing deals and recording contracts are complicated, territorial, etc. But come on, it’s Universal Music Group, 500 lb. music gorilla, and one of the ones whining incessantly for years now about music piracy and how it’s ruined their business.
Well, here’s a piece of advice: Offer the damned music for sale then!
What’s beyond me is why these releases are being promoted to DJs in North America, if there’s no intent to market the material here. I’m not really complaining; these are good songs. That’s why they’re in rotation on the station, and it’s why I’m playing them. I like good music. End of story. But it really does seem to defy all reasonable logic.
Maybe this is a twisted way to test the waters over here before deciding whether to offer the music. But I do know that about all it takes to post stuff for sale on iTunes is a desire to do so, a legal right to do so, and a trained monkey intern to log into Apple’s interfaces and post the stuff.
In this day and age, you’d think someone like Universal could manage to make that happen for any, every and all releases in their catalog to eek-out every last bit of revenue humanly possible. I don’t get why they’re not.
Meanwhile, I guess I just keep spinning the good music that comes my way through legitimate promotional sources, and when asked, “Where can I get that?” I’ll start answering, “Fly to the UK and snag it there.”
What a shame.
My ears hurt
I was listening to new music on Monday, trying to figure out which songs out of the pile I want to add to the radio station or start spinning in DJ sets, and I was struck yet again by something.
First, “pile” is figurative; most of the promo music I receive these days is digital, so that means I’m listening to MP3 files. But what really struck me on Monday is how badly engineered much of the music is.
I was listening to one song which shall remain nameless, and it was over-driven on the levels to the point where the peaks were getting clipped, so the sound was horribly distorted. It’s hard to tell where in the process things went so terribly wrong, but every song in the remix package for this song was equally distorted. Given that one of the mixes was from Mike Rizzo, who knows a thing or two about producing music, I can’t imagine the problem was in the production.
What blows me away is that these promos go to DJs, who in-turn play them on some of the best (and worst) sound systems in the world. If the material is distorted or sounds less-than-ideal, a DJ is pretty unlikely to play it (I sure won’t), and if they do, all that crummy engineering is going to be amplified to the point where any DJ with his hearing left isn’t going to play it again in their right mind.
I wish this problem was uncommon. Another recent release that comes to mind had a remix package that was all over the place. Some of the mixes were perfect and release-quality, and one in particular (from a well known remix team) had extremely low sound levels, about half the level of the others. Was it even mastered at all? Was someone asleep at the mixing desk? This one was even on a professionally-produced CD sounding that way. Unbelievable.
Any artist who has the money to pay someone like Mike Rizzo to do a remix, or to order-up a 1,000 copies of a promo CD from Discmakers, probably has the budget to get the tracks properly mastered by someone who knows what they’re doing. And further, has the time or budget to actually listen to the promotional tracks before they go out to DJs, or to manufacturing.
I guess that’s sorta what gets me about this. If music is your passion, and you’re looking to make an impression on people, wouldn’t you want to put your best foot first? Figuratively speaking, you can show-up to the party in a shiny limousine, but if you step out of the back seat in fluourescent green pantsuit with most of your dinner spilled on the front and barely able to walk from all the booze, you’re not getting in the door. Clean yourself up and try harder next time.
Another thought on remakes
I promise that one of these days soon, I’ll stop talking about remakes / cover songs. But just a day after my “quality shines” post, I receive an e-mail from Almighty Records advertising their latest release:
Almighty Records Solicitation
After just saying in writing that it’s about the quality and that covers shouldn’t matter, I gotta say, I have issues with this.
For a start, My Life Would Suck Without You is a current hit song, not something where the lights have faded away and it’s ripe for a recharge.
Secondly, My Life Would Suck Without You already has a slate of dance remixes that are quite strong with Kelly Clarkson singing her own song in them. Why on Earth does Almighty think we’d need more to choose from?
Thirdly, Almighty—whose production work is almost universally strong (I’ve been a huge fan for years)—failed at this one in my view. The production work is formulaic, predictable, and thin, and as much of a fan of Jamie Knight (one of Almighty’s house vocalists) as I am, her voice just doesn’t lend anything here.
The result is exactly how I see this release to start with: a cheap knock-off, rushed to market in an attempt to cash-in on someone else’s success. Every sale that Almighty manages to make with this song is likely a sale not going to Kelly Clarkson’s record label. (The only positive is that as a co-writer, Clarkson will get some royalties from the deal.)
I have to give Almighty credit for coming-up with this clever idea. But if you’re going to hock fake Rolex watches on the street corner, so to speak, then your “Rolex” should probably not have the faux gold plating peeling off the band, and a loose second hand rolling around the inside of the bezel.
Simply put, Almighty have brought nothing new or innovative to the table. It’s just a knock-off, and not a real great job of it at that.
As long as we’re talking about Almighty, Jamie Knight, and cover songs, I might as well reveal my own semi-double-standard in the process. One of their recent projects was a cover of Leona Lewis, who was herself covering Snow Patrol, of the song Run. Neither Lewis nor Snow Patrol had an officially released dance remixes that I’m personally aware of, nor was Lewis’ version some chart smash success. And in the case of Run, Jamie Knight’s stunningly beautiful, energetic and flawless vocal resonates alongside Almighty’s strong production work. I love the track, I spin it regularly, and people enjoy it.
So. Maybe it does come down to quality afterall…
Daring 2 B Dif’rnt
These days, I’m pretty well pelted by new dance music from all sides. It’s a good problem to have, as a lover of dance music, but it has a down side, in that listening to as many as a few hundred new songs each week (hundreds and hundreds of tracks, if you include multiple mixes of the same song) takes either a lot of time, or you tend to make hasty decisions about songs. Some weeks it’s former, some weeks it’s the latter.
It’s nice to know that there are PR and promotions people out there doing their jobs. Over the weekend, I was contacted by one of them representing Dare 2 B Dif’rnt, an act out of New York. Their most recent release, There’s Somethin’ in the Air (I’m sorta getting these guys like aopstrophes) came across my desk in November. For whatever reason, I did choose to program it on iDanceRadio.fm, but never pulled any extended mixes to include in DJ sets.
So after being prompted by the PR gal, I took a second look, and I’m not sure why I didn’t decide to spin this track when it first came around. I’ll start.
What I’m sorta finding out about myself is that a lot of things color my musical impressions… Mood, how tired I might be, whatever is going through my head when the song plays, and the fact that even on a good day, it often requires hearing a song 2 or 3 times before forming an opinion about it, which is time I just don’t have. All are reasons why, when someone happens to encourage me to pay attention to a specific song, and I’ve previously dismissed it, I always take another listen.
Invariably it’s a promotions person, or a label rep, or whatever. Harry Towers, who as Deet Promotions is one of a handful of promoters in the dance space (he’s also a mixshow jock on the radio station), has been working with CAPP Records for months now. But when he recently took some time out to ask me about the songs he’s currently repping, embarrassingly, I was only familiar off-hand with about 40% of them.
Of course, I don’t like all of them, but that’s not really the point. One track in particular, Tod Miner’s Luv ‘n’ Music, was one of those I’d dismissed. After Harry’s prompting, I took another listen. While some of the mixes still don’t appeal me, a couple of them did on a re-listen, and I’m adding it to the radio rotation, as well as playing it in DJ sets now. So much for hasty decisions; clearly they can’t be trusted.
In any case, it is what it is. I’ll review what I get, make decisions (invariably quick ones) as I have the time available, and thankfully committed artists, producers, labels and promoters who reach out will continue to get me to slow down on their priorities.
Maybe I’m a music ho, or it’s the dance industry ecosystem at work. Not sure which. 
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.
