As most people reading this will already know, I write for DJ Times magazine, primarily tech reviews, with the occasional feature article here and there, and it was my work with the magazine that brought me to the show. I spent Thursday and Friday nearly jogging around the show floor, meeting with various manufacturers of DJ goodies, from controllers to sound reinforcement to production stuff to lighting. Today (Saturday) I was able to “relax” and stroll the floor with few appointments (albeit with a bigger crowd; it was impossible to get around).

There was a lot of new stuff introduced, and manufacturers were showing-off a wide range of interesting products that will be coming in the months ahead. I’m looking forward to taking a look at many of those products in the months ahead, and you can read all about it on the pages of the magazine.

I was left with the impression that every company under the sun now makes headphones. Headphones that swivel. Headphones that don’t. Headphones with detachable cords. Headphones that fold. Headphones with integrated EQ control. Headphones in rainbow colors. Headphones with sleek designs. Headphones with cobranding. Given the margins in headphones, I’m sure it’s an attractive thing to want to do, but I’m not sure the market can support 2,736 different models of headphones, even if many are indeed quite good.

I do a lot of reviews in the DJ controller space, and there were a lot of those, too, although not many that were new at the show. I have reviews in the pipeline for the magazine on some of them, with more to come in the months ahead — some of which I’m actually pretty stoked about to be honest.

There were several things I thought were particularly interesting. A few of them:

• Fusion Bags out of the UK have some exceptionally cool DJ gig bags for digital guys like me. With the wide range of controllers on the market, it’s tough to make appropriate bags, and frankly I’ve never found anything that works well for me, so I end-up with several separate bags for my gear which is rather a pain in the butt. Their current line is pretty cool, and they have some new product hitting later this year that’s particularly innovative.
• iConnectivity out of chilly Calgary makes a crazy cool little box called the iConnectMIDI. I’ll be giving this a hands-on for the magazine soon, but think of it as a universal MIDI hub. Plug 5-pin DIN MIDI devices in. Plug USB MIDI devices in. Hook it to your computer. Hook it to your iOS device (like an iPad). And everything gets all happy-happy with MIDI deliciousness. One of those “doh!” devices you wonder why nobody thought of before.
• Nothing related to DJ stuff, but Peavey will have a new electric guitar on the market in a couple of months called the AT-200. Claiming to have Antares Auto-Tune technology on-board, it is basically an self-tuning guitar with automated intonation improvements. Now, I play acoustic, but this thing was cool enough that I’m sorely tempted to pick-up electric guitar just because. MAP is $499. Not only does it tune itself, but you can set alternate tunings, like Double Drop D, in seconds. I can’t imagine these babies won’t just fly off shelves in quantity.
• While it’s not a new product, it’s the first time I’ve heard of or seen the JBL MSC1. Honestly, I gotta have it. Simply put, it’s a tool to tune studio monitors to the characteristics of a room. So much music production, especially in the electronica realm, happens where it can. In my case, it’s a basement office with poor acoustics and high reflectivity. I struggle constantly with the low-end in my mixes; virtually every project has ear-tiring low-end problems that I’ve not understood, let alone been able to fix. But a big piece of the problem is an inability to tune my monitors properly. I am, after all, not a sound engineer by trade. The MSC1 is designed to address this sort of thing, and it works with any brand of monitors. Plug the monitors into the box, including your sub, hook-up the included mic, press a button, and the environment is evaluated automatically. The unit then shapes the audio feeding the monitors accordingly, essentially adjusting the monitoring system to the room. Amazing. The device itself provides some other niceties for studio work. Definitely on my radar, and it might well be the answer to a long-standing problem.

Anyway, time to get a shower, get some sleep, and get back home. And then lust after the opportunity to look at these and many other NAMM-discovered goodies in more detail soon. What a show… Can’t wait ’til next year.  ;-)

One of the things I wish I was there to hear first-hand is Party in a Box, a new toy from SOUL Electronics:

SOUL's Party in a Box

If you looked at the picture and got the impression it’s an iPad dock, you’re on the right track. iPod/iPhone docks are a dime a dozen (yeah, yeah, some sound better than others of course). But this is the first iPad dock-like system I’ve seen. But to boot, it’s got an 8-speaker sound system that the company says is stunning and room-filling. Add-in AirPlay support, Bluetooth support, the ability to essentially “network” multiple units together world AC power, rechargeable batteries, and 12V DC power support, and this thing’s made for parties on the go. There’s even a mic jack to make the system act like a PA system.

No word yet on price point, but if looks and specs are any indication, this might well be one of the coolest iOS platform devices to hit in awhile… Not to mention being the ultimate party-on-the-go platform.

Now if I could just hitch a quick ride to Vegas, and sweet-talk my way in the door so I can hear this beast first-hand…

To put some context around this, in my recent Top 50 chart, I cited my belief that mainstream dance music is an industry in decline. Now, while I believe that to be the case, I think it’s necessary to dig past the sound bite, because one could make a pretty good case that electronica, as a music meta-genre, is actually more vibrant than it’s ever been. So as I contradict myself left and right, I think it’s important in this first part to define some scope.

Before I do that, I want to make something very clear:

I’m making my claim that mainstream dance music is an industry in decline as much to challenge people to prove me wrong, as anything else. I honestly don’t want to be right about this. I have a deep passion and love for mainstream dance music; I want it to be vibrant and active. I just think it’s getting less and less so. So prove me wrong.

First, let’s define things a bit. What I personally consider “dance music” is both broad and narrow at the same time. What I’m “into” is what I’ve come to call (as I said above) mainstream dance music. It’s not a genre, as much as a genre-crossing classification. How do I define mainstream dance music? It is music that:

• Is melodic. Unless you know a thing or two about music and music theory, this may be meaningless to you, but melodic music has a central theme of some sort… Musical notes, in defined patterns. Typically those patterns are a popular song form (see below), and each one typically represents the pitches associated with each syllable of the lyrics (if in fact there are words, which is not a prerequisite for a melody; see below). The opposite of melodic is free-form, often called experimental. A lot of hip-hop and rap also lacks a defined melodic element. I can’t really describe this any better; consult a book on music theory for a better explanation.
• Has a conventional popular song form. Some experimental types of music have melodic elements without having a melody per se. What makes that different from what I’m talking about is that—in my view—mainstream dance music has a popular song form. Again, consult a music theory book if you want, but by “popular” I don’t necessarily mean pop music, but any popular music form from the 19th century or so, up to today, whether big band or country or jazz or modern pop or whatever. Put in another context, song form is what we’re talking about when you think of a song having verses of a particular melodic pattern, choruses of a particular melodic pattern, and bridges of a particular melodic pattern. It’s what makes a song recognizable structurally. 
• Is generally vocal. Vocals are not a prerequisite to a dance track by any means, but it sort of goes hand-in-hand with a melody.
• Has four-on-the-floor percussion. You just don’t have mainstream dance songs with 3/4 (waltz) time, like you do in, say, country or folk. They’re always (always) 4/4, with a heavy, defined, consistent kick (bass) drum with which people on a dance floor can keep time.
• Is electronic. This probably goes without saying. I suppose mainstream dance music wouldn’t have to be constructed with fully electronic instruments, and in fact, large parts often are acoustic. But you won’t ordinarily find a so-called dance track made without at least some sort of drum machine.
• Is listenable. This is the most ethereal of any of these attributes. But mainstream dance music is, in my view, music that can also be listened-to off of a dance floor without sounding harsh or putting someone on edge. There’s an awful lot of dance music that is, in my view, only enjoyable in the context of a night at the clubs, or in conjunction with a drug trip. Obviously that’s quite subjective.

I suppose mainstream dance music is sort of like obscenity; it’s hard to define what’s obscene, you just know it when you see it. Many people associate what I know as mainstream dance music, with pop and pop remixes. A dance remix of Lady Gaga or Beyoncé or whoever is, in fact, usually mainstream dance music.

But my definition of mainstream dance extends beyond mere pop and pop remixes to include a lot of techno, vocal trance, some dubstep, and perhaps many other electronic/dance sub-genres. But it’s all melodic, has conventional song form, is generally vocal, has 4/4 time, is electronic, and is listenable.

Examples of mainstream dance music are everywhere:

• It’s the music you hear on radio stations such as iDanceRadio.fm (which I program), Fusion Radio Chicago, BPM (a channel on Sirius/XM satellite radio), Radio Danz (where my mixshow airs), NRRRadio (where my mixshow also airs).
• It’s the music that results from popular producer/remixers like Dave Audé, Klubjumpers, Cahill, Cutmore, Freemasons, 7th Heaven, and many more.
• It’s the music that’s on the Billboard dance charts.
• It’s the music that DJs get on CD subscriptions like ERG’s Nu Dance Traxx or XMIX.
• It’s the music that’s promoted by long-term industry players like Loren Chidez, Brad LeBeau, Claudia Cuseta, Bobby Shaw, and others.

All of that, and more, is what I call mainstream dance music.

So, to be very specific, my contention is that mainstream dance music is what’s in decline. Electronic music as a whole, and dance music more generally, is probably in roughly the same condition with respect to the music industry as a whole as it ever was (well, except for perhaps the disco era, when it all pretty much started, and at which time dance dominated the greater music scene). The music industry as a whole is in decline too in many respects, according to many people, but like dance music, it’s rather a matter of which part(s) you’re looking at.

In any event, with mainstream dance music now defined to the best of my ability, in the next part, I’ll start to look a little more closely at what I think is going on, and make my case about why I think it’s in decline.

As always, I welcome your feedback. Disagree with me? Tell me why… I’m always willing to change my mind.

To expand on that thought, 2011 marks a year of further decline in the music industry as a whole, and dance music specifically. While some may disagree with me on that point for various reasons, I find it objectively demonstrable that the volume of well-crafted, quality music has been heading (and continues to head) downward. I’m not here to debate the point, nor speculate on the reasons for it—if I happen to be right. It’s easy to blame file trading and piracy; too easy, in fact. But I suspect the causes are far deeper than that. I’ll leave it to the experts; all I know is that the situation is getting worse, not better.

In any event, at least for me, it’s remarkably difficult to come-up with a list of even a dozen tracks from 2011 that I’m truly, genuinely, enthusiastically excited about—let alone 50, let alone 100. What you’ll find below is the best I could manage.

You’ll find some important information below the chart. I hope you enjoy the list and find it useful. Please support dance music and keep it alive by supporting with your entertainment dollars the artists, remixers and record labels who bring it to you.

Several things to bear in mind for those reading this chart:

• The artists and tracks listed are those I personally find the most interesting. I don’t read the Billboard charts, and I don’t care about them. I don’t pay attention to what’s on the FMQB chart, or what other DJs play, or even what promoters happen to tell me “everyone else” is playing. I play what I think has the best hook, or the sweetest groove, or whatever else about a song happens to catch my ear. As a result, my top 50 list is likely to be quite different than what you might be expecting.
• As a DJ, I characterize my music as “mainstream dance.” As a result, this chart may not even match your idea of “dance music,” especially if you prefer trance, techno, dubstep, or other sub-genres. “My” dance music is largely melodic, vocal, commercial, mainstream dance with largely house roots. Your mileage may (and probably will) vary.
• The tracks shown here are selected for the chart based on the number of times played, and other objective and subjective factors. In some cases (notably #28), you might see some material here that wasn’t released in 2011, but that for whatever reason I “discovered” and started playing during the year.
• I often play a variety of mixes of a single song. This year, that is taken into account in the data. My “preferred” remix is listed, though I may play others.

The magazine also offers coverage of production and remixing, and I was recently tasked with reviewing Native Instruments‘ new software synthesizer and effects bundle, Komplete 8, which arrived the other day.

So far, all I can say is, “Awesome!” With all of NI’s flagship platforms (Guitar Rig, Kontakt and Reaktor), as well as all the key standalone synths (Absynth, FM8, Battery, etc.), Komplete covers an incredible amount of territory, especially given that there’s 80 Gig (compressed) of presets, samples and other content to go along with the 5 Gig or so worth of software—all of which is delivered in a “book” of 12 DVD-ROMs.

I’ve not spent much time with Komplete just yet; mostly it’s been trying out the various synths standalone to get a feel for how they’re put together and what sorts of sounds they produce. I’ve used NI’s Absynth for well over a year now, and I’ve dabbled with some other NI products, including Retro Machines (which was recently updated to a “MkII” version, and moved from the older Kore platform into Kontakt), so I have some sense of the quality and approach NI takes.

Over the course of the next month, I’ll be using the tools in Komplete 8 in a couple of remix projects that are on my plate—the perfect vehicles for truly digging into all of it. I plan to use everything in the bundle in some way across these projects, and will be giving a full run-down on the pages of DJ Times afterward.

Based on my initial playing around, as expected, there are some incredible sound-making capabilities in Komplete… Just digging into Kontakt is like being a kid in a candy store of sound, but I was perhaps most taken so far with FM8, NI’s (obviously) FM synthesis offering; for me anyway, there’s just a freshness and vibrancy of sound there that I found inspiring, and I can’t wait to run with it a bit farther. Massive is another one of the products in the bundle that stood out as being pretty darned impressive; in short, it lives-up to its name.

Look for my complete review in DJ Times soon.

Larik, a reader of this blog, e-mailed me yesterday regarding my thoughts on the closure of the online music store Masterbeat, not too long after I’d written to express my frustration at its Flash-only implementation.

I’ve expressed them in the past myself, and Larik sees the same challenges I do for those of us with a love of dance music: Where does one go to (legally) obtain the latest dance music? And why is it so bloody difficult?

In the US market, with the closure of Masterbeat, we’re basically left with two choices: iTunes, and Beatport. iTunes, obviously, goes for the masses and typically doesn’t have a great selection of dance music (not their fault*), and Beatport has its own share of issues**.

Of course, there’s a smattering of other outlets, predominantly in Europe, which sell to US customers, including Juno Download, Audio Jelly, and DJ Download, to name a few. But with the possible exception of Juno, the selection of product in these stores is spotty at best, and pales in comparison even to iTunes.

Obviously, three issues are at play here that none of us can control:

• Territorial issues. In the retro-facing fantasy world where a lot of record labels, artists and producers still live—one where record label deals are still regarded as important and relevant—it’s typical to release something only in one’s home territory or market, and try and license the release to labels in other territories one by one. While I’m sure that certain artists or releases still have some monetary value for licensing to other territories, it’s gotten to the point where a lot of product is licensed for free. There’s so little money in dance music these days, even if someone does get a territory licensing deal, the likelihood that the licensing label has the resources to promote a release seems slim to me, defeating the entire point of not just releasing globally to start with. And yet, we still see territorial restrictions on retail sale of music. Until people wake-up to reality, this will continue to be the case. But these restrictions and lack of broader thinking accomplish little other than driving people even more toward piracy in markets where customers can’t buy what they want.
• Unreleased. For reasons that escape me, some producers and artists simply choose not to release a track for retail sale. They circulate among and between DJs, go to promotion only, or otherwise are held back from sale. Given the costs (low) and level of effort (low), I find this baffling.
• Lack of know-how. It seems clear in speaking with artists and producers over time that many people simply don’t know how to self-release material, or how to get music on iTunes or other stores. That’s unfortunate. Tunecore, CD Baby, IODA and others exist to help artists release their material. There’s no reason—NO REASON AT ALL—not to have one’s music in, at minimum, the large digital stores. In most cases, it costs less than a dinner out. But many just don’t have a clue how to start.

Now let’s look at a couple more items.

* The selection of dance music at iTunes is not Apple’s fault. It’s the fault of the record labels, producers and/or artists. See the three items above. It’s not up to Apple to decide what material goes-up, it’s up to the people who own the material to put it there. Why iTunes seems to be so low on the radar of many dance music labels and independents is baffling. There was some rumbling early-on about DRM (which is no longer applied to music in iTunes), and there was rumbling about quality levels (which are also pretty much a non-issue today with iTunes). For DJ use, iTunes’ AAC music files work in most digital DJ platforms, and the quality levels are roughly the same as 320 kbps MP3 in my opinion. There’s just not a good self-serving reason to keep music off iTunes.

** Beatport is not a panacea. Things seem to be shifting, but for many years, Beatport has been very selective about what product they sell, and who it comes from. Like Apple, Beatport won’t do direct label deals with just anyone, and their own published parameters leave a lot of wiggle room to do whatever they wish. But beyond that, last I knew, Beatport would reject submissions based on any subjective criteria it chose, when submitted through aggregators like IODA. My evidence to support this comes from personal experience and stories related by others, but the best proof of this is to do your own searches on Beatport for content you prefer, and see what you come-up with. When I do searches for the items on a typical Top 25 chart of my own, I find only a small handful of them on Beatport; your results may vary. But whether active exclusionism, or just coincidence, or a focus on dance sub-genres other than the ones I prefer, Beatport clearly is not a panacea, or a complete replacement for Masterbeat—there’s simply too much content that’s missing (even if perhaps, like iTunes, the real fault today lies with the label or artists involved).

In summary, I don’t have all the answers here. But I think the real problem is rooted in the labels, artists and producers in the dance genre, who don’t have time, don’t make time, or simply don’t know how to—or don’t care to—make their content available where people can legally find it. And in the end, the dance music industry (and what fans there are for dance music) are not well-served by the lack of attention paid.

Furthermore, as a producer/remixer, I’m not well-served by this either. Several of the remixes I’ve completed remain unreleased, and I’ve actually considered just handing them out for free to anyone who asks. Alas, I don’t technically have the legal right to do that, so thus far, I’ve not done so. But it does cross my mind.

In any case, until people awaken to reality, my best advice for shopping for digital dance music would be:

• iTunes
• AmazonMP3
• Beatport
• Juno Download
• Audio Jelly
• DJ Download
• DJ Tunes
• TrackItDown
• 7Digital

If readers have other ideas, please let me know. If there’s demand for it, I’ll carve-off this list to a static page and endeavor to keep it updated.

I suspect that the underlying truth of these myriad opinions is that many of them have a healthy shred of truth to them. The ability to share music en masse via the Internet has indeed led to some general devaluing of music in general. But Internet piracy isn’t the sole problem. Technology has also lowered the bar to being a musician. The ways that people consume music have changed. And all of this has conspired to create narrower genres and smaller pockets of fans.

Back in the day, we had what? Rock, pop, R&B, country, jazz, classical, and maybe oldies, and each market had a radio station or two to play each genre, and that’s it. We were done. We heard on radio what we heard, innovative radio jocks broke new artists and eased-in genre evolutions, we bought the things we liked, and everything was neat and tidy and simple and easy. We were spoon-fed things like babies, and didn’t know any better.

What a difference a decade or two can make. Today, there are at least two dozen sub-genres of dance music alone—but with less than half a dozen terrestrial broadcast radio stations in the entire United States that play dance music full-time. Online, there are Internet radio stations narrowcasting any tiny little sub-genre you might prefer (you like Japanese polka music?), while Spotify is promising (yet failing) to deliver all the world’s music on-demand.

I don’t have a clue where all this is heading for the dance music industry. But what I do know is that for whatever reason or reasons, retail sales of dance music are anemic, they’ve been anemic for a long time, and I believe as a direct result, the economic disincentives to create music are finally tipping the balance in an unfortunate direction. I can’t prove it, but the empirical evidence is now overwhelming.

On a weekly basis, I peruse the various sources of promotional material I have access to in order to program music for iDanceRadio.fm, as well as my own DJ sets and mixshows. Here’s what seems apparent to me:

• The major artists and major labels play it safe. The songs sound the same. The remixers are the same. The remixers produce the same styles, the same way, with the same sounds, every time. Y’all wanna know why I don’t play Beyoncé much? Every freakin’ song sounds almost exactly the same as every other Beyoncé track! Same, same, same. No risk-taking. Nothing fresh.
• There are more new producers and new artists than ever, joining artists and producers who’ve been at this game for years (if not decades). This is the low barrier to entry I mentioned before. Anyone can be a DJ. Anyone can be a remixer. Anyone with nothing more than an iPad and the Garage Band app can be a musician. The problem is, most of them just aren’t very good. Marginal songwriting; vocals that are poorly performed, poorly recorded, poorly engineered, poorly mixed; with productions that are thin, over-effected, perhaps under-effected, under-polished, and in many ways unfinished, all released anyway, and promoted as if they were the best thing to happen to music since the emergence of the synthesizer.
• Unfortunately, because of anemic sales, there’s really not much incentive for emerging artists to take time polishing and tuning releases, and engaging experienced producers and engineers, because while the quality might be better, those expenses can’t be recouped… Even with good songs, and good vocals. What would be the point? I totally understand the “throw it out there” mentality, yet adding to the endless piles of musical trash only makes the situation worse by further devaluing the product of music.
• Broadly, the number of new releases is getting lower and lower by the day. Well, more accurately, the number of worthwhile releases is what’s going down. The overall volume, as I implied above, is probably growing. But the signal-to-noise ratio (i.e., the quality) keeps making the flow more and more difficult to manage.
• The corollary to that last point is that the truly good stuff stands out like a grain of pure gold in a watery pan of muddy sand. This is as it should be I suppose. But the point is you have to sift through a hell of a lot of muddy sand to find it.

I certainly don’t have any answers. We’re certainly not going to be returning to “the good old days” of the music industry, and I wouldn’t want to anyway; I prefer the level playing field of today where independent artists at least have a fighting chance. I just wish that some of those independents wouldn’t accept it at face value when their closest friends and family members tell them how great they are (when they’re not), and would invest the time and effort required to hone their craft before slapping a label reading “gourmet pâté” on the can of crappy dog food that is their music. I’m tired of choking-down spoonfuls of it when I’m sampling the buffet.

It’s no different in music. You may think you’re ready, but you’re not. You think if you just tell enough people, send e-mail blasts, fill up inboxes with unsolicited MP3s, you’ll make it. But this just turns us off, we’re immune to marketing. We only want to find out about products from friends.

But worse, when we finally check you out, we find out you’re just not that good.

I don’t know how it works in the greater music industry, but I can’t think of a truer commentary on music (and music promotion specifically) with regard to the dance music realm.

As an established mixshow DJ, working “regular” DJ, and program director for iDanceRadio.fm, I suppose I’m fortunate in many ways to be the recipient of a fairly huge volume of promotional music, sent to me by artists, producers, record labels, promoters and others, and I am a regular user of zipDJ, a fantastic promotional service for working DJs, not to mention a member of one of the oldest record pools in the country, DDK.

The bottom line is this:

• I hear a lot of new music. I’m hammered with it practically 24×7 from all sides. I’m buried with CDs; my in-boxes are clogged with MP3s and download links.
• Most of it—the vast majority of it, in fact—just isn’t that good.

It’s gotten to the point that I delete the vast majority of unsolicited music promotion e-mail. I judge books (well, CDs) by their covers, and discard unplayed any CDs that clearly lack any professionalism whatever in terms of labeling or packaging. And I speed through zipDJ every Tuesday night as quickly as I can, skipping any track that doesn’t wow me in the first 5 to 10 seconds of listening to its preview sample.

It’s not that I don’t have time for music—I just don’t have time for bad music, and most of it is bad music.

What I truly pay attention to is exactly what Lefsetz said:

We only want to find out about products from friends.

Even then, “friends” are not always who they appear to be; I count many music promoters as friends, and they have a vested interest in what they’re excited about. But even there, some have demonstrated with time that the odds favor their recommendations, biased or not, so I tend to listen to what they have on offer.

Lefsetz has been preaching an awful lot lately about quality (speaking largely to conventional musicians, but it’s applicable to electronic musicians and DJs too for that matter)… About putting-in your time. Paying your dues. Really investing yourself, practicing, and being willing to then just throw it all away—knowing you’re really only then at the starting line.

He’s got a point. One driven home to me recently in a very personal way.

The last three remix projects I’ve undertaken, two of which were for my very good friend (and talented artist) Carol Hahn, have ended in failure. One could argue that perhaps I wasn’t inspired by her recent release Do Your Best, a song she recorded in the 80s that she decided to remake for the 2010s. But the most recent project, a new track from Carol titled Your Love, is a great song. Carol provided some terrific vocals, with her typical attention to detail, and myriad options to work with. And yet, somehow, some way, despite investing dozens of hours of effort, I just couldn’t get a song to come out the other side. A couple of weekends ago, Carol and I decided to call it quits on this one.

I’m hopeful that (I don’t believe in God, but I’m still praying, actually) that when (or if) Carol chooses to approach me again with a project, I’m able to produce a usable track.

But if you listen to Lefsetz, the fact I’ve produced and remixed perhaps a couple dozen dance tracks at this point (not all of which were released) only qualifies me for a lottery to get a ticket to come to the party, so to speak. It doesn’t reserve for me a seat at the table. It does not qualify me to be the guest of honor. And I might not even end-up getting in the door.

I’m actually pretty proud of most of my work. A couple of them (notably the unreleased remix of Vincent Medugno’s Magnetic and my remix of A Little Respect for Nivek Tek and Carol Hahn) I could point to and say with confidence that the quality is on-par with anything any of the “big name” dance producers have done. Maybe I just got lucky.

Failure doesn’t feel good. Maybe in time, I’ll look back and be able to point to something from the failures and say, “I learned such-and-such from that.” For today, it just feels like failure feels, and I’m questioning whether the studio I’ve constructed in my basement will ever be the source of another listenable release again.

What I do know is this: I’ll keep trying. And I’m not going to bother putting out anything that, like so much of what I hear, just isn’t that good. Will everything be the best of which I’m ultimately capable? Probably not. But it’ll be quality—even if that means I might not (as it feels today) release another remix or song until 2014 or so.

Stay tuned.

For those who are blissfully unaware, Spotify is a new streaming music service. They boast of having “all the world’s music” in their catalog* available for listening anytime, anywhere. Want to relive your youth to that Aldo Nova track you’ve not heard since back in the day? Search for “Aldo Nova,” and bathe in the ability to queue-up any of his releases on-demand. With a paid subscription, you gain the ability to load-up your mobile device with a bunch of music, and enjoy it on-the-go without the need for a data connection. It sounds like nirvana for most music lovers, and indeed, the service has been wildly successful in its home country of Europe. (Read more on their web site if you’re still confused.)

So what are the ups and downs?

• There are serious holes. *In other words, it’s not “all the world’s music” by any stretch of the imagination. The service does have most of the material offered by the major labels, and a shocking amount of indie material; pretty much any independent release that has used an aggregator (such as Tunecore, IODA, CD Baby, etc.) to release their material to retail. That’s a crapload of music by any measure.But for dance music lovers like me, more of my favorite artists and producers are missing than are represented based on the searches I’ve conducted. Much dance music is either unreleased, is indie, or is import, and Spotify can’t do much with music that’s only been offered to DJs and not made available to the pubic.

  As for imports, this has been the bane of many a music lover since the dawn of the Internet drove awareness of what we’re missing out on. Like retail, Spotify is beholden to territorial issues revolving around copyright and the way that many labels choose to release music. Most European labels prefer to license tracks to a US label to release here (it works the other way too), vs. selling the material directly worldwide. If no US label bites, it’s not available here (except, perhaps, to DJs). None of this sort of content is on Spotify, nor is anything to speak of in foreign language. I’m a fan of several Dutch recording artists, none of it’s released here (most Americans have no interest in Dutch-language music), and consequently, none of it (or very little) is on Spotify.

• On the up side, back in the days of the original Napster and original Audiogalaxy, I had enormous amounts of fun with “music discovery.” Rediscovering long-forgotten artists and tracks, and discovering literally dozens, if not hundreds of artists I’d never heard of to begin with. Spotify brings back this process of musical discovery. When you find an artist you’re looking for, Spotify shows “similar artists,” whose music you can then listen to in full. (There’s also social media integration to help this along.) And when looking for certain singles to listen to, I’ve found albums I didn’t know existed. It’s been amazing hearing fresh new-to-me-yet-quite-old music again, resurrecting the real joy (for me) of Napster back in the day.Related to this point, Spotify has already resulted in my buying a ton of music on iTunes. I can’t remember when I last bought albums; it’s been years. And here I am, finding new/old albums on Spotify, and going and buying them. I love it. Many users will simply pay for Spotify and listen as much as they want without buying; I prefer not being tied to any specific platform, or the need to keep paying for the service indefinitely to enjoy specific music.
• On the down side, it just doesn’t work that well. Spotify utilizes a peer-to-peer underlying infrastructure, and like any peer-to-peer, it works and it doesn’t. Most things play immediately, yes. Many don’t seem to actually play at all, seemingly mostly more obscure tracks. Strangely, some of the in-stream advertising spots don’t play either, and you cannot bypass them and play something else when they don’t. The Spotify client very frequently just sits there, playing nothing, until I exit and restart the application, at which point my play queue is gone. For a service that’s accepting paying customers, and which has been running in Europe for years now, you’d think that the kinks would already have been worked-out. They haven’t been, and I’d be reluctant to pay for a service that frequently just stops working.
• Much has been said in music industry press about Spotify’s low rate of payment to record labels for the right to stream the tracks. It’s based on a revenue share model, and we’re ostensibly talking about fractions of pennies per play. The major labels eventually caved, but many independents are bemoaning Spotify and accusing it of aiding and abetting the killing of what’s left of the music business.With all due respect, I disagree. Piracy has already decimated the music business. Piracy pays zero. Spotify pays something, even if it’s only a little. Spotify pretty much removes the motivation to pirate material… If you can listen to anything, anywhere, anytime, why do you need to download a copy, or record the Spotify audio stream? It’s just a bunch of needless hassle. Of course, there will always be piracy, but personally, I’d rather have the possibility of some stream revenue, and what’s left of retail, than to have only what’s left of retail (which is dwindling by the day).

  The truth is, success is the music business is elusive, and it always has been. Few have true breakthrough success, and that’s not any different today than it was 2 or 3 decades ago. What’s changed is that the barriers to entry have been removed, and most musicians seem to have an inflated sense of self-importance and relevance, believing they deserve to succeed where others apparently don’t. Like anything else, you have to work (hard) for it, and Spotify changes nothing about that dynamic other than affording many more people the opportunity to discover you. It’s still up to you to stand out and get noticed.

The music industry seems in most ways to be on its last legs. Is Spotify—or some other service along the same lines—the savior? Or merely the shadow of death in a new cloak? I certainly have no idea.

What I do know is that for me, even with its problems, even with its massive catalog holes, Spotify is a very cool service indeed to discover music I’ve not come across before, and an opportunity to hear that music, in-full, multiple times if needed, to assess its merits before laying down money buying an album with one or two good tracks. It’s like iTunes with full-length samples instead of stupid 30 or 90 second ones.

Will I sign-up for the paid version and carry my tunes around on my iPhone too? Not sure yet. But I’m intrigued…

When the online digital music store Masterbeat launched a few years ago, ostensibly as an alternative to Beatport (whose owners seem to think Apple’s corporate behavior is something to be emulated), I was ecstatic. With a user experience much like that of Beatport, I was rather enamored of the “renegade alternative” that Masterbeat represented.

Unfortunately, Masterbeat launched as—and still is—a Flash-only web site. No Flash? Masterbeat basically says, “F___ you. Store’s closed, loser.”

I was never much of a fan of Flash-only web sites, long before Apple in their “wisdom” barred Flash content from their iOS devices. Flash has a place, but to build Flash content (or whole sites) with no rollback whatever is just plain stupid, and it’s getting stupider by the day. And say what you want about Apple’s Flash decisions vis-à-vis iOS—right, wrong or otherwise—the simple fact is that iOS represents millions upon millions of users, and you can lock each and every one of them out at your own peril.

Beatport is Flash-based too, but they do have a rollback (at least for mobile users) that presents a usable interface for iOS (and other) users. Masterbeat, on the other hand, displays this:

The problem is, what started all of this on this particular morning is that a fan asked me where to get a copy of my remix for You I Need‘s song, Waiting. The track is exclusive to Masterbeat at this time. Here’s how things unfolded in attempting to tell this fan where to buy the track:

• I went to Masterbeat, which will not load on the PC I’m writing from. It hangs on “Loading UI” and won’t go past it. It’s been that way for months, and I have no idea why it doesn’t work. Fail #1. (And yes, I’ve checked the Flash is current on this machine, etc.)
• I used my iOS device to browse to Masterbeat. That resulted in the screen above. Fail #2.
• I went to another PC in my office, and successfully got to Masterbeat. I found my remix. But can you just copy the URL from the address bar of the web browser? Of course not, because the site is Flash-only, the URL only gets you to the home page. Fail #3.
• At the bottom of each Masterbeat page is a rather industry-standard widget to post to social media and whatever else. I don’t want to post the track, I want to link to the track. Is there a way to do that? No. Fail #4.
• I then decided to try and use the share-by-e-mail function and just e-mail myself a freakin’ link to the remix. I entered all the information, and got instead some sort of error message that their system can’t e-mail the link. I tried it twice, and it failed both times, so what the heck? Fail #5 and #6.

In the end I gave-up. I had an artist link from an earlier attempt at this, and I just gave the fan that link, and told them how to find my track.

In any case, it shouldn’t take me half an hour to figure out how to link to a specific release on any digital music store, only to have it fail, and fail, and fail, and fail. It would have made more financial sense for me to just send the guy a free copy of the track instead of burning-up about $50 worth of my time trying to sell him one for a buck and half, and if the rights in the track were solely mine, I would have.

I’m no Apple fanboy, but no wonder iTunes has, and continues to win this battle. Every. Single. Day.