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Post by Kapitan on Jan 25, 2023 20:48:46 GMT
You may have heard of the podcast Song Exploder, which is a brief (usually 20-30 minutes) show dissecting specific songs, generally with interviews with involved people. The material goes all over the place, but what caught my attention today was one of my favorite songs from Iron & Wine, the beautiful 2007 song "Flightless Bird, American Mouth." podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/iron-wine-flightless-bird-american-mouth/id788236947?i=1000584843159Some others (among many more) you can find at this podcast: - John Lennon, "God" - the Shins, "New Slang" - Cheap Trick, "Surrender" - Sparks, "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both of Us"
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 26, 2023 12:36:02 GMT
This morning I read this interesting article about the use of--and prevelance of--both prerecorded tracks and teleprompters in rock music concerts. It's an interesting topic I have mixed feelings about, but to me, these are two totally different things. Teleprompters are not even an issue, in my opinion. Every now and again I'll hear or read some complaint about them, but not very often, and I think with good reason. If a band is playing 20, 25 songs, that's a LOT of words. If the band is a classic rock band, some of those lyrics might date back 20, 30, 40, or 50 years! And plenty of bands change up the setlists every now and again. As the article quotes someone as saying, orchestral players use sheet music on stage, don't they? No problem at all here. Prerecorded tracks are an entirely different matter. They aren't the equivalent of sheet music--hell, if a guitarist wants to set up a music stand with the chords written down, go for it!--but rather they are more or less the equivalent of someone else playing your sheet music for you. But even here, there are varying degrees of offense. To me there isn't a big difference between, say, an extra musician hired to sit at the very edge of the stage (or off stage) and playing a simple string part that appears in a ballad on a synth versus having the sound crew trigger the track of that same part. Or maybe there are sound effects (think "Detroit Rock City") that kick off or end a song. Fine, more or less. But once we're talking about the basic songs themselves, whether to replace or double/supplement the live playing, I think that's an embarrassment in rock music.
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Post by kds on Jan 26, 2023 13:54:28 GMT
This morning I read this interesting article about the use of--and prevelance of--both prerecorded tracks and teleprompters in rock music concerts. It's an interesting topic I have mixed feelings about, but to me, these are two totally different things. Teleprompters are not even an issue, in my opinion. Every now and again I'll hear or read some complaint about them, but not very often, and I think with good reason. If a band is playing 20, 25 songs, that's a LOT of words. If the band is a classic rock band, some of those lyrics might date back 20, 30, 40, or 50 years! And plenty of bands change up the setlists every now and again. As the article quotes someone as saying, orchestral players use sheet music on stage, don't they? No problem at all here. Prerecorded tracks are an entirely different matter. They aren't the equivalent of sheet music--hell, if a guitarist wants to set up a music stand with the chords written down, go for it!--but rather they are more or less the equivalent of someone else playing your sheet music for you. But even here, there are varying degrees of offense. To me there isn't a big difference between, say, an extra musician hired to sit at the very edge of the stage (or off stage) and playing a simple string part that appears in a ballad on a synth versus having the sound crew trigger the track of that same part. Or maybe there are sound effects (think "Detroit Rock City") that kick off or end a song. Fine, more or less. But once we're talking about the basic songs themselves, whether to replace or double/supplement the live playing, I think that's an embarrassment in rock music. I saw the same article yesterday, and I agree on both topics. I remember in the mid 00s, when Rob Halford rejoined Judas Priest, he was very reliant on a teleprompter during those shows. But, he explained later than he hadn't sang many of those songs in decades, so I don't have a problem with that. This quote stood out to me from the guitarist of the wildly popular American hard rock band Shinedown. Platinum-selling Florida rockers Shinedown have also made full disclosure of their usage, with guitarist Zack Myers telling Rock Feed in 2020 that "90% of bands do it" and adding that, "it bothers me that it bothers people. ... It's the way it is ... we want the sound to be the best it can. Could we go up there, just the four of us, and put on the best rock show ever? Of course. But that's not how we wanna do it."
I think that quote might be the funniest quote I've read outside of This is Spinal Tap. I know Myers obviously did mean it this way, but I found it very easy to read it as "oh yeah, we could put on the best rock show ever, but that's not how we roll." You have to love a band that's dedicated to mediocrity.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 26, 2023 14:10:23 GMT
Funny, I noticed the exact same quote as being ... not quite what he meant it to be. "Instead of putting on the best rock show ever, we're going to do this!" If playing live would be the best show ever, why would you do something different?
Overall, I think the idea of recreating complex studio recordings live is just overrated for a concert experience anyway. It works better in some settings than others--say, the Brian Wilson band in a nice theater--but for a rock show? Do you really think the essence of the live show is whether you keep that three-part harmony in the chorus, or drop it to a two-part you can do live? Or whether the acoustic guitar that doubles the electric in the bridge shows up in the mix?
Nuno Bettencourt (because all things go back to Nuno with me, sometimes it seems...) said back in the early '90s that what he had taken from Queen was, you can do one thing in a studio, and another thing live. You want them both to be great, of course. But they don't have to be identical. I think that's very true for rock music. The experience live isn't about perfection, it's about energy. You want great musicianship, of course. But you don't need every little jot and tittle.
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Post by kds on Jan 26, 2023 14:26:59 GMT
To put on my "Get Off My Lawn" hat for a moment, that quote from Zack Myers does make me question the ability of some of Shinedown's peers. I've been pretty outspoken of my dislike for much of what mainstream rock has had to offer for the last 25 or so years. If so many of these bands (90% seems high, but you never know) rely so heavily on tracks, are they really that good?
I remember back in 2003, I attended a Metallica concert. Linkin Park were one of the opening bands. Now, I'm in no way a LP fan, but the sound coming from the stage during their set was objectively terrible. I was in radio at the time, and we were in a skybox at Fed Ex Field, doing a live broadcast. One of the DJs actually tried to close the window in the box to drawn out the noise. Maybe they resorted to using tracks later, as I've always heard from fans how great they sounded live.
Around the same time, the band Evanescence had their big breakthrough album, and I recall one of our longtime DJs was very critical of a show he attended because he said it was pretty obvious the band were using tracks. If you listen to the band's music, you can hear a lot of programming going on. Maybe it's more of a production than the mark of a talented band.
Maybe these bands, or their managers, know that throwing them on stage live without a net could be very detrimental to their careers.
(Taking off Get Off My Lawn hat). I also feel like the expectations for shows are a little different now with ticket prices soaring to the skies. Even legacy acts who've been pounding on stages for decades seem to try harder these days to recreate the studio tracks as best as possible in concert. Maybe, there's a belief that if you're charging $250 just for a nosebleed seat, you better damn well deliver the songs they way people want to hear them.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 26, 2023 14:35:24 GMT
That last part is very interesting and relates to some other things in life, too. My immediate question would be, would fans prefer a kick-ass, fully live show that cost, say, $30, but consisted of a quartet or quintet on stage playing their instruments and not much else? Or a $250 ticket to a show that recreates complex production touches of a studio album and features visual effects, pyro, etc.? I wonder, but in many cases I suspect the former.
What I mean by relating it to something else--and this is off topic, but sorry, I'll be brief--this seems to relate to inflation of college costs. Once upon a time, the normal experience was you'd live in a dorm with one or more roommates, you'd eat in the cafeterias, there'd be certain hours you could exercise in pretty basic gyms or on simple basketball courts, etc., and it was expensive, but not insanely expensive. In the past couple decades, costs have wildly outpaced inflation, but some administrators point to "student experience" of things like food halls with more diverse and high quality options for every meal, really nice workout facilities, dorms that are more like apartments with private rooms and bathrooms, etc. The same question would apply.
More importantly, I think the same underlying issue applies: the difference in the two experiences isn't the actual driver of the cost. For concerts, it's promoters and venues and labels (do you think it costs an extra $100 to fly in prerecorded tracks to a mix?); for colleges, it's administrative bloat.
In either case, is the experience actually better? And even if so, is it that much better?
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Post by kds on Jan 26, 2023 14:50:14 GMT
Personally, I like a full on, balls to the wall show. Live musicians, live vocals, and pyro / visual effects. That's why Iron Maiden are my favorite live band. They offer everything you'd want in a live experience. And, while their prices have increased over the years, they're not insane. And, as a bonus, unlike some of the bands who do charge insane prices, they have their full lineup intact.
On a semi related note, tickets for the Eagles' Baltimore stop go on sale tomorrow. I've never seen any version of the band, nor any of their members, in concert. But, I'm afraid to even look at the asking price.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 26, 2023 15:04:29 GMT
On a semi related note, tickets for the Eagles' Baltimore stop go on sale tomorrow. I've never seen any version of the band, nor any of their members, in concert. But, I'm afraid to even look at the asking price. Sometimes considered the first band to start the insanely escalating prices! If I'm not mistaken, it was their '90s reunion that was the first tour with tickets topping $100. Thirty years later, they probably charge that for a t-shirt at the merch tables at the venues...
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Post by kds on Jan 26, 2023 15:24:51 GMT
On a semi related note, tickets for the Eagles' Baltimore stop go on sale tomorrow. I've never seen any version of the band, nor any of their members, in concert. But, I'm afraid to even look at the asking price. Sometimes considered the first band to start the insanely escalating prices! If I'm not mistaken, it was their '90s reunion that was the first tour with tickets topping $100. Thirty years later, they probably charge that for a t-shirt at the merch tables at the venues... I think you're right. They really leaned into that age old "corporate rock" term with their reunion pricing. They're also in that group of bands I've never seen in person who I'd like to see, but it won't really break my heart if I don't (see also Springsteen & Chicago). Although, I might wait it out and see if any cheapies come out on the day of the show. When Roger Waters played DC last summer, I heard tickets were found in the 24 hours leading up to the show for a fraction of the asking price.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 5, 2023 17:21:18 GMT
I'm hot and cold on Rick Beato's interview style--sometimes I swear he's talking to hear himself talk and to get artists' affirmation about his own opinions--but this long interview with guitarist extraordinaire Steve Lukather is very interesting. A lot of the focus has to do with the changes in the industry over time, from an era when recording budgets were big and studio aces were brought in to play perfectly, immediately, with or without charts.
Beato had a line he referenced as being one he apparently says a lot, "before there was Pro Tools, there were pros."
There is also some interesting discussion over Lukather's studio work on the Thriller album, beginning shortly before the 42-minute mark. It includes some of the technical details of the recording process that I often find interesting. Basically, Eddie Van Halen almost destroyed the recording with his treatment of the (physical) tape he'd used to record his solo.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 7, 2023 14:43:06 GMT
I had to laugh at this morning's painfully negative review by Pitchfork of the new album from Italian rock band Maneskin. On one hand, from what little I've seen and heard of the band, I can't really disagree. But on the other, considering how many other corporate creations Pitchfork has gone out of its way to promote since turning from their indie rock roots into their current iteration, it's pretty funny. I mean, they're owned by megacorporation Conde Nast, for one thing... There is a massive Hyundai banner ad at the header of this review. There are another five--count 'em, five--Hyundai ads as one scrolls down the page. And yet they're criticizing Maneskin fans for being lame, or falling for corporate-promoted "fake" rock? And, I'm sorry, but didn't Pitchfork just accept a trip to Dubai paid for by Beyonce Corp to witness her little tour kickoff shindig? Was that groundbreaking artistic genius at work, or typical corporate payoff that's somehow acceptable because it's by one of the cool kids? The pretentiousness and hypocrisy are no small thing.
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Post by kds on Feb 7, 2023 14:50:50 GMT
I won't discount the hypocrisy, but it's good to know that there's at least once publication not relentlessly trying to force feed Maneskin to the public.
I think it's funny that the band, or their publicists, are falling over themselves to prove they're "real rock." That's the kind of pandering I've heard from the likes of Nickelback "if you don't like our radio songs, come to a show and watch up rock out."
Come on guys, you've made it, no need to pander to try to get any "cred."
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 7, 2023 15:06:28 GMT
They also definitely seem like one of those bands looking to drum up "controversy." The bassist playing with her naked breasts out, the singer in assless chaps ... honestly, it's same-old, same-old to a large degree. (It's quite fitting on a day we consider Sam Smith.) Vaguely androgynous (only 50 years after Bowie et al), vaguely rebellious, but so obviously a mainstream product... The biggest difference here is, this band is more traditionally attractive, and in a different subgenre of music. That said, I hate Pitchfork's condescension not only to the band, but to the band's perceived audiences. That audience is huge, and for that, they are shaming Maneskin and the audience? Again, this outlet gushes, gushes, over Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar. Are they some underground alternative to mainstream pop culture? Consider "Their primary influence seems to be “Seven Nation Army” chants at a soccer game, followed closely by late-era Red Hot Chili Peppers, followed extensively by nothing. On the unbelievable “Mammamia,” the bass, guitar, and vocals are performed almost entirely in martial unison. It’s a fascinating choice that brings to mind fourth-grade band practice, or migraines." You can mock it from your purported hipster (*ahem* Conde Nast-owned) perch, but I seem to recall "Seven Nation Army" being the sort of thing Pitchfork once championed, and stadium-chanting refrains are legendary stuff of rock music. And speaking of mocking audiences, what about "It strains credulity to imagine Rush! will rally the aging nostalgia crowd pining for the days of real music the same way Black Keys or Greta Van Fleet or any other Grammy-core rock act did. Sex-idiot rock—a storied and wonderful genre that bounces around from T. Rex to AC/DC to Van Halen to Jane’s Addiction to the 1975—deserves better than this." They sure love inventing subgenres (Grammy-core rock?), but more to the point, yes, we all hate that "aging nostalgia crowd." (Though at least we love the Sex-idiot rock crowd?) Why, pray tell, is it bad to preer "real music" to, say, their current favorites like Glorilla (who "suffers no fools") or Ice Spice? The answer, of course, is that (in their imagination, only) old, straight white guys like "real" rock music. And that's just the worst... Back to Maneskin, since they aren't "authentically" transgressive, they're actually corporate shills (said Conde Nast), and therefore more or less old, straight white guys by proxy.
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Post by kds on Feb 7, 2023 15:27:24 GMT
They also definitely seem like one of those bands looking to drum up "controversy." The bassist playing with her naked breasts out, the singer in assless chaps ... honestly, it's same-old, same-old to a large degree. (It's quite fitting on a day we consider Sam Smith.) Vaguely androgynous (only 50 years after Bowie et al), vaguely rebellious, but so obviously a mainstream product... The biggest difference here is, this band is more traditionally attractive, and in a different subgenre of music. That said, I hate Pitchfork's condescension not only to the band, but to the band's perceived audiences. That audience is huge, and for that, they are shaming Maneskin and the audience? Again, this outlet gushes, gushes, over Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar. Are they some underground alternative to mainstream pop culture? Consider "Their primary influence seems to be “Seven Nation Army” chants at a soccer game, followed closely by late-era Red Hot Chili Peppers, followed extensively by nothing. On the unbelievable “Mammamia,” the bass, guitar, and vocals are performed almost entirely in martial unison. It’s a fascinating choice that brings to mind fourth-grade band practice, or migraines." You can mock it from your purported hipster (*ahem* Conde Nast-owned) perch, but I seem to recall "Seven Nation Army" being the sort of thing Pitchfork once championed, and stadium-chanting refrains are legendary stuff of rock music. And speaking of mocking audiences, what about "It strains credulity to imagine Rush! will rally the aging nostalgia crowd pining for the days of real music the same way Black Keys or Greta Van Fleet or any other Grammy-core rock act did. Sex-idiot rock—a storied and wonderful genre that bounces around from T. Rex to AC/DC to Van Halen to Jane’s Addiction to the 1975—deserves better than this." They sure love inventing subgenres (Grammy-core rock?), but more to the point, yes, we all hate that "aging nostalgia crowd." (Though at least we love the Sex-idiot rock crowd?) Why, pray tell, is it bad to preer "real music" to, say, their current favorites like Glorilla (who "suffers no fools") or Ice Spice? The answer, of course, is that (in their imagination, only) old, straight white guys like "real" rock music. And that's just the worst... Back to Maneskin, since they aren't "authentically" transgressive, they're actually corporate shills (said Conde Nast), and therefore more or less old, straight white guys by proxy. Wow, that's some pretty pretentious stuff.
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Post by Kapitan on Feb 28, 2023 18:49:34 GMT
Here's a podcast episode combining some of my interests, music and history. Dan Carlin, best known for his epic Hardcore History shows, oddly enough interviews producer Rick Rubin about his book. And I'm not entirely sure why he's on with Carlin, frankly. It's an odd pairing. (Maybe they'll get into that. I've only just begun it.) But I'm posting it largely because of something Rubin was talking about beginning maybe 10 minutes into the episode. He begins by talking about the "time machine" aspect of listening to music, about how it can transport you back to where you were in life (physically, mentally, emotionally) when you first or most often listened to it. But he takes it into an interesting place that relates to the creation of music or any other art. He says that perfectionism, while fine to a point, can also be self-defeating because the time an artist may spend contemplating, fine-tuning, re-inventing a work ends up taking you out of yourself over time, and into a new you in another time. To add a concrete example that may help explain it, consider Axl Rose working on Chinese Democracy circa the mid-90s. Increasingly a perfectionist, the album ends up taking 10 years to finish. But the finish line can't help but move as time goes on, as Rose's inspirations change, as his relationships with (also changing) band members and producers change, etc. Any immediacy to something begun in 1996 is gone by 1998, to say nothing of 2005. The connection to the work to the artist can't help but change as time goes on because the artist will be a different person as time goes on. It's something like the old saying that you can't step into the same river, except in this case, the artist can't be the same river twice. It's interesting to me to think about how that changes the relationship between artist and long-gestating work. He can rely on craft, or he can seek new interpretations as inspiration, or he can paint by numbers on autopilot. I'm rambling, I know. But while I'd thought a lot through the years about an artist losing the plot, or a work going stale, I hadn't really thought about it in anything like that "same river twice" perspective.
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