Music Weblog

November 3, 2009

iTunes LP – a return of the album?

Filed under: Musing — abdulmajid @ 4:26 pm

Music has evolved tremendously in the past 100 years. It has been around for a while but like manufacturing it has experienced incredible change from sheet music to wax cylinders to 78 rpm vinyl discs then the invention of the single and the LP. There was a campaign in the 70s to call LPs albums for some reason but with the creation of the Compact Disc that push seemed to melt away. When MP3s, the Internet and iPods came along we started losing the idea of the album let alone the LP. What is the difference? Well, an album is a concept, a coherent gathering of musical themes whereas the LP is the real world manifestation of that concept, which is why a cassette or CD is not an LP but an album. The definitions are mine but they work in the way people use the terms nowadays.

So why was the LP so beloved, unlike the cassette or CD. Well, the joy of getting your hands on something substantial (you can insert all your Carry On jokes here about 12″, holding it in two hands, etc.) was palpable. Although I used to buy brand new albums for £3.79 as compared to CDs for £11.99 it was the former that felt like a substantial purchase not the more expensive item. That joy only increased if the LP came in a gatefold sleeve (it opened up to twice the size normally on the vertical spine but sometimes – Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall” – on the horizontal instead. There was also the possibility of a free poster for some releases, which given the size of the LP could actually be much bigger when unfolded. I have seen the odd poster given away with a CD but who wants a postcard? The inner sleeve offered all sorts of possibilities too. Island Records, whilst still independent, used it to advertise a number of other albums they had released, which helped me as a newcomer expand my musical world view. However, the most treasured was the use of the inner sleeve for lyrics. I can still remember buying an LP with friends and reading the lyrics out on the bus or train home. The first experience of the LP was not the music but the ideas contained in the lyrics.

Apple has now worked with the music industry to try and relaunch the album or is it the LP? The aim is purely financial, with people cherry picking tracks they like for £0.79 the industry is not getting the dollops of cash it used to get for all those tracks you could take or leave on an album. this way we pay £7.99 or more normally £9.99 for those tracks but the candy to get us to part with the cash is that we are returning to the idea of the album with an overall concept that is manifested through not only the music but also the packaging and the extras. In this way it is less of a return to the LP and more of an evolution of the DVD idea of bonus material but in a musical context. In fact if you cross the DVD with the Universal Records Deluxe Re-issue project then you get the idea. So there are extra tracks, what used to be b-sides or maybe demos, or live tracks to add to the “standard” release. There may well be music videos or a “making of documentary” included in the “LP” but perhaps my favourite aspect there may also be the lyrics. This in theory is less exciting than it used to be as we can now get the lyrics to practically anything by searching Goggle online but actually Apple have presented them much as the old inner sleeves used to, as part of the concept not just some generic HTML thrown together by someone who wants to sell advertising space. they have also fiddled with iTunes (and Apple TV software) so that you can play the album as a whole from start to finish from within a special LP interface. One aspect that works really well and has been lost with the miniturisation of the media is the artwork, which you can now blow up to the size of your monitor (or attached TV screen).

On the whole this is a good re-invention/re-imagining of the album concept. Whilst iTunes has always been able to play an album all the way through there is something rather appealing about using the LP interface to do it and with the addition of displaying the lyrics for that track too it really makes sense. The use of new media is also welcome, if they had simply just bundled together the album with a play-through option and the lyrics it would have been a real damp squib but to throw in videos, documentaries and other extras is a good use of the technology and should be encouraged. Ultimately I will only buy certain albums in this format, the first was Muse but I will pay a couple of quid extra to get the feeling of buying an album again. One thing it is not however is an LP.

October 27, 2009

Spotify – The Next Big Thing

Filed under: Musing, Next Big Thing — abdulmajid @ 1:34 am
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Welcome to the Next Big Thing ™ or was that last month? Spotify, either the saviour of the music industry or its death-knell is a hot topic. It was widely talked about in the Net community but went mainstream in the UK with the launch of the mobile versions, especially the iPhone app. Indeed that launch made such big headlines that Spotify had to revert to the invite only model for the time being in the UK. Before looking at the Spotify of today it is perhaps helpful to remind ourselves of the general concept and some of the key features.

The vinyl disc replaced the piano in the front room, similarly the compact disc replaced vinyl, the iPod and iTunes replaced the need for physical music entirely (the iTunes LP is a lovely attempt to return to the joy of buying a vinyl LP but more of that in another post). Welcome to the iTunes killer, although you still need a computer or mobile device to listen to Spotify. Spotify is the logical result of combing the availability of computers with the increasing speed of the internet and cloud computing. Your music is no longer stored on your computer, in fact it is no longer your music but that is another issue, rather you log into the Spotify servers and there you can find the playlists you ahve created and saved and search for new music. One of the joys of the introduction of the cassette was that we could all become creative artists by making up mix-tapes. This concept became somewhat tricky with iTunes but Spotify and the web have recreated that singular pleasure. You can now create a playlist and then send it to your friends, put it online or Tweet it to the world. One music website in particular have used this to good effect by creating a Friday Spotify music playlist, congrats to Drowned in Sound.

There were three big drawbacks with the original Spotify. First, that it was only available for the home computer with no mobile version available. Second, that you needed to have an active Internet connection to listen to music and third the music catalogue itself did not include all the major record labels. I am sure I am not alone in that I already have ripped my CD collection into iTunes and therefore having Spotify on my Mac was not essential. What I really wanted when I got hold of the 3G iPhone was to be able to listen to all those tracks on my phone whenever I wanted not the small selection that i could fit into the phones memory. The second issue was not an issue at home but when I visited my parents, my sister or went on holiday it became a real issue (do not get me started on trying to watch TV abroad, in fact you can but it will be a topic for my technology blog Connected to the Mothership). The third is still an issue although if you follow Spotify on Twitter or their blog then you will see that they are constantly adding to the online catalogue and in significant numbers too. There is talk of the major labels buying into Spotify, which may or may not be a bad thing depending on far too many variables to cover in this blog. I still find many bands, albums and tracks that I would like to listen to are not available in Spotify. However, I have also rediscovered a number of wonderful albums and artists by searching for tracks or even by hearing something in a TV show and following the breadcrumb trail as one does with Google or Wikipedia.

The first issue was tackled when Spotify submitted their iPhone app to the guys at Apple in August and a month later the Cupertino peeps saw fit to approve it for general consumption. The “drawback” was that you had to have a subscription to use the app. Now let us get this straight now, paying £9.99 a month (or lees if you take out the annual subscription) is small beer, one CD a month for access to hundreds of thousands of tracks. My joy at the mobile app was short lived because despite living in London, a city so connected you can see its lights from the moon, a 3G mobile signal is something that comes and goes like my luck with the horses. Even worse, like many I listen to music on the Tube, oh wait, no signal at all! I tried using it in the car but frankly that was even worse than walking down the street and get outside of town and into those lovely green areas and the signal disappears like the mist on a summers morning.

The true scope of Spotify was opened up on their next major update where they introduced “offline mode”. This meant, as the name suggests, that you no longer needed to have an active Internet connection to listen to music. You could specify playlists to be available offline and then when connected to the Net Spotify would download those tracks into its cache and allow you to listen to them unplugged. initially this was a mobile app only feature but swiftly followed for the desktop version too. Overnight Spotify truly started to live up to its billing as a potential iTunes killer, especially given its reasonable 3,333 offline song limit. What this means in real life is that I download playlists to my iTouch when I am at home via my home network, which means I can listen to them in my car, on the Tube or in the countryside (drowns out those noisy animals). Currently I am using it in conjunction with iTunes but ultimately if it acts as the musical equivalent of the British Library and has (almost) all music ever recorded available to listen to then I would think about dropping iTunes as my music portal.

One last thought, pay for the subscription. Spotify is losing money currently and the fee is a small price to pay for such a huge library, which will only continue to grow if the music industry can see that they and the artists will get a revenue stream from it (remember how Apple had to fight to get them onboard for the iTunes store, these people are luddite in their adoption of new technology and ways of marketing their wares whatever they claim to the contrary). If Spotify can survive then it might just be worthy of being the next truly big thing.

July 21, 2009

Neil Young “Archives Vol.1 1963-1972″

Filed under: Album Review — abdulmajid @ 7:38 pm
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This is not so much a new blog as a note to say I have finally got my hands on the Blu-Ray version of the Neil Young Archives box set and I am therefore working on a major blog about that release.

This is
a) a head’s up to say that is coming,
b) a note to say get your hands on this if you can as the sound quality is breathtaking (my B&W speakers were designed for this I am sure) and
c) if you can get hold of the version of “Words” from the “Journey Through the Past” soundtrack (it runs to just over 15 minutes) do so, it is exquisite.

I am going back to it now, see you in 10 discs time!

June 12, 2009

Madame Butterfly

Filed under: Concert Review — abdulmajid @ 6:31 pm
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How does one explain the appeal of opera? Is it musicals for the snobs amongst us? Theatre for playwrights who have trouble with realistic dialogue? Or a specific artform with it’s own framework that forces composer & libertist to be at their artistic peak before they can create true opera? I am sitting in the Coliseum, London home of the English National Opera on a warm Friday night in early summer so unless I am a masocist you can guess my answer. Opera is somewhat like Haiku, in that there are fairly strict boundaries outside if which one should not stray but that if created artfully produce something of utter beauty. Haiku can in three short lines take one out of the world for a brief moment like all good poetry. Opera does the same & normally for longer; even Pagliacci & Cavalaria Rusticana are an hour each & I have not mentioned Wagner, a man who saw opera as a test of the true mettel of a person. Puccini falls somewhere in between. Madame Butterfly is 2 hours 45 minutes long but Puccini also invented the perfect three minute pop song with his catchy arias.

This production was created by Anthony Mingella, the late film director & is suitably beautiful using a minimal of props. This is a great opera but perhaps not the best to start with given it’s length. The English version is good but even so I found myself following the lyrics on the LED screen above the stage & the poetry of the sound comes in part from the Italian language.

This was quite a traditional production, albeit with the use of puppets for a few characters. It is hard to find fault with such a production & Butterfly herself sounded like am angel.

Un bel dei indeed.

May 30, 2009

Folk Music in Blackheath

Filed under: Concert Review — abdulmajid @ 6:44 pm
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Folk gigs are funny things. If it is traditional folk music then it tends to be an older crowd who discovered folk in the sixties & attend Cropredy. More mainstream folk music attracts a younger audience with a smattering of the old folkies who have stayed up to date.

Cara Dillon is more traditional than modern but with her good looks and more recent albums demonstrating her singer-songwriter skills rather than a reliance on reworking traditional songs a reasonable proportion of the audience is young. Although there is a lack of smart phones, which is unusual at gigs now.

The cabaret table arrangement of Blackheath Halls was quite odd, frankly bails of hay would be better suited than the bizarre Las Vegas in a school hall affair. However, folk music being traditionally a music of the people (no pun intended on either parts of that statement) it was pleasing to see Cara and her band had the same seats as the rest of us to sit on, although they did not have candles on red beize covered table. Frankly, the hall had the feel of an inter-village bridge tournament rather than a music venue. The fact that it was the hottest night of the year so far and there was no air conditioning helped to make it quite sticky and uncomfortable with a hint of the party after the village fête about the evening.

Of course having blathered on about her being a singer-songwriter she then proceeded to open with some traditional Irish folk songs! Performers hey, who can trust then. Third song in was a killer track from her eponymous debut album, “Black is the Colour”, which almost stopped time as the audience was caught up in the circling rhythms of the piano whilst her etherial voice filled the space with crystaline emotion.

The sound was not quite balanced properley at the start with the acoustic guitars drowning out her beautifully pure voice but it did improve thereafter, which particularly important for a voice like Dillons. A duet with John Smith was particularly good, although he was clearly influenced by the recently deceased John Martyn, their voices blended together like a good Irish whiskey that is a favourite of mine..

Her Northern Irish accent was not evident when she sang but came through sparkling with wit in her between song chats, which veered from how most of the folk songs were about badly behaved men to who was going to win Britain’s got Talent, the final of which was on at the same time as the gig. It was quite obvious where the talent was on Blackheath though.

Ultimately the test of a good gig is whether it transported the audience out of that time and place and into the world created by the melody and the lyrics. In that Cara Dillon and her band succeeded magnificently as the red beize tables and conference seats melted into the heat of a May night whilst the music took us to the Hill of Thieves in County Derry.

March 10, 2009

Myth and Reality

Filed under: Musing — abdulmajid @ 10:40 am

We all have heroes, often those gained in childhood are the most unreal. It is a factor of life that as we learn, grow and gain experience the scales fall from our eyes and our heroes become mortal but those childhood heroes, Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, David Bowie, Madonna, Prince or whoever yours may be, still have that aura of otherworldliness about them.

What happens when you come face-to-face with your hero? Obviously this may simply be finally seeing them live after many years of loving their music rather than actually being allowed entry to their world. Whichever the case may be the outcome is the same, either a sudden, wonderful return to a more innocent time or the realisation that everyone has feet of clay.

My own experience of this has been mixed. I first noticed David Bowie when “Space Oddity” went to number one in 1975. When I seriously got into music in the late 70’s I sought him out and remember the thrill and wonder of both the single “Ashes to Ashes” and the attendant album “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)”, in particular the otherworldliness of the video for “Ashes to Ashes”. I almost saw him live around 1990 but relationship issues meant my ticket went to an ex, although I still paid for the privalage. I finally caught up with him on the Reality tour after a wonderful run of albums including the sublime ” . . . hours”. He was spellbinding & “Life on Mars” was so good he received a standing ovation at the end of the first chorus and had to stop singing for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately after that tour he had some heart problems and has not toured or released an album since.

It is little remembered now but around 1980-81 there was a real attempt to bring Japanese pop music (J-Pop) to the UK. The leading exponents were the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) who even had a Top 10 UK chart hit with an electronic song called “Firecracker”. I found a number of groups that hit the right note with me, so much so that to this day I still trawl Amazon’s Japanese website for CDs to add to my collection. YMO split in the mid-1980s and although they sporadically reformed they were limited runs on far away places. Until the 2008 Meltdown festival at the Royal Festival Hall when Massive Attack invited them to play a date. I could not believe my luck, especially after I managed to score front row tickets! They were to be joined by Fennesz, a more recent musical infatuation of mine. However the gig itself was let down by a breathtakingly bad sound mix, inexcusable these days. I was able to watch all three members create magic but the rabbits all died as they were pulled from the musical hats, killed by the mix. I have bought the live album using my US iTunes account (at the time it was not available from the UK site) and the mix is much better but it was a disappointing end after a wait of almost 28 years.

however, the worst encounter is not mine but I relay it here as a warning to all. A reasonably famous UK musician who was a huge Prince fan managed to get invited to meet the great wee man at his hotel after a sound check for a gig that evening. Left in the suite with some very boring people and feeling like a schoolboy waiting outside the headmasters office he spotted some wine and had a small glass. Prince does not drink but as this was also the PR suite not his personal suite presumably some WB peeps needed refreshment. Anyway, said musician/fan was still nervous so had another glass of wine. He eventually finished the wine but spotted some spirits and started on those feeling much more relaxed and imagining how witty he would be when Prince arrived. Unfortunately by the time he arrived our hero was collapsed on the floor in a drunken stupor and all he saw and all he remembers were stillerto boots passing close by his face as it rested on the floor of the suite. The invitation to the inner sanctum has not been made again.

January 18, 2009

Support Bands

Filed under: Musing — abdulmajid @ 9:49 pm
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Support bands, are they worth it? One of the best gigs I went to was a four hour Bruce Springsteen gig with no suport act. Ok the other hand I loved Joan as Policewoman, who supported Rufus Wainwright as well as being in his band. Plus I saw the Cocteau Twins as support many years ago. David Sylvian traditionally does not have a support act & his shows are all the more special for that fact. Some support acts can overcome the minimal sound check, cramped condition at the front of the stage and impatience for the act we have paid money to see to transcend the moment and still be memorable after the gig has finished and we wander home humming the main acts big number. I started thinking about this when I was satt in Kentish Town, on a bench in The Forum waiting for Marillion to start their two hour show pondering that the support act, whose name is unknown not only to me but to all around too, will not stay in my memory for more than a few seconds after they leave the stage. This may be down to dementia rather than their musicianship.

February 13, 2008

“If I was Your Girlfrind” Prince 1984

Filed under: Favourite Tracks, Prince 10 of the Best — abdulmajid @ 2:28 pm

Originally recorded for a “Camilla” album (eight tracks recorded by Prince using speeded up vocals and one of his female alter-egos Camilla). Aside from being musically adventurous (love the introductory rhythm) and very catchy it has the absolute killer opening line “If I was your girlfriend would you tell me all the things you forgot when I was your man.” It’s a great meditation on the obsessiveness of love where you want to be everything (lover, best friend, even if you hurt them you want to be the one they turn too) and you want your obsession reciprocated.

February 9, 2008

Prince “When Doves Cry” 1984

Filed under: Favourite Tracks, Prince 10 of the Best — abdulmajid @ 2:52 pm

The track that made me sit up and listen. I was not actually a fan of 1999 and Little Red Corvette (I was going through a very left wing hatred of anything American and they were so nuts over him after 1999 actually and Jonathan King was raving about him and I always thought he was appalling and very, very creepy) but then I heard this track and it stopped me dead. (more…)

February 6, 2008

Kate Bush “Why Should I Love You?” 1993 (Kate Bush album “The Red Shoes”

Filed under: Favourite Tracks, Prince 10 of the Best — abdulmajid @ 10:31 pm

The only track that is not a Prince track per se in the whole of my Top 10. However, when the song hits the chorus for the first time it is clear that this track was only possible with a sprinkling of Prince’s magic dust. This has one of the key features of a Prince song, it’s very sexy;

“The “L” of the lips are open
To the “O” of the host
The “V” of the velvet” (more…)

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