Anthem - Columns

Stolen Recordings

nik.mercer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:54:44 -0700

A record label is important, a decree of intent or a symbol of expectation. To turn over a record and find this certain mark of approval, like Sub Pop in 1990 or K records throughout the 1980s, induces a sense of anticipation. London’s Stolen Recordings have created an identity to induce a similar sense of anticipation with a string of super releases from super bands.

It began in 2003, originally as a club night. However, the intention to grow into a label and the ethics on which this would be based already prevailed; "we were sick to death of playing shows for arseholes so we decided to set up our own nights," says one of Stolen's co-founders, Rachael. "They were free entry, we would always cook meals for the bands and get as much free booze as possible. Once we had this up and running we tried to apply the same principals to the label."

Fast-forward five years, and fine a Stolen Recordings that has now evolved into its "own world." It is a world in which artistic freedom and an essence of total fun become glaringly obvious. One only has to witness live displays from a Stolen band and these things illuminate, from the frantically wonderful Screaming Tea Party to pure adolescent power pop of Let's Wrestle. This is music that is totally honest and free of inhibitions, like a child running, arms widened, through an open field. It’s something Stolen, as a label, is aware of. "Bands should never get wound up about what’s right or what’s cool," remarks Paul, another co-founder. "When a band start to think about it that’s when it goes wrong."

Such a supportive sentiment—one that is opposed to the traditional "big bucks"/"$$$"/"make the sales" image of a record company—resembles the attitudes of liberal parents in comparison to restrictive and conservative ones. Yet, this is essentially what Stolen Recordings is—a big family—and, in turn, what has created such diversity amidst their artists.

It is not only music that constrains the minds of those involved with Stolen. Recently, they held an extremely successful art exhibition displaying the work of band members and friends, from illustrations to paintings to fanzines. In addition to this, much of the bands' artwork (Screaming Tea Party, Let's Wrestle, Artefacts for Space Travel) is done themselves. This type of effort is considered to be a natural extension of the label. "So many people in bands make art as well so it’s really good to bundle everything together." Modesty aside, this is just one more example that emphasizes Stolen's place as one of London and the U.K's most innovative and reputable labels at present.

The evolution of Stolen recordings is set to continue with a host of incredible releases including a new Screaming Tea Party EP, a Let's Wrestle album, a debut Artefacts for Space Travel EP, and a debut Hot Silk Pockets single. Keep your ears to the soil.

Contort Yourself

nik.mercer — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:17:56 -0700

The struggle over the merits of being "retro" has been the subject of quite a few heated and sometimes violent debates amongst actively creative creators for some time now.

With every aesthetic cornerstone, there will always be an adventurous soul exploring its dangerous boundaries. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to find that balance between doing something meaningful in the present while tipping a hat to the glorious past. Often times, works dedicated to the latter find themselves a bit too dedicated and experience widespread abhorrence for their apparent "lack of creativity."

For a fashion designer, where the muse can play as significant a role as thread, golden images of a fruitful yore often serve as fertile sources of inspiration. Whether it’s 1960’s "old lady chic" at Phoebe Philo-era Chloé or the Thin White Duke via Hedi Slimane Dior Homme, some fine collections have been created under the guiding wings of the past.

The question then becomes whether or not excessive reverence is necessarily a bad thing. As a point of recent reference, how does one view the almost tongue-in-cheek interpretations of youth counterculture in the Spring 2009 RTW collection from Rag and Bone. Indeed, there’s an obvious, "Oh boy, here comes England again" sentiment to the collection; with its mash-up of mod, skinhead, Two-Tone, and punk. There are arguably better, definitely more abstract, and consequently more interesting collections that also worship at the hallowed ground of English youth culture. Whether it’s samurai goths marching through a barren Gareth Pugh wasteland (Fall 2008 RTW) or vampires with a distaste for human form at Yves Saint Laurent (also Fall 2008 RTW), a Bauhaus redux seems to be more worthy of conversation than another collection chock full of skinny suspenders and drainpipes with haphazardly placed bondage zippers.

On one hand, this can all be perceived as an inability on the parts of David Neville and Marcus Wainwright to interpret their influences creatively.

Nicole Phelps, Style.com:

"For one, the British music scene is a favorite point of reference for designers, and even if Neville and Wainwright have more of a right than most to explore it, there's bound to be a sense that it's all been done before."

On the other hand, there’s something that, for me at least, will always be stirring when a tangible aesthetic; an aesthetic created by a disgruntled group of English kids, is turned into a chic, high-fashion runway show. Although that, in itself, is quite tired, it’s not Rag and Bone’s fault that Hedi Slimane made a career out of doing the same thing season after season.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate a complete visual reinterpretation of an established aesthetic as much as the next person. To me, Gareth Pugh’s Fall 2008 goth is like Frank Miller’s Batman from his 1986 graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns. There’s something comfortably familiar in there but it’s hard to really get a hold of it since it's unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. I mean, looking at the collection, these are goths, right? If these kids were real, they’d idolize Siouxsie Sioux and Dave Vanian. I’d sincerely love to hang out with them and their inevitably impeccable record collections if it weren’t for the fact that they’re a bit too proficient in the katana arts for my comfort.

But it's collections like the last Rag and Bone that really excite me. Despite a lack of 92.5º angles and parachute suits, I like seeing something so accessible elevated to this level of fashion. All of the English cultures that inspired this collection are true examples of street culture and, to me, collections like this break the barrier between us down here and those up there while still maintaining the degree of inaccessibility that I truly believe high fashion must maintain in order to be relevant.

Confused? Let me elaborate. Recently, a friend and I had a conversation about why we like classic film so much. Specific examples were Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Godard’s Breathless. The conversation essentially revolved around the fact that these films were set in real environments with believable characters (of course this is also due to the non-existence of computer technology and multi-million dollar bombastics). There’s nothing too ridiculous about L.B. Jeffries or Michel Poiccard. However, we (as would most) also agreed that we enjoy film because it lets us escape from the doldrums of our reality. In the end, we had to discern between different interpretations of realistic film fiction. The other film that entered the conversation was Soderbergh’s Traffic. There’s a point where realistic becomes a bit too real for us. Although it’s unfortunate that neither of us have enough experience in the Mexican drug trade to really make a call, we agreed that watching Traffic was less of an escape and more of a depressing reality check.

In film, we need something that’s outside of our tangible reality in order to lift us away from our nine-to-five saturated existence for a few precious hours. Although the Greenwich Village apartment or the cobblestone streets of Paris aren’t necessarily fantastic enough per say, there’s no escaping the fact that L.B. Jeffries is played by Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly is totally making out with him right now. There’s no escaping the fact that Michel Poiccard is a cop killer carelessly jaunting around the streets of Paris with an aspiring American journalist. There’s a certain degree of simple romance and celebrity in both films that keeps it in that happy median between absolutely comic book and depressingly realistic.

That’s what Rag and Bone Spring 2009 does best. It creates this sartorial world that I can believe in; however, it does this while still maintaining a snobbish distance. A Gareth Pugh collection is definitely a visual force; however, it comfortably ventures into the realm where people have to make up too much in order to explain what it is that they’re looking at. Seeing drainpipes on a major fashion week runway now and then is good for you. It keeps everything grounded but, especially when you try to obtain the stuff, reminds you that you’ve been wearing the same Urban Outfitters jeans for the past six months and that, despite this miserable reality, life is good.

Escalator

nik.mercer — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:19:58 -0700

At long last, we can hear some electro music here in Tokyo! Can you believe it, after all these years, finally some electro!? And know that I don't think I mean one of the "electro parties" in Tokyo where the DJs may play straight-up techno or house in lieu of "electro."

Anyhow, if you have the chance to visit Tokyo, you may be surprised to find so little a connection between fashion and music. While we can say that we enjoy the newest fashions... the music here is dead. Completely dead. I'm not kidding at all!

However, in the case that youth culture gets this bizarre (read: music is dead!), it's only natural that young people have a heightened desire for counterculture. So our store in Harajuku is pumped full with old and young girls and boys who love U.K., EU, and U.S. underground indie and dance music... they've all but forgotten about the Japanese in the past decade or so.

For the past eleven years, I've been putting on a party at a small club called WEB in Mishuku city. I've kept it up for over ten years because it's in the perfect location: no stations are nearby and it's forty minutes walk (or a ten minute cab ride) from Shibuya, so the people who come really come! The real people come to the party. The people who gather there know all cultures, musics, and fashions and naturally mix it all up.

Recently, the WEB regulars have been into the fashion of London's Original Sin, a label that just so happens to be good friends with the bands Ulterior and the Horrors (both of whom say they don't mind wearing the same designs, fortunately).

Bands that are passing through WEB include Metronomy, N.Y.C.'s Vivian Girls, and London's Magistrates. The most important thing to remember is that you can never play CDs or MP3s as a DJ—the club literally won't accept DJs who don't play vinyl. (So I can't play tracks by bands that haven't released on vinyl—that's why our labels EVERY CONVERSATION and BIG LOVE (our latest) keep on releasing vinyl; we're prepping for the release of a 7" by Geneva Jacuzzi right now!)

THE EVERY CONVERSATION CLUB is held every third Saturday (and will soon experience a name change).

More on Escalator Records on Anthem Online

Club WEB homepage

New York Noise

nik.mercer — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:46:33 -0700

Your Senior Editor spent New York Fashion Week floating around in a blissful bubble that had very little to do with couture. All right, I confess: absolutely nothing whatsoever, in any way, shape, or form, to do with it. What started as modest disinterest grew into an unofficial boycott—I spit on Bryant Park!—that perhaps started last week, when rumors of the hotter-than-hot-shit Interview mag party began (very belatedly) wafting my way. Like 94.5% of media-connected New York, I tried to weasel my way onto the RSVP list about five hours before the doors opened. No dice. I was bruised, then subsumed by a fit of self-directed rage. Wasn’t the whole point of parties like this one—over-stuffed, basted in free top-shelf vodka, packed with people who carried their boredom like particularly cumbersome, weighty Lous Vuitton suitcases—to be let in the doors, only so that you could, after twenty minutes of meandering and mingling and free-drink chugging, declare the place “totally dead anyway” (still quoting Swingers after all these years, and feeling somewhat of a douche bag for doing so)?

Which lead me to consider, for the thirtieth time this month, the much flapped about New York magazine story about people leaving our fair metropolis for Buffalo and other supposed dead-end shitholes. Take a peek; chew it over.

Your Senior Editor experienced Fashion Week from a distance—and by that I mean, in the case of This Evening, from the top deck of a Grey Line tourist bus cruising up 6th Avenue. Let me explain: it relates to Sarah Palin, smiling here in my Totally True Documentary Film, and also to some very deep familial shit. All will make sense: promise.

I was riding a Grey Line tourist bus because my parents were in town. My parents were in town because, this week, we have some German visitors. We have some German visitors this week because one of them, four years ago, was a perfect bone marrow match for my father, who had leukemia at the time. Thanks to modern science, technological process, luck, and the general kindness of total strangers, my father is still alive and kicking, now powered by the transplanted immune system of a perfectly amazing 30-something woman who lives on the outskirts of Leipzig. Hence: there we are, happy family and guests, playing Manhattan tourists (minus fanny packs) and floating past the tents in Bryant Park.

What does this have to do with Sarah Palin? Well, let’s see. Our Republican VP candidate, aside from being a moosehunting, Bridge to Nowhere-supporting, neo-con cheerleader, is also opposed to stem cell research. (Things she’s not opposed to: teaching creationism in schools, because we
should never "be afraid of information," right?) Now, I won’t begin to understand the bulk of the hard science that goes into blood cancers and stem cells—it’s beyond my pay grade, to paraphrase Sir Obama. But what I do know is that it’s people like Sarah Palin who are, in heartless increments, making the world a more terrible place, gleefully lacquering it with a third and fourth coat of ignorance, and struggling to undo scientific progress in the name of religious fundamentalism and we-thought-the-90s-were-over culture wars. (All of which, in any case, is just a shell game designed to get the heartland to vote for top-1%-of-the-nation tax cuts. Don’t you love how this works?) So: a big, smiling middle finger to Sarah Palin, John McCain, and the entire Republican Party. May a particularly heartless blood cancer strike your body politic; may they let you know, while you’re wheezing like a spastic bellows, that you legislated against the cure. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and speaking of those tents in Bryant Park: who approved the dastardly “politics and fashion” campaign that’s plastered all over the entrance? Are we that debased that we can look at signs saying “ELECT STYLE” and “HOPE. CHANGE. SHOES.” and not want to barf all over ourselves?

To end on a cheery note, though. A few things that don’t make me want to chuck: the upcoming Viking Moses record. Burn After Reading, especially Brad Pitt as a fantastically dorky gym rat. The nine-zillion page, forthcoming Robert Bolano novel (2666) that I am planning on attacking as if it were a wild bison and I were, you know, a bison-eating feral dog. The almost-here New York Film Festival, which will include Steven Soderbergh’s excellent, 4+ hour Che film, among many others.

It’s a beautiful world: Kittens! Rainbows! Etceteras! No amount of lipstick-wearing pigs or vapid fashion parties can get us down. Right? Right?

ANTHEM FASHION

nik.mercer — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 11:43:41 -0700

Alexander Wang dresses the girls who are truly and innately cool: the girls who work the tight jeans and bra-baring over-sized tank tops; the girls who pull off headdresses, and wear ridiculously tight mini dresses with combat boots. For his Spring 2009 RTW collection, the combat boots of seasons past have been traded for street walking black leather heels complete with fringe, chains, and other tough-girl details. The shoes happen to be Wang's first walk into the world of footwear design—five platform styles debut with this collection. And though the over-sized tank tops and tight dress appeal is still there, it's less beanie-wearing street urchin, and more eye-catching downtown street-strutter—all with an athletic edge. The juxtaposition of sweatshirt jersey tops and pants, and silk and sequined shorts is a contradiction that strangely works in a way that is reminiscent of the carefree styles of the early-90s.

The wearability of those pieces may be questionable, and though I don't think most of the models could pull off the signature sweaty, free-spirited, "I haven't showered in four days" look that we have come to expect from Wang, the collection speaks for itself as a sort of progression... from grunge into "grunge does Miami Vice." That means black ripped tank tops paired with a saccharine pink blazer, complete with the sleeves pushed up, and tummy-baring black leather crop tops. In other words, we'll take the black tank tops over the sparkly bodysuit, but will admire them just the same.

Overall the collection seems to represent a refined-though-not-boring new direction for Wang, who has made his name by being a goth-grunge connoisseur, and this time around he showed his growing talent and staying power with a collection that proves he knows how women want to dress, mixing the sexy with his trademark youthful, authentic street style.

Photos courtesy of Style.com

New York Noise

nik.mercer — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:48:21 -0700

Your Senior Editor is writing this from the front porch of a rented shore house in Ship Bottom, New Jersey, the gateway to Long Beach Island. The weather is creepily nice; there’s not much to do but sip beer, break into hotel swimming pools, and crash College Night at Joe Pop’s Shore Bar. ($10 towers of Miller Lite. I always prefer my watery domestic beer to come in the regal form of a TOWER.)

Before decamping from New York City for a welcome dose of R&R, we had the unadulterated pleasure of seeing Baltimore’s Ponytail. We’ve written about the band before, but at that time we’d only heard their latest album, Ice Cream Spiritual. (And if that ain’t a title worthy of the dirty Jersey shore, we don’t know what is). Like most conscious critics have noted, the Ponytail experience is all about the live show. We were left floored, mouths agape, stupid with glee and sick with joy. The ecstatic caterwauling! The shredding, finger-licking, major key trills of two dueling guitars (and no bass! What do you need a bass for, motherfucker?) We nearly passed out from excitement—or that could have been the thousand degree swelter in D.I.Y. venue Market Hotel, who knows. Either way: Ponytail makes us smile. Some day they’ll tour with Liars—who killed us, killed us, outdoors at McCarren Pool—and then, like some pre-ordained noise rock prophecy, the Rapture can come. (The everyone-getting-sucked-up-into-heaven one, rather than the dance-punk act. Naturally.)

Still, re: aforementioned, Ponytail-induced joy…No one really dances in New York. I don’t dance in New York. I sort of feel like the people who dance are doing so for the wrong reasons, for twisted motivations—to get their picture taken, mainly—and that prevents us from really cutting loose. Sad state of affairs. Do people dance in other cities? I get the feeling that in, like, Portland, kids go buck-ass wild: moshing, crowd-surfing, bouncing off the walls, tearing their clothes off, howling like demented, possibly rabid wolves. We’ve never been to Portland, but that assertion feels about right.

As for the fecal reference in the headline? That wasn’t just for kicks and page views. Andres Serrano—a dude who has previously riled us up with crucifixes in piss, and had neo-Nazis vandalize his work—is back. This time it’s a show about shit. The show is called—wait for it—“Shit,” and it opens in September at Yvon Lambert in New York. “Although the theme is considered taboo,” the press release notes, “excrement has a discernable documentation in the history of art. In 1961 Piero Manzoni unveiled his ‘Merda d’Artista’ metal cans that supposedly contained the artist’s stool, priced according to weight. Karen Finley smeared herself with symbolic feces and even Andy Warhol was quoted in the National Review saying that he would like to market his own excrement as jewelry (he felt it was merely a matter of tasteful packaging).”

Shit as art? That circumvents all possible criticisms—and will surely lead to a slew of badly punning headlines. Well played, Mister Serrano.

Download Ponytail's "Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came from an Angel)" here.

On Zooey Deschanel

nik.mercer — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:27:25 -0700

Regular readers of this space won’t be surprised to learn that Anthem hasn’t chugged the Kool-Aid when it comes to perennial It Girl Zooey Deschanel. She’s cannibalized more glossy magazine covers than Chloe Sevigny, which is why we feel it’s our public duty to counterbalance the gushing, fawning, frothing waves of adoration that Ms. Deschanel is so often bathed in.

It took a cover story in BlackBook magazine to make us flip our proverbial shit and hit the archives to answer a simple question: Is Zooey Deschanel the most boring person alive? BB’s Alison Powell conjures Zooey’s mythical “shyness” to explain why, for instance, she seems incapable of saying anything worth blowing up into a 30-point font pull quote. Yet how, we wonder, does this apparent shyness square with Deschanel’s media ubiquity? What if the journalist-approved “shyness” label is really a cover, designed to mask a vacuous interior as bottomless and incomprehensible as a black hole?

What if this ukelele-strumming, M. Ward-collaborating, vintage dress-wearing ingénue is really just a blank slate, a cipher, the personality equivalent of extra-firm tofu?

For scientific purposes, please consider the following compilation—by no means exhaustive—of Zooey Deschanel’s media quotables. It’s up to you to determine if we’re giving America’s darling an unfair shake, or if she is indeed a vacant automaton spewing press release-approved drivel wrapped in warm triteness and airy fluff. And don’t forget to check out She & Him’s tour diary, which includes exclusive nuggets like “I watch some episodes of Lost. I eat cookies. I feel stupid.”

“I never thought of myself as quirky. I was surprised when people said it.”

Jane Magazine, June/July 2007

"I watched Shallow Hal on a plane once, and I cried, because I was like, 'He likes her even though she's overweight.'"

Nylon, October 2003

"As a child, somebody would do one little thing and I would go nuts. I would freak out when people would tease me. I would feel emotions very deeply. Some of that's still in me, and I get a lot of that out by working."

Nylon, October 2003

“Sometimes I like singing more than acting. It depends.”

“I like to knit and crochet. You have to have something to take the edge off, and as an actor there's either a lot of downtime or no downtime, and you have to stay used to being busy.”

Interview Magazine, March 2003

"I'm not a very shy person, but I was just completely speechless working with Cameron."

Deschanel on working with Cameron Crowe on Almost Famous. Vanity Fair, July 2001

"When I was making [Barry Sonnenfeld's] Big Trouble in Miami, I had all this time, so I was like, Why not make this time like school? So I bought a book of word problems, and I would have a novel and some sort of philosophical book—something by Sartre or Nietzsche."

Vanity Fair, July 2001

“Street musicians make me nervous. I don’t know where to look. I don’t know how to act.”

Jane Magazine, June/July 2007

“I love doing one thing and then the other because they each provide a break. It is nice to have variety.”

Deschanel on her musical bent. BlackBook, June/July 2008

“I’ve always been more comfortable on stage than I am in real life.”

“There is something valuable about mistakes. You want things to be precious and not everything can be.”

“People who have the most courage are actually the people with the most fear. One way of getting control of the fear is to face it head on. The transition into music was a little frightening for me, but it’s more exciting [than acting] because it’s scarier.”

Zooey Deschanel, self-help guru. BlackBook, June/July 2008

“You know, even then I didn't feel like I was being pigeonholed. I thought it was funny that there was a Zooey Deschanel type [because] I didn't realize I was a type. No, I never felt like I was being pigeonholed; I just thought it was funny that somebody had said that. I feel like I've had amazing opportunities to be very diverse in my choices, you know, like I guess if you consider the whole picture of all the different things that I've been fortunate enough to do.”

Deschanel on being pigeonholed and the Zooey Deschanel type from 2003. Premier Magazine, June 2008

“I can change the way I look and seem like completely different people, and it's not necessarily on purpose. I think it's a gift. I think that's what's allowed me to be cast in a lot of different roles."

"I'm trying to quit shopping. It's an addiction.”

"I'm really close with my family. I like eating dinner at my parents' because they're good cooks."

Paper, March 2002

"I hated all the traveling. I'm really happy now that I had the experience, but at the time I was just so miserable to have to leave my friends in Los Angeles and go to places where they didn't have any food I liked or things I was used to."

Deschanel on traveling with her parents for films when she was young. The Boston Globe, Feb. 23, 2003

"I don't want to be a babe. I don't want vanity to ever get in the way, because I think to maintain that, you have to be aware of yourself all the time, and that gets in the way of acting. My job's not to be the beautiful person. My job is to be the best actor I can be.”

The Boston Globe, Feb. 23, 2003

“God, I just don’t want to be bored. It’s like the worst thing when I read a script and I’m like, ‘Oh God, it’s another really boring girlfriend part.’ Or it’s sometimes (in a perky voice,) ‘Oh, it’s someone’s best friend who talks like this!’ I try to do things that are different and interesting to me, and that’s important. I don’t want to work if I’m not interested or challenged. I don’t want to go to work and it have not something that’s exciting about it.”

Deschanel on reading scripts. Cinema Confidential, Oct. 27, 2003

"It was really fun to get to the set and see these unbelievable spaceships.”

Deschanel on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie set. Elle Girl, March 2005

“I drive a Volvo from the 90s. From before it went Ford. And it's safe for the puppies.”

GQ, November 2004

“This is probably the greatest day of my life since Christmas 91. It’s just such a relief that when I open my mouth, sound comes out.”

A dubious statement of fact from Zooey, having recovered from an illness. Spin, 2008.

"I hope some day I can be involved in charity work on a big level. It's important to challenge yourself and do things beyond the work that you're paid for."

"In my everyday life I like to joke and have fun. I do say exactly what I think, though."

"In auditions you have to risk being rejected. So you need a lot of perspective.”

"Even if a project doesn't turn out well or the way I'd hoped or wasn't a fun experience, it all goes into shaping who I am. I always learn from the experience."

"I have to be who I am. And then I get to be someone else when I go to work."

Daily Mail, July 2007

—Additional reporting by Ashley Houk

What's the Point?

nik.mercer — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:34:10 -0700

Mac McCaughan, cofounder of Merge Records, label behind such indie rock darlings as the Arcade Fire:

"The bands we work with, we never recommend that they make videos. I like videos, but they really don't sell a lot of records. What really sells records is touring – and artists can actually make money on the tour itself if they keep their budgets down." [Source: Wired]

While certainly a pervasive and emblematic symbol of both musical and pop culture, it's easy to forget that the only reason music videos developed and blossomed was because they were deemed profitable. When MTV debuted in 1981 it essentially positioned itself as a large, nationwide radio station. If the record labels wanted exposure on America's (soon: the world's) most popular radio station they needed videos. In many ways early MTV was nothing revolutionary: it simply transferred the established radio business model to a new medium, and it was only a side effect that this developed into the very special and very unique art form we came to know as the music video. Unlike the radio single a music video required additional cost beyond that of producing the album itself, but the idea was that the music video would cause enough record sales through MTV exposure to recoup video production costs. However, while this marketing logic is fairly simple the science backing it is largely imperfect: I don't think any record company has ever taken two similar bands and had one do a video and one abstain and then note the results (and even if they did it would be hard to generalize to yet other bands). At any rate videos were seen as promotional, much like everything else in the music industry: a tool to spur record sales, nothing more. And while the videos themselves steadily increased in complexity, extravagance, and thus cost as they fought amongst themselves for attention, they still differed very little from the promotional posters you see plastered on construction walkways and abandoned buildings as far as the accountants were concerned.

Recently the music industry has seen dramatic changes that have begun to shake the very foundation of how the music industry does business. Simply, this shift can be attributed to advances in technology and distribution channels. Album sales have been declining over the past decade, both due to the ease to which albums can be stolen electronically and to the glacial pace and stubborn attitudes that the labels themselves have exhibited towards these new technologies and distribution channels. If history is written by the victors, it has been the technology companies such as Apple that are writing the music industry textbooks as they use music to achieve massive profits while the record labels deal with corresponding declines. With this sea change in the profitability landscape, the record labels have begun to take a new tact. This new age of the music industry of is one of effeciencey and lack of excess. Extraneous costs are cut and profits are maximized. No bloated tour budgets, no outrageous recording expenses, and, apparently, no videos.

The term "loss leader" becomes an important one when discussing the state of music and music videos. In business a "loss leader" is something sold for little to no profit that gets you into a store so you will (hopefully) buy other, more profitable items. 30frames points out that music videos used to be a loss leader for albums, but now albums have transformed into a sort of loss leader for other revenue. Most recently the music industry has turned towards licensing, content partnerships, and essentially extortion to derive a revenue stream from the music they own. So if albums are becoming a loss leader, where does that leave the music video? Having a loss leader for a loss leader is something you do when you want to go out of business. Music videos were never really designed to make a profit in and of themselves. Some point in the music/music video chain needs to involve a kid giving his hard-earned cash to a white man in a suit, otherwise the old system on which the record labels have relied since inception is broken. Right now, quite frankly, everybody else is drinking the record labels' milkshake.

The problem facing record labels in the information age, whether they be one of the four dinosaurs or a small, seemingly noble outfit like Merge records, is how exactly to translate a good song into profit. The solution, in a time of declining sales, is not to "sell more" but to "spend less". MTV the multinational radio station no longer exists, and thus justifying a big-budget music video is no longer the no-brainer it once was. Sure there's still a chance you can get your video on MTV in some fashion, but it's a lot harder and the exposure is a lot less centralized (aka 1/3 of your video will play split-screen over the credits for the Hills). And while the internet aka YouTube is supposed to be the savior of the music video, that particular avenue is thick with potholes and lanes closed for construction. Sure you get distribution to billions across the globe at little-to-no cost but what you lose is any sort of of concrete business model aka that damn profitability thing. A few million youtube hits certainly make a powerful case for exposure, but even the Google hasn't exactly parlayed that beyond basic hit revenue. And then, of course, there's still the problems of piracy latent to all things world wide web.

So the questions remains: what's the point of making a music video?

I think to the artists music videos are status symbols, the musical equivalent of spinning rims on their escalade. If there was some sort of MTV Cribs of the Mind I can just hear a member of the ThreeSix Mafia claiming "You're ain't no real baller unless you got cho'self some music videos, ya' heard?". It's something the artists they looked up to did and it's thus something they feel necessary. Just like publicists, stylists, hype men, and all the other industry excesses that are increasingly being pushed to the wayside. And I think the labels are still somewhat satisfied to indulge this excess as to the label a music video still represents some sort of potential exposure, following the old MTV formula or maybe some newly modified but flawed "YouTube hits" formula. Many of the music video producers and directors I've talked to can attest to the increasing importance of YouTube hits to the labels in relation to music videos.

But I think the financial failure of the music video is a uniquely label-based failure. Some clever suit needs to sit down and figure out HOW to turn the music video into a revenue machine. Somebody needs to figure out how to make music videos a profitable and self-sustaining member of the team. It seems to me that a big chunk of profitability in music is increasingly derived from licensing and publishing. Music videos, on the other hand, are seldom licensed (at best they are copied) and there's no real equivalent of publishing in the music video industry. This needs to change, and it may require something drastic. Until somebody can figure out a way to take a music video and base a video game on it or use them in movies or television, I just don't seem them sustaining as a commercial endeavor. Why aren't music videos showing up in the background while I play Guitar Hero or Rock Band? Is everybody still stinging from Marky Mark: Make My Video? Why isn't Universal playing videos between segments of the Office? Why isn't Sony playing videos along with trailers before their movies? These companies complain about profits but they refuse to sell their damn product. I thought "corporate synergy" was suppossed to be a big deal?

Despite this, the music video itself is still in no danger of going extinct. No matter the dire state of profitability in the music video industry, they will never go away: some film class will always assign a music video as a project. It really is a great excercise in filmmaking: abstract, no sound, short time frame. And young filmakers with great aspirations of being famous, err, I mean, making great films will always be around willing to make videos to get noticed. If film is in your blood the videos are just going to flow out of you on your way to short films and feature length productions. Music video is high school football, and to some people high school football is a big deal. As the music industry changes around the internet I see music videos becoming less and less official. I won't be surprised to see less label and band involvement. Music videos will be by music video fans for music video fans. Will these videos sometimes get co-opted by the band's themselves resulting in a small bit a fame and even money for the producer? Sure. But for the music video ecosystem to support itslelf in any real fashion there needs to be a dependable and fully accountable revenue stream. Youtube and music videos are going to evolve into the same thing: self-made and internet distributed. Nobody is really going to pay for music videos just like people don't pay to look at paintings or photographs or videos of dramatic prairie dogs.

So what's the point of the music video? To answer the question you have to make sure you have the correct definition of a music video to begin with. You have to remember its roots; you have to remember that the music video is a promotional tool. In that sense the the music video is still what it always was: a gateway for music to reach other mediums. And if you look at the music video from that angle rather than the arcane "music on television" definition many are accustomed, things don't seem so mysterious and dire. It used to be the television that was the optimum medium jump but the television isn't the golden target it used to be as our collective eyes and ears have moved on. Video games, for example, are a solid target with a rapidly expanding fan base. The internet is currently the holy grail of targets, but it's so vast you need to work really hard to figure out the where and how before you can even get to the main problem of profitability.

Internet distribution? Video games? Put it together and you just might catch a glimpse of the future, a future Merge Records and the Arcade Fire saw coming before anybody else. A future where the line between directors, designers, and programmers is blurred. A future that challenges the definition of "video" in "music video." The thing to save music videos, just like music, might be letting go of the past and embracing the future.

Mac McCaughan:

"At this point I feel like videos are great for the web, because the web wants content. But it's not something that's going to make anybody any money... It's not worth, for most bands, sinking any money into that. That means there's a ton of content, but most of it... your fans find it, but it's not going to expose you to a bunch of new people on the web."

In 2007 The Arcade Fire and Merge Records released a video for the song "Neon Bible" off their album of the same name. The video is an interactive, Flash-based experience similar to a video game with no real goal. The video received many accolades, including being listed as the fourth best music video of 2007.

The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible (interactive video). Directed and programmed by Vincent Morisset.

[This article, and lots more related to music/video/technology, can be found at Shots Ring Out]

Weezer Ruins the Internet

nik.mercer — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:58:42 -0700

In June, "alternative rock" band Weezer will release a brand new album of their amp simulator crunch and metronomic drums. And for the third time in six records, the album title will be Weezer. I guess Pinkerton and Maladroit were already taken.

Apparently inspired by the new possibilities of Internet promotion, the band came up with a clever strategy on how to make the video for first single "Pork and Beans" into a full-blown Internet sensation: round up all the other full-blown Internet sensations and coerce them into weaving their one-note shtick into the context of Weezer's song. So we get the Diet Coke and Mentos guys combining Diet Coke and Mentos to a humorous effect. Tay Zonday – hot off his Dr. Pepper spokesmanship – sings the lyrics to "Pork and Beans" in front of his now-iconic home-studio mic stand. (While we are on the subject, why does everyone give Zonday such a free pass for selling out his polemic anthem against American racism "Chocolate Rain" to a soda company?) Somebody that closely resembles Kevin Federline, possibly K-Fed himself, shows up behind a mixing board. Miss South Carolina – the "map shortage" girl – wields a light saber à la Star Wars Kid because "failed answers to pageant questioning" is not a sufficiently visual gag.

Although a probably candidate for “Buzz Bin” status, the sins of this video are manifold. First and foremost, Weezer outright stole the idea of "internet memes on parade" from the Barenaked Ladies video "Sound of Your Voice" – which is notably less cool than stealing ideas from old Can records or The Cremaster Cycle.

But there is something more fundamentally gut-wrenching about this "mash-up" of rock music and Internet time-wasters. All of the videos' "guest stars” only managed to ascend to blog-hero status due to a single feat or defeat. I am not being unfair to Tay Zonday by saying he is the guy who moves away from the mic to breathe. As far as the universe is concerned, that is his entire act. Putting all these stray individuals together in the same cramped video is collecting the "I Didn't Do It" Boys of our generation and asking them to painfully mug their one-hit-wonderfulness for the camera.

The Internet has profoundly changed our concept of entertainment, most directly by making every instance of laughably-amateurish performance from all over the globe available for public consumption. Our collective mockery has forged a new class of celebrities straight from the salt of the earth. But the basic YouTube context is crucial: would the "I move away from the mic to breathe" or repetitive melody of “Chocolate Rain” work as scripted jokes or a Saturday Night Live sketch? The humor requires a palpable lack of self-awareness on the part of the actor. Nothing is therefore less funny than having Mr. Zonday come out from behind the computer screen and get in on the joke. With "Pork and Beans," Weezer strangles all remaining joy of our new century's sole cultural innovation by giving these unintentional comics a chance at redemption and self-acknowledgment on cable TV.

Weezer may have meant well. They may have wanted to show solidarity with today’s young nerds. And they can go all the way back to the D&D and X-men references in the lyrics of their 1994 song "In the Garage" to prove the necessary cred on this front. But the use of these new media nerds and their memes in a "music video” does not breed the intended result. Instead of redeeming their guests, Weezer unwittingly reinforces the traditional pop cultural hierarchy. The royal "rock band" has charitably invited these slightly-pathetic YouTube refugees to participate in a televised celebration of their own shittiness. Hey, Weezer could do another video at the Playboy Mansion – they're rock stars, you know – but they thought it would be more fun to take that "Zay Tonday" guy under their wings for a day. I am sure the catering was great, but when the video shoot is over, Weezer goes back to being a rock band with fans and respect and a master key to Hef’s. Tay Zonday goes back to being the "Chocolate Rain guy."

Imagine someone famous in 1994 pulling this kind of public cruelty. Like if U2 thought the whole "generation X alternative rock" thing was a cute fad and invited that flash-in-the-pan band Weezer to do a video where they sing Zooropa's "Lemon" in their "Buddy Holly" style next to contemporaries Beck (“Loser”) and Radiohead (“Creep”). Slackers would have sent blistering missives charging "exploitation" to the letter bag at 120 Minutes for years to come. But in 2008, the interent [sic] is ecstatic about their double-dip of public derision, “Look, we’re on TV!”

If Sum41 or Ashley Simpson or Avril Lavigne Whibley had done a video like “Pork and Beans,” I would give it a pass, because hey, they might possibly believe in their hearts that "This stupid Internet shit is our generation's Woodstock." The middle-aged guys in Weezer, on the other hand, have gotten to that "Uncles of Rock Music" stage, and anything they do with Internet memes is just going to automatically come off as patronizing. Rivers Cuomo is inviting "Mr. 22 million views" Tay Zonday and “Mr. 86 million views” Evolution of Dance Guy to be in a video that so far only has 2.6 million views? What a mensch. If you want to see the real "dawn of the Internet," wait until Weezer is begging to do a cameo in a Tay Zonday clip.

New York Noise

nik.mercer — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:36:19 -0700

Your Senior Editor has finally settled back into New York after a whirlwind April that involved, in no particular order: Tahitian beach huts, kite surfers, 1/2 of Prince's Coachella set, an enormous donkey pinata sitting atop a pool bar, Tiki dancers twirling flaming sticks in a choreographed dance routine, jet lag, general exhaustion, and a whole lot of sunshine.

The best thing to happen in recent weeks was the New York Photo Festival in Dumbo, and we’re not just saying that because Anthem was one of many small sponsors. Looking at modern art can be a soul-crushing affair; the NYFF’s four curated pavilions, on the other hand, made you feel like the kids might be all right. Tim Barber of Tinyvices.com curated Various Photographs, a real-world corollary to his excellent website; small photos taken by relative unknowns shared wall space with heavy hitters like Ryan McGinley, Peter Sutherland, Richard Kern, et. al., with no priority given to the boldfaced names. Barber’s selections were all about weird juxtapositions, a density of meanings crowding the space—a Superman impersonator caught exiting a Port-o-Potty, or Maxim Ryazansky’s picture of a young religious zealot carrying a sign that reads USA = FAG NATION. (She’s wearing a VOTE FOR PEDRO novelty tee and texting on her cell phone.)

Lesley A. Martin of Aperture Books gave her own corner of the exhibition (The Ubiquitous Image) a unique spin; many of the photographers she choose were concerned with the origins, as well as the use and abuse, of found images. Penelope Umbrico covered a wall with snapshots of sunsets plucked from stranger’s Flickr accounts, while Joachim Schmid cut-up Star Trek postcards, call girl cards and election propaganda to make visually noisy collages. Curtis Mann took obscure photos from Lebanon, Israel, and Kenya—he bleached the prints, then added to and disfigured them with clear acrylic varnish and graphite. The end results are ghostly scenes, part fact and part fiction.

Martin Parr of Magnum masterminded a section entitled New Typologies; at first I found it a bit too coldly cerebral, but patience was rewarded. Parr picked photos based on “ordering the world through series of images”—in other words, we cut through the confusion and chaos of every day life by creating, and ordering, sets of photographs that attempt to make sense of it. Jeffrey Milstein’s work involves taking photos of jumbo jet undercarriages (Southwest Airlines has the prettiest.) Ananke Asseff addressed the rise in Argentinean handgun ownership by taking portraits of average citizens, old and young, photographed at home with their weapons. The effect was heartbreaking and hilarious. And personal favorite Jan Banning contributed an extensive series of workers around the world, shot in their own offices. From Texan cops to African accident inspectors, each portrait was captioned with a description of the individual’s occupation and salary, translated into euros; the beauty was in the small details, the clutter and detritus of each individual workspace.

On the music front: Caught Lykke Li's set at Bowery Ballroom—absolutely crush-inducing, thanks in no small part to Li's patented funny/sexy dance routine, like what Britney Spears might conjure if she had a sense of subtlety (and a sense of humor). Left before El Perro del Mar closed out the night; no offense to Sarah Assbring (and kudos for not Americanizing that last name for the gigglers among us), but her downbeat mojo would've been a bit like swallowing arsenic after a bowlful of Prozac. Look for both of these Swedish lasses in a special "on the road" photo diary, hitting stands in July.

Two striking news pieces cheered me up in the recent weeks. The first is a profile of Freeman's impresario, Taavo Somer, and how his brand of rustic, scruffy manhood has colonized lower Manhattan. The other is an excellent rumination on the "stud muffin" status of Flight of the Conchords, who recently played Town Hall (it was funny!). Together they make for a pretty fascinating examination of the fluctuating state of male sexuality; at the very least, they're solid proof that cultivating a beard makes it easier to get laid. Take note.

And finally, the best/worst piece of news to ever hit the PR pipeline: The Real World is bringing its 21st season to Brooklyn. There's no definitive word yet on which neighborhood will be blessed with these 7 strangers picked to live in a house, but the blogosphere is leaning toward either Carroll Gardens or the hipster intersection of North 6th and Bedford. This is awful for many reasons—camera crews clogging up the hipster highway, lame Manhattanites coming to the borough for a piece of "authenticity," etceteras. (Walk by Sea, a Thai restaurant on north 6th once featured on a certain sitcom, and see what Sarah Jessica Parker hath wrought.) However, a good friend pointed out why its brilliant: we Brooklynites can now make a game of finding, seducing, and sleeping with Real Worlders, thereby ensuring we end up on television while having sex. Also, with any luck, what happened in Philadelphia will happen here: blatant aggression from local bars and restaurants, coupled with profligate verbal abuse from neighborhood citizens. Surely Brooklyn can spice up the partially-scripted, alcohol-sodden world of Bunim/Murray; at the very least we can make sure to douse this cast in our, um, creative juices. It's on.