music

Decibel Magazine’s Year-End Issue

Deci­bel Mag­a­zine’s year-end issue is a mon­ster dis­ap­point­ment. It’s been a bad year for pub­lish­ing — just check out this offer to see how bad it is for writ­ers — but Deci­bel’s year-end issue is usu­al­ly some­thing worth­while, an oasis of inter­est­ing music writ­ing in a hol­i­day sea­son — a desert of awful great­est hits albums, Christ­mas albums, and stan­dards record­ed by wiz­ened pop artists.

This issue was ema­ci­at­ed 96 pages. It was a bad year for met­al, or at least it seemed that way to me. When I am famil­iar with most of the top 40 met­al albums, I know some­thing’s amiss. (I haven’t paid seri­ous atten­tion to met­al since I accept­ed my cur­rent gig. I still love the music; I’m just not seek­ing it out as much.) The top ten fea­tures the usu­al sus­pects: that Dis­fear record that came out ages ago; the oblig­a­tory Opeth nod; rel­a­tive upstarts Made Out of Babies; Bal­ti­more­an black met­allers Nacht­mys­tium; and mind-bog­gling­ly awe­some pop met­allers Torche. The list is so under­whelm­ing that Torche does­n’t even rate a cover!

It is worth not­ing that my favorite Japan­ese doom­say­ers Coffins rat­ed the 40th spot for their 2008 joyride, Buried Death! Hails!

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these peo­ple danc­ing on print medi­a’s grave. Heck, I’m ask­ing for Beer Advo­cate for Christ­mas! Our house­hold is lit­tered with print media. That’s part­ly why I can’t real­ly wrap my head around what made all print media decline so rapid­ly, and why mag­a­zines I’ve loved (and worked for) fade so fast.

I know print­ing and mail­ing costs have risen, but that does­n’t explain how peo­ple declared their inde­pen­dence from print overnight. They’re not all auto­di­dacts are they? They still want to read all kinds of lists and have things rec­om­mend­ed to them by author­i­ties of one sort or anoth­er. Where are peo­ple find­ing that sort of con­tent, if not in mag­a­zines that have pro­vid­ed it for gen­er­a­tions? Have their audi­ences real­ly become so Inter­net savvy?

Music Industry Shrinkage

I’m catch­ing up on the starred items in my Google Read­er and as I sift­ed through posts about awe­some can­dy bars to Rosselli­ni, I came across this item from Idol­a­tor about how quick­ly the music indus­try is shrink­ing. Now I’m sure that my for­mer self could’ve nav­i­gat­ed the Bureau of Labor Sta­tis­tics for clear­er num­bers, but there’s some­thing that comes up in Mike’s post that inter­est­ed me: the notion that at some point of labor equi­lib­ri­um, the music indus­try will return a profit.

The idea that the music indus­try is still bur­dened by the bureau­cra­cy that grew dur­ing their boom years is a pop­u­lar one. One imag­ines beau­ti­ful peo­ple attend­ing par­ties and doing lit­tle else in gild­ed offices in New York and Los Ange­les, with exec­u­tives doing laps in vaults like Scrooge McDuck.

Of course, if you’ve been to a major label’s offices in the past few years, you’ll find quite the oppo­site. When I vis­it­ed Uni­ver­sal/Is­land-Def Jam to hear Mari­ah Carey’s E=MC2, I was shocked to find spar­tan cubi­cles orna­ment­ed in lit­tle more than pro­mo­tion­al posters and the odd gold or plat­inum record. The office was staffed almost exclu­sive­ly by young peo­ple — very young peo­ple — most younger than me.

This is pure­ly anec­do­tal evi­dence, but I think the music indus­try is being man­aged in much the same way any busi­ness look­ing to scratch out a prof­it is: rely on cheap, young labor and hope for the best. “Cut­ting the fat” may help, but what does one do when all the fat’s been cut? Worse, what hap­pens when you cut the fat only to real­ize that those peo­ple would’ve been bet­ter used to build new busi­ness that’s been neglect­ed for lack of ded­i­cat­ed staff?

(Here’s an idea of their des­tiny in the New World Order.)

The Thermals Sign to Kill Rock Stars

I got the press release that the Ther­mals signed to Kill Rock Stars just as I got home from the office. I think it’s great that they were able to stay on a clas­sic North­west label, but it seemed more strange that they would­n’t re-up with Sub Pop.

Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, Swedes Loney, Dear — a band signed in the post-“Young Folks” hys­te­ria — recent­ly depart­ed Sub Pop as well. Not to get too pulpy, but is there more to this than meets the eye? Loney, Dear were poor­ly reviewed and their Sub Pop debut, Loney, Noir, was a stinker. But the Ther­mals seemed to be the sort of act that Beg­gars Group would’ve poached in a heart­beat just a few years ago.

I’ll stop beat­ing around the bush: I’m shocked that a band like the Ther­mals would end up on such a tiny label at this point in their devel­op­ment. I know the music indus­try is bad, but labels like XL are still sign­ing bands and reis­su­ing albums a year after every­one in the blo­gos­phere down­loaded them. But that’s just business.

Think of it anoth­er way: if Deer­hoof — a band that crit­ics once show­ered with praise — does­n’t gen­er­ate heat a month after drop­ping their new album, Offend Mag­gie (7.6, no less), can they work a band that may have out­lived its hype cycle? At this point in his­to­ry, it does­n’t even seem to mat­ter if a band is hit­ting its stride. Every­thing is yes­ter­day’s papers the moment it leaks.

Don’t believe me? Read this pul­lquote in the Pitch­fork news piece from this after­noon and tell me it did­n’t make you wince.

Video: Kanye West — “Heartless”

I was talk­ing to Mark this after­noon about the state of the music indus­try, some­thing we do from time to time, usu­al­ly when I’m cer­tain that it’s final­ly reached rock bot­tom. There’s some­thing fore­bod­ing in the Novem­ber release cal­en­dar. If this year is real­ly the music indus­try’s last gasp, then Novem­ber will be its death rattle.

Who isn’t releas­ing albums in Novem­ber? Justin Tim­ber­lake. He — and the tire­less Rihan­na — are the only major stars who come to mind that aren’t squeez­ing albums into 2008’s Q4. It’s shock­ing. I keep going back to Mau­ra’s post that sug­gest­ed that this could be a sign that the end is nigh for mul­ti­mil­lion­aire artists and the com­pa­nies that back them. Is this it?

If it is, there’s only one album that I’m even remote­ly curi­ous about in the hol­i­day glut of new releas­es. It’s Kanye West­’s 808s and Heart­break. Few artists have such a total­iz­ing aes­thet­ic. Mr. West syn­the­sizes cool ideas unlike any oth­er artist work­ing at his lev­el. Time and time again, I’ve looked for any rea­son to dis­miss his work as pas­tiche, but to do so would be a big mis­take. Kanye West bor­rows, steals, and co-opts styles unlike any­one since Madon­na, sniff­ing out trends and taboos and ele­vat­ing them to the mainstream.

Watch Kanye West­’s new video, “Heart­less.” His cool­ness is undeniable.