Archive for December, 2010
OK Go’s Damian Kulash explains today’s music business
For a decade, analysts have been hyperventilating about the demise of the music industry. But music isn’t going away. We’re just moving out of the brief period—a flash in history’s pan—when an artist could expect to make a living selling records alone. Music is as old as humanity itself, and just as difficult to define. It’s an ephemeral, temporal and subjective experience.
For several decades, though, from about World War II until sometime in the last 10 years, the recording industry managed to successfully and profitably pin it down to a stable, if circular, definition: Music was recordings of music. Records not only made it possible for musicians to connect with listeners anywhere, at any time, but offered a discrete package for commoditization. It was the perfect bottling of lightning: A powerful experience could be packaged in plastic and then bought and sold like any other commercial product.
Then came the Internet, and in less than a decade, that system fell. With uncontrollable and infinite duplication and distribution of recordings, selling records suddenly became a lot like selling apples to people who live in orchards. In 1999, global record sales totaled $26.9 billion; in 2009, that figure, including digital purchases, which now represent 25% of sales (nearly 50% in the U.S.), is down to $17 billion. For eight of the last 10 years, the decline in revenue from record sales has gotten steeper, which is to say the business is imploding with increasing vigor.
Music is getting harder to define again. It’s becoming more of an experience and less of an object. Without records as clearly delineated receptacles of value, last century’s rules—both industrial and creative—are out the window. For those who can find an audience or a paycheck outside the traditional system, this can mean blessed freedom from the music industry’s gatekeepers.
Read The New Rock-Star Paradigm by Damian Kulash in the WSJ.
Readers’ Bloc 2010: the Ad Men edition
David Guerrero is the Chair and Chief Creative Officer of BBDO-Guerrero. Here he is running the stretch of the croisette during the Cannes Ad Festival.
Photo from Adobo Online.
If I were David I would not go anywhere near the beach. Twice, on the beach, he has been attacked by wild animals. In Phuket he was bitten by a snake, in Boracay he was bitten by a dog. What next, a lost shark?
David is the publisher of the annual arts and culture journal Manila Envelope, which I edit. Manila Envelope # 4 features writing by 13 young Filipino novelists, our definition of “young” being “born after The Beatles changed the course of history”.
The Beatles, Manila, July 1966. They were invited to Malacanang Palace by the Marcoses, they didn’t go, they were attacked by goons at the Manila International Airport. Oh and they weren’t paid. I learned about the incident from Eric Gamalinda’s novel, Planet Waves.
Manila Envelope 4: Best of Young Filipino Novelists will be out early next year. Read the sampler. I confess that I snuck in an excerpt from my novel, which will never be published for the simple reason that I don’t like it. Forget about it, I’ll write another one. (The writing is easy, it’s what to write about that kills you.)
David’s 10 + 1 favorite reads from 2010:
1. I enjoyed Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. A satirical novel portraying a future America—completely sold-out to the Chinese.
2. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen is a ‘serious’ work that deserves respect. A close-up view of a couple’s marriage over 20 or so years.
3. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is the true story of an immigrant family finding themselves wrongly accused by the law after Hurricane Katrina.
4. The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson is a wry exploration of Jewishness in England. A rare ‘comic’ winner of the Booker.
5. Dubliners by James Joyce. I think Dublin in the 1900s bears more than a passing resemblance to Manila in 2010.
6. David Ogilvy’s biography, The King of Madison Avenue by Ken Roman. It’s Mad Men, the reality version.
7. The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This was ruined by the film. But powerful beforehand
8. Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus. One of the few non-fiction books I got through. A great story.
9. Then we came to the end by Joshua Ferris. A novel about a bunch of people getting made redundant in an advertising agency. Mad Men 2010 USA.
10. (Most of ) 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. I really couldn’t wade through the descriptions of all the murders in the second section. But rewarding nonetheless.
11. Finally, LMG. Well I would say this one. (David published this book about his father, the writer and diplomat Leon Ma. Guerrero.) So I put it in my top 11.
LMG the book is available at National Bookstore.
This week’s Jock With A Book
. . .is stuck in traffic, as are many of our readers. But he’ll be here. Feel free to speculate on who he is and what he’s reading. In the meantime have a look at
Cat With A Book about Jocks.
Cat With A Stack of Books.
Nerd With Her Optometrist. That’s Nella Sarabia, who’s been my optometrist since 1996. Her shop is at the UP Shopping Center, telephone 4355685. (Incidentally if you do not have a current UP ID you can only enter the campus through Carlos P. Garcia Avenue. The other access points have gates now.) Nella’s great-grandfather was the first Filipino optometrist.
The frames are Ray-Ban Wayfarers (available at Adora), prescription lenses by Nella. My first non-vintage non-thrift shop/flea market/curio store eyeglasses. Happy Solstice to me.
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Federer-Nadal had an exhibition match for charity in Zurich. Roger picked up Rafa at the airport. They hung out.
Thanks to scheherazade for the alert.
A. Aww, that’s nice. Great rivals who are friends.
B. Are they beginning to look alike?
C. If the guy picked me up at the airport…Aba sumosobra na yan!
“You keep saying the past is not even past”
From hanging out in bookstores so much I don’t even have to look at the books anymore, I hear them calling out to me. Hey Jessica you love this author, remember, you couldn’t get off the train because you didn’t want to stop reading.
So I was buying Rugby for Dummies because one can only do so much bluffing, and when I joined Ricky at the music section I distinctly heard two voices say “Hey Jessica.” I’m sure it wasn’t schizophrenia because the schizo voice in my head has a Russian accent and the message usually involves death. These voices had different accents, one American from the south, and one British. I turned my head and the album cover socked me in the eye: Lonely Avenue, 11 songs by Ben Folds and Nick Hornby.
Ben Folds I have loved since I saw his former trio the Ben Folds Five on Conan playing Battle of Who Could Care Less. I heard the line, “See I’ve got your old ID and you were dressed up like The Cure” and instantly I was a fan. My favorite Ben Folds Five song is Selfless, Cold and Composed because at one time there really was someone to whom I wanted to say, “You just smile like a bank teller blankly telling me, Have a nice life.” Trust me, if you are kind of intense, never fall for a calm person who will not throw the toaster back at you, it makes you feel psychotic.
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As for Nick Hornby–hmm, I like the movie adaptations, especially the one where Bruce Springsteen turns up. I know how Hornby got this gig: in his book 31 Songs he included Smoke, the most gorgeous song I’ve ever heard about breaking up and books.
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(Oddly the Ben Folds Five song that got the most airplay locally was Brick. About a guy who drives his girlfriend to the abortion clinic on the day after Xmas.)
So the next step was a Folds-Hornby collaboration, which I think is unnecessary because Ben Folds doesn’t need help with writing lyrics. But my friends and I were just talking about how downloading music has killed the concept album and what do you know, here’s a concept album. With a 152-page hardcover book containing four new stories by Hornby and photos by Joel Meyerowitz. Which I will review later because I have the overwhelming urge to revisit the Ben Folds discography.
I hope they paid Jeff Bridges a kazillion dollars
. . .because Tron Legacy is crap. It’s hideous! Of course we knew it was doomed, I mean a sequel to Tron?? But this is even dumber than we expected. Visually it’s a tedious mishmash of bits ripped off from other movies, notably Star Wars: A New Hope. . .which came out even before Tron did!! As for the dialogue, bring earplugs.
We’re supposed to be impressed because the filmmakers digitally erased 20 years from Jeff Bridges but all we can say is, Put them baaaack! Better to add 20 years to Jeff Bridges that have him look like a plastic version of Miley Cyrus’s father the Achy Breaky Heart singer.
Kermit cringed when the otherwise dependable Michael Sheen turned up as the worst David Bowie impersonator in the history of wigs, and Chus howled at the topshot with diabolical laughter cliché. As for the futuristic technological stuff: They use discs!! And then the programs assemble and Clu (younger Jeff Bridges) gives them a big motivational speech—They’re programs!! They don’t need motivation!! In the first place his speech should’ve gone like this, 01010011101001 etc.
To compound our aggravation we realized that The Fighter had opened without our knowing and was showing next door aargh.
Tron: Just don’t.
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