So basically, yeah. Crap multiplies and then subdivides into more crap, eventually even microscopic pieces of bloody shite. And then maybe sometimes some of it is a little less crappy, and those are the gems that get put on the cover of magazines.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
There are no more good hit songs
Top 40 is too formulaic, auto-tuned, compressed and gridded to be decent to listen to. Indie is too unstudied, lacking in hooks and musicianship (self indulgence is never good).
If you take a song from the 50's and song from the 80's, they both have hooks and inspired playing. Even a song from the 90's- a grunge tune- inspired playing, hooks.
Modern Top 40 has hooks- they're weak and passably musical. I guess breakout indie acts- the ones that make it on Apple commercials- are probably the closest blend of quality + hooks I can think of. But, those are all one hit wonders. If an Apple commercial is the new "radio", then Apple is the new "gatekeeper" of the music industry. iTunes is great, but at the very top, at that pinnacle, you have an iPad/Pod/Phone slot. That's the "hit" slot. You get 30 seconds.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Old School Vinyl Album Art
I was just going through some vinyl. I don't even have a record player at home- it's at the studio. But I realized something. Even just looking at the cover art- it was all so real. We're talking abut an analogous process here: light, film in camera, cut-outs, collages, more film, and printing. They accomplished all they needed with relatively simple machines and tools. But most of all, it was human ingenuity.
The realness shines through. At no point was anything taken through an A-D process, or an A-D-A process. No plug ins were used. No computer-aided tracing, drawing, smoothing, post-processing. No leaning on powerful fix-it-in-post tricks.
It all had to be better at the source. And even if it wasn't brilliant, at least it was real.
Maybe this is a case of work vs lazy or real vs fake.
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