David Emery Online

Indie Schmindie

I’ve been thinking about the concept of indie record labels all week after an article on the Guardian about everyone’s favourite currency-related rapper 50 Cent signing to “independent distributor Caroline”. Now for those that don’t keep up to speed with the coming and goings of the many, many major imprints Caroline is Universal’s entry into the much burgeoning “Label Services” sector (which it isn’t anything at all like Co-Op was previously so I don’t know why you’re thinking that), and offers a range of services from distribution to marketing to publicity and all the other things that a label does.

They’re a fine bunch of people and I’m sure they’ll do well, but does that sound anything like something you could call independent?

No I thought not.

Now this isn’t really the Guardian’s fault as looking around the same phrase is picked up elsewhere, so I imagine was on a press release. On reading it I was, as I’m sure you are now, apoplectic with rage (insert sarcasm emoji here) but it got me thinking – ok, they’re obviously not indie, but what exactly is the definition?

Wikipedia has a fairly reasonable definition:

An independent record label (or indie record label) is a record...

X Meets Y

I hate writing about music.

Chiefly I, myself, take great displeasure in writing about the stuff, but then also quite frankly – and with no disrespect to anyone reading who does write about it – I am no fan of any writing about music.

I mean, what is it good for?

Permit me to backtrack and clarify slightly; I do not mean any writing that has anything to do with music. Interviews: fine. Features: fine. News: fine. What raises my heckles is writing that is actually about the music itself.

If I never read about a “hypnotic baseline” or “x band meets y band” or “difficult second album syndrome” again it will be too soon. Can you remember the last time you read an album review that didn’t resort at some point to some formulaic cliche? And again: what is it good for? Gone are the days where to decide whether you wanted to buy a record you had to read a review and hope that the journalistic reinterpretation actually bore some relation to what the bloody thing sounded like.

Now: just listen to it. Decide for yourself.

Of course, you need a filter, and reviews still provide some vital sense of filtration, even if the...

Boring.

The Internet is fatigued.

Or, to be more accurate and a little less snappy; people that work on the Internet are fatigued. Tired out. Bored.

We are in an interesting time when it comes to working in digital. Digital used to be an exciting wild west, where new completely revolutionary sites, apps and devices would materialise out of the either on an extremely regular basis. We used to be the trail blazers, getting glimpses into a future that was once the preserve of science fiction books and films.

I remember trying to explain Twitter to people when it first came out – why it was worth participating in – and it was practically impossible. It was a whole new concept, and that was exciting.

But now Twitter is 6 years old. It’s still just as interesting and useful a medium now – if not more so – then it was at the start, but it’s not exciting any more, is it? If you’re working in digital yes, advances in ad targeting, or photo previews in the timeline, or any of the other features Twitter have added recently might be useful to your job but they’re not going to get you out of bed in...

Luck and Magic

Stats are dangerous.

You know how your parents would tell you off as a child if you tried to stick your fingers in a plug socket? Yeah, stats are like that.

There’s an obsession in certain parts of the music industry, particularly in digital marketing, with stats. Metrics. Percentage increases. Growth.

“Engagement”

Mostly this is like sticking a light bulb in your mouth, poking around the socket with a screwdriver and then flicking the “on” switch. You might think you’re going to get some illumination on the situation, but you really really don’t.

There are two key reasons why stats in the music industry are misleading to the point of self harm: luck and magic.

Firstly, then; luck. The tricky thing about how the whole music game works is that no one actually knows what they’re doing and why anything really happens. Sorry if this comes as a shock to anyone, I don’t mean it personally. It is true though. To break an artist there a million and one things that have to happen, most of which no one has any control over. You can certainly make it so those things don’t happen of course, and you can increase the chances that they do (a little),...

The Music Industry Didn't Die

I've been watching books.

Or rather, not.

For the last week or so on my daily zig-zag across the capital I've been trying to spot people reading books. I think for the purposes of informal but informative data collection I've got a good sample size, across morning commutes, day time train jaunts and late night bus rides. The full spectrum of people reading in public except, say, a lazy lunchtime spent underneath a tree disappearing. But close enough to do.

And how many books did I see?

One.

One lonely, battered copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on a dank and humid tube carriage. I suppose if you were to see a book in the wild there must be a not insignificant chance that it would be from J K Rowlings' repertoire.

One book then, but that's of course not to say that their weren't people _reading._ And in a multitude of different ways and forms. I was originally planning to count up all the assorted devices being used but I lost count, for shame, but the key word is "devices" - in this very modern tip-of-the-iceberg sample group, the book is dead. Not dying; done. The knife is firmly in the hand...

The Haircut

For men of a certain age, and with a certain quality of hair, there comes a time when going for a haircut takes on an additional level of seriousness.

You watch the barber intently. Look out for the “look”. The look that indicates precisely the same thing as that sharp intake of breath from a car mechanic: “I have news that you know is coming but you’re not going to like it”.

This time, maybe you’re fine.

You escape haircut intact, demeanour preserved. But you know one day, you’re going to get the look – or even make the look yourself for those of significant conviction – bite the bullet and accept that you have finally succumbed in the battle with your receding hairline.

It’s. All. Got. To. Go.

Your haircut is important, isn’t it? For something so easily changeable it becomes a persons signature, defining them in a multitude of differing ways. Even changes aid that definition; sticking with one style for a long time says as much about a person as changing it all the time. Conservative and comfortable, experimental and indecisive. Something in between.

For the record, this time: no look.

This is my last week working for Beggars Group.

It’s been...

Paris Abandoned Railway Line

More photos on Flickr here, and for a bit of background read more here.

How To Sell Out

First things first: there is nothing wrong with making money from art.

I thought we should establish some ground rules before getting into it properly. To make sure we’re all on the same page. So, making money is cool, right? Without money, a significant amount of art would be impossible, with only rich trustafarians left to squeeze out deep and meaningful expressions of whatever their pricey education and expensive drugs have lead them to believe in.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. You just wouldn’t want only that, would you?

Money from art is ok, then, and I’d even be happy to extend that to making ‘lots’ of money being ok as well. Success is alright in my book, reaping the rewards of doing what you believe in doubly so and if you’d rather your favourite artist was a bit worse off so they were more ‘authentic’ then, well, fuck you quite frankly. I think it’s a fundamental misconception that wanting to be successful, being business minded and – for want of a better word – lusting after wealth is in somehow disingenuous with being an artist. The two things aren’t coupled together.

Or, at least, they don’t need to be.

There...

The music industry doesn't need solving

Last week I got in an argument on the Internet.

I know, I know; I should know better.

It was an argument born out of frustration. To summarise: Amanda Palmer, who I imagine most of you have heard of but if you haven’t is a musician of some note and has had great and widely reported success with crowdfunding, wrote a public letter to Morrissey about how he should crowdfund his next record. This letter, entirely unsurprisingly, is full of exaggerations and faulty logic to make crowdfunding seem like the only viable option.

Hence, of course, my frustration. Picture, if you will, someone intently reading on a laptop, the glow of the screen illuminating their lips as every few moments either a disgruntled gasp or a muttered swear word escapes them.

My frustration with this particular article is not actually the point of this piece – I’ll get to that in a minute – but revolves around the notion that anyone can just put something on Kickstarter, tweet about it and as if by magic watch the money roll in, all the while tittering gleefully to themselves about how record labels and shops are dinosaurs and how this is the true future...

Arts

Permit me, if you will, to wonder out loud for a moment.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the “arts” and how they intersect, join and influence each other. Music and films and art and theatre and videogames. Videogames are probably the easiest to isolate and look at the influences; as a young industry they’ve cribbed their ideas and concepts from what’s pre-existed, most obviously from movies.

Compare not only the release of a big franchise game like Grand Theft Auto to that of, say, a new Tarrentino flick – with the vast marketing campaign, launch events née premieres, reviews, et cetera – but also the content itself, overflowing with cut scenes, known actors voicing key roles, and story lines half-inched from things you’ve watched before. Not to say this is a bad form of entertainment, of course, but it’s doesn’t major well for new experiences.

A good argument could be made that maybe now, with the rise of the burgeoning indie game scene and the popularity of platforms such as the App Store with their low barriers to entry, we are starting to see the games industry find its true feet and step out from the shadow of mediums that have...