Charles on… anything that comes along

There’s a powerful meme going around, especially on Twitter, pointing to examples where people have taken the vocal tracks of famous songs and then got Songsmith to write the music, which is what it’s designed to do.

So you get Stairway to Heaven, Roxanne, and a whole stack here by Dan.

Lord, it’s horrible. Which led Justin Williams to ask

WTF was Microsoft thinking with Songsmith? Here’s it does White Wedding by Billy Idol. Just unbelievable

Yes, what was Microsoft thinking? Well, let’s start. Someone thought “Apple does a music app.” (Garageband, below.) “We should do a music app. Apple’s one lets you create stuff. We should make it easier. We should write the backing - we’re smart. OK. Tunes follow a structure.” And then “what people sing follows a vague structure.” And then “we can fit the tune around the singing.” And then “what they sing becomes the structure.”

It’s enormously clever; but as the examples all show, utterly stupid. Songsmith has no notion of what a great melody, nor a great accompaniment is; indeed, it doesn’t understand melody, only the idea of progression through a structure. What the person is doing becomes essentially irrelevant; they’re just an input. Listen to enough of these ..creations and you start to notice a certain sameness to them that isn’t there in the originals (obviously). Everything is hammered flat. The surprising harmonies of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band? Not got those. The plangent arpeggios of Stairway to Heaven? Nope. The buzzsaw guitar of Jonny Greenwood, determined to break up Thom Yorke’s sweet-sounding chorus to Creep? No idea what you mean.

And to answer Williams’s question, what was Microsoft thinking? It was thinking what it always thinks. Reduce the human element to an input, put it in a box and make everything exist only in that box. Remove the space for human creativity that hasn’t been thought of already by the programmers. Think inside the box.

It’s pure enterprise (as in, big company) thinking, applied to one of the art forms that has been with humans for millennia. No wonder people are astonished and can’t stop pinging it around the intarwebs (for it has to be said, Songsmith is getting the most fantastic publicity - you’d think it was an Apple product).

It’s intriguing. Apple has Garageband, which is a tabula rasa, the original blank slate, that offers you fills and guitar and piano twiddles, but you have to do the creative act of putting the song together. (I’ve always thought it makes it too hard to create a long piece; why can’t I just say “I’d like to have something four minutes and 30 seconds long with this drum track, set it up please”?). Even pros use Garageband.

Songsmith takes away the blank slate. In its place it… tells you what it thinks you’re thinking. It is scary. I’d love to know what Microsoft’s engineers really thought before they released it into the wild.

And, of course, whether anyone will release a song “written” by Songsmith. Something tells me not.

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Popjustice rather neatly puts its finger on the problem with Zavvi going bust (as a result of Woolworth’s EUK, its distribution arm, demanding money sooner in order to cover its own problems):

You can complain about Zavvi as much as you like - and we have done - but its disappearance from high streets is terrible for music. With Woolworths also going, it means that supermarkets will overnight become even more powerful not just at dictating what music people buy but also - this is the important bit - which artists record labels sign and what music they produce.

Supermarkets running the British music industry is good news if you’re in Il Divo, or if you’re Duffy, or if it’s your job to keep repackaging the same 400 songs in an endless cycle of Valentine’s Day / Mothering Sunday / Love At The Movies compilations, or if your idea of alternative music is the new Razorlight album. But if you like anything else, or if you’re a current or future popstar making anything else, you are in for a difficult few years as major label A&R departments aim for the lowest, blandest, risk-freeiest common denominator options, and a generation of future music fans grows up listening to the results.

Tower, Fopp, Our Price, Woolworths, all the other independent places you used to buy music in a few years ago, now Zavvi: gone. What a load of old shit.

Which means we’re going to get more things like the dire version of Hallelujah that was our Xmas X-Factor No.1 - which, as Chris Edwards points out, indicates how folks like Simon C don’t really care for music, do ya?:

the X-Factor has not let us down by spraying both cheese and saccharine over a song that does a whole lot better with just a slice of lemon.

…

At first, Burke’s version seemed OK. Strip it of the baggage that goes with the X-Factor and you have a cover that isn’t all bad. Whoops, thought that thought too soon. Suddenly, the producer found the Dion-a-Tron and cranked it up to 11.

It’s crap. Utter Simon-inspired crap. Thinks that the title means it’s a song of celebration. Tell me, please, any music-biz readers of this blog, what edgy, inspired, unusual music has Simon Cowell ever nurtured into being?

Update: ah, here’s Simon Cowell’s Desert Island Discs. Well, that doesn’t tell you a lot; after all, a person’s DIDs are more about the things that they grew up with than the things they create (or nurture) now. Although I have to say that when I get invited on (you can laugh now) there’ll be some King Crimson, Queens of the Stone Age and Alanis Morrisette in there, as well as T.Rex and Slade. (Wow, that’s five already out of the permitted eight.) So yeah, perhaps it does tell you something.

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On Thursday night I heard Coldplay being interviewed on Radio 4’s arts programme Front Row. (I was making the school lunches.) The interview was conducted by John Wilson, one of the three presenters, and the two Coldplayers present - “frontman Chris Martin” (as we must know him) and drummer Will Champion.

They got the drummer along to do an interview about the music. Says it all really.

But the thing was that they acted like complete and utter twunts. From start to finish. Champion sounded like a sixth-former who thinks he’s funny. Martin made Andy Murray, the tennis player being lampooned on ITV’s Headcases as the misery phone line (”I saw a cat being run over.. it was horrible” delivered in a gloomy Scots voice), sound like a shaft of bright, helpful sunlight.

Let’s remember: this is an interview to publicise their new album, the one which has been called “the most important of the year”. By Guy Hands of EMI. Not by anyone else. Because listening to the single, it sounds like more of the boring same that they slipped into with their third album.

Now, Wilson may not be the most penetrating interviewer, but he can get people to talk when they’re prepared to talk. Compare and contrast his interview with Kate Bush, who was prepared to talk about things, even through Wilson’s puppyish enthusiasms, and engage.

Instead, it seems that Martin walked out of the interview after nine minutes.

Why? Because Wilson had the temerity to ask him some questions.

When asked about a speech he made at a music awards ceremony in 2005 where he said the band would be away “for a very long time”, Martin said: “I always say stupid things and I think Radio 4 is the place that will most remind me of that.”

Seems a reasonable enough question. But no, what does Martin want?

Presenter Wilson questioned whether the new album - full title, Viva La Vida Or Death And All His Friends - was a morbid reflection of the band’s lyrical obsession with death.

“I wouldn’t agree with you there at all, no,” said Martin.

“I’d say you’re journalistically twisting me into saying something I don’t really mean.”

No he’s not, you self-important git. He’s asking you a question about something you said very publicly. You’re free to disagree. It’s called conversation.

A few minutes later, Martin said he was “not really enjoying this” and that he did not really like “having to talk about things”.

That’s kind of a problem if you’re publicising your album. So tempting to ask “Well, by this stage - the fourth album - Radiohead was making OK Computer Kid A (thanks Paul Waite), Led Zeppelin made Led Zeppelin IV, Muse made Black Holes and Revelations, all pretty strong albums. (Well, you could quibble about the Muse one. Actually, point out that the Muse one is weaker than the two that preceded it.) Do you think this measures up?” (OK, that might be a touch provocative. Feel free to add stonking fourth albums in the comments!)

Or even “Did you go about the writing process in a different way? Were you trying to write a different kind of music? [Because you completely failed - CA]” But no, Wilson didn’t get the chance.

Hearing this, though, one has to think: there’s no chance I’d ever buy another Coldplay anything. I bought their first album (after sampling it on the original Napster - ah, memories) and thought Rush Of Blood to the Head was great. The next one, though, complete aural stodge. And I’m sure this one is too. But after hearing their unperformance when they should be trying to inform, if not please, their (potential) listeners, I’m certain: even if they were giving £5 notes away with every track, I wouldn’t have it in the house. Sod off and FAIL. Maybe it’ll teach you humility.

You’ll notice the interview isn’t in the Editor’s Pick at the Front Row page. Colour me unsurprised.

At the Guardian, Elizabeth Mahoney weighs in:

First, how much I’d like to see Martin - if a weird mingling of existential realms were possible - in Surallun’s boardroom, telling him instead of Front Row presenter John Wilson, that he really doesn’t like “having to talk about things”. Second, how none of us is ever going to love a fragile celebrity buckling under the pressure of nothing more than a pre-recorded interview, especially one as mild as the Front Row encounter. Third, how much I’ve always winced, listening to Martin in interviews, thanks to his lame attempts at kooky humour, and that it was a relief in some ways that he’d walked out. And fourth, more positively, what a fine show Front Row is.

And on John Wilson… Ian Shuttleworth comments on that blog post:

Back in the days of Kaleidoscope, John Wilson once mistook me for Athol Fugard. More precisely, he called Fugard “Ian” and spoke to him about my segment, and since we were the only two guests in the studio, then by implication surely I *must* have been the legendary South African playwright… I cherish that moment.

Other comments? “Phew - Coldplay are rock and roll after all,” says Mark Mulligan of Jupiter (ironically, methinks).

Oh, and do feel free to tell me about great fourth albums of our time. (Update: durr - how remiss of me to forget Queens Of The Stone Age, whose amazing Era Vulgaris is still them but expands what they do in all sorts of sonic, tonis and rhythmic areas. Josh Homme = genius in my book: listen to any of the songs and then imagine yourself sitting down with a blank sheet and coming up with any of those riffs (particularly I’m Designer). Compare and contrast with Coldplay. End of.)

Update: John Harris reviewing it on Newsnight. He really, really hates it.

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Unease at filesharing crackdown

The government’s threat to force ISPs to police illegal sharing of copyright material is a music industry victory but a worry for everyone else

A sample:

Now, the music industry has used its lobbying muscle with the government - which is always happy with an industry that employs thousands and generates millions of pounds in taxable revenue - to force ISPs to sit down and create a new framework to choke downloading.

By contrast, ISPs don’t employ thousands and don’t generate millions in export sales. In some ways, it’s as simple as that.

Why Apple’s secretive approach is so effective

It turns out that there may be very deep reasons why Apple’s secretive approach entices us so, and Microsoft’s doesn’t

It’s based on some intriguing (and not yet fully published research) but it goes suggest why vapourware works, if you’re dominant, and perhaps why the AppleTV - preannounced (remember?) as the iTV - didn’t set the world alight.

Tech Weekly podcast: Video Bloggers and Alternative Realities

A look at entertaining technologies this week: interviews on video blogging with the people behind Diggnation, Boing Boing and zefrank, and the makers of the Torchwood Alternative Reality Game tell us how they put it together. And Moo.com take a ride in the elevator to make a pitch.

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Technophile

MusicStation is how sounds on the go should be: cheap, easy and offering a wide range of tracks

And it really is - this is a subscription service on mobile which works, really well. The incredible thing will be if any of the mobile providers think that they can make their pay-to-download systems work. (Vodafone offers this, and I think it should quickly bury the whole music side of Vodafone Live!.)

I know people trot out arguments about music subscription - if you stop paying, all the music vanishes! Oh no! But look, if you like the music that much, then you’re getting to listen to it all the time you have it. (And if you want it in some other context, you can pay for the CD or individual track.) If you don’t like the music enough to actually buy it, then you clearly don’t care much if it vanishes with your subscription.

The benefit here is that you can sample tracks or albums without worrying that it’s costing you (there aren’t even data charges) and the record labels get a cut each time you play a track (not just download). So I’ve paid my tithes towards Robert Fripp’s fortune in the past week or so.

The real argument in the past has been that subscription services don’t work very well, and they aren’t portable. This is portable, and it works really well. It’s a no-brainer: if I was out of contract, I’d think this a strong reason to switch to Vodafone, at £2 per week. It also means you don’t have to spend on an iPod or other MP3 player - in itself, saving you some money, surely.

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Reading Nick Carr’s splendid rant about the idiocy of those who think that iTunes and its ilk are the apotheosis of the music industry, because “they have split music down to its component piece.. the [individual] track” brought together a couple of thoughts for me.

The other evening I went to a friends’ house, where they were giving a recital - a string quartet. As they’re professional players - one half of the Alberni Quartet, in fact - and one of them was playing a Stradivarius, and as supper was laid on as well, you could say that it was about as good as “going round to a friend’s house to listen to some music” gets.

Interestingly, they played two complete pieces (Mozartr and Schubert) and then, as a sort of mini-encore, played the fourth movement of Ravel’s F major quartet. I love the piece (particularly the second movement, but hearing the fourth on its own was almost jarring.

(Enjoy the second movement. Go on, you’ll like it, even though it’s not the Alberni doing it:

)

But classical players are a shrinking pool. Except… ask yourself, what precisely do they do? Re-play music written by someone else, precisely. Which is exactly what tribute bands do. There are dozens of them - read last Friday’s Guardian article, the copycats who got the cream. And they go out and they slog away, re-playing music written decades ago in some cases, note-perfect, intonation-perfect.

And the names are so splendid. Green Dayz. B-Muse. I think I’d enjoy the job of lead guitar in B-Muse. The guitar work’s not that hard. It’s just the vocals might be a stretch. And I’d have to wear a syrup. And stand in a trench. But at least with their repertoire, you could cook up a storming gig every night.

Weird to think that rock music has created its own spinoff classical universe. But that’s what classics are, aren’t they? The group doing repeating Genesis’s Supper’s Ready is doing a 20-minute piece, one-off, and the audience will know if they go the slightest bit wrong.

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We watched Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is without doubt the bravest person I’ve seen on film in millions of years. And hysterical.

But to move from watching that - from between our fingers - to the judging and point-allocating and general toshness of the Eurovision song contest, which now seems to include everyone who doesn’t have a coast adjoining the Pacific Ocean, was simply to move from the sublimely ridiculous to the completely ridiculous.

Though I think Terry Wogan is falling out of love with the competition. He couldn’t bear it, I think - seeing his old, old friend being turned into some sort of eastern European plaything. Aw.

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I’ve grown to love Joni Mitchell’s music; it’s a gradual thing where you discover that she just couldn’t do a bad song. Well, she could, but then she did a great one to make up for it. And the other thing is that people do really rubbish cover versions of her songs, in general. Which is what has made the release of an album of cover versions of Joni Mitchell songs - A Tribute to Joni Mitchell (iTunes Store) or the website itself, where you can listen and compare the songs. Oh dear.

For example, Bjork says “The first record of hers I discovered was Don Juan’s Daughter; I was around fourteen, fifteen and I knew it by heart (still do, every instrument, every noise, every word).”

Except as Andy Kershaw apoplectically pointed out on the BBC’s Front Row arts program, it’s called Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. And Joni’s version is just miles better.

OK, so kd lang has a great voice and has done some nice versions on 49th Parallel. But in general, covers of her songs just go nowhere because they don’t have her swooping voice.

Except for Nazareth’s version of This Flight Tonight. You’ve not heard of it? Not surprising. It was in 1973. I remember it really well because I was just a kid, really into the charts, and the sound of it (and the drumming pattern, which is what I was into those days - four on the hi-hat per beat sounded so radical) is just amazing. It really sounds like being in a tiny crate of a plane in the blackness with the lights down below. And very heavy.

To quote Nazareth’s history site:

it was their knack of coming up with totally fresh covers of strong songs written by other people that broke them abroad. They became huge in Canada after This Flight Tonight soared up the singles charts there, whilst reaching number 11 in Britain. Taken from Joni Mitchell’s 1970 Blue album, Nazareth’s version – produced by Deep Purple’s Roger Glover as part of the Loud’N'Proud sessions - is more than a re-working. What they’ve done is taken the song from its folk-ballad roots right through to heavy metal. Small wonder then that Joni Mitchell both was stunned by and loved this version, reportedly even calling it a Nazareth song from then on.

Here it is on iTunes - thanks, macuser.

The weird thing is that the Joni Mitchell original (at the iTunes Store) does sound rather watered-down compared to the Nazareth one, which has all sorts of weirdness going on in the background. There’s only a small number of cover versions which are better than the original. And there’s only a miniscule number of people who ever do a better version of a Joni Mitchell song. But this, amazingly, is one.

Travis did a good cover of “River”. But I can’t think of any others where the cover is better than the original apart from Nazareth’s. Any offers?

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Alanis Morissette. She became famous for apparently having no idea what irony was, when she wrote a song called Ironic in which she described loads of situations asking “Isn’t it ironic?” and they weren’t. Like a spoon when you need a fork, rain on your wedding day, etc.

But now she’s got a dictionary. Oh, man, she has. She’s covered the Black Eyed Peas’ horrible “My Humps” (sample lyric: “My humps, my humps, my lovely lady bumps” - it’s a sony whose multifold depth has puzzled pretty much nobody at all, though if you do find it puzzling the video will clarify). In her own, slow, plangent way.

The result: brilliance. She has copied the video style, the hairstyle, the lack of style in the original and simply torn it very slowly apart just by singing it as though she were singing one of her own songs.

It’s absolutely brilliant - if you’re reading this on the web page, here’s the embedded video:

For those of us who thought L’Alanis had lost her edge since under rug swept, well, she’s still got something going.

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So G4 have split, citing not that old problem musical differences, but rows (about what?) and the desire to stay friends.

Er, what?

To quote the Daily Mail’s We’re an X group because we fight so much, says G4:

The quartet have been living out of each other’s pockets for the best part of five years after meeting at university, busking together, appearing on the ITV series, making and promoting three albums, then touring the world three times.

After a string of heated rows which have frequently verged on the physical, the four went to see their management company two weeks ago to say their fourth tour would be their final one.

Their record company tried to persuade them to make another album together, but they all decided they would be happier concentrating on their own solo projects.

Yea, I bet the record company wanted another album - it’s all upside for the labels. Group breaks up? “Your last chance to hear!” Or just sell it as back catalogue.

One has to feel they haven’t been doing that well out of the music business. After all, as one commenter to the story noted, the Rolling Stones have been not getting on for decades, but all that cash somehow proves attractive.

So G4 become the second group ever to split up over, er, musical similarities. (Go on, name the other one.)

I gave them two years from February 2005. They managed two months more. I’ll take that as near enough to call a win.

One other thing about the Daily Mail story:

He added: “We have had a great two and a half years. We’ve sold a million-and-a-half albums and will have done four sell-out tours, Going their separate ways: The boys of G4 (from left) Jonathan Ansell, Matthew Stiff, Mike Christie and Ben Thapa and we don’t want to cheat our fans by not being able to give G4 110 per cent commitment.

Read it carefully, and you notice there’s a phrase in the middle that doesn’t make sense. It’s the caption to the photo, but the Mail’s CSS, or something, hasn’t quite done it right. Tricky stuff, this interweb.

(Thanks to Crawford for the tipoff.)

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