It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

When the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the music world was turned on its end. The 1960s, a decade dominated by singles, had suddenly become an album-oriented era. This trend continued through the '70s, '80s, and '90s. In recent years, the art of the album has slowly died down.

But with this in mind, two significant album-related items came up this week. On Tuesday, Billboard announced that Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank moved the most copies of any album last week, totaling 129,000 albums ordered by retailers. To put the significance of this into perspective, the band had never had so much as a gold album until its 2004 release, Good News For People Who Love Bad News. With the new release, Modest Mouse beat out such pop heavyweights as Joss Stone and American Idol's Elliott Yamin and Chris Daughtry.

This news was interesting in conjunction with an article titled "The Album, a Commodity in Disfavor" in Sunday's New York Times. The article details how the album is essentially a dying art in the mainstream pop, hip-hop, R&B and country genres, offering the example of girl group Candy Hill, recently signed to a two song deal by Universal. Two songs? Seriously? Even Universal, which — no matter what the RIAA tells you — is making more money than God, can't afford to risk signing this group to a whole album deal. But in contrast to the more radio-friendly genres, "fans of jazz, classical, opera and certain rock (bands like Radiohead and Tool) will demand album-length listening experiences for many years to come."

Are these two events connected? I say they are. Modest Mouse has gradually built a rabid album-loving fan base, ultimately resulting in two smash hits in a row. A similar thing happened to Arcade Fire, though signed to an independent label, hit number two with its second album, Neon Bible. The same goes for The Shins, whose album Wincing the Night Away debuted at number three without the help of major label support.

Is the album going the way of the buffalo? Maybe, for the RIAA and Clear Channel. But even in the singles era of the 1950s to 1960s, artists like Bob Dylan were relying on the LP to hit it big. I love albums, but I'll welcome this singles era with open arms if it ends in another golden age of music.

You know those guitars, that are like, double guitars, you know?

Over spring break, I went to a pair of concerts, headlined respectively by of Montreal and the Shins. Both bands played great sets, and the of Montreal show was actually one of the best I have ever seen. But, in spite of two great performances by two great bands, the most salient thing from either show was a minor equipment change by one of the opening bands.

Viva Voce is a two-piece indie band originally from Muscle Shoals, Alabama but currently based in Portland, Oregon. They played a pretty blah set, until Anita Robinson—the wife part of the husband-and-wife duo—made another equipment change, pulling a double-necked guitar off the rack and strapping it on.

Sometimes double guitars have a 12-string and a six-string. Sometimes, one neck is fretless while the other is regular. The one Robinson pulled out was a bass and guitar combo.

Sweet, I thought. Most of the songs were primarily her playing guitar and her husband, Kevin, playing drums and maybe a few toys, with a recorded bass line dubbed underneath. Maybe now she’ll play both.

For the first song with the double guitar, she only played the bass part. Then they stopped, told everyone they’d be playing one more song, and proceeded to play, as promised, one more song. On this number, she played only the guitar part.

There was absolutely no reason for her to have had a double necked guitar.

Putting two necks on the same guitar can be extremely convenient if a musician has to switch instruments midway through a song, or if he has to change instruments quickly between songs. Robinson played one neck through one song, stopped, screwed around, and played the other through the other song. Both band members had made a few equipment changes throughout the show, so this premeditated time-saving technique seemed superfluous and served only to say, “Hey, look at this cool thing I have.”

I realize this just sounds like I’m making a huge deal out of a tiny little thing, and that this tiny little thing has absolutely no bearing on the band overall. First of all, if the band had played a great set, this is the type of thing I could probably excuse—but they didn’t. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good enough.

Second, and more importantly, this seemingly tiny little thing is what we like to call a “microcosm,” emblematic of the illusory concept of theatrics in music. The two headlining bands I saw were perhaps the two most diametrically opposed acts I can think of when it comes to on-stage histrionics.

The Shins took the stage, played their set, and left, with little banter or anything in between. For them, it worked. Of Montreal, on the other hand, had a set littered with costumes and props and bizarre performance art for which I can think of no comparison, but for them, it totally worked, because it wasn’t forced. Of Montreal is a whimsical band by nature, and it’s nothing out of the ordinary to see frontman Kevin Barnes ascend a 12-foot ladder, put on a dress, and sing a song as his transvestite alter-ego Georgie Fruit.

But it’s not something every band can pull off. The double neck guitar serves a purpose, but it’s mostly for show, and for an otherwise unassuming band like Viva Voce, it was totally unnecessary, wildly pretentious, and actually, it was kind of insulting.

Steal This Blog

The Recording Industry Association of America needs to back off.

If you want to read a book, you can go do it for free at a library. If you want to watch a movie, you can rent one from a video store. If you want to look at a painting, you can do so for a rather low price (if any at all) at a museum. And yet, miraculously, people still buy books and magazines and DVDs and paintings and prints and posters.

And yes, despite what the RIAA might have you believe, people do actually still buy CDs.

In fact, there has been absolutely no concrete evidence proving any decline in record sales as a result of internet file sharing. There is slight correlational (although no causal) evidence to suggest as much, but there is just as much that will tell you record sells have actually increased since the “Napster Era” began.

Basically, the RIAA has not been able to prove that they’re losing money as a result of internet file sharing (though they’ll probably make plenty of money from the thousands upon thousands of lawsuits they’ve filed and continue to file against, among others, children, dead people, and folks who don’t even have Internet access).

In a perfect world, people would be more concerned with making great music great than with being great musicians and great artists, and in general, people wouldn’t be motivated by money. But, unfortunately, art and money have gone hand in hand for some time. Michelangelo probably wouldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel were it not for commissions from Popes Julius II and Paul III, and Charles Dickens probably wouldn’t have written Great Expectations were he not paid by installment. So if a musician is motivated even partially by money, so be it.

If this is true though, file sharing still shouldn’t be discouraged because, quite frankly, musicians don’t make much money off album sales anyway (though the recording companies make plenty).

Where a musician makes his money—if he makes money—is from ticket and merchandise sales, meaning if an artist really does want money, he needs people to come to his shows. Is it not logical to figure that, if more people who hear your music (whether they’ve paid for it or not), more people will come to your show?

I’m not a marketing expert, and I’m in no position to tell record executives how they should market their bands, but then again, it’s not the musicians who are losing or making money as record sales fluctuate. But as long as the RIAA is going to cry poverty in the name of the artists, they need to start working to actually help the artists.