Honest. I’m not seeking out recycled album cover art! I don’t know how I’ve managed to find reused photos twice in the last 24 hours. Here’s a band from the ’80s of which I’ve never heard called This Ascension with an album titled Tears in Rain:
Now here’s the cover of Oceana by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov:
The image is titled Lady in Water by photographer Toni Frissell. It seems to be a popular image to use on album covers because this site links to the Bill Evans and Jim Hall album, Under Current.
Billboard.biz reports Bertelsmann has left the building. Sony has reached an agreement to buy out the remaining 50 percent of Bertelsmann’s stake in Sony BMG. Ah, whiter Nipper now?
When I was a teenager, there were six major label conglomerates: Columbia, RCA, Warner Bros., PolyGram, EMI and MCA/Universal. PolyGram and MCA became Universal Music. Sony bought out Columbia, and General Electric, which acquired RCA, sold its recorded division to Bertelsmann. Now that leaves, Sony, Warner Music Group, Universal Music and EMI.
EMI and Warner have been trying to merge for years, but neither can seem to get its act together. It’s entirely scary but not unforeseeable that the major labels, plural, will become the major label, singular. In the past, such a merger would have signified the majors’ strong-armed dominance over all things media, effectively squeezing out independent voices.
That’s not the case now. Mergers now seem more about contraction than growth. These businesses operate on a scale too large to accommodate changes in the market. In other words, fewer people are buying CDs, so do we really need four major labels to supply diminishing demands? Bertlesmann, it seemed, didn’t need a crystal ball to figure out its answer.
Wouldn’t it be great science fiction if, after all those mergers, the eventual mega label turns out as a big as every other independent label?
The only thing I really get from Best Buy are Bleach DVDs. (The anime, not the band.) I’ll buy a hard drive or a stick of RAM if the need arises and I don’t want to haul all the way across town for the better selection — and prices — at Fry’s. But for music gear? Doesn’t even register.
Nor do I suspect it will, even as Best Buy expands into selling music equipment. According to the Billboard article, Best Buy isn’t just putting stuff on shelves — stores will set aside actual space so customers can try the gear out.
Huh.
I imagine Best Buy would be a nice place to get some starter gear, as it is to get starter software or basic hardware. But Guitar Center and Sweetwater do a more comprehensive job, and beginners would probably do well just to start there. Best Buy doesn’t strike me as the kind of place that would help customers graduate to more specialized gear.
Back in February, I wondered what happened to Music with a Twist, the major label effort to sign gay and lesbian artists. The label’s site had shut down, its Myspace pages remained unattended and its first signing, Kirsten Pierce, was dumped before her album could be released.
The release of Kathy Griffin’s comedy album, For Your Consideration, pretty much relaunches the label, who now list The Gossip and Griffin as its only acts.
What happened? I’d be reading between the lines and guessing, but if the press release for Griffin’s album is any indication, Music with a Twist is now being run as an independent label using a major label-owned distributor. The release calls the label "Music with a Twist/RED", indicating a relationship with Sony Music’s Relativity Entertainment Distribution. What’s the difference?
When it was first launched, Music with a Twist was touted as "the first major music label dedicated to identifying and developing lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans gendered (LGBT) artists." (PDF link.) Essentially, Sony was putting its own resources into the label. But then Sony went through restructuring, and Music with a Twist silently failed to materialize.
One of the better assignments I was given back when I worked for Austin 360 was covering Tina Turner’s San Antonio concert on what was then billed as her final tour. I appreciate Turner, and I grew up listening to "Private Dancer" and "What’s Love Got to Do with It?" on the radio.
But even without much insight into her work — aside from what’s commonly known by legend — I dug the show. She was damn energetic, and if the large video monitors at the Alamodome were any indication, she has better biceps and triceps than I do.
I don’t know why it crossed my mind a few weeks back, but I thought it would be nice if Turner came out of retirement and did a few more shows. Well, she is.
It’s shocking to think it’s been eight years since that concert. If she’s in as good a shape as she was eight years ago — and by most conventional reports, Turner takes excellent care of herself — audiences are going to get their money’s worth from a show that will most likely be exorbitantly priced.
After successful performances at various festivals earlier this year, ELLEGARDEN announced it would break up, according to Bounce.com. Creative differences were cited as the reason for the break-up, with a statement on the band’s web site stating the members wanted to work on new projects.
ELLEGARDEN had already scheduled a number of festival appearances when recording sessions for a new album broke down. The band honored their commitments before announcing its dissolution. ELLEGARDEN seemed to have a lot of momentum, with a successful performance at SXSW a number of years back, followed by the US release of Riot on the Grill and Eleven Fire Crackers.
Myself? As much as the rest of the SXSW crowd dug the band — especially the short bit of Weezer played during the sound check — I wasn’t convinced. Then again, I’m no fan of Weezer either.
Guardian blogger Tristan Jakob-Hoff reinforces a perception about film music I’ve heard for years — film music is not equal to classical music. When I was an intern for CRI, the label received a proposal from a guy who worked in film. It wasn’t his first time to send in a proposal. My supervisor shrugged and explained to me why the CRI committee would never take him seriously. Because the creative direction of film music is dictated by the needs of the director, it doesn’t really qualify as thoroughly composed work.
That’s probably not a convincing argument for some folks, but I’ve never really warmed up to soundtrack work because some scores really need the visual aspect to grasp. At least it seems that way to me.
A number of commenters on that post point out that under Jakob-Hoff’s definition, ballet and opera would be excluded from classical music. What comes first, though? The music or the choreography? As for opera, a libretto without music is pretty much a play. But in the case of film and TV, the score seldom ever comes first. All the President’s Men doesn’t even have much of a score to speak of.
So yes, I tend to side with Jakob-Hoff in this argument, but I don’t totally buy it either. Some scores stand on their own, and in the case of Interview with the Vampire, the score is better than the movie.
I appreciate the Advocate for being perhaps the only publication to cover gay issues as hard news. I certainly wouldn’t turn to Out or DNA for that. And yet, I also turn to the news weekly to learn about gay musicians, which is kind of like turning to Newsweek or Time to figure out what the kids these days are listening to.
The magazine just published its 2008 music issue, and it’s got some terrific interviews with Broadway actor Cheynne Jackson, indie pioneer Bob Mould and dance music ally Moby. It also listed five emerging LGBT artists. Such recommendations tend to be hit or miss, mostly miss.
This time, the Advocate put its stamp of approval on the Shondes, Los Super Elegantes, Jake Walden, Team Gina and Steven Alvarado. So I did the 21st Century thing and jumped onto Myspace to check these artists out.
Waterloo Records holds two storewide sales every year — one after SXSW, and another before the Christmas rush.
Somehow, they seem to coincide with dry spells, when I’m not particularly covetous of anything in particular. When the sales are over, then I’ll realize, "Huh, I kind of wanted to get that." So I’m making a shopping list.
[UPDATE, 04/06/08, 11:26 PM] The sale is over, and I ended up with pretty much everything I wanted. Thing is, I didn’t actually buy some of these items from Waterloo. New comments are in italics.
![[This Ascension: Tears in Rain]](http://www.gregbueno.com/images/extras/thisascension_tearsinrain.jpg)
![[This Ascension: Tears in Rain]](http://www.gregbueno.com/images/extras/golijovosvaldo_oceana.jpg)
![[Elliott Carter: Figments and Fragments]](http://www.gregbueno.com/images/extras/carterelliott_figmentsandfragments.jpg)
![[Steve Reich: New York Counterpoint/Eight Lines/Four Organs]](http://www.gregbueno.com/images/extras/reichsteve_newyorkcounterpoint_full.jpg)