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T. Townsend Brown
The Incorrigible Iconoclast
“To create a new paradigm we must refrain from putting energy into the current one.” – Fred M.
Linda Chorney - Grammy Nominee
When I first read this story about an unknown and unheralded singer-songwriter who worked an internal NARAS social network to secure a Grammy Award nomination in the Americana category, I wasn’t sure what to think.
But after reading some of the reactions to the effort, I know exactly what to think: You go, girl.
Recapping for those of you who may not be familiar with the story: Linda Chorney is an “independent” (i.e. no label support) singer-songwriter, touring performer and recording artist from Sea Bright, NJ (just over the bridge from my own home town of Rumson!) who has been working the circuit around the world for over 30 years (believe me, I know the type). As first detailed in this account in Daily Variety:
The resourceful Linda Chorney secured a Grammy nomination in the category of Americana album for her self-produced, self-released “Emotional Jukebox” by taking her mission directly to voters, employing the peer-to-peer function of the Recording Academy’s own site for members, Grammy 365.
Many in the tight-knit Americana community have reacted quizzically, and sometimes vehemently, to Chorney’s nomination, which trumped several well-known artists in the genre.
The whole phenomenon raises all kinds of interesting questions, starting with whether or not Ms. Chorney’s recording conforms with the definition of the category she was nominated in, “Americana.”
The concept of of “Americana” really defies any clear or simple definition. The Americana Music Association, which considers itself the guardian of the genre, defines_Americana as…
“…music that honors and is derived from the traditions of American roots music. It is music inspired by American culture traditions which is not only represented in classic man made / roots based sounds but also through new and contemporary artists whose music is clearly inspired by these great traditions.”
Since its inception in the late 1990s, “Americana” has come to encompass a broad range of musical styles. Rosanne Cash probably put it best when she said from the stage at the 2010 American Music Awards show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium that “Americana is where they put you when you don’t really fit anywhere else…”
By that definition, Linda Chorney’s CD “Emotional Jukebox” certainly qualifies as “Americana.” So why are so many in the Americana circle so bent out of shape that Ms. Chorney has secured a Grammy nomination in their category?
The indignant reaction reinforces the simmering, sub-surface criticism of some observers who regard “Americana” as its own insular little world, dominated by a new generation of uber-insiders — despite its origins in the “alt” corner of country music. These critics observe that certain names that are close to the nucleus of the genre keep coming up, and winning awards year after year. Case in point: Buddy Miller has won so many “Instrumentalist of the Year” awards that one disgruntled commentator suggested after this year’s awards show that the time had come to rename the category ‘Buddyana.” Continue reading
Hard to imagine, I know, but every now and then I read something that sums up the State Of The Arts far more succinctly than I have ever done with my rambling missives. Today I wish to share two such somethings with you, my vast and loyal readership.
There are two sides to this “music business” equation (a proxy for all business, really) that are effected by evolving technologies. There’s the creator/producer side, and then there’s the user/audience side.
Again, the easiest nomenclature for the user/audience side would be “consumer;” Then we could just call the two sides of the transaction producers and consumers. But the distinction is important: particularly where “digital” music is concerned, there is no “consumption.” Consumption applies, to, say, grapes: when you eat a grape, that grape is gone. It has been consumed. But when you listen to a digital recording, or even purchase a track from a server somewhere, nothing is “consumed.” The original is still there.
I keep stressing this bit of pedantics because I firmly believe that thought processes are formed by language. Vocabulary determines perspective and maybe even attitude. That’s why I keep reminding readers that “Internet radio” is an oxymoron, and you can’t paste a “label” on a stream of electrons and digits. But I digress…
From the user side of the equation, it was encouraging to read this assessment of the burgeoning new market for “cloud” services from Jon Pareles, a senior music critic at the New York Times:
I can’t wait. Ever since music began migrating online in the 1990s I have longed to make my record collection evaporate — simply to have available the one song I need at any moment, without having to store the rest.
That’s the promise of “The Celestial Jukebox” that I have also been anticipating since the mid 90s – “whatever you want to hear, whenever you want to hear it, wherever you are.” As Pareles points out, we still wait for “the bastards to let us.” Continue reading
I first learned of Jonathan Coulton a couple of years ago when “Code Monkey” was playing on XM Satellite Radio. Then I started reading about his “Thing A Week” program, where he released a new song every week for a year. These elements plus what sounds like a rather arduous tour schedule has put Mr. Coulton at the top of the indie singer/songwriter scene, to the point where he was cited recently on NPR’s Planet Money podcast for having earned something in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars from his music in 2010. Not bad for a guy with a guitar and laptop.
In his own response to the NPR reporting, Coulton took issue with some of the points, like the part that compared him to a Snuggie, and whether or not the way he run his business might be applicable to other musicians trying to build a business in the digital firmament. In comments posted to Hypebot, he makes these observations:
[because of the internet]… We now have an entirely new set of contexts and they come with a whole new set of tools that give us cheap and easy access to all of them – niche has gone mainstream. It is no longer necessary to organize your business or your art around geography, or storage space, or capital, or what’s cool in your town, or any other physical constraint. And this is not to say that anyone can become a moderately successful rockstar just by starting a blog – success is still going to be a rare and miraculous thing, as it has always been. There are just a lot more ways to get there than there used to be, and people are finding new ones every day.
Whether or not Coulton’s “business model” can be applied more broadly to other artists, there is still a lot to learn from how he has found a way to prosper amid the shifting tides.
But if that’s not really interesting to you, just watch the video:
Whatever Apple is planning, "The Boss" will be part of it now that Sony has signed on.
File this one under” useless speculation.”
Because, while the news is intriguing, it really is pointless to speculate what Apple is planning to do with these licenses until they actually announce whatever it is they are going to announce.
Personally, I will be woefully disappointed if, after all this time (a year and a half since acquiring Lala.com), all Apple comes up with is a better “cloud storage” locker.
If there is no “subscription iTunes” component, Apple will have lost an opportunity to be as disruptive — and ahead of the curve — as they were with the original iPod and iTunes.
I don’t think Apple is motivated by their potential to be “disruptive.” I think they’re motivated by a clear sense of where the holes are in the market and their driving their digital truck right through it. So I remain hopeful that Apple is finally going to do what needs to be done, and pave the way to a viable subscription service.
And make now mistake, as disruptive as iTunes was when it started offering 99c downloads, a subscription service will be as disruptive again. So fasten your seat belts, and let’s just wait and see what Cupertino is going to come up with.
36 Hours In The Sausage Factory
The Perfesser Goes To Washington
According to Google (the world’s foremost authority on everything!), it was the great German statesman Otto Von Bismarck who first likened the process of legislation to the process of sausage making. “If you like the law, and you like sausages, you should never watch either one being made,” Bismarck supposedly said.
And now, having spent the better part of two days running around the Exalted Halls of the United States Congress, I think I know exactly what he meant.
The purpose of this week’s guerrilla strike on the Nation’s Capital was to talk with the legislative assistants of numerous Congressmen and women about recently introduced legislation intended to deal with the the legacy music and film industries’ decade-old preoccupation with the dreaded bogey man known as “online piracy.”
The junket was arranged by Public Knowledge, a “public-interest advocacy organization dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons.” In other words, an advocate for keeping the Internets open and functioning more or less freely. Public Knowledge is among the agencies and organizations that have taken a leading roll in opposing the proposed legislation, and I and some colleagues were invited to come to Washington to help make their case.
The actual invitation to make the trip came from Alex Curtis, a staff attorney for Public Knowledge who has been in Nashville for the past year helping the next generation of “content providers” navigate the shifting currents of the new digital frontier under the aegis of the “Creators Freedom Project.” For the past several months, Alex has been acting as consultant of sorts re: the social marketing of “The 1861 Project,” so when he asked if I’d make the trip with him, I was more than ready to go.
Along with Alex, I flew to Washington with singer/songwriter and digital music marketing guru Charles Alexander, another songwriter, musician and web developer, Michael Lovett, and Nick Hardy, the manager of a group called Parachute Musical that is another Creators Freedom case study. Once we arrived in Washington, we were met by Libby Koch, another singer/songwriter from Houston. As we learned when we were handed the agenda for the following two ways, our hosts had aptly dubbed the expedition the “Musician’s Fly-In.”
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The first thing you need to know about the sausage factory in Washington is that each of the two houses in Congress – that would be the Senate and the House of Representatives – drafts its own version of a bill. And — as one of the staffers we spoke with said quite matter-of-factly — almost “all legislation is introduced at the behest of some industry or special interest group.” And, often the first draft is actually written by somebody representing that industry or special interest. I feigned shock at this news. My attempt at a joke was completely lost on the staffer. Continue reading →