Every Spoil Is A Style -

A fresh start for 2021…

I have felt for a while now that it was possibly time to restart blogging; something (on a personal level) I’ve not done since around 2014 or thereabouts.

So, whilst the old blog content remains (and makes for an interesting read all these years later where industry commentary is concerned!), the blog has now moved to a new domain with a new design too.

Why “Every Spoil Is A Style”? The name is the title of a chapter from one of my favourite books: Michael E. Veal’s Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae. It was a phrase used to describe dub, and it massively resonated with me as someone who prefers the imperfection in things in general. From every mistake, every mis-step, potentially comes something new and wondrous. It also speaks to the contrarian in me, loving as I do to swim in the opposite direction to the masses in a bid to find the next opportunity or space to establish something.

With that in mind, returning to writing in 2021 seems somehow right. It’s an itch that needs scratching, and for me re-establishing the old WordPress-powered blog rather than whichever trendy platform is in vogue right now also feels satisfying. I built a company on pushing artists to empower themselves as much as possible, and so now I’m just adhering to that same philosophy.

I am aware that for some people, visiting a website is something they might plan to do, but often forget about. So, add your email to the Subscribe box and you will receive new articles straight to your inbox as soon as they’re live.

Onward!!

Music Industry, Tech

The Spotify Playlist Problem

Screen Shot 2014-06-25 at 10.49.56 Let me start this article by saying that I love Spotify. Great company, great team – and lately, rather ironically given the naysaying of Thom Yorke et al, emerging as something of a potential music industry saviour when you look at the machinations of Google, Amazon and other tech giants, who seem fairly intent on driving the value of music down to zero. So, to summarise: I’m a big fan.

Having said that, I feel there’s an awkward question that has to be asked, namely: why, in Spotify’s Browse section, are 99.9% of the playlists Spotify’s own?

If you’re not familiar, Browse is the “uninformed” discovery section – the editorial area where Spotify can push playlists of its choosing. At the top are more day-to-day relevant playlists, and further down are various mood-related starting points which then offer a variety of playlists to choose from.

Here’s the Browse section today (click to enlarge):

Of all the playlists shown there, only the BBC’s Playlister one in the centre isn’t made by Spotify.

Continue reading “The Spotify Playlist Problem” →

Music Industry

Don’t Blame Radio 1: How An Obsession With Stats Is Damaging The UK Music Business

This article first appeared on Drowned in Sound on May 30th 2014

BBCRADIO1 A recent article for The Guardian went behind the scenes at Radio 1’s playlisting meeting, chatting with those on the current selection board and generally revealing how decisions on what’s goes on there are made. Unsurprisingly, social media stats get referenced a fair bit, with YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other public data being considered when discussing whether or not an artist should win a spot on the station’s playlist. Whilst exceptions are made (Clean Bandit are referenced as an example, where online stats remain low but R1 has still opted for support), by the end of the article the writer concludes that “it all feels so soulless”, lamenting the days when Peel could play what he wanted and took risks.

(I think the first myth to debunk here is that Peel ever represented the output of Radio 1. Whilst Peel was blowing my mind with weird combinations of Napalm Death, The Fall and even a band called Mousefart, the primary output of The Nation’s Favourite was still “characters” like Dave Lee Travis and Simon Bates. Whatever state Radio 1 is in now, I think we should remember that once upon a time the daytime output included a man who built a career on a sound effect that went “Quack quack oops!”. But I digress…)

For those of us working in the music industry, Radio 1’s obsession with public stats has long been a bone of contention. The main reason is because at different times it felt like that focus on the public stats was myopic. There’s also been whispers that labels were buying “fans”, views, likes or whatever other metric was rife, with marketing departments simply putting down £100 for 100k views so their plugger could then rock up to the R1 producers and excitedly squeal “just LOOK at those numbers!”.

Continue reading “Don’t Blame Radio 1: How An Obsession With Stats Is Damaging The UK Music Business” →

Music

Must watch: Dean Ween on Guitar Moves

As a morbidly addicted guitar head, I’ve been loving Noisey’s excellent Guitar Moves series over on YouTube. Some are decent, some are frankly a bit poor (the one with Billy Gibbons and Kid Rock, where the ZZ Top legend is basically stumble-down drunk, is a fine example). This one with Dean Ween is a keeper though. I’m a longstanding Ween fan so of course it was going to appeal, but I don’t think you need to be to enjoy this particular episode. My favourite part is him saying that everything he plays is either drawing upon the Allman Brothers’ Blue Sky (for upbeat solos) and Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain (for introspective, moody solos). Its ace – take a watch:

Album of the Week, Music

Album of the Week #3: edIT – Certified Air Raid Material

I first discovered edIT when a friend of mine recommended I check out his first album Crying Over Pros For No Reason, which Planet Mu released in 2004. Pros was a staggering piece of work: whilst Glitch as a scene has long since worn itself out, edIT was always a class apart from the rest. His first album is almost devastatingly beautiful, delivering fragile, broken-hearted glitched electronica that was just utterly mesmerising. My good friend Laurent wrote a stunning piece over at FACT mag, explaining why its one of his favourite records of all time – take a read when you get a mo.

So why am I choosing edIT’s followup, Certified Air Raid Material over his debut? Because its pretty much where edIT took the gloves off and aimed squarely for your head with monstrous, tight production and a fairly nonstop flow of top-dollar belters. Its as if edIT sat there and thought “Oh you want it full-on? YOU GOT IT”. With the opening intro skit “I Slay Crowds” the man born Edward Ma sets out his stall – and when it leads into “Battling Go-Go Yubari In Downtown LA”, the intent is clear here: edIT’s come to blow your head off.

Continue reading “Album of the Week #3: edIT – Certified Air Raid Material” →

Album of the Week, Music

Album of the Week #2: The Band – Rock of Ages

Mention The Band and the first thing people will mention is The Last Waltz, the now-legendary live performance involving not just The Band but a host of guests – and, evidently, no end of cocaine, with Neil Young’s infamous ‘white booger’ debacle now being as famous as the music itself.

Here’s the thing though: to me, The Last Waltz is nowhere near as good as most claim, and indeed over the years I think its become something of a case study in one member of a group (in this case Robbie Robertson) meddling with a release and attempting to rewrite history. Robertson allegedly insisted that he get preferential treatment in the edit of the film, leading one site to call it “The Robbie Robertson show, starring Robbie Robertson with music by Robbie Robertson”. Bottom line? It felt like the whole thing was fake; fixed and tweaked here and there to suit the frontman and no one else. To me its not the sound of a band locked in and playing their hearts out; its all a bit… staged.

So, where The Band are concerned my favourite album – live or otherwise – is without a doubt Rock of Ages. Sporting arguably the worst cover in the history of music, this record may just be the finest live album ever released. This was The Band in their prime: full of swagger and groove. Hell you only have to listen to their opening gambit of Don’t Do It to hear a perfect example.

Continue reading “Album of the Week #2: The Band – Rock of Ages” →

Album of the Week, Music

Album of the Week #1: Swell – Well?

Often in music, my journey – like most I suspect – is quite linear. You get into a particular genre or sound, then proceed to plough that furrow for some time as you soak up all you can. Around 1992 I was very much immersed in the US indie sound of the day – perhaps less around Sub Pop and more other labels like Amphetamine Reptile, Dischord, Touch & Go and Simple Machines among others. Whilst a majority of my friends were largely into Ride and other UK indie, I was all over Fugazi, Jawbox, Helmet, The Jesus Lizard, Girls Against Boys etc.

And yet, as we all know, just once in a long while something comes along that blows your mind. The best ones are never hyped or raved about in the press; they’re the verbal recommendations you got from someone like a secret password. In 1992, it was all about tapes and tape comps getting passed around between friends, where you’d stumble onto a song that stopped you in your tracks and left you thinking “I have GOT to find out more about this lot”.

Enter Swell, whom I stumbled upon in precisely this manner. A friend of a friend had done a stellar tape comp and, as befits the time, I soon wound up with a second or third generation copy. The original compiler of the tape had incredible taste and this comp pulled together all manner of unknown gems and artists that would go on to be recognised as legends. Amongst this though, Swell’s one song leapt out at me. It was called “Get High” and it was from the band’s first, self-titled, album.

Continue reading “Album of the Week #1: Swell – Well?” →

Geek, Music Industry, Tech

Revisiting the Facebook reach debate

The debate around Facebook Pages and their organic reach has been ongoing for years now, but it always spikes again when Facebook themselves cop to the fact that organic reach is changing or that their algorithm has changed in some manner.

The latest development is an apparent admission on Facebook’s part that Pages will now see organic reach drop to “between 1-2%”. For what its worth, previous organic reach was around 6%, and two years ago I remember telling bands I worked with that 10% was probably a sign things were going well – anything more than 10% would be a bonus. So, let’s be clear: Facebook organic reach has never been all that great.

Now though as we drop nearer and nearer to a zero figure, it rightly leaves many wondering why they bother. Just last week, Eat24 announced they were deleting their Facebook Page citing the hopeless reach as a factor.

I certainly sympathise. Let’s be clear: I’ve never been of the view that we all deserved unlimited reach with our Pages. However the ideal always felt like a balance of sorts, with day-to-day posts achieving decent reach (provided they were good) and ‘milestone’ posts (which in the context of bands would mean new single/video/album/tour) getting promoted to ensure maximum reach not just to fans but to broader audiences too. There was logic to this: it ensured a good flow of decent content to fans (which in turn kept them on the site, thereby benefiting Facebook as well) whilst also ensuring that Facebook would see money for promoting those key posts to broader audiences.

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General

Motorik Beats

cover_43432117102008 I found myself jonesing for some Motorik beats having played Neu’s mighty Hallogallo. One quick google search for a playlist of some kind landed me on this brilliant article on The Quietus.

Having read it, I noticed that Spotify was – at the time of compiling the playlist back in 2009 – missing some of the tracks. So, I recompiled it to add in the missing songs here.

Its ace – check it out if you can. Quite funny to read a claim that Bowie used motorik beats only to then have the evidence (which is 100% spot-on) presented to me via the playlist. Ditto Ultravox and The Human League!

Motive Unknown, Music Industry

Music vs The Web: Have We Reached Social Media’s Tipping Point?

This article originally appeared on Drowned In Sound.

Its been a bumper year for Facebook, on paper at least. Recently they announced that year-on-year revenues were up 60%, with advertising revenue up to $1.8bn. Their daily active user count rose 25% to 728 million people. At this point then, you’d think it would be high-fives all round, with Wall Street giving Zuckerberg and co a hearty pat on the back.

And yet, shortly after this announcement, more than $18bn was wiped from Facebook’s stock value. The reason? One, short sentence: “We did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.”

Herein lies the problem for Facebook – and indeed any tech company looking to take the IPO path: when advertising is your core product, at some point the balance will tip, driving users – usually starting with the younger ones – away.

Put simply: in order to make money, Facebook must serve ads. In order to make more money, Facebook must serve even more ads – almost certainly putting them on a collision with a critical mass point, where people burn out completely on ads and, at the very least, stop clicking on them or, as is the current case among teens, find other services to use.

Continue reading “Music vs The Web: Have We Reached Social Media’s Tipping Point?” →