Fingertips

New Fingertips contest: win the four-disc Hall & Oates box set

2009-11-12T11:05:00.002-05:00

So there's a new Fingertips contest online and yet I just found out that my server is down, and there's no quick fix. Bummer.

So instead of linking you to the Contest page, as per usual, I'll put the details such as they are up here in the blog. The show must go on and all that.

So, okay, pondering the career of Daryl Hall & John Oates made me realize how rather fascinated I am by the hipness cycle in music. You know how it goes: a musician gets "too popular" at some point and therefore turns dreadfully unhip. Stays unhip for a goodly number of years. (There's probably a formula for exactly how long the unhipness lasts, depending upon the length of the popularity.) And then, as if by magic, something gives. Just a little at first. A few intrepid sorts start admitting in public that they like the guy (or band) after all. Or despite of it all. Or something. Soon enough, the "they're so unhip they're hip" dynamic kicks in big-time. Everyone lines up to say how much they've always always loved them. Other musicians clamor to record duets with them. Tribute albums are born. Box sets sell briskly. And now you hope they just live long enough to earn something from the resurgence.

One thing that usually strikes me about this whole cycle is that the musicians in question hardly ever deserve either the crazy popularity they once enjoyed or the awful slagging they got later for being so terribly horribly unhip.

Daryl Hall and John Oates certainly never deserved banishment. What, exactly, was the crime--they were too successful? Their songs were hits too often? (They did score 22 Top 20 singles; the best-selling duo of all time, if you must know.) Let's listen with our ears, shall we? These guys were good for quite a long time. Maybe their success was a bit over the top but still: not their fault. This is not a "guilty pleasure" (and by the way, I do not like the whole idea of "guilty pleasures," but that's another story). This is good pop music. And, in Do What You Want, Be What You Are, a good amount of it--it's a four-disc box set.

I have one box to give away. With apologies to international visitors, you must first of all be a resident of the United States. To enter the contest:

Send an email to prizecloset at fingertipsmusic (don't forget the dot com) with "Hall & Oates" in the subject line.

In the body of the email, please write:
- Your favorite "unhip" band or musician (I won't tell anyone); and:
- Your first name and last name, because, as usual, if you're going to win, I'm going to need to know. Anonymity has its limits.

Please use an email address that you check regularly so if you win, you'll be able to find out. You'd be surprised by the number of times I try to contact the winner and they've disappeared into the misty ether of the internet.

There will be only one winner (U.S. only!; just a reminder), who will be selected at random from eligible entries.

The deadline for entry is Wednesday November 25. The drawing will take place shortly thereafter; only the winner will be notified.

Farewell to the Casual Music Fan, part two

2009-11-11T07:38:00.002-05:00

Here's the second part of the long commentary piece posted to the main Fingertips site on Monday. Thanks for the comments so far, and the emails too. Perhaps this second part, for those who haven't read it yet, will clarify some things. Without further ado...

* * * * *

Consequence No. 2: Cultural disconnect

Beyond plummeting album sales, another disorienting hallmark of the digital music age has been the fragmentation of popular music into a mind-boggling array of genres and sub-genres. Are there any songs or artists that "everyone" listens to and knows about any more? Not apparently.

And yet so far, at least, this is not for want of trying. That is, many musicians still aspire to gain the ear of the multitude, if only from the instinctual understanding that if as a musical artist you have something important to say, you hope to say it to a larger rather than smaller number of ears.

In the brave new musical world of fan engagement, musicians need no longer aim in this direction. As artists, by necessity, nurture their super-fan following, no one will need to think about creating something for everyone rather than something for their marketplace of 1,000--or, even, as one recent story would have it, just forty.

By and large this is presented as a liberating idea. Release yourself from the desire to appeal to large numbers of people, follow your individual muse in a way that pleases your flock of supporters, and you shall be set free, goes the basic thinking. Let go of the ego need for millions of fans and you'll see it's okay to seek a micro-audience, because a) you'll be making a living, and b) everyone listening will be listening really carefully and pretty much worshipping you.

But the point here isn't psychological. It's cultural. The point isn't getting artists accustomed to aspiring to selling to only a thousand people. The point is the different nature of the involvement sought and the consequential effect on a culture being served by this new kind of musician.

Aiming to reach a vast audience and seeking to connect with a limited group of people are two very different things. The end result of having all or even most of our contemporary musicians seeking the former rather than the latter style of artistic connection means the loss of a meaningful musical commons in our joint public experience.

The restorative effect of this type of commons is subtle but powerful. Just the other day, I was working out at the gym and the song "One" by U2 came on the sound system. I am not a diehard U2 fan, and yet the song in that context triggered a deep, ineffable pleasure. Hearing a good song that everyone knows in a public setting recharges the spirit in a subtle but meaningful way.

Note that this is not just about me hearing a song I like. I hear a song I like every time I'm listening to a playlist on my iPod. This is about me hearing the song in the midst of other people, total strangers, who also know the song and are hearing it at the same time. What transpires is a communal, connective experience, even without any words passing between those having it.

This effect is the antithesis of a super-fan moment. The connection to the music is casual; it's a sense of human connection here that provides the frisson of aliveness. Music in this way can offer a culturally constructed way of feeling at one with the world around us.

In a world in which musicians are encouraged, if not forced, to cater exclusively to their most passionate followers, likewise a world in which music fans listen exclusively to music most passionately loved, we lose this important but overlooked capacity to connect. The world shrinks. Something about being human is lost.

Consequence No. 3: Artistic claustrophobia

The decision to go from having an audience which includes diehard fans among others to having an audience exclusively comprised of the diehards will have aesthetic consequences too.

That's because musicians aiming to slake the appetites of diehard fans are likely to retreat, however unconsciously, into a closed-off, self-referential space. The music is likely to become constricted over time, for a few reasons.

First, think about the time and energy required to feed and nurture a group of super-fans, and whether this leaves a musician time to tend to his or her actual art. In the old days, musicians needed only to convey the idea that their music was worth the price of an album or a concert ticket. This modest goal involved first putting out a good album and second getting the word out that it was indeed good--no mean feats to be sure, but at heart not too complicated. The energy was by and large directed towards writing and performing good songs, and trying to convince people to give a listen.

In the age of the super-fan, the musician is charged with conveying the idea that his or her music is worth $100 a year of various and sundry purchases, some or even most of which may not involve actual music. I am not saying that this can't be done, I'm only pointing out that this is first of all a less modest goal than musicians of the past were charged with and second of all requires a different approach to a music-making life.

Some 21st-century musicians appear to be well-suited to this new mode of being. It requires an unmitigated willingness and ability to be a public person in a much different way than is involved when simply singing songs on a stage. Artists for whom such conduct feels natural may not find it any particular kind of burden.

I suspect, however, that many musicians will find this behavior difficult to come by in any consistent way. I suspect many musicians will be unhappy when they find that time and energy that once could be devoted to writing and performing must now be deflected into other endeavors and activities that may have little to do with music.

Even if a musician can find a manager-like person who can help out with all the social media interaction and the peripheral offerings required to stoke the super-fan base, staying on top of fan engagement will still consume personal resources he or she may not have. The music may suffer. The first stage of claustrophobia is arrived at out of basic depletion.

Above and beyond the time and energy situation, creating for a tribe of passionate fans has a couple of additional artistic drawbacks as far as I can see. To begin with, the situation strikes me as similar to a politician surrounding him- or herself with sycophants, or to a writer who, after a big bestseller, no longer feels the need to be closely edited. Regardless of how talented the artist, to create exclusively for people who are predisposed to believe that you are utterably brilliant is a less than ideal environment in which to create meaningful art.

The final element of the claustrophobia relates to the look and feel and vibe of an artist catering to and grooving off of his or her tribe of super-fans. Artist and super-fans are insiders together, sharing information and ideas with an ever-present interactive feedback loop.

To the expert I heard at the DC conference, the idea that artists and highly-engaged fans will "co-conspire" like this represented nothing less than the future of music. To me, it sounds like middle school. You've got the cool group on the inside, and what they mostly conspire to do is keep the uncool and unworthy outsiders outside.

Insider cliques stoke egos but fall short when it comes to worthwhile activity. I am not optimistic about the quality of music likely to emerge over time from super-fan-driven musicians.

Consequence No. 4: Debilitated listeners

If the musician motivated by fan engagement is in danger of losing his or her creative touch, the fans in this scenario are at risk of a similar loss at the receiving end of the creativity.

To begin with, just as musicians may grow artistically flabby catering to a tribe of worshippers, listeners likewise may find their powers of discernment slacken in this environment.

Think about it. Listeners are congregating exclusively around artists they passionately love. They pay $100 a year or more for the privilege of buying a variety of products from their beloved musician. In that environment, there is little room for critical thinking.

And so, among this small group of devotees--who, don't forget, have an unprecedented capacity to talk amongst themselves, and therefore reinforce established opinions--what the musician produces will wind up in one of two basic drawers: the drawer of "oh my god, I'm gonna cry, this is so brilliant"; or, the drawer of "oh my god, I'm gonna hurl, this sucks." That's because in this group of super-fans, particularly as the artist acquires a body of work, those who think that every tiny thing the musician does is genius will exist side by side with those who think that every tiny thing the musician did used to be genius but now (as noted) sucks.

It's the nature of diehard fandom, and not a big deal, except to the extent that the fan engagement model becomes the bedrock of the music scene and we're left only with the diehards. Not a lot of good happens when we are left only with colliding extremes (cf. 21st-century U.S. politics).

One of the great, if paradoxical, things casual fans bring to the scene is the fact that they don't care quite so much. They are somewhat objective observers. For those who've read Nick Hornby's new book, it's the difference between the written reviews of Juliet, Naked that Duncan (the super-fan) and Annie (the casual fan) post online (not to mention the difference between what proceeds to happen to each of them).

Another way listeners may be debilitated over time by the super-fan scenario is how it will accelerate the already existing trend of closing ears off to music that is not already known. And some of this closing-off will be a purely logistical problem.

The key word in fan engagement is "engagement," after all. Musicians in this model are trying their damnedest to keep your attention--encouraging you to browse offerings, haunt message boards, enter contests, follow tweets, read newsletters, leave blog comments, and so forth. All of this takes time. A lot more time than just listening to a song or two. A principal reason that the super-fan scenario will close listeners off to experiencing new music in a more casual way is that there are still only 24 hours in a day.

Consequence of the Consequences

The ironic bottom line about the fan-engagement model of Saving the Music Industry is that, if effected, it will shrink the market for rock music far beyond the place to which technology and circumstances have already shrunk it--far beyond the place, that is, where everyone's already freaking out.

Remember, there is no such thing as popular music without casual fans; remove casual fans from the mix and out the window also goes popularity.

I know that in theory most critics and pundits and sideline observers don't really care about that. Being "popular" is never that cool a concept with such folks. So if that's the case, then sure, let's sit back and applaud as rock'n'roll takes its place next to jazz at the table reserved for music that used to be popular and now caters to a specialized set of listeners. Maybe some new and interesting musical avenues will be opened up in the process.

But here's the thing. This happened to jazz in a more or less organic way. Yes, I know I'm oversimplifying, but with jazz one could say that the music went one direction, the mainstream audience another. (Same with classical, sort of.) The idea behind something like "1,000 True Fans" is different. Here, musicians are told to aim for slender segments of listeners. This is an aim that purposefully--if somewhat obliviously--shows casual music fans out the door.

What's more, it's doing so in a way that seems kind of...well, icky. Jazz musicians followed their muse away from the mainstream. It was all about the music, and if a limited number of people still wanted to listen, so be it. Via "1,000 True Fans," musicians are being told that it's not just about the music. It's about the tweets and the video updates and the t-shirts and the personally-signed pottery cats and dogs and who knows what else.

Because here's what it's really about: figuring out how to pry $100 a year from your most ardent admirers.

There are many who say: and what the hell is wrong with that? Maybe nothing. It's nice work if you can get it. As a major consumer of music for 30 some-odd years, I will note, however, that I am much happier when I feel as if I'm pushing money to my favorite artists rather than having it pulled out of me.

Look, it's always been nearly impossible for most musicians to earn a living wage. And yes, the 21st century has made it even more difficult. There's file sharing. There's the bad economy. There's more file-sharing. (And did I mention file-sharing?)

Worse--and pay close attention now--there's the badly overcrowded marketplace. Thanks to the combination of laptop recording and web-based distribution, the barrier to entry for being a musician in the first place has all but disappeared. Amateurs and imposters have flooded the marketplace.

And so, even as industry experts propose fan engagement as a panacea, my conclusion is that, if effected, it will only make matters worse. It may ultimately be even harder for musicians to earn a living.

Because if everyone now thinks they only need 1,000 fans to make it as a musician, then yikes--you won't believe how many more people will be out there trying to do just that.

And that, to me, is the biggest indictment of this well-intended but not well-thought-out idea: that it will in fact be a beacon of hope for "vanity press" musicians who write and sing and record songs that they should not even be sharing with their friends, never mind 1,000 strangers. No matter how untalented and unpromising any one person with a Mac and a dream may be, he or she will be nothing but inspired to know that all all they need are 1,000 fans and they can be a full-time, professional musician. Why, most of them probably have at least 600 Facebook friends. That sounds like they're already more than halfway there.

Will "1,000 True Fans" work nicely for any one particular musician? No doubt it may. Set it loose on an unsuspecting marketplace, however, and watch out. Casual fans will disappear and in their wake come those we may as well call the casual musicians. I for one don't like the trade-off.

Free and legal MP3 from Think About Life (exuberant deconstructed funk)

2009-11-10T22:38:00.001-05:00

"Johanna" - Think About Life
     So this may be about the best thing I've heard all year. How sharp and sleek and funky; how multileveled and well-crafted and exuberant; what deeply gratifying fun.
     The basic groove alone is impressive, established at the outset by some brilliant horn charts, with their stuttery swing and that softly dissonant chord they settle on at the end of each phrase. But "Johanna" has so much more going for it than the basic groove, including an memorable melodic spine--the song just hangs on it so perfectly--and Martin Cesar's delightful, full-throated singing. When everything kind of caves in on itself momentarily, at 1:14, this isn't just a cute effect, it's spirited statement of purpose: this Montreal-based quartet can and will do anything they want with the sound they're creating. In an indirect way, Think About Life brings to mind Remain in Light-era Talking Heads--not because the sound is similar, but for this group's willingness and ability to simultaneously work with and deconstruct the funk. I have rarely heard a band manage to give off a kitchen-sink air of anything goes while at the same time writing and playing such tight, kick-ass music. This isn't just someone pushing a button to put this sound in here, then this sound here; as with Talking Heads before them, I get a strong sense of both brainy tinkering and physical exertion in the presence of this song. The crazy-awesome instrumental interlude at 2:26--30 seconds of time standing still right in the center of the groove--is not to be missed.
     "Johanna" is from the band's second album, Family, which was released in Canada in May and in the U.S. last month, on Alien8 Recordings. The MP3 was made available last week via Magnet.

Free and legal MP3 from Will Stratton (young singer/songwriter w/ gorgeous, reverb-laced tune)

2009-11-10T22:36:00.001-05:00

"Who Will" - Will Stratton
     Gorgeous and swaying, but with a deep-down sense of gravity. (Anyone remember the old Fleetwood Mac instrumental "Albatross"? This evokes that, pleasantly.) I like the sonic interplay between the crisply strummed acoustic guitar at the front of the mix and that big dark open space underneath--space created seemingly by just a lonesome-prairie guitar and Stratton's voice, each enhanced as they are by a steady, stately reverb. The acoustic guitar offers naked immediacy, the reverbed layers lend a shadowy, contemplative air. Somewhere in the middle someone is sitting at a piano and playing a few chords every so often, adding to the engaging three-dimensionality. Later we get female harmonies, violins, even a trumpet, all of which contribute further to the song's gentle dream.
     But this song has a haunting quality that seems to be larger than the sum of its parts. In a weird way it's as if the reverb itself, independent of what's reverb-ing (the drums get it too, and the trumpet, and the female backing singers), is a visceral part of the intimate yet spacious landscape, is itself somehow its own presence in the music.
     The 22-year-old Stratton recorded his first album, What the Night Said, the summer after he graduated from high school, and it was released two years later, in 2007. Two years further on, he's out the other side of college, and along comes his second album, No Wonder, released last week on Stunning Models on Display. MP3 via the record company.

Free and legal MP3 from the Sun (a fuzzy blast of melodic noise)

2009-11-10T22:35:00.001-05:00

"In Perfect Time" - the Sun
     A fuzzy blast of melodic noise, "In Perfect Time" seems to want to be played really loud. As a matter of fact, it has a kind of sneaky effect going--the louder I turn it, the louder still I feel I need to hear it. This clearly has to do with how singer Chris Burney's voice is mixed down, but it's more than just that. Any number of other bands have done the mixed-down-vocals thing and it doesn't always have my hand reaching for the volume dial (okay, not a dial anymore, but whatever). So what else is going on here?
     Part of it has to do with the unerring melodicism on display. Songwriters with the talent to write this kind of strong, earnest pop melody--Matthew Sweet in his heyday had this kind of sound--typically give you the thing right out front. You don't have to fight for it. I turn the volume up here because I'm trying to put the melody where I'm used to hearing it. But, of course, turning the volume up only turns all the background wash louder also. And the noise is not at all unpleasant, mind you. It's bashy and tinny and crunchy. And when it gets louder, I need to turn the volume yet higher, again trying to raise the vocals to a more audible level. A losing battle in this case, especially since--strange but true--the wall of sound appears to get proportionally louder than the vocals as I increase the volume. Producer Mike McCarthy has some wacky magic going here, perhaps the after-effect of working with Spoon's studied minimalism for so many years (he's produced all their albums since 2001).
     The Sun is a band from Columbus, Ohio that did not name themselves with Google in mind. "In Perfect Time" is the closing track on the album Don't Let Your Baby Have All The Fun, released this week on Rock Proper. Rock Proper happens to be a so-called "netlabel," which means that its releases are entirely digital and entirely free. You can download all the songs from the album as free and legal downloads here.

New Fingertips Commentary: Farewell to the Casual Fan

2009-11-09T14:55:00.006-05:00

There's a new Fingertips Commentary essay on the main site, called "Farewell to the Casual Fan." Subtitle: "Too many 'future of music' schemes overlook the importance of listeners who don't worship you."

As always, it's a somewhat lengthy discussion, so I'm breaking it into two parts for the blog. I'll post the second part on Wednesday. The weekly MP3 selections should be up tomorrow. The essay is the same here as on the main site, except there are a handful of footnotes accompanying the piece on the Fingertips site, which flesh out the subject at hand.

* * * * *

One of the recurring themes of the recent Future of Music Policy Summit in Washington, DC was the necessity, for musicians, to develop an "active fan base." There wasn't one specific panel about this, or one discussion; it was instead a constant thread through many different panels and discussions, and the seemingly inevitable answer to the industry's $64,000 question: how on earth can musicians earn a living in the digital age?

We all know the basic plot by now. Musicians are on their own out there, lacking both the imprimatur and promotional budget once afforded by big record labels. And by the way no one wants to buy music anymore either. What's a poor singer/songwriter boy or girl to do?

At the conference, something like a consensus emerged in response: foster the artist-fan relationship. Any number of experts in any number of different ways ultimately said the same thing: succeed with so-called "fan engagement" and you're on your way. (Well, okay, musicians were also told, repeatedly, "not to suck." Another worthy goal, but outside of the purview of this essay.)

And luckily for today's musicians, the internet is just one big crazy fan-engagement machine, if properly operated. Through regular forays into blogging, Twittering, and Facebooking, musicians can get up close and personal with their fans, and use this interaction to--let's be blunt--make money.

In the minds of those pinning the future of musician well-being on fan engagement, what they're talking about is really a sort of fan engagement on steroids. It's not just about collecting email addresses and talking to fans at the merch table after the show. That's relatively easy, old-fashioned, and, now, inadequate.

Fan engagement as newly conceived is relatively difficult. It involves managing an arsenal of 24/7 social media pages and being ever on the lookout for creative avenues of interaction and out-of-the-ordinary sales opportunities. Needless to say, this is time-consuming. And--it should be noted--the path from this new, aggressive kind of fan engagement to revenue isn't necessarily clear.

The general idea, however, is that the more that fans feel connected to musicians they love, the more they are likely to want to attend their concerts, buy not merely songs but premium items (specially packaged albums, boxes, et al), and be interested enough in their beloved musicians' comings and goings to be willing to pay as well for any number of offshoot endeavors that the musician can dream up--custom clothing, exclusive video performances, hand-made art items, you name it.

With all this in mind you can see why the experts at the conference seemed to agree that in the digital age, the central important thing that's changing in the music industry is not so much the technology as the artist/fan relationship. Musicians should be thinking of fans not as fans at all but, said one panelist, as "co-conspirators."

So I'm listening to these ideas in Washington and I'm wondering what isn't sitting right with me. Not that there's anything wrong with the concept of fan engagement per se. How could there be? All any committed band wants to do is make an honest living through their music, and I understand why an augmented sort of fan engagement strategy may be just the way some bands eke it out in the digital age.

But I also think the fan engagement bandwagon is missing something significant in the bigger picture of how music functions in the world.

Outside of the confines of the Future of Music Policy Summit, this new approach to fan engagement has been most widely pondered and discussed in the context of Kevin Kelly's well-known "1,000 True Fans" post from last year. As pundits are wont to do, Kelly attempted to crystalize an interesting idea into a concrete credo, which was his hypothesis that anyone producing any kind of art needs only to have 1,000 passionate, committed fans to make a living.

Most of the discussion generated by "1,000 True Fans" has focused on whether it works or not financially. Is 1,000 the right number? Is it more if you have more people in the band? I'll leave that to others. I'm wondering about whether it works culturally.

In some important ways, if the music scene is transformed into a place in which all worthy musicians are supported by enclaves of super-engaged fans, 21st-century rock'n'roll musicians may win the battle but lose the war. Because the more that artists require so-called super-fans for their livelihood, the more they will leave behind the very sorts of casual fans that made rock'n'roll such a robust musical arena for such a long time.

For better or worse, popular music depends upon the existence of casual fans. Back when the big albums of the day were selling a few million copies, these were not purchased by a few million super-fans. Even when a band like Arcade Fire sells a "mere" 300,000 copies of an album, this does not represent an audience of 300,000 super-fans. Once a band achieves any measure of widespread success, that success hinges, somewhat paradoxically, upon catching the attention of people who aren't really paying attention.

Today's fan engagement schemes, however, deny the existence of casual fans by leaving them out of the picture entirely.

Because what entices a super-fan will almost, by definition, be of no interest to a casual fan. Just because you happen to like a song or two, or even an album or two, doesn't mean you require a musician's real-time biographical details, doesn't mean you crave endless streams of recording flotsam and jetsam (b-sides, live takes, remixes, etc.), doesn't mean you'll want to purchase objects lit by physical association with the musician (self-designed t-shirts, hand-addressed postcards, and the like) or watch repeated video presentations.

Casual fans also lack any need for the very sort of online interaction that sits like a holy grail at the center of this new idea of fan engagement. The various schemes I'm seeing now on a daily basis--make a video of a song for a contest! donate money so your name can go on the album jacket! subscribe to a service offering journal entries and/or webcasts and/or live recordings!--make no sense to a casual fan.

Most important of all, a casual fan will not spend upwards of $100 a year purchasing music and other accessory items from one band or musician.

In his original "1,000 True Fans" post, Kelly asserted that the processes artists develop to feed their diehard fans will also nurture what he calls "Lesser Fans." I see no evidence beyond wishful thinking to support this idea.

I believe, on the contrary, that the more the music scene focuses on these kinds of super-fan activities, the more likely it will be that casual fans more or less disappear.

Such a development will not be unprecedented in the unfolding history of music. For instance, you have to be something of a super-fan to know what to do with, how to listen to, and how to interact economically with classical music. Jazz is another genre that caters by and large to super-fans.

This could be rock'n'roll's trajectory too. And that may be for the best for all I know. But I don't think anyone busy touting hyperactive fan-engagement scenarios has considered the large-scale consequences of transforming rock into a super-fan genre.

So let's look at four such consequences.

Consequence No. 1: Far, far fewer fans for rock music

Proponents of these super-fan scenarios seem to be presuming that the total number of active music fans will remain somewhat the same. That's the beauty of it, in theory: so, instead of three million people buying one particular artist's album, 1,000 people will buy 3,000 different albums. That's still three million music fans, right?

Actually, no. As noted earlier, in the glory days of the album-selling past, if any one artist sold an album to three million people, a large percentage of those people were casual fans--people who heard a song or two and liked them enough to buy the album, or people who had been exposed to the music via a friend, or people who were just kind of swept along by the zeitgeist.

There is of course no research to cite here; I can only go with decades of my own anecdotal observations. I'm suspecting that the ever-useful 80-20 rule may be applied, but in any case it is clear that any band throughout rock history that has broken through to some amount of widespread success--say, sales of 250,000 copies or more of one album--has done so largely on the backs (and purse strings) of casual fans. Probably, also, the higher the total number of albums sold, the higher the percentage of casual fans.

Super-fan orientation shrinks the rock'n'roll marketplace because to foster tribes of passionate fans requires throwing maybe 80 percent of the potential audience out the window.

Musicians nurturing diehard fans are not, of course, making a conscious decision to freeze out casual fans. It's just that seeking to promote super-fans inherently alienates the non-super-fan. I disagree with Kevin Kelly's belief that musicians will be able to "convert" their "Lesser Fans" into "True Fans" in an ongoing way. I contend, instead, that casual fans (a phrase I prefer to "lesser fans") are disinclined, behaviorally, to be somehow lured into ratcheting up their involvement with any musician simply because they happen to like a few of his or her songs.

In my experience a True Fan is actually a type of person (and I mean that almost archetypally). I don't think casual fans are typically or easily converted into True Fans. Sure, you might get them to give your their email address for a free MP3 but their hearts won't be in it for the long run. (What is likely, instead, is that a True Fan of one musician will be open, additionally, to becoming a True Fan of any number of other musicians. The market isn't expansive but, rather, cannibalistic.)

From the perspective of any one individual musician who is happy now to be supported by his or her diehard admirers, freezing out or alienating casual fans may be pretty much okay--a necessary evil, say. And maybe this will foster a whole new kind of music, as bands aim not for mass success at all, but for idiosyncratic sonic niches, or, in any case, sounds that appeal to much smaller rather than much larger numbers of people.

Let's just be clear, however, about what casting aside casual fans entails. If industry pundits are wringing their hands to date over shrinking bottom lines, just wait till the super-fans take over.

* * * * *

The rest of this essay will be posted to the blog on Wednesday. If you want to read the whole thing right away, got to the Commentary page on the main Fingertips site.

November Q&A: Morningbell

2009-11-05T18:21:00.002-05:00

The latest Fingertips Q&A is now online, featuring Eric Atria of the Gainesville, Fla.-based band Morningbell. Morningbell has been twice featured on Fingertips to date, most recently at the end of September for the song "Marching Off to War."

Attention winners of the Top 10 contest from October 10!

2009-11-04T14:23:00.003-05:00

Sorry to bug everyone else but this message goes only to the three people who won the Top 10 contest from October 10. Thanks to a bit of prodding by one of the winners, I just realized I gave the wrong email address out, so anyone who's emailed me at that address, well, I never got it.

I'm sensitive about putting my email address into a post here on the blog for fear of spamming--this is no doubt how I messed the address up in the first place--but let's just say you assemble my address but making one word of "fingertips" and "music" and then hooking it up with gmail. Put the "at" sign in the right place, add the dot com and you're all set.

Please do contact me if you were one of the winners. I want to be able to send you your prize!

Many apologies for the screw-up at my end and associated inconveniences. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Free and legal MP3 from Ravens & Chimes (sprightly indie rock w/ an edge of reserve)

2009-11-04T11:57:00.001-05:00

"Hearts of Palm" - Ravens & Chimes
     Cheerful songs are usually vigorous things. Songs that seem hesitant, wavery, or otherwise introverted, on the other hand, tend to be at best wistful if not downright mournful. "Hearts of Palm" subverts the formula, and is all the more effective for it--a sprightly, hopeful-sounding song edged by an equivocal, somewhat trembling vibe.
     Some of this is due to the vocal qualities of Asher Lack, who sings like someone wading into cold water, at once timid and determined, while instruments chug forward around him. But listen and you'll hear how the music yet reinforces the partially timorous atmosphere: it's peppy, yes, but likewise stuttery, and lacking the oomph and crunch of a typical rock band. This isn't for lack of personnel. Ravens & Chimes is a six-person outfit, but the members are busier playing things like harmonium and flute and glockenspiel to bother with the din of standard-issue rock'n'roll. And so this is how we end up with this buoyant, reserved piece of pop and I for one am happier for having heard it. I especially love the agile, islandy flute lines and the beautiful, pure-toned female harmony vocal that blends and yet doesn't quite blend with Lack's quasi-speak-singing in the chorus.
     "Hearts of Palm" is a single from the band's forthcoming and as-yet untitled second album. Its first CD, Reichenbach Falls, came out in 2007. Prior to the album's release, this song is slated to be released soon as the a-side of a 7-inch single. MP3 via the band's site.

Free and legal MP3 from Tahiti 80 (carefree English-speaking French pop done right)

2009-11-04T11:56:00.001-05:00

"Unpredictable" - Tahiti 80
     Carefree English-speaking French pop from a band doing it before it was a genre. There's something not only charming but truly satisfying about a song that works quite so well both for people who are barely paying attention and for people paying close attention. This is no small feat. For the first group, a jaunty, smoothly sung tune is all that's required. Great background music. The second group is trickier to please, as the music has to display a sort of depth that jaunty, smoothly sung tunes by their nature often lack.
     The depth here, for me, is rooted in the song's offhanded musicality. "Unpredictable" is full of interesting moments that whisper rather than shout as they unfold. Listen, for instance, to the very start: we hear a basic drumbeat that the ear expects to be established through four standard measures but instead--there for us to notice, or not--it's interrupted after three seconds, in the second measure, which grounds the song in a sort of percussive pre-introduction. Only after that comes the standard four-measure intro. Listen, as another example, to the subtle adjustments the melody makes in the verse and how seductively singer Xavier Boyle wraps his faintly textured tenor around them: the way the melody mimics the keyboard riff at 0:23; the slow then fast pacing in the phrase "knock me down" at 0:31; the way the verse line is shortened and turned on the unresolved phrase "on the wall" at 0:35; and that's just in the first verse. I give the band points, too, for an entirely different kind of craftiness--how the song title comes not from the chorus but from the verse. That's rare in a chipper number like this one; anyone seeking only the inattentive audience will place the title where it repeats most obviously.
     Bouncing along since 1993, Tahiti 80 is quartet from Rouen, France. "Unpredictable" is from the album Activity Center, the band's fourth, which has been out for a year in Europe; its U.S. release comes, at last, later this month.

Free and legal MP3 from Múm (melancholy mystery from Iceland)

2009-11-04T11:55:00.000-05:00

"Illuminated" - Múm
     The fact that Múm wrote the music to its most recent album in the middle of Iceland's economic meltdown and political upheaval adds poignancy to the already melancholy beauty of "Illuminated." Against a bed of mystical tinkling and mysterious vocal arpeggios, "Illuminated" doesn't so much start as float into being. The extended chord progression described by the angelic arpeggios becomes the framework of this soothing but enigmatic song. A minute passes before front man Gunnar Örn Tynes begins a lyrical exploration of the central chord progression, a 30-second vocal segment that we hear just twice, the second slightly altered from the first: in both cases, a dreamy, impressionistic account of a man falling off his bike, into the snow, and then melting the snow and drinking it.
     There is nothing to analyze here intellectually. The song floats into being and floats out of being. A man falls in the snow, illuminated. Voices sing wordlessly, unusual keyboards play, and a string quartet. Somewhere a country is falling apart. Somewhere else someone falls off a bicycle into the snow.
     You'll find "Illuminated" at the tail end of Múm's latest album, Sing Along to Songs You Don't Know, the band's fifth. MP3 via Better Propaganda.

Free and legal MP3 from Surfer Blood (instantly engaging, unusually constructed)

2009-10-27T23:47:00.001-04:00

"Floating Vibes" - Surfer Blood
     "Floating Vibes" has that deep guitar thing going right away, which I always find gratifying. And which always makes me wonder why rock'n'roll has so consistently (and, to my ears, stupidly) glorified the sound of a wailing guitar played so high up on the neck that there's no room left for the guitarist's fingers. I'll take the robust, thoughtful tremor of the lowest register over screechy wails any day. And check out the countervailing seventh notes that begin appearing at 0:20, floating with offhand precision above the darker sound, the quasi-dissonance of that interval perking the ear up in a most welcome and curious way. This song is pretty great before singer John Paul Pitts--known merely as JP--opens his mouth.
     And it gets better. The basic guitar refrain of the introduction becomes the verse melody, with the seventh-note question marks now removed, giving the melody a newly grounded sense of certainty. The harmonies that accompany the melody the second time through (1:00) are subtle and ingenious--the harmony voice is pretty much singing one note--and solidify the melodic construction so firmly that the song never returns to it. It turns out that for all its easy-going tunefulness, "Floating Vibes" is subversive with respect to form: there is no standard chorus and no verse that repeats throughout the song. Rather, there are three different verse melodies, separated by instrumental breaks. The first is the one rooted in the introduction, the second is introduced at an instrumental break at 1:16, and the third (2:35) is a kind of mash-up of the first two. The final instrumental section moves onto yet another melody and features a violin, as unexpected as it is effective.
     Surfer Blood is a quintet of non-surfers from West Palm Beach. "Floating Vibes" is the lead track from Astro Coast, the band's debut, slated for released in January on Brooklyn-based Kanine Records. MP3 via Pitchfork.

Free and legal MP3 from Audra Mae (big-voiced singer/songwriter sings with restraint and writes with skill)

2009-10-27T23:46:00.001-04:00

"The River" - Audra Mae
     With clear roots in country and folk, two very structured genres, "The River" hooks the ear with a series of surprising melodic and harmonic shifts. We hear this first at 0:15, when Mae follows the opening two traditional-sounding lines with a third ("The river's gonna wash my sins away") that runs unexpectedly up through a diminished chord. How did we get here? Suddenly the music is unresolved, and remains so until one more surprising shift, at 0:26, on the words "make me forget." Resolution comes on the succeeding phrase, "my sorrow." That's some nifty songwriting--uncomplicated but subtly startling--and Mae uses it all to set up her bittersweet chorus. It begins with one more musical shift: that heartbreaking half-step she takes in the phrase "I can't swim" (1:02), which starts the major-key chorus with a minor-key twist. Even the lyrics provide a subtle shock here, aurally--when she gets to the phrase "even if I could," the lack of rhyme isn't what the ear expects. But she has slyly shifted the rhyme scheme, which the listener catches onto as the chorus continues. More niftiness.
     And maybe niftiest of all is how everything is delivered by a young, big-voiced singer who seems anachronistically delighted to use her vocal substance in service of small musical moments. No "American Idol"-ish histrionics for this big voice. One example: listen to how differently she sings the word "I" the first two times she says it: first, the opening word of the song ("I done a bad thing, it's okay"; 0:05) and second, the beginning of the second line, four seconds later ("I'm going down to the river today"). The first "I" is fast, easy, almost evasive; the second "I," made resonant with the contracted "m," feels deep, mighty, and mournful as it encompasses an extra half-beat in the singing. Words don't do it justice so now I'll be quiet.
     "The River" is the lead track from Audra Mae's debut EP, Haunt, released last week on SideOneDummy Records. The Oklahoma-born Mae is now based in L.A. and, speaking of big voices, happens to be Judy Garland's grand niece.

Free and legal MP3 from Bear in Heaven (indie rock from Brooklyn, at once driven and spacey)

2009-10-27T23:44:00.002-04:00

"Lovesick Teenagers" - Bear in Heaven
     Can a song be spacey and determined at the same time? "Lovesick Teenagers" seems to manage this unusual effect. Determination is heard through the relentless pulse of the snare-free beat along with front man Jon Philpot's purposeful tenor, which sounds like someone with a wavery voice trying not to waver. And the melody itself seems also to possess an endearing sort of tenaciousness in the way it keeps leaping up a fourth on every syllable it seeks to emphasize.
     But the spaciness too comes in various guises. Echoey, rocket-like synthesizers, sure. You'll hear those right away. But it's also there in the synth's ongoing throb, which moves at twice the pace of the drumbeat, and lends a sci-fi-cartoon-iness to the proceedings. The chorus, when it arrives, arrives in a wash of psychedelic effects--soaring synths, fuzzed-up vocals, glitchy accents--even though, if you listen, you'll see that the driving drumbeat persists underneath it all. And look how the song's final moment pretty much encapsulates the underlying aural paradox, being at once the epitome of driving determination--a "sting," as we used to call it in radio (meaning a sharp, abrupt ending)--and moony vagueness, since the sting echoes afterwards with the faintest of synthetic wind sounds.
     Bear in Heaven is a quartet of Southerners who landed in Brooklyn and have been recording since 2003. "Lovesick Teenagers" is a song from Beast Rest Forth Mouth, the band's third album, released this month on Hometapes Records.

Free and legal MP3 from Holopaw (pensive, inscrutable indie rock that rewards repeat listens)

2009-10-21T16:23:00.001-04:00

"The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion" - Holopaw
     Airily idiosyncratic, not to mention lyrically inscrutable, "The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion" required repeated listens for me to really hear it. Songs with vocal (rather than purely instrumental) introductions are a bit hard to get one's pop-oriented mind around, to begin with. And when Holopaw's John Orth is the one doing the vocalizing, maybe it's even harder. He's actually got an engaging, feathery sort of voice, but when it's the very first thing one hears--without the grounding of obvious melody or structure--it seems a challenge, to me.
     But here's something to listen for early on: the two notes he sings on the word "breath," at 0:12 (which are E-flat and D-flat, if my keyboard widget is to be trusted). These are soon revealed as the two notes the rest of the song consistently turns on, the two notes which, magnet-like, attract and re-attract the melody--for instance, at the end of the recurring lyric "Couldn't we just get lost?" The musical phrase described by these notes is unresolved, but listen to how the violin follows (e.g. 0:56) with a countermelody that does then resolves it, and with folk-like poignancy. Keep your ear on the violin all the way through; I think the yearning ballast it provides is what lends the song, at least after a number of listens, its quirky majesty.
     From Gainesville, Florida, Holopaw was previously featured on Fingertips in August 2005, but are rather a whole different band now: three of its original five members moved north after that second album, replaced slowly but surely by four Gainesville-based others. "The Art Teacher and the Little Stallion" is the first song on the band's Oh, Glory. Oh, Wilderness. album, due out next month on Bakery Outlet Records.

Free and legal MP3 from Slideshow Freak (swinging glam-ish bedroom rock w/ a dominant chorus)

2009-10-21T16:21:00.001-04:00

"Something More" - Slideshow Freak
This song, on the other hand, had me at hello, pretty much. A simple arpeggio, some electro-tinkling, some smooth keyboard vamping, then, boom--"Something More" begins right in its sweet spot, with its full-out, neo-glam-rock chorus. Somehow that's really all it needs. Yes, there are verses in between and surely they kind of have to be there--a song can't be all chorus, can it?--but you'll be hard-pressed afterwards to remember exactly what they sounded like. I'm thinking you'll be equally hard-pressed to dislodge the chorus from your head, not least for the way its swinging, backbeat-driven melody offers up pronouncements as big and dauntless as its sound: "It takes a better man than me/To save a broken heart"; "I spend my life on my back/But never see the stars"; et al.
Slideshow Freak is another one of those "not a band, just a guy" acts made possible by 21st-century technology, musical know-how, and a lot of time on one's hands. The guy this time is one Jamie Wright, who was born and raised in the UK but appears to be living in Florida now. "Something More" is the lead track to the debut Slideshow Freak EP, We Should Swing, which was released in July on Filthy Little Angels Records. Thanks to the typically excellent Low Slung Podcast for the head's up. MP3 via Filthy Little Angels. Note that you can download all six songs from the EP on the FLA site.

Free and legal MP3 from Headlights (breezy, memorable pop a la NRBQ)

2009-10-21T16:19:00.001-04:00

"Get Going" - Headlights
     Consciously or not, "Get Going" offers up delightful echoes of a band few may remember, and fewer probably listen to anymore, NRBQ. During their late '70s comeback years, in and around their goofier bar-band numbers, NRBQ let loose a bunch of simultaneously breezy and memorable pop songs a whole lot like this one in tone, vibe, and spirit. The airy charm of Tristan Wraight's tenor further recalls the unexpectedness sweetness infusing gems like "Ridin' In My Car," "I Want You Bad," and "Me and the Boys." Even the title sounds like something the 'Q might have recorded.
     But "Get Going" should likewise please the ear of the NRB-clueless. (Sorry; didn't mean that as an insult, just couldn't resist coining that phrase.) Listen to the way the melody in the verses keeps being drawn up: the lyrical lines each ending with an upward third interval, the middle of the line often pivoting on an upward fifth. Pop melodies much more typically lead in a general downward direction, the way water naturally heads towards lower ground. There's something invigorating, if subtly off-kilter, in going against the norm in this way. The other thing I'm enjoying here is the guitar work, which engagingly interweaves an acoustic rhythm, an old-fashioned electric lead, and something unexpectedly drone-like. The way Erin Fein--normally the band's lead vocalist--appears through a kind of underwater filter during the short bridge (1:36) is another whimsical highlight of this brief but emphatic song.
     "Get Going" is from Wildlife, the Champaign-based quartet's fourth album, released on Polyvinyl Records earlier this month. The band was previously featured on Fingertips for the wonderful song "Cherry Tulips" in January 2008 . MP3 via Polyvinyl. Another song from Wildlife, "Secrets," is available as a free and legal download via Amazon.

Free and legal MP3 from Old Canes (drum-fueled folk rock w/ vibrant, informal energy)

2009-10-13T18:30:00.001-04:00

"Little Bird Courage" - Old Canes
     It's unusual for a song that feels like some kind of folk rock to have this much percussive appeal, but "Little Bird Courage" is all about the drumming from the get-go--we pretty much don't even hear anything else until almost 20 seconds in. And this is in fact how Old Canes front man and master mind Chris Crisci envisions his songs--he records the drum tracks first, and builds the songs up from there.
     Everything ends up feeling rhythmic and propulsive as a result. With its vibrant but informal energy, spurred by relentlessly strummed acoustic guitars and accentuated by Crisci's mixed-down vocals, "Little Bird Courage" has the vibe of a happier incarnation of Neutral Milk Hotel, an impression accentuated by the homely chorus of trumpets that appears halfway through, just when the whole thing seemed to be grinding to a halt. While it's hard to pick up a lot of the lyrics, I get the impression of something transcendent and triumphant here; the title alone speaks volumes.
     Chris Crisci is perhaps better known as a member of the Appleseed Cast, the Lawrence, Kansas-based band usually identified as being a "post-rock" pioneer; Old Canes has been a side project of his dating back to 2004. "Little Bird Courage" is from Feral Harmonic, the second Old Canes album, slated for release next week by Saddle Creek Records.

Free and legal MP3 from Rainbow Arabia (stylish, engaging world music admixture from LA electronic duo)

2009-10-13T18:27:00.004-04:00

"Harlem Sunrise" - Rainbow Arabia
     This one morphs before your startled ears from a vaguely Middle Eastern sounding dance with an electro-beat and kitchen sink percussion into a vaguely Caribbean steel-drum-inflected shuffle with some African guitar thrown in for good measure. Too much pastiche for its own good? Or is "Harlem Sunrise," rather, an audacious 21st-century stylistic mash-up? I vote for the latter. Nothing this warm and welcoming can be disparaged, in my book, nor something that manages, for all its sonic salmagundi and home-built vibe, to proceed with an air of the timeless about it. Even singer Tiffany Preston's slightly pouty and distant voice, artfully reverbed and tweaked, works better here than it maybe should.
     And I in any case am entirely in favor of major-key songs with minor-key introductions. That's a nice songwriting trick you don't hear much of in modern pop.
     Rainbow Arabia--and the band name kind of immediately hints at what they're up to--is a L.A.-based husband-wife duo (Tiffany sings and plays guitar; Danny does the keyboards and electronics). "Harlem Sunrise" is a song from their Kabukimono EP, which was released in July by Manimal Vinyl, also based in L.A. (Manimal Vinyl, by the way, is a name that does not hint at what they're up to; the label does in fact release things on CD and digitally in addition to vinyl.) Thanks to Linda at Speed of Dark for the head's up on this one. MP3 via RCRD LBL, and note that the link is not direct; just click "Download MP3" and it's yours.

Free and legal MP3 from Wiretree (power pop with vocal roots in the '70s)

2009-10-13T18:25:00.001-04:00

"Back in Town" - Wiretree
     Brisk, spangly power pop from an Austin-based quartet. Equal parts mid-career Wilco and early (or late; who can say?) Traveling Wilburys, "Back in Town" is a friendly, xylophone-flecked burst of tunefulness, anchored in singer Kevin Peroni's pliable, evocative voice. What he sounds like, in a nutshell, is the '70s--Harry Nilsson, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne rolled up into one. Works for me.
     And if there are a few relative oldsters out there who recognize the chorus of the Indigo Girls song "Jonas & Ezekiel" in the chorus of "Back in Town," well, I'm always kind of tickled rather than irritated by inadvertent melody transference like this. First off, it's a heck of a good melody--I might dare to call it anthemic except I fear that word has been neutered by years of overuse. Second, the songs don't otherwise have anything to do with each other. I don't mind greeting an old friend in a new outfit.
     "Back in Town" is a song from the band's second full-length album, Luck, ready for release next week on their own Cobaltworks label.

The Fingertips Top 10, currently (with impromptu contest)

2009-10-10T14:45:00.005-04:00

The Fingertips Top 10 has turned almost entirely over since the last time I posted it, which was in August; just three songs remain from that list. Anyone interested in an impromptu contest, how about this: the first three people who can each identify one of the three songs that are still on the list from the last top 10 post on the blog can pick a CD for free from the Fingertips Prize Closet. Just because. Leave a comment below, and I'll leave an answering comment corroborating each winner and let you know how to get your prize.

Again, there are three songs that remain from the last top 10 posting. Your job is to identify just one of them. Once someone identifies one of them, he or she is the first winner, and for you to be another winner, you must identify one of the remaining two. Likewise, the last winner will have to identify the remaining one.

Note that all comments are moderated. I'll try to stay on top of them, but it is the weekend, meaning I'm not always at my desk, so there may be some delay between your posting it and it appearing.

Okay, here's the current list. You'll have to look for the last one on your own.

1. "She Comes to Me" - Adam Arcuragi
2. "Gloomy Monday Morning" - the Black Hollies
3. "Madeline, Every Girl" - Cameron McGill & What Army
4. "Turpentine" - Vandaveer
5. "Tammie" - the Dø
6. "Gold and Warm" - Bad Veins
7. "Gold Rush" - Basia Bulat
8. "Turning Into You" - Wheels On Fire
9. "A Bus Called Further" - Heroes of Popular Wars
10. "Hoping and Waiting" - the Hush Now

Good luck to one and all. To find out if you're a winner, I'd suggest waiting till Sunday night or so to check back in.

Free and legal MP3 from Cameron McGill & What Army (straightforward sound, wonderful song)

2009-10-09T11:04:00.003-04:00

"Madeline, Every Girl" - Cameron McGill & What Army
     A truly wonderful song from beginning to end. But a funny thing: every time the tempo falters, because of how the song is constructed, I find myself almost annoyed because of how much I was digging the forward-moving energy that's now interrupted. And it happens in the chorus, just when I might be expecting more rather than less motion. But then each time the tempo picks back up with the new verse, I realize that maybe I'm enjoying the faster-paced section precisely because of the repeated way it pulls back. Life is like that too. Oh, and check out how, the second time we hear the chorus, McGill picks up the tempo before the end (2:00). Feels very satisfying somehow. But the third time is the best--he kicks it up for just a moment (3:22), and somehow that's most satisfying of all.
     While Cameron McGill & What Army often play music with a definite folk-rock or folk-pop feel, "Madeline, Every Girl" is, in this age of micro-genres, maybe too straightforward for any workable label: it's just guitar and bass and drums playing together without any particular fuss or special flavor. Some songs depend upon their instrumentation and arrangement for their very existence, and other songs, like this one, exist so strongly as things unto themselves that you could probably play them on a toy xylophone and they would still shine through.
     Cameron McGill is a Chicago-based singer/songwriter who released an album called Warm Songs for Cold Shoulders, his fourth, back in April on Parasol Records. "Madeline, Every Girl" is the a-side of a three-song digital single released last month called Two Hits and a Miss, which is available via iTunes. MP3 courtesy of Parasol.

Free and legal MP3 from the Black Hollies (groovy neo-garage rock)

2009-10-09T11:03:00.001-04:00

"Gloomy Monday Morning" - the Black Hollies
     A deeply groovy shot of neo-garage rock, "Gloomy Monday Morning" is both steeped in nostalgia and alive with freshly-minted energy. Sure, there's a big-time Animals/Zombies/'60s-Kinks vibe at work here, but it's almost like this New Jersey quartet is using the bygone sound as an instrument they're playing rather than as a straitjacket limiting their buoyancy, if that makes any sense.
     The song consistently works at two different, typically contradictory levels. For instance, while blatantly backbeat driven and cymbal heavy, "Gloomy Monday Morning" also employs subtle keyboard accents and a frisky bass line to catch the ear nearly below the level of conscious awareness. Even the backbeat isn't as straightforward as it seems, working with a kind of stutter that both accentuates and deflects the two and four beat accent. Listen, also, to how a simple maneuver--that upward turn of melody that we first hear at 0:49 in the chorus, and then also in the third line of the second verse (1:08)--serves to break the song open. And what's with that cymbal sound? It's so persistent during the chorus and the bridge that it sounds less like an organically played cymbal than a sample played from a keyboard, and is used as a sort of wall-of-sound whitewash at that point more than percussion--a tactic that is, characteristically, somehow, at once heavy-handed and enigmatic. Even the title seemingly contradicts the song's groove.
     "Gloomy Monday Morning" is from the band's third full-length album, Softly Towards the Light, which was released this week by the Brooklyn-based Ernest Jenning Record Co. MP3 via EJRC.

Free and legal MP3 from Morningbell (spoke-sung verses, body-shaking rhythms, appealing vibe)

2009-09-30T21:12:00.001-04:00

"Marching Off To War" - Morningbell
     Equal parts character and commitment, "Marching Off To War" props itself on top of some seriously good-natured drumming and never looks back. The verses--all two of them--involve some smiley, spoke-sung lyrics that serve as gatekeepers to the body-shaking rhythmic attack of the chorus, in which singer/guitarist Travis Atria wails the repeated line "Marching off to war" in full Perry Farrell mode. Is there a disconnect here between the jolly sounds and the somber words? I'm guessing that's the point. Note the way the chorus ends with a line that comes across as a throwaway--"I don't care what you say anymore"--but may indeed be the fulcrum of the song.
     Because that's exactly what happens when human beings are rallied to act against their own better natures: they must be jollied up to the point where they don't want to know there's another way to look at the situation. Don't bother me, I'm marching off to war. My head's full of happy nonsense. Whatever the latest war is. (The war against health care reform will do.) "I don't care what you think anymore," is how the line goes later in the song.
     Named after the Radiohead song (and why not; Radiohead too made a one-word name for themselves from another band's two-word song title), Morningbell is a quartet from Gainesville. Travis's brother Eric plays bass (and, Radiohead-ishly, theremin), and Eric's wife Stacie plays keys. (The exhilarating drummer, not related, is named Chris Hillman, of all things.) The band was previously featured here in May 2007. "Marching Off To War" will be found on their fourth and forthcoming album, Sincerely, Severely, slated for release on the band's own non-profit label, Orange Records, in December.

Free and legal MP3 from Spider (quiet, simmering music from Fingertips returnee)

2009-09-30T21:10:00.001-04:00

"Petal Song" - Spider
     This may not sound at first like a song that's going to kick out with a minute-long Pink Floydian guitar solo, but how often, actually, are things exactly what they seem? (cf. "Things are not as they seem. Nor are they otherwise," as per the Buddha.)
     "Petal Song" may well begin quietly but there's something simmering from the outset--most notably Jane Herships (aka Spider) herself. Some vocalists with quavering voices sing like it's all they can do to make an audible sound, the quavering in this case being a sign of near exhaustion. The quaver in Herships' voice, by contrast, has the feeling of someone holding back something mighty. She shakes from the effort of keeping contained. In that context, the electric outburst at the end is maybe even inevitable. Before you get there, however, be sure to sink into the subtly gorgeous melodies Herships has crafted along the way--in both the matter-of-fact verse and the swaying chorus--and the engaging, shifting ways she sings them.
     "The Petal Song" is from Things We Liked To Hold, Spider's new, self-released CD. MP3 via Last.fm, where you can listen to the whole thing, and also download four other free and legal MP3s. Spider by the way was previously featured on Fingertips in 2006, and was also one of the stars of the late, lamented Fingertips: Unwebbed CD.