COURTESY INTERSCOPE
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with "Fever to Tell," take the roots of rock to a new generation.
Good music will still
exist despite piracy
The album is dead. Long live the album.
That is, a selection of songs specifically gathered by one artist or band to make a complete musical statement. These days, who's got time for "statements"? Everything is consumed quickly, in small bites (or bytes), too busy going here and there, yakking away on the cell phone while driving, walking, on the bus, at parties, in movie theaters, surfing the Web, playing video games ...
Wait a minute, that's not me I'm talking about. I'm part of that aging baby boomer generation -- you know, those who wax nostalgic about how "good" music was back in the day. I mean, they call it "classic rock" for a reason, because that was REAL music, you youngsters you, mumble, grumble ...
But that's not me, either. I actually make a living partly by writing about music, and my listening habits are unlike most of the population. Like kids who separate the good from the mediocre through online downloads, I'm doing the same thing, except I'm going the "old school" route, rummaging through store-bought and promotional CDs.
OUTKAST PHOTO COURTESY ARISTA
OutKast, with "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below," proved themselves the best at combining ghetto soul with angelic nastiness.
Times are changing for all of us, however. A Boston record shop owner, quoted in a recent Los Angeles Daily News article, said, "A lot of kids will say if CDs were $10 or less, they would still buy them, but talk to a 14-year-old, and they have no concept of buying a CD. ... Owning the physical product means nothing to them."
Wow. That makes sense. Why burden oneself when there's ready access to favorite tunes from legal (pay-per-tune) and "illegal" Web sites, files that can be e-mailed to friends and burned to CDs?
So how does the old guard, aka the recording industry, respond? With useless bullying tactics, that's how.
The corporate music machine as we know it is on its last legs. Informa Media Group, a London-based research firm, reports that the music industry worldwide will continue to suffer a decline in sales next year, with a rebound not expected until 2005, at the earliest. There's been a 31 percent slide in music sales over the past three years, a downward spiral blamed largely on Internet piracy. In September, the Recording Industry Association of America sued more than 250 Internet users, tagged as major offenders, for illegally downloading and distributing more than 1,000 songs.
This on top of the further consolidation from five to three megacorporations that control the world's music market.
RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Keao Costa of Na Palapalai waves his Na Hoku Hanohano award for song of the year.
Face it, feeling guilty over not giving the music corporations their supposed due share isn't going to happen. But independent acts still need your money, and they're the savvy ones who know how to market their music via their own Web sites or like-minded distributors. They're the ones who'll continue to make the albums.
It's the mega acts that are having to rethink how their music will be distributed in the future. Thom Yorke of Radiohead has said that the band's looking forward to taking a break from the "album-a-year" sort of deadline, and is more likely to release one or several EPs before doing another full-length. He told Billboard.com: "It's always been album, album, album. ... With things like iTunes and people splitting up tracks, I kind of think that's good. I listen to music on random all the time."
So in this year's random search for the best of 2003, here are my final choices:
Best singles
Junior Senior: "Move Your Feet" (Atlantic/Crunchy Frog)
Justin Timberlake: "Rock Your Body" (Jive) -- the two best Michael Jackson singles he never recorded.
Lumidee with Busta Rhymes : "Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)" (Universal)
Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z: "Crazy in Love" (Columbia)
Kelis: "Milkshake" (Arista/ Star Trak)
Goldfrapp: "Train" (Mute)
50 Cent: "In Da Club" (Aftermath/Interscope)
Electric Six: "Danger! High Voltage" (Beggars XL)
Chingy featuring Ludacris and Snoop Dogg: "Holidae In" (Capitol)
Ludacris: "Stand Up" (Def Jam)
Best albums
Roseanne Cash: "Rules of Travel" (Capitol)
Iggy Pop: "Skull Ring" (Virgin)
Fountains of Wayne: "Welcome Interstate Managers" (S-Curve/Virgin)
These three albums, to me, best represent growing up gracefully in popular music -- or, in Iggy's case, not aging at all, despite the ravages of time. The music resonates with honest emotion (Cash), punk-fueled fire (Iggy) and smartly written rock-pop (FOW).
The White Stripes: "Elephant" (V2/Third Man Records)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "Fever to Tell" (Interscope)
The Strokes: "Room on Fire" (Interscope)
Stripped-down, loving homages of when rock 'n' roll was really vital, whether it came from the garage, the Mississippi delta or a dingy club in the '80s. These groups represent the best of today's bunch of bastard children.
Radiohead: "Hail to the Thief" (Capitol) -- Yes, this is the most important rock band in the world. Deal with it.
Jack Johnson: "On and On" (Moonshine Conspiracy/Universal) -- Giving props to an unpretentious guy, who'll be in his element this weekend on stage at Kualoa Ranch as the headliner for his Kokua Festival.
OutKast: "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" (Arista) -- The best of ghetto soul and angelic nastiness, courtesy of Big Boi and Andre 3000.
Dwele: "Subject" (Virgin) -- My sleeper pick, a terrific urban R&B album from a Detroit vocalist who made his name with his guest work with the Slum Village rap crew. It's a genuine sensitive-man kind of joint, with a distinctive 1970s groove.
The best of the rest
Miles Davis: "The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions" (Columbia/Legacy)
The Bad Plus: "These are the Vistas" (Columbia)
Yo La Tengo: "Summer Sun" (Matador)
Massive Attack: "100th Window" (Virgin)
Pat Metheny: "One Quiet Night" (Warner Bros.)
The Bangles: "Doll Revolution" (Koch)
Wanda Jackson: "Heart Trouble" (CMH)
Kinky: "Atlas" (Nettwerk America/sonic360)
Steely Dan: "Everything Must Go" (Reprise)
Nina Nastasia: "Run to Ruin" (Touch and Go)
Prefuse 73: "One Word Extinguisher" (Warp)
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: "Nocturama" (Epitaph)
Little Jimmy Scott: "Falling in Love Is Wonderful" (Rhino Handmade)
Deerhoof: "Apple O'" (Kill Rock Stars)
Adrian Sherwood: "Never Trust a Hippy" (Real World)
Rufus Wainwright: "Want One" (DreamWorks)
Switchfoot: "The Beautiful Letdown" (Red Ink/Columbia)
Alkaline Trio: "Good Mourning" (Vagrant) -- An edgier and, to these ears, better emo alternative to the label's Dashboard Confessional. Besides, I'm so over all that angst!
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros: "Streetcore" (Hellcat/Epitaph) -- A great swan song to the bighearted former frontman of The Clash.
Dengue Fever: s/t (Web of Mimicry) -- I have to thank my friend Kimberly Chun (no relation) of the San Francisco Bay Guardian for turning me onto this L.A. indie band that plays Cambodian psychedelic rock of the 1960s. Featuring the high, evocative and sinuous voice of émigré Chhom Nimol, I saw the band with the colorfully costumed singer in September at the Silverlake Lounge and was completely won over. Someone book this band to play here!
Best DVDs
No, really, with this year's release of the following, it's worth starting this new category:"Led Zeppelin"
"The Directors Series: The Work of Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry": Three volumes
"Later with Jools Holland": Great BBC-TV performance series finally available on NTSC format
"Live In Pompeii -- The Director's Cut": Pink Floyd
"The Beatles Anthology"
"The Essential Clash"
One more thing
Mark Romanek's very poignant video for Johnny Cash's "Hurt."If you haven't seen it, you owe yourself to view probably one of the best music videos ever.
Thanks for listening.
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