Getting tired of tal

[_harmony]

Qustion Dawkins, call out the church court.

Okay, that was funny!

[_Some Schmo]

I have been stuck thinking this kneejerk authority dependancy might be an illustration of the meme thing which I am inclined to otherwise question. Perhaps like a lot of questionable ideas, memes must be thought of as an idea with strenghts as well as shortcomings.

Well, think what you will (and there may be some truth to what you're saying regarding certain posters here - I can't say for sure one way or another), but speaking only for myself, I've been mostly ambivalent to what Tal's had to say since he arrived here. It hasn't made much of an impact on me at all. I'm also quite indifferent to his musical career. Like Tal himself, I don't see how it's relevant to what we discuss here.

The only reason I addressed him at all is his continued, somewhat empty attacks on Dawkins' ideas. I was curious about what motivated them, because they have been repetitive. It appeared as though he was either trying to piss off the large number of atheists who frequent these boards, or somehow prop himself up by tearing down someone that many people here admire. If neither of those things were his motivation (which he claims) I'll take him at his word and move on. In the end, it's just not that important to me whether he agrees with Dawkins or not. That's it. I was only curious.

It's easy and certainly tempting to want to pigeonhole people and say things like, "You're just giving up one philosophy for another" or "You're just replacing one authority for another" but it's a simplistic approach to understanding people's motives. Perhaps that's what motivates you personally; I don't know.

I can't say I have any heroes, really. Everyone is just another person with imperfections like me. I had heroes when I was younger, and they always ended up disappointing me, because they were human like everyone else. Not their fault; that's just life. The only difference between famous, semi-famous and non-famous people is the number of people that know them. I cannot fathom taking a person at their word strictly for their reputation or their fame (although it may influence my desire to pay attention to what they say and hear them out). When I hear or read them, their thoughts have to resonate with me. I care about ideas, not so much where they came from. The vast majority are recycled and repackaged anyway.

I'm not critical of being critical of Dawkins'. I imagine he'd be the first one to tell you to think through this stuff for yourself. I doubt he wants a congregation (although he might; who knows?) I am, however, critical of empty criticisms.

[_Tal Bachman]

Did Jimmi Hendrix

What made Hendrix so great? His music wasn't that technical, and it's played loose and sloppy. Hendrix, like Tal was a good songwriter, that's all. Believe it or not, there is talent behind pop music. It's much easier to impress people with anything dark, heavy, or with a lot of dissonance. To come up with something really catchy takes talent. Believe it or not, even Brittney Spears has talent, a lot more than she's given credit for. And er, the artist formaly knows as Prince is easily, in my opinion, equal to Hendrix.

---It's funny you should mention this, Gad. Once I penetrated the industry bubble in the late 90's and began to really get a feel for how things work, and meet a lot of pop stars, it really left me (and all the guys I hired to play with me) unable anymore to make the sorts of jokes I had before.

It takes a lot of luck to make it big and stay on top, yes - but it also takes a lot of smarts, hard work and talent. Me and the guys in my band all loved The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles, Radiohead, Beck, etc. None of us would have ever bought a Britney Spears CD. But once you see behind the curtain so to speak, you just cannot dis artists like her in the way you used to. All of us, and actually, everyone that we ever knew inside that bubble, had nothing but a ton of respect for all the artists that had made it big, and stayed there. It doesn't really matter if you personally don't listen to the music - your perspective changes and you really end up admiring a lot of what those types of artists do.

The music business was and is, positively teeming with totally incompetent people who think they are total geniuses - and have power over your potential career. Imagine that - imagine that you're a young Dirk Nowitzki, but all your coaches and trainers and agents and everyone, keep trying to get you shoot lefthanded, wear cowboy boots on the court, get you to stop jumping when you shoot, etc. If you do what they suggest, you fail, because their ideas suck. If you don't do what they say, they get irritated because you've humiliated them in front of their co-workers and peers, and then they're reluctant to give you a shot. What do you do?

Any human who can navigate those waters, to any degree, has performed a huge feat in my books. It is an insane netherworld where lunatics rule.

Quick example:

I did this song I mentioned called "If You Sleep". It was a big power ballad thingy about fate and someone dying. It was supposed to be the big follow-up to "She's So High".

Two weeks before it's (finally) supposed to come out, I get a phone call from my manager, Cliff. He says, "Donnie called. He has an idea".

My heart sank. Donnie Ienner was the Castro-like dictatorial chairman of Columbia Records. And the worst thing any Columbia artist could ever hear was, "Donnie has an idea". You never knew what the hell he was going to come up with. Whatever it was, he'd be convinced it was "the greatest idea ever!". And he ran the whole company literally like a dictator, so you were completely at his mercy. (He actually told me once in a meeting, "democracy doesn't work").

This is not one word of a lie.

"What's the idea?", I say.

"Donnie wants 'If You Sleep' to sound like 'Eleanor Rigby'".

"What?"

"That's what he said".

"If You Sleep" had over 90 tracks of music on it: reverb tracks, echo tracks, tremolo tracks, twelve mics on the drums, probably fifteen different electric guitars, several acoustics, bass, piano, strings, charangos, tambourine, multi-layered vocals, synthesizers, etc. It was a total kitchen-sinker. There was so much stuff going on in it, that it had taken Bob Rock and I three entire days to mix it (and it was only four minutes long). Literally every single sonic bandwidth was taken up by some sound or instrument.

"Eleanor Rigby", though, is Paul McCartney singing, accompanied only by a string quartet.

So I say, "You mean, he wants us to recut 'If You Sleep'?"

"No", says Cliff. "He just wants to add an orchestra".

"An orchestra?! 'Eleanor Rigby' is one guy singing with a string quartet! What is he talking about?"

"I don't know. He just said he wants it to sound like 'Eleanor Rigby', he wants to keep everything the way it is, but just add an orchestra", says Cliff.

"Okay - Cliff? That makes absolutely no sense. It's not possible. If he wants an orchestra plus the 100 tracks of music already there, it will never ever sound anything like 'Eleanor Rigby'. This is totally nuts".

"Well, that's what he wants, so we'd better figure out what we want to do".

Well, I'd already written the orchestral score for one of the songs on the record but hadn't gotten any credit for it (another story). So I thought, "Maybe this would be a good chance to write another string arrangement for one of my tunes. At least I'd get some credit for it, and maybe that would lead to other string arranging gigs for me. That would be fun".

So after a day or so, I call up my manager and my A&R guy (record company man), and say, "I already did the 'You're My Everything' string arrangment and it sounds like Nelson friggin' Riddle did it - and I'm not going to get any credit for it. I want to do this one".

So they agree - but I already know I'm going to meet company resistance, for no other reason than "artists don't do their own string arrangements" - some stupid preconceived notion based only on the fact that most pop artists don't know how to read, write, or score music. But I'd grown up playing in symphonic concert bands, and had actually spent hours listening through classical pieces reading along with the actual scores, just to see how it had all been put together. I'd also deconstructed the Nelson Riddle string arrangements on the Linda Ronstadt big band records. Hell, I'd actually DONE a string arrangement that Donnie Ienner said he loved - but he also thought that Paul Buckmaster had done that one, and I never wanted to be so immodest as to tell him that all Buckmaster had done was give my demo-ed string arrangement to his copyist, who'd transcribed it literally note for note!

So anyway, I thought I could do it.

So I end up writing up a lyrical counter-melody piece which fits in on the verses, for cello and violin. I write it out, get strings in to play it, I superimpose it on to the pre-existing mix (highly irregular, but it would have cost a fortune to remix the entire song), and send it in to Columbia Records.

Surprise - they don't think it's "good enough". After all, I'd done it. They want to get a "professional". So they say they want to hire Beck's dad, David Campbell, to do the string arrangement.

This is all happening, by the way, after literally three years of dealing with this total insanity, day in and day out. Videos, tours, concerts, outfits, managers, photos, even the simplest tasks becoming long, bewildering, arduous hurdles because lunatics at the company keep throwing monkey wrenches into everything. Every dog has to leave his scent on every fire hydrant that he passes, right?

So I get on the phone again with my A&R guy and I say, "Listen Tim - if you guys want to hire David Campbell to do this, do it. But just do me this favour - do NOT play him my string arrangement. If you don't like mine, fine - let him put his own unique voice on this song then. I don't want to get it back and hear my string arrangement again, like I did with Buckmaster on the other song". (Though I love Buckmaster, he's a great guy).

"Okay, gotcha", says Tim.

Now the release of the single's been postponed so that Donnie can hear his 'Eleanor Rigby'-ized version of this song - whatever that could mean.

Two weeks later, I get a package. It's the finished product with David Campbell's string arrangement on it. The note says, "Donnie absolutely loves this!". I put it on - and this is not one word of a lie - Campbell had copied my string arrangement note for note. It was identical. The only difference was that the strings sounded like the Mantovani orchestra - a huge, overblown, aurally confusing mess. It turns out, they had hired the entire LA Symphony Orchestra to play my simple little lyrical lines. They had reduced all fifty players down to two tracks, and then superimposed them on to the pre-existing mastered, mixed song. It now sounded like a total mashfest - horrible.

All I had to do, I guess, was say yes - but I snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. The insanity, the micromeddling, the delusions, the wild goose chases, the waste of tens of thousands of dollars on nothing, now virtually ruining my song...I just couldn't take it anymore.

I called Tim immediately. "This is my exact string arrangement. Didn't you notice? It's just that there's fifty people playing it instead of three, and it sounds like Phil Spector on acid. You told me you weren't going to play this for him. You told me it was no good. Yet it's identical. What is wrong with you guys? You blew forty thousand dollars hiring the LA Symphony Orchestra, hiring Capitol Studios, flying Bob Rock in from Maui, hiring David Campbell - and for what? It sounds horrible now...This whole thing is totally NUTS. And this song was supposed to be out weeks and weeks ago! It's nuts".

"Well, Donnie says he loves this. He says it sounds like 'Eleanor Rigby'-"

"THIS DOES NOT SOUND ANYTHING LIKE ELEANOR RIGBY, TIM! IT SOUNDS LIKE LAWRENCE WELK ON STEROIDS". It's funny now, but at the time it was like a total nightmare.

All I had to do was say "yes" - and I couldn't. I'd said yes so many times. This time I just couldn't. So I said, "I do not want this out. This whole thing is a total mess. You guys have been saying this song was a smash for a year, long before any 'Eleanor Rigby' lunacy. So let's put it out as it was, without strings. And if you want them that bad, use my version with three guys, instead of an entire orchestra clogging up the thing".

My refusal, needless to say, was tantamount to me humiliating The Emperor Donnie in fronts of his many hundreds of minions. And - surprise - The Emperor, by all accounts, then decided not to push the song at radio.

And now I'm here posting on this board instead of drinking margaritas in the Grand Caymans!

[_Dr. Shades]

None of us would have ever bought a Britney Spears CD. But once you see behind the curtain so to speak, you just cannot dis artists like her in the way you used to. All of us, and actually, everyone that we ever knew inside that bubble, had nothing but a ton of respect for all the artists that had made it big, and stayed there. It doesn't really matter if you personally don't listen to the music - your perspective changes and you really end up admiring a lot of what those types of artists do.

Although I know nothing about the music industry, I can totally believe this. It makes perfect sense.

The music business was and is, positively teeming with totally incompetent people who think they are total geniuses - and have power over your potential career. Imagine that - imagine that you're a young Dirk Nowitzki, but all your coaches and trainers and agents and everyone, keep trying to get you shoot lefthanded, wear cowboy boots on the court, get you to stop jumping when you shoot, etc. If you do what they suggest, you fail, because their ideas suck. If you don't do what they say, they get irritated because you've humiliated them in front of their co-workers and peers, and then they're reluctant to give you a shot. What do you do?

Man, that SUCKS. I had no idea that so many of the bigwigs insisted on having their hands in the soup, too. I'd thought that they pretty much pushed pencils and left the creativity to the artists.

[_moksha]

My refusal, needless to say, was tantamount to me humiliating The Emperor Donnie in fronts of his many hundreds of minions. And - surprise - The Emperor, by all accounts, then decided not to push the song at radio.

And now I'm here posting on this board instead of drinking margaritas in the Grand Caymans!

Never underestimate the chance that at some point the public may glom onto exmormon music as the next big thing. Then you could be sipping some dorito mixture at the Las Vegas Airport.

[_guy sajer]

By the way, about the music stuff, I never saw an answer to the question as to why it comes up so often on here. I don't make an issue out of it; I don't know why anyone else would.

But maybe I should address this directly, since there seems to be a real curiosity about it underneath all the stupid shots at it. Maybe some information will shut up all the halfwits.

While several of my songs have done well and earned me quite a bit of money, mostly from TV and movie use (and radio play within Canada), only one has gotten heavy radio play around the world ("She's So High").

That song was supposed to be a "set-up track": a song released first off an album, which is supposed to just "prepare the ground" for the big slamming single which the company thinks has the real legs. That is, the radio life of "She's So High" was projected by Columbia Records to be only around six weeks, after which they would release the more serious "If You Sleep" - a slower song about fate and death - projected to stay around for months and months.

But as it happened, "She's So High" came out, and - maybe because it was a sunny song, and it came out in the spring - radio stations wouldn't stop playing it. It was on heavy rotation for well over a year, around the world.

The truth is that this didn't surprise me as much as my sense of modesty would have liked, because in writing it, I was specifically trying to write a smash. (And as soon as it was done, I actually did think, "this is a smash".) It was inspired by a bunch of songs. The two most important were Sheryl Crow's "If It Makes You Happy" and the Smith's "Bigmouth Strikes Again". The aria "Nessun Dorma" and "Help" also were influences - they got me thinking about the excitatory value of a quick vocal leap.

Most of all, I was trying to write a song which sounded like my favourite Kinks pop singles, from the '66-'67 "Something Else"/"Waterloo Sunset" era. Ray Davies had the ability to write immediately likable, witty pop songs, which however, sometimes had deeper significances.

I'm not sure that "She's So High" could make any real claim to depth, though I did take perverse pleasure in writing a direct song about a normal human emotion - awe of someone you're romantically attracted to - which more ideological folks may have taken issue with.

It will be hard to believe for people on here, but my record company and music publishers ended up begging radio programmers to stop playing "She's So High" so they could release "If You Sleep". But programmers have no incentive to stop playing a song which is still boosting their audiences, so they didn't. The song had taken on a life of its own at radio - no one at Columbia, after the first two weeks, was "working" it or pitching it: radio just kept playing it.

So by the time "She's So High"'s run at radio ended, it seemed like Columbia was into other things, new acts, etc. There was a bit of a dust-up over a string arrangement which the chairman of the company decided he wanted to put on "If You Sleep"; and in the end, that song was never really pushed. (Plus, it's maybe not surprising that a song about someone dying wouldn't immediately take off at pop radio).

After that, I was pretty much unable to ever get Columbia Records's attention again. Nor was I the only one; a bunch of artists there who'd come out of the box with a big hit, were seemingly abandoned by the record company, and for no really good reason that we could ever discover. The chairman seemed mostly to get off on the thrill of chasing down new unsigned artists and breaking that first hit, then moving on - rather like the sexual rhythms of a teenage boy. There's all this focus on getting the girl into the backseat, but then once he scores - it's off on the next hunt.

Only two years after "She's So High" won the BMI Song of the Year Award, was played all over the world, and got me into Rolling Stone, on The Tonight Show, etc., I couldn't even get Columbia Records to listen to new material anymore. I finally flew to New York and demanded that they either give me a budget to make a follow up record, or buy me out of the contract. They ended up deciding to buy me out, saying they were "just really busy with this whole internet piracy thing", which was then just starting.

The last seven years of the music industry have been a nightmare come true for music executives and recording artists. The whole business was based on the sale of hardware. That hardware is now almost obsolete. Naturally, CD sales have declined dramatically; there is thus less money for record companies to sign new artists and fund their recordings, and less reason for them to believe that would even be worthwhile, since CD sales keep declining. As a result, the music biz is caught in a death spiral feeding off its own energy, and there is no salvation in sight.

I feel like I have a lot of good songs which a lot of people would like: sad songs, happy songs, thoughtful songs, moving songs, light songs. But I doubt that any great number of people will ever get a chance to hear them. I regret that.

At the same time, I'm grateful I got a shot in during what turned out to be the final glory days of the musical business, screwed up as it was. At least I got one song in before it all started to turn south, and I can't complain about the royalties. A few losers on here might mock pop songs, but if they could one day spend a couple of hours creating something which millions of people would appreciate, and which would automatically generate five to ten times times their regular wage annually for a decade, my guess it that without exception they would - literally - consider forfeiting one of their testicles for the opportunity.

Now - would the halfwits leave this alone? It's totally irrelevant to anything we discuss on here, as far I can tell.

This is actually quite interesting; an excellent insight into your experience and the music industry as you encountered it in general. Thanks.

From my, rather unsystematic viewpoint, the American music industry seems to be driven by adolescent (to teenage) girls (and to a lesser extent boys). Look at the top selling CDs and singles and ask yourself, who's buying this stuff? The answer for a lot of it, adolescent girls. I mean, really, for example, who what males and which girls over the age of 16 buy stuff from Brittney Spears?

There are so many good (and many great) artists who get precious little airplay on popular radio. Ever hear of Muse? Now that's great music that gets almost no airplay on popular radio. I'm personally a huge Jimmy Eat World fan, and aside from "The Middle," you almost never hear their music on the radio. (Though I question at times the songs their bosses choose to release as singles. (Always Be is perhaps the weakest song on its new CD Chase this Light.) Ever hear of The Decemberists, The Strokes, Razorlight, Hot Hot Heat, The New Pornographers, Bloc Party, Fields, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, etc.? Good stuff, but you almost never hear it. I've started listening to online music--my preference is radioio.com. Listening to popular radio now is a waste of time--between the never ending ads and annoying DJ blathering, they play mostly crap.

I can well understand Tal's frustration.

[_Gadianton]

Well, Tal, it's like you said earlier, the labels are hardware resellers, they might not have known that, and they hadn't yet come face to face with it. Good managers in a competitive industry listen very carefully to their veterens. But if you are fortunate to be riding a wave, and have a near monopoly, then guys like Donnie can't really mess it up. It would be big money either way, perhaps it could have been more efficient and even bigger money. But he and his buds could have been even more eccentric and wasteful and still made a killing. That's just corporate America. Plenty of successful companies survive the best attempts of incompetent managers to ruin it all simply because market forces will ensure it one way or another.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

From my, rather unsystematic viewpoint, the American music industry seems to be driven by adolescent (to teenage) girls (and to a lesser extent boys). Look at the top selling CDs and singles and ask yourself, who's buying this stuff? The answer for a lot of it, adolescent girls. I mean, really, for example, who what males and which girls over the age of 16 buy stuff from Brittney Spears?

There are so many good (and many great) artists who get precious little airplay on popular radio. Ever hear of Muse? Now that's great music that gets almost no airplay on popular radio. I'm personally a huge Jimmy Eat World fan, and aside from "The Middle," you almost never hear their music on the radio. (Though I question at times the songs their bosses choose to release as singles. (Always Be is perhaps the weakest song on its new CD Chase this Light.) Ever hear of The Decemberists, The Strokes, Razorlight, Hot Hot Heat, The New Pornographers, Bloc Party, Fields, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, etc.? Good stuff, but you almost never hear it. I've started listening to online music--my preference is radioio.com. Listening to popular radio now is a waste of time--between the never ending ads and annoying DJ blathering, they play mostly crap.

I can well understand Tal's frustration.

You have impeccable taste in music, Guy. I am impressed.

[_Trevor]

I'm not sure that "She's So High" could make any real claim to depth, though I did take perverse pleasure in writing a direct song about a normal human emotion - awe of someone you're romantically attracted to - which more ideological folks may have taken issue with.

Who cares about "depth." It is a fun song, and I am glad you wrote it. I even bought it on iTunes.

[_Moniker]

Also, Moniker, I owe you a trip to an Ocean Colour Scene reunion show. (I don't know why that popped into my mind, but I'm going with it).

Okey dokey. :)