Royal Blood and "Real" Music

PotentialDonkey · June 2023

I think the problem now is volume.
There is too much choice.
I look at the iTunes Charts and the preorder lists and I am regularly finding there’s really only a couple of things I like the sound of coming out or a new album by an already established band coming… most of it I’m scratching my head going “who the fuck are Travis Collins, Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish and alt.?!”

I listen to the previews and go “I don’t like this” and move on.

Not only has the internet enabled every man and his dog access to greater opinion-to-arsehole ratio but it (more broadly technology) has also enabled musicians/artists who would otherwise be “undiscovered” to be discovered. Whether that’s a good thing, or a bad thing, I’m sure everyone has an opinion there too.

Regardless, if I likes, I listens. If I don’t like, I switch it off.

I have become very cynical these days. I find myself wondering why it has to be this way. More often than not. Publications I used to enjoy now produce the same stupid “Every x band album ranked from worst to best”. Who the hell cares?? Who cares if I prefer Iron Maiden’s “Dance of Death” over “Brave New World” and why should I be angry that someone else thinks “Number of the Beast” is better than all of them??

I like Royal Blood. IDGAF about the singer having a dummy spit. The Gallagher brothers have probably had more dummy spits between them than they own pairs of undies. I don’t claim to be an Oasis fan. I like some of their songs, save for the last album they released which I thought was bloody brilliant. Talk about going out with a bang

sure there’ll be some who disagree, but who cares?!

euan · June 2023

Janelle Monae is bloody brilliant btw.

ICBM · June 2023

I think there’s always been an excessive amount of music available and only a small fraction that’s any good (depending on your definition). If you get something like ‘1000 Hits Of The 1960s’ - which from memory is the 100 top-selling singles from each year in the decade - you’ll find at least half of it is utter rubbish you can’t remember ever having heard before... and that’s from records that were *highly successful*, let alone the tens of thousands which flopped completely or even just didn’t sell quite as well. The great, memorable classics are probably only about 10-15% of the total.

Some things change, some stay the same...

darthed1981 · June 2023

PotentialDonkey said:

I think the problem now is volume.
There is too much choice.
I look at the iTunes Charts and the preorder lists and I am regularly finding there’s really only a couple of things I like the sound of coming out or a new album by an already established band coming… most of it I’m scratching my head going “who the fuck are Travis Collins, Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish and alt.?!”

...

I like Royal Blood. IDGAF about the singer having a dummy spit. The Gallagher brothers have probably had more dummy spits between them than they own pairs of undies. I don’t claim to be an Oasis fan. I like some of their songs, save for the last album they released which I thought was bloody brilliant. Talk about going out with a bang sure there’ll be some who disagree, but who cares?!

There's two points in the first bit. As ICBM said there has always been volume, but yes, 60,000 songs per day are uploaded to Spotify. In one lifetime there is no way you could listen to once, let alone learn to love even 100 songs per day, and indeed even in a world with 7 billion people, most of that 60,000 goes unlistened to by anyone but the band and their mums.

The music was still made before, BTW, it just sat on cassettes and CDs in the musicians garages, now anyone who can play with a PC with a bit of practice can meet the flexible minimum standards to upload.

If the net effect is that the bastards in suits who acted as gatekeepers while some coked up drummer made the GDP of a small African nation are removed from the industry, so much the better.

Ultimately the power of back catalogue is as much nostalgia as it is genuine era defining quality, for most people looking back, a few greatest hits will do for almost every band.

As for Royal Blood, totally agree, looking like a pillock and behaving unprofessionally aren't exactly going to win them fans, but it doesn't make them bad if you liked them before.

monquixote · June 2023

PotentialDonkey said:

I think the problem now is volume.
There is too much choice.
I look at the iTunes Charts and the preorder lists and I am regularly finding there’s really only a couple of things I like the sound of coming out or a new album by an already established band coming… most of it I’m scratching my head going “who the fuck are Travis Collins, Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish and alt.?!”

I listen to the previews and go “I don’t like this” and move on.

Billie Eilish has done a Bond Theme and Headlined Glastonbury. If you haven't heard of her, that's on you

darthed1981 · June 2023

monquixote said:

PotentialDonkey said:

I think the problem now is volume.
There is too much choice.
I look at the iTunes Charts and the preorder lists and I am regularly finding there’s really only a couple of things I like the sound of coming out or a new album by an already established band coming… most of it I’m scratching my head going “who the fuck are Travis Collins, Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish and alt.?!”

I listen to the previews and go “I don’t like this” and move on.

Billie Eilish has done a Bond Theme and Headlined Glastonbury. If you haven't heard of her, that's on you

I was wondering what algorithm they have written to be thinking "Hmm, you seem to spend a lot of time listening to Iron Maiden... you will probably like this breathy hip-hop influenced pop starlet"

Disclaimer: I like Billie Eilish

Grangousier · June 2023

One of the main problems with Apple Music is that no matter what you listen to they push the chart stuff at you. Which is kind of weird, as it's more possible to listen to music and completely ignore the charts than it's ever been. I moved from Spotify to Apple Music and while the audio quality is much better, the interface is terrible, and seems to be deliberately designed to hide anything you might want to listen to behind a wall of chart hits. If I could find another service that sounded as good but was more convenient I'd switch again, though I suspect the obfuscation is deliberate and part of the deal they've struck with the big record companies. Spotify's recommendations used to be great (there was the year they decided I wanted to listen to European Indie Pop, and they were right), but by the time I switched the recommendations had gone from things the algorithm thought I might like to things the record companies wanted me to hear.

As one of the billions of people who've uploaded stuff to the streaming services, I'm very aware that I'm piggy-backing on what is effectively an Ed Sheeran delivery system with my audience of several. Which is fine.

In the old days, I'd find new music by going into a record shop and reading the sleeve and if the cover looked interesting and there were musicians whose names I recognised from records I liked I might get it. It seemed to give better results than The Algorithm, tbh.

darthed1981 · June 2023

Grangousier said:
In the old days, I'd find new music by going into a record shop and reading the sleeve and if the cover looked interesting and there were musicians whose names I recognised from records I liked I might get it. It seemed to give better results than The Algorithm, tbh.

Well, you were younger!

I remember the same kind of thing. In the late 90s if I got some money I'd always go to Northampton and go to HMV, and the (massive) Virgin Megastore, and Our Price, and Spinadisc and browse for ages.

Sadly those days are largely gone (HMV is still there, mostly sells tat and over-priced vinyl) and a reasonable independent record shop which will get driven out of business by record company greed (double albums now routinely £40!!).

Spotify seems to have the best predictive algorithms, but none of them have completely nailed it yet. I suspect AI will be the key here, it will be able to analyse listening patterns much better than the series of if statements it probably uses now (that's how netflix works, it has about 750 hidden genres, and makes recommendations based on a series of links between genres).

Strangefan · June 2023

Grangousier said:

One of the main problems with Apple Music is that no matter what you listen to they push the chart stuff at you. Which is kind of weird, as it's more possible to listen to music and completely ignore the charts than it's ever been. I moved from Spotify to Apple Music and while the audio quality is much better, the interface is terrible, and seems to be deliberately designed to hide anything you might want to listen to behind a wall of chart hits. If I could find another service that sounded as good but was more convenient I'd switch again, though I suspect the obfuscation is deliberate and part of the deal they've struck with the big record companies. Spotify's recommendations used to be great (there was the year they decided I wanted to listen to European Indie Pop, and they were right), but by the time I switched the recommendations had gone from things the algorithm thought I might like to things the record companies wanted me to hear.

As one of the billions of people who've uploaded stuff to the streaming services, I'm very aware that I'm piggy-backing on what is effectively an Ed Sheeran delivery system with my audience of several. Which is fine.

In the old days, I'd find new music by going into a record shop and reading the sleeve and if the cover looked interesting and there were musicians whose names I recognised from records I liked I might get it. It seemed to give better results than The Algorithm, tbh.

YouTube music in my opinion is the best, not only the biggest catalogue you also get youtbe premium, a tenner for both.

Blueingreen · June 2023

euan said:

Janelle Monae is bloody brilliant btw.

As with all these things, highly subjective. Having given a couple of her albums a good listen and seen her in concert, personally I don't get the hype.

No denying the energy and ambition. She's like the star of the stage school, good singer, dancer, loads of presence, works incredibly hard at putting on a show, but for me at least the songs aren't there. Sub Prince/Michael Jackson without the magic of their best stuff ("Tightrope" one exception). Lyrics are predictable, in fact I think you could programme a computer to generate them. (Lots of raunch, lots of I'm not going to be a victim because of my colour and sex. Not faulting the message, faulting the pedestrianism with which it's conveyed). The time I saw her the song I enjoyed most was her cover of Charlie Chaplin's "Smile" which to me said something about the quality of her own songs.

We'll see how this upcoming album does but I wouldn't be surprised to see her eventually shifting her focus to her acting career which to me seems a better fit for her talents.

roberty · June 2023

darthed1981 said:

PotentialDonkey said:

I think the problem now is volume.
There is too much choice.
I look at the iTunes Charts and the preorder lists and I am regularly finding there’s really only a couple of things I like the sound of coming out or a new album by an already established band coming… most of it I’m scratching my head going “who the fuck are Travis Collins, Janelle Monáe, Billie Eilish and alt.?!”

...

I like Royal Blood. IDGAF about the singer having a dummy spit. The Gallagher brothers have probably had more dummy spits between them than they own pairs of undies. I don’t claim to be an Oasis fan. I like some of their songs, save for the last album they released which I thought was bloody brilliant. Talk about going out with a bang sure there’ll be some who disagree, but who cares?!

There's two points in the first bit. As ICBM said there has always been volume, but yes, 60,000 songs per day are uploaded to Spotify. In one lifetime there is no way you could listen to once, let alone learn to love even 100 songs per day, and indeed even in a world with 7 billion people, most of that 60,000 goes unlistened to by anyone but the band and their mums.

The music was still made before, BTW, it just sat on cassettes and CDs in the musicians garages, now anyone who can play with a PC with a bit of practice can meet the flexible minimum standards to upload.

If the net effect is that the bastards in suits who acted as gatekeepers while some coked up drummer made the GDP of a small African nation are removed from the industry, so much the better.

Ultimately the power of back catalogue is as much nostalgia as it is genuine era defining quality, for most people looking back, a few greatest hits will do for almost every band.

As for Royal Blood, totally agree, looking like a pillock and behaving unprofessionally aren't exactly going to win them fans, but it doesn't make them bad if you liked them before.

The distribution of music has been ultimately democratised. If everyone has a voice, no one does. Not that the record industry was an unwavering force for good, but so much revenue that would support music goes straight into the pockets of streaming platforms, just as all the advertising revenue that used to support journalism now goes mostly to Google. Tech companies that aggregate and surface other people's work are even less interested in the relative merit of young composers. Most people don't care what's in their music but I feel like they could be more generously enriched if the mainstream wasn't so saturated with lazy four-chord diatonic writing. My old man rant for the day!

roberty · June 2023

Where does that leave Royal Blood? I don't know if they could tell you what a secondary dominant is, but I know where I'd put my money

darthed1981 · June 2023

roberty said:

The distribution of music has been ultimately democratised. If everyone has a voice, no one does. Not that the record industry was an unwavering force for good, but so much revenue that would support music goes straight into the pockets of streaming platforms,

That's not accurate - Spotify gives 70% of it's revenue directly to the labels, a higher percentage of sales value than the average retailer back in the day, none of the streaming providers make money from music streaming. Spotify is largely owned by the major labels which is why it survives without the backing of a mega-corporation like Apple or Amazon.

The villain of the piece has ALWAYS been the major labels. I'm not sure what you mean by when "if everyone has a voice, no one does" but you seem to mean "if there are no gatekeepers - then there is no quality control...", but that's based on the false assumption that overall, music was better in the past than it is now. The charts have always had at least as many Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers as they have had Beatles and Stones.

What you had in the past that you don't now, is single acts, chosen ones if you like, riding to the absolute top of the pile purely because of the economics of the industry. It's a lot cheaper to push the stink out of one act than it is to push dozens. The album cycle meant that you didn't have to convince people that Band Y was great.... because Band X are back, and still good, buy this CD the lot of you.

It meant all the revenue was always concentrated in a handful of artists. What this DID mean that in the 90s for example, the labels signed a shit-tonne of indie rock acts who sounded like Suede, Blur and Oasis - brilliant if you liked those bands, not so much if you didn't. Same applied back in the 70s - a lot of very similar sounding acts making what we now call "classic rock", or in the 80s with "hair metal".

As with the James Hargeaves video I linked to in my OP - no, you are very unlikely to get another Oasis (haha good thing to go the people who don't like Oasis harrrharrr...) or even probably another Arctic Monkeys (or if you were a NWOBHM fan another Iron Maiden, or another GNR if you were the right age, etc. etc.) but what you WILL get is lots of musicians working to give their fans great product, not as high-and-mighty gods of their scene puffing big mountains of cocaine, but as actual talented individuals and their "1000 true fans".

It's a much, much healthier industry. How long will the majors last? Not sure, possibly forever, but as much as I like some of their recent efforts, they will never be where they were, it all changed with Napster...

roberty · June 2023

darthed1981 said:

roberty said:

The distribution of music has been ultimately democratised. If everyone has a voice, no one does. Not that the record industry was an unwavering force for good, but so much revenue that would support music goes straight into the pockets of streaming platforms,

That's not accurate - Spotify gives 70% of it's revenue directly to the labels, a higher percentage of sales value than the average retailer back in the day, none of the streaming providers make money from music streaming. Spotify is largely owned by the major labels which is why it survives without the backing of a mega-corporation like Apple or Amazon.

The villain of the piece has ALWAYS been the major labels. I'm not sure what you mean by when "if everyone has a voice, no one does" but you seem to mean "if there are no gatekeepers - then there is no quality control...", but that's based on the false assumption that overall, music was better in the past than it is now. The charts have always had at least as many Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers as they have had Beatles and Stones.

What you had in the past that you don't now, is single acts, chosen ones if you like, riding to the absolute top of the pile purely because of the economics of the industry. It's a lot cheaper to push the stink out of one act than it is to push dozens. The album cycle meant that you didn't have to convince people that Band Y was great.... because Band X are back, and still good, buy this CD the lot of you.

It meant all the revenue was always concentrated in a handful of artists. What this DID mean that in the 90s for example, the labels signed a shit-tonne of indie rock acts who sounded like Suede, Blur and Oasis - brilliant if you liked those bands, not so much if you didn't. Same applied back in the 70s - a lot of very similar sounding acts making what we now call "classic rock", or in the 80s with "hair metal".

As with the James Hargeaves video I linked to in my OP - no, you are very unlikely to get another Oasis (haha good thing to go the people who don't like Oasis harrrharrr...) or even probably another Arctic Monkeys (or if you were a NWOBHM fan another Iron Maiden, or another GNR if you were the right age, etc. etc.) but what you WILL get is lots of musicians working to give their fans great product, not as high-and-mighty gods of their scene puffing big mountains of cocaine, but as actual talented individuals and their "1000 true fans".

It's a much, much healthier industry. How long will the majors last? Not sure, possibly forever, but as much as I like some of their recent efforts, they will never be where they were, it all changed with Napster...

Point taken. I guess I'm talking about the state of things in general, industries being replaced by microtransactional gig economies by tech monopolies. Spotify would work better as a giant A&R desk if there was more revenue to pay journalists. Also recording studios had to close, engineering talent was lost, indie labels folded, the little guys suffered as well

darthed1981 · June 2023

roberty said:

Point taken. I guess I'm talking about the state of things in general, industries being replaced by microtransactional gig economies by tech monopolies. Spotify would work better as a giant A&R desk if there was more revenue to pay journalists. Also recording studios had to close, engineering talent was lost, indie labels folded, the little guys suffered as well

Oh I remember the carnage around Napster, a couple of little bands I liked got dropped as little labels folded, I remember Nude Records who were home to Suede going and they were far more.

It's worth watching that James Hargreaves video in the OP because he gives one of the most understandable explanations yet of why everyone embraced "free" music so readily. We all knew we were being ripped off, so when the chance came to get it all for free... we jumped at it.

I like buying physical media of my favourite artists, because I'm old and weird enough to like having the "stuff" and to support them, but once again, the big labels take the piss. When I first queued up for Recordstore Day back in 2019, I bought about five albums, doubles mostly for between 22 and 26 quid... this year, no stock but the one they did have... £40 for a double album of Blur B-sides... no justification any more in capacity or cost of material... sheer, unadulterated gouging.

roberty · June 2023

darthed1981 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by when "if everyone has a voice, no one does" but you seem to mean "if there are no gatekeepers - then there is no quality control..."

Not making a judgement here, just describing a situation. The pre-internet era was about seeking things out, and the digital era is about filtering out the noise. It can sort of have the opposite effect, where the number of options are overwhelming so people just reach for what they know is safe (or let the algorithm decide, which is well and good but it'll never go out on a limb because it saw something exciting)

distressed · June 2023

roberty said:

Not making a judgement here, just describing a situation. The pre-internet era was about seeking things out, and the digital era is about filtering out the noise. It can sort of have the opposite effect, where the number of options are overwhelming so people just reach for what they know is safe (or let the algorithm decide, which is well and good but it'll never go out on a limb because it saw something exciting)

Maybe, but in the old days, unless you were picked by some major label A&R guy, you were nonexistent. Imagine how many good or great bands just didn't made it because of that.

darthed1981 · June 2023

roberty said:

darthed1981 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by when "if everyone has a voice, no one does" but you seem to mean "if there are no gatekeepers - then there is no quality control..."

Not making a judgement here, just describing a situation. The pre-internet era was about seeking things out, and the digital era is about filtering out the noise. It can sort of have the opposite effect, where the number of options are overwhelming so people just reach for what they know is safe (or let the algorithm decide, which is well and good but it'll never go out on a limb because it saw something exciting)

Could be argued as well that's what opens the door...

Traditional model, Royal Blood, come out on stage at a gig you don't want to do, you aren't unconditionally loved for simply turning up doing WORTHY ROCK MUSIC, so spit your dummy and be a bit of a stroppy little tart. He might have been putting it on for marketing, but he was probably sincerely put out...

Say you are Mary Spender, James Hargreaves or Violet Orlandi... by building relationships with their viewers on Youtube over time they gradually single themselves out from the thousands of other artists and get a following, the "1000 true fans" model.

So you aren't wrong, the nice experience I had as well in record shops is really long gone, but these days artists stand out in different ways.

You've made me terribly nostalgic for the racks of singles for £1 in Spinadisc in Northampton - discovered Travelers Tune by OCS from there, Late in the Day by Supergrass, still got my £1 CD singles of Stand By Me and All Around The World by Oasis... ahhh, the past

roberty · June 2023

I still think the writing in mainstream music has been dumbed down, because the intangible quality of good writing is hard to quantify and the revenue is a slither of what it was. Why pay a writer when you can put a top line on something a producer has made. Also it is easier to tell a band to change key than it is to program a key change

darthed1981 · June 2023

roberty said:

I still think the writing in mainstream music has been dumbed down, because the intangible quality of good writing is hard to quantify and the revenue is a slither of what it was. Why pay a writer when you can put a top line on something a producer has made

Songwriters are currently fighting the major labels for a fairer share of streaming revenues, as are artists, so something is certainly rotten in the state of Denmark, for sure. The biggest problem is that your tenner a month is not distributed based on who YOU listen to, but who EVERYONE does, so if you listen to all independent artists, 95% of your money still goes to the majors...

... it's really amazing they get away with it.

I can really only link to the James Hargreaves video again, he's put together a really good summary of what's happening, which hopefully will benefit creatives across the board...

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Royal Blood and "Real" Music

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