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sir_quirky_k (

sir_quirky_k) wrote,
@ 2007-08-02 00:04:00

Aha!
* Webstream now works. No sign of continuous commentary but I'm acting very nicely as a 'roving reporter' with pitchside comments. Unfortunately we're about as close to a canicule as we're going to get this year - I'd rather have been in the rain.
* It took three months, but Umbrella has finally earwormed me. I'm pretty sure there's got to be something good about that song. It's certainly not the lyrics, which are amongst the worst in chart history. It's probably not the melody, which is simplicity defined, but without being that effective. (As good a rule-of-thumb as exists; would this song work stripped down to a piano accompaniment? Without question, it wouldn't, and that says a lot.) It might be the drum loops, but plenty of other songs that have Got A Good Beat^ don't work any better for it, and many more are worse for it. (The dance remix of St Elmo's Fire complete with sluts in the video, which pretty much stripped the song of all the redeeming features it had - and hearing the original on cable TV yesterday confirmed there's plenty of redeeming features there - illustrates that.) Lawks, what could it be?

(I know why it's selling so steadily, though. Wet summer, chav word-of-mouth...)

* Back to good news; the commentary is going quite brilliantly. In fact, I'm noticing I'm an extrovert in many respects, particularly when using my voice and having control of a situation. The latter is just my interest pattern; the former is down to Gemma's focus on diction, for I now know my speaking voice will not let me down horribly.

^ 'Got A Good Beat' is a trademark of Weaver, 2007.

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daweaver
2007-08-04 03:36 pm UTC (link)

Unfortunately we're about as close to a canicule as we're going to get this year - I'd rather have been in the rain.

It's been a pleasant day here in Brum, warm sun but a stiff breeze. Good weather to go riding, but that's another post for another day.

It took three months, but Umbrella has finally earwormed me.

Oh, bad luck.

(I know why it's selling so steadily, though. Wet summer, chav word-of-mouth...)

Not to flog a dead horse, but I've been looking over the sales patterns for another very solid seller, Leann Rimes' 1998 smash How do I live?. According to an old Music Week (20.06.98), she shifted at least 20,000 copies in fourteen of her first fifteen weeks on release, but never more than 41,000. All fourteen of those weeks were spent between positions 7 and 12 on the charts. In her eleven weeks so far, Rihanna has sold at least 22,000 copies each week, but never more than 43,000.

^ 'Got A Good Beat' is a trademark of Weaver, 2007.

Credit where it's due: "Hey, what's this? It's got a good beat!" was a recurring joke on The Mary Whitehouse Experience circa 1990.

(remember which birthday

sir_quirky_k has just marked)

Where's me bus pass?

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sir_quirky_k
2007-08-04 07:25 pm UTC (link)

Ah, yes, How Do I Live? - that is one from The Diane Warren Ballad Factory, yes? (checks Scroogle) Yes. One of goodness knows how many songs she has written about (in this case, the absence of) an emotion she has scarcely experienced. (I showed this article to Gizensha, and we are both convinced she is somewhere on the autistic spectrum. To be quite honest, speaking from my perspective, I cannot possibly see how the lyrics to Numb (Warren, 2006) could have been written by anyone neurotypical...)

That comparison is fascinating, and a fine reflection on the near-death of the singles market. No longer can record companies make a particularly easy career selling 16cm circular shinies to pubescent females, but then again nor can they easily sell any good music either, and that is a loss.

Oh, and I reluctantly concede the hook is probably what does it. Granted, it's almost certainly nothing more than a tragi-comic lack of creativity that got bunged out as a hook, but then again so was the hook to Lisa Stansfield's career-defining hit.

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daweaver
2007-08-05 12:52 pm UTC (link)

One of goodness knows how many songs she has written about (in this case, the absence of) an emotion she has scarcely experienced.

Well, that does help to explain the strange hold she has over big budget motion pictures. It's the echo chamber effect - Miss Warren learns about stereotypical emotions from the movies, they commission her to write songs that reinforce those stereotypes, and the circle continues. Meanwhile, people who can write from experience (cough) Gretchen Peters (cough) are sidelined for being too realistic in comparison.

I cannot possibly see how the lyrics to Numb (Warren, 2006) could have been written by anyone neurotypical...)

2003 - it wasn't released or published until last year, but was scheduled for inclusion on the PSB's 2003 singles collection. The general reading seems to be isolationist, sticking a towel over one's head and pretending that the march to Iraq never happened.

No longer can record companies make a particularly easy career selling 16cm circular shinies to pubescent females, but then again nor can they easily sell any good music either, and that is a loss.

The lack of profit from singles is nothing new. In the mid 1980s, when the only singles were 7-inch vinyl retailing for £1.55, record companies would generally make a small loss on each single. Even the big sellers might only have netted a profit of a penny or two. The thesis here: singles are a commercial for the album, and those were (and are) the profit centres.

Cassette singles (er, singles on a cassette. Very popular circa 1990) turned a small profit, and early CD singles turned a huge profit. That windfall's gone, but I can't see how the majors are making a loss on downloads at 79p.

It's nothing more than a tragi-comic lack of creativity that got bunged out as a hook, but then again so was the hook to Lisa Stansfield's career-defining hit.

In Stansfield's case, that was a shame, because it overshadowed a decent talent to the point where her later work was completely forgotten. (See 1997 Nostalgia series passim.)

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sir_quirky_k
2007-08-05 03:41 pm UTC (link)

Oh, good call on her writing of film music, and the generally accepted reading of Numb (my own reading is undoubtedly based on my own experiences, but learning that it was written in 2003 explains an awful lot - especially in the context of which PSB album it ended up on...)

With downloads, I guess there is a (near-)zero marginal cost (any marginal cost is probably in bandwidth, and that's not the record companies' responsibility unless they are also the download source)...

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Downloads

daweaver
2007-08-06 06:15 pm UTC (link)

With downloads, I guess there is a (near-)zero marginal cost

I would go so far as to say that the marginal cost is zero. Once the tune has been recorded in a digital format, the cost of making a second copy is so small as to be unmeasureable. Even assuming that a third of the retail price goes to the digital vendor, and songwriting and performance royalties are half what they were for the regular single, I can't see how the record corps would be making a loss per download. If they are, they need their faces slapped.

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