Browsing All posts tagged under »music industry«

Monday Musing: A Noise In The East

April 29, 2013

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As I write this I’m looking forward to an upcoming Damo Suzuki gig in Colchester. Suzuki spent around three years as vocalist with Can and was recorded with them on four legendary albums. Since 1973 he has been doing his own thing, much of it also involving making music, and much of it very interesting and creative by all accounts, but none of it quite as influential as the work he did with the Krautrock trailblazers. It’s hard to overstate the importance of those four albums, in terms of how great an influence they had on such a wide range of musicians, all over the world; although Suzuki’s global fame and star status can be gauged from the fact that he will be playing a mid-sized music pub when he comes to Colchester, in terms of his…

Monday Musing: The Ideology Of The Album

April 15, 2013

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I've been wondering about the way that I choose what music to write about, what the reasons for those choices are, and what the consequences of them might be. I feel I've been fairly rigorous in examining the way I think and write about specific pieces of music in detail, and I've gone to the effort of engaging with (relatively) current schools of thought in critical theory in order to inform my thinking. But this basic question, related both to my personal tastes and to the utility of my blogging, has remained something of a black box. I decided to have a poke around and see what I could break…

Monday Musing: Is Art Political Again?

March 19, 2012

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The more I write about different things, musical aesthetics, the music business, music industry politics, culture and all the rest of it, the less I feel like I’m writing about different things. It’s only when I take a step back that I can see how abstruse and theoretical some of the things I say about aesthetics, for example, must appear, because for me there is nothing less political about a topic like that than there is about any overtly social subject. Everything is political, everything is aesthetic, everything is emotional, everything is spiritual and everything is subject to fruitful theoretical examination …

Monday Musing: Special Pleading And The Ethics Of Culture

February 6, 2012

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Every so often the liberal press likes to get up a nice bit of moral panic about ragga/ rap/ whatever singers’ appalling attitudes towards women, or exhorting their listeners to shoot gays; usually the right wing press likes to join in as well, as it’s a good excuse for them to trot out their ongoing concerns about black people, with their primitive passions and oversized penises (well, they don’t say that out loud any more, but the subtext is still there). So there’s that, but we need a few more examples. There’s a well known song in Britain which expresses a desire for Marshall Wade to ‘…like a torrent rush/ rebellious Scots to crush’

Monday Musing: Music Scenes And Global Localities

January 9, 2012

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There’s a music scene in your local town or borough. People obsessive or foolhardy enough to make the effort are inventing noises, and making them at other people. The chances are (particularly with small town scenes) that there’s a fair diversity of styles and genres involved, and you’ll probably find pub gigs where sludge metal bands share the bill with indie rock outfits, or punk bands with funk acts. This is the beauty of geographically specific scenes, because it’s always good, for musicians and audiences both, to make connections between musics: that’s where exciting new sounds come from.

Monday Musings: Your Local Scene Is A Weapon

November 14, 2011

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On Saturday I went to RoastFest, a beautiful extravaganza of creative and utterly idiosyncratic music, all independent or unsigned, all uncompromisingly true to its various muses, and all performed for the sheer love of it (free entry to eight hours of music, including some acts who are pretty well known in their field). To see so much genuinely creative and original art on show in one place was more than a treat, it was moving; but it also struck me that I was seeing an accumulation of cultural capital to compare with anything mustered by a government funded national institution.

Monday Musings: Death of a Simplicity Geek

October 10, 2011

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I’ve decided to devote this edition of Monday Musings to talking about Steve Jobs. You may wonder what a recently deceased technology corporation executive has to do with the sort of things I usually write about, other than iTunes, obviously. The short answer is that I’m not too sure, but I felt the need to write about Jobs at some length as soon as I heard he was dead. First, a brief chronology of my early encounters with the man. I suppose the first time his work impinged on my consciousness was when I started at secondary school...

Oli


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What I review:

People send me music faster than I can write about it, so I write about the submissions I like the most. I no longer actively solicit review materials, even if I absolutely love something. If you don't send it to me, I won't review it. If I pay for it, I won't review it. If it isn't (and won't be) available to my readers as a download or physical media, I won't review it. I enjoy listening to, and will review, music in any style whatsoever.

Submitting music for review:

If you have a physical package for your release, contact me for my address, as that's my preference, but if it's a download, just send me the link. When you submit digitally, I need the files on my hard disc: I won't review a stream, and I won't listen to a stream and tell you whether or not to submit. If you want me to consider your release for review, then submit it. Digital submissions need to arrive in a single folder with all of their metadata (ID3 tags) correctly set – track, artist and album names typed as you want me to see them – and with the artwork attached. If the release doesn't archive in my iTunes library as a single album, or I need to type in any of the info myself, I'll just bin it. I don't review music I've paid for, so if you send me a link to a paid download, I'll ignore it. If you don't understand any of this, ask someone before you submit. Don't ask me. I will review your release based on the information you give me (a link to your website is fine), so if you want me to list the correct price, release date, label, catalogue number etc., that's down to you. I make no promises about whether or when I'll review your work, and I won't discuss my decisions about what I do and don't review. I give preferential consideration to physical submissions, but I receive too much music in all formats to make any guarantees. The very best music I receive, and that I can think of the most to say about, will get a feature review, but if I review it at all it still means it's among the cream of the submissions, so don't be disappointed if it's a short write-up in a post with a lot of other releases.

What I want in return:

I put a good deal of work into my reviews, and pay very close attention to your music: writing about someone's music is a responsibility I take as seriously as looking after someone else's child. In return, I ask two things. Firstly, please be patient: your release will be featured as soon I get time to write the review, and as soon as my site's schedule can accommodate it. Secondly, please promote my site. I'm trying to support artists with publicity, which works both ways, so if I post a review of your work, I really appreciate it if you link to it through all your usual promotional channels.
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