Lightening myne own heart
What YOU should be listening to: "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" by Wheatus (Pat Benatar cover).
Wheatus one of the more underrated musical groups of our time in my mind. I guess considering what the standard is for punk/garage rock this is far more entertaining than Bowling for Soup or any crap like that. Well, maybe I don't want Wheatus being what they are. Anyway they have far more dignity anyway. And here's why.
Well, actually from the start. They started out with a self-titled album back in 2000. You may remember the single "Teenage Dirtbag". Yeah that was pretty much their only radio hit here in the US. Well, that sure as hell is not the case around the world though. This is a band that has large fan bases in Europe, and Australia. In fact their first album when platinum numerous times on both continents. Here I dont think it even went gold. Ah well. Anyway, in 2003 they came out with an album called "Hand Over Your Loved Ones". It was not released in the US however after the first album drew much attention(How did I acquire it myself? Did I buy the import for 25bucks? Hell no. I went to a legal online Mp3 service from Russia where songs are roughly 5-15cents apiece http://mclub.te.net.ua/ I'll blog about that one somtime soon). Their record label kinda took over on this one. Of course they made the mistake of signing with a big label. Sony. Yes, these big labels are great for bands that have been successful for years and play a standard of music. However, with a group like Wheatus, they march to the beat of a different drum (which shocks me as to why they signed with a big label). Anyhow, Sony screwed the group over on "Hand Over Your Loved Ones" by putting on the tracks they wanted to without any of the bands permission and changed the name of the album themselves. Interesting how they switched it to "Hand Over Your Loved Ones". Basically saying to the band, hand your testicles over. It's over. Indeed, Sony took the balls outta the group. The album has had a much smaller effect on their fan bases around the world (although I feel myself that this album is almost as good as the first one, if not better). Anyhow, long story short, Wheatus got pissed and jumped off the label. And now they are releasing music themselves until they can find a label that suits them better. They are keeping their fans by offering free sampling of their full new tracks on the website at a great bit rate might I add :)
Here are my questions that I want you to think of for the day:
What are the pros and cons to big record companies? (besides the obvious "making it big")
and
Whatever happened to playing for the music and not the money? You can't go to hardly anybody's website and get full versions of the music at full quality at your disgression. Everyone is moanin and groanin about how they don't make enough and that file sharing programs are going to put them on the streets. Musicians are getting to be like athletes it seems. We enjoy them, but also know they're cocky bastards who don't give a hoot about their fans. I don't mean to sound like an old senile man, but I just would like to know of more bands and groups that are into their style and music.
I thought this would be a lighter hearted post, but I guess not. Hopefully the next one will be. I think the next one will be about my Russian friends, so it should get better.
posted by Taye Povs at 12:06 AM
1 Comments:
Downgrade indeed old friend.
However, I am an optimist. I am optimistic that things will change sometime in the near future. And as music is one of my best friends, I can only listen to the old stuff for so long before the style begins to bore me. And in that sense I do believe that today's music does complement the old music well at times. To me it represents a good change of pace. Not necessarily a good style, but a good change in my playlist.
Looking on the bright side again, we are coming across more and more bands that seem to appreciate the music for what it is. Not how many benjamin's and record deals the music rakes in.
As I have discussed with you before Matt, what our pop industry is run by is punk rock. "Crappy" punk rock in the words of Lou Al Ford. When will Bowling for Soup, Simple Plan, and Good (Bad) Charlotte just go away? Hopefully soon. But something to keep in mind with what's popular. Once a type of music is popular there will be a large following that not only has promise of a lot of money, but also scantily clad women. I'm tired of bimbos deciding they're cool because they can shake their asses to Ja Rule grunting like a dumbass, or Juvenile repeatedly saying stupid crap like "Slow motion for me". Man. I could go on. But anyway, these bimbos get the idea that the only kind of music that you can dance to are the ones that have thumping bass and inappropriate language. Well actually it's the only music they know how to dance to. As we all witnessed at the XOP party last weekend, not only did the people not know how to dance to real dance music with real beats, but they were downright rude about our selections on the playlist. I dont understand how some of these songs that have beats the have entranced other continents and yet all we can handle is "Slow Motion". It's sad to me. There is so much more out there. People will only dance to what everyone else likes. For instance, for years and years Jamiroquai has been putting out some of the most dance oriented music. But most people remember him for Virtual Insanity and deemed the group as a one hit wonder. Well, when the cult hit movie Napoleon Dynamite played the song Canned Heat by Jamiroquai it was all of a sudden cool to listen to that song and dance to it. It's funny how people choose what they like by what other people like. It's definitely not an issue that they are not exposed to this other music, they just aren't willing to try unless everyone else is there.
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