[quoteLike I said, this is not about the music, but the phenomenon. I really think that there's a max market for this kind of thing and the smartest ones are those that maximize the profit they can make off of a relatively small core audience.
Excellently said. There's a nice living to be made off the long tail (get your minds out of the gutter--I mean THIS long tail), but the hype machine crowing that MIA is "the next big thing!" has been demonstrated to be incorrect, and it also doesn't do MIA any favors in the long run.
EXACTLY
that's my point too.. why fuck with the majors when it looks like you're gonna get burned either way????
do people get sucked into their own hype???
"IM GONNA BE HUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEEE"
blinded of the reality that they should really be stickin with a lower profile??
you could look at it the same way with dizee razcal... i mean come on.. that shit is obviously not gonna blow up huge in the malls of america ANYTIME soon.. especially when its put out on a shit indy rock label.
the kids these days would need a 50 / em / dre / jigga collab before warming to anything like this brittish grimey stuff..
you could look at it the same way with dizee razcal... i mean come on.. that shit is obviously not gonna blow up huge in the malls of america ANYTIME soon.. especially when its put out on a shit indy rock label.
the kids these days would need a 50 / em / dre / jigga collab before warming to anything like this brittish grimey stuff..
See also Ms. Dynamite, whose album I fucking loved, but it did nothing, even though it only had one or two tracks that were even close to being "British grimey stuff." For the most part, it was great R&B--and very radio friendly.
i think her lack of sales just reflects the fact that outside of our narrow universe the bulk of the american record buying shit isn't tuned into this shit. they only read music and vicetype magazines on the shitter or in the doctors office (and usually only read the articles about artists they already know/like), they don't know what a blog is and even if they did they wouldn't want to read about the next big thing in the dancehall grime baile funk fusion world or debate about the social ramifications of her tamil tiger affiliation. they listen to the radio, watch mtv and hear what their friend plays in the car. "the next big thing" just isn't that important to "normal" people, if it's gonna be that big they'll just hear about it when it is that popular.
and delay hit the nail on the head:
Could the problem be that her demographic is the exact same group who have stopped buying music at all?
when an internet following makes up the bulk of your fans, most of them are gonna be downloading it.
did interscope really expect this record to sell well out of the gate?
honestly i enjoyed her album a little more than i expected to, but i still don't think it's all that great.
i saw her video once.. they played on the late night alternative music program up here.. it was on some dollar store "lets rippoff neneh cherry / technotronic" green screen action
See also Ms. Dynamite, whose album I fucking loved, but it did nothing, even though it only had one or two tracks that were even close to being "British grimey stuff." For the most part, it was great R&B--and very radio friendly.
There's a great remix promo of Dy-Na-Mi-Tee, produced by Swizz Beats feat Nas. Track it down, it's dope.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
word
paycheck and celery are on the real topic here...
this isnt about whether or not mia is dope or crap.. its about whether or not the hype is gonna live up to the sales...
that's what i find interesting.
i would imagine that a large percentage of her potential market already has the leaked album already no?
my wife's been blasting it for about a month and a half already.
but what i find the most interesting is the underground buzz that builds.. brings around the clueless majors who are lookin for the next big thing... and then they release it to the wider market ... but IS there a wider market???
that's what im talkin bout...
What I'm finding more and more is that major label A&R departments seem to be staffed by people who see their sole function as being to try and impose their (often marginal) tastes on the wider public. I like the crusading spirit of that on one hand, because interesting new music deserves at least a chance to find an audience, and a major getting behind anything that isn't cookie-cutter pop/rock/rap is a rare event in itself these days. But it seems like the key word when MIA's name comes up is "hype", which ain't good for any new artist. It's funny, because she's based out of the UK, got signed over here first, and was getting national radio play here with "Galang" over a year ago. Yet almost all the hype has been generated in the US, a country usually extremely sceptical about UK acts that are touted as The Next Big Thing. I dunno, maybe someone over there heard "Galang" and thought, this Bollywood/dancehall kinda vibe isn't too far away from what Timbo's been doing for a minute - maybe this can work in the US. Not gonna happen - it's way too specialised. A&R's often forget that popular tastes generally aren't that sophisticated. Most ordinary folks could care less about "cutting edge new music", and just because a few hundred people in Billyburg or Shoreditch think [insert name of hipster darling act/trend here] is the hot new shit, it's far from a given that some pumpjockey in Des Moines or Middlesbrough is likely to know, much less care, about it. I'm not trying to suggest that's how it should be - that's just an observation.
All that said, I don't think it's entirely fair to jump all over MIA, just because she didn't do 50 Cent numbers right out of the gate. She's on Interscope in the US, right? Well, where do you think most of their efforts will have been concentrated for the last couple of months? On something G-Unit related, perhaps? That's the nature of major-label priorities - the big dogs get the bulk of the attention and promo muscle, even though their shit could quite often sell by itself. MIA being adopted as the pin-up girl of the blogging community means that the label gets its promo done for nothing, or at least peanuts. Those of us who spend too much of our time on the internet know all about her for precisely that reason. As for the music, I think it's pretty good. Her album won't do big numbers because it doesn't easily lend itself to formatting and people are probably going to be a little confused as to what she "is". But if the high-fashion crowd pick up on it, or she gets a song or two in an ad or a hit movie, there's an outside chance of her record being a sleeper hit like Moby's "Play".
I think she'll be bigger overseas (as she is from the UK) than she will be here in the US. But I do think she will have a loyal following here in the US. She's kind of on the same path as Guapale. It'll take time for people to get to know her, but when they do, they love her.
But the "hype machine" as you call it, is making its waves. They're targeting college age, they have no money. And well, hip-hop folks are all about bootlegging.
I think in general people are downloading before they buy. Testing the waters to see if they really like it and want to spend money on it. To sum up, I like her and I downloaded her 2 singles. Not ready to comit to the album.
Note, I don't think Goapele is selling boatloads either...
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Words from my mole up at MTV:
I think she'll be bigger overseas (as she is from the UK) than she will be here in the US. But I do think she will have a loyal following here in the US. She's kind of on the same path as Guapale. It'll take time for people to get to know her, but when they do, they love her.
But the "hype machine" as you call it, is making its waves. They're targeting college age, they have no money. And well, hip-hop folks are all about bootlegging.
I think in general people are downloading before they buy. Testing the waters to see if they really like it and want to spend money on it. To sum up, I like her and I downloaded her 2 singles. Not ready to comit to the album.
Note, I don't think Goapele is selling boatloads either...
I saw Goapele's album in the "3-for-??12" bin at my local mixtape spot just last week. I didn't even know it'd had a UK release. Anyway, on the headwrap diva tip, it's all about Conya Doss over here right now.
well, he DID say it was "bullshit shoved down throats by music critics"
I DID say that, and I stand by that statement, I mean why is a woman who has sold less records than 7L and Esoteric worthy of three articles in the Village Voice? But my personal issues with the music aside, my larger point is simply that I think that the insular community of music critics and cool magazines and party promoters or whatever are far too quick to pat themselves on the back and ascribe a tastemaker status that I think doesn't bear out...outside of that little community. I just think that the sollipsistic world of blogs and vice and hipsters cannot simply will something to be big merely by repeating that said thing is gonna be big, over and over again. I have not asserted that Interscope couldn't make MIA massive if they choose to focus their attention on her, I mean shit, Interscope can make a singing goat or the Black Eyed Peas (is there a difference?) popular if they choose to. A group of self-appointed cool kids, however, cannot. I am not downing anyone for liking her music, I just said that I, ME, PERSONALLY don't get it.
Oh, and on an unrelated note, Mullyman (full disclosure: my client) is THE SHIT and everyone needs to buy his 12" and write about him in their blogs so that Interscope gives HIM a deal
well this brings back the point why fuck with the majors if they can't move MAJOR fukin units.
and like i said before does this rest on the shoulders of the artist?
look at a catl ike prince.. he shifted major units.. made pennies on each album and then said fuck it im,ma sell this shit myself o nthe web and keep all the fuckin money.
obviously he's not goin to move as many units but he stands to make ALOT more money from the units he does move.
why wouldnt someone with hot underground buzz not just settup their own label on the quickeness and sell a reasonable amount of units.. keep their credibility ..and probably make more money in the long term?
i mean it really doesnt make sense... if you know you have a market and you know how to hit that market up then why not market YOUR OWN product to said market???
i mean REALLY!!! people are crazy to think that dancehall ragga muffin baile whatever you wanna call it is gonna be huge ... people been fuckin with this sound FOR years and cannot break it to a major audience.
it takes major label talent to bring major success.. look at a dancehall dude like Lenky... mo wax fucked around with puttin out some of his instros and people did not bite (bargain bins for the ole now thing comp)... then he hooks up diwali and moves major units on the strength of main stream figures like sean paul and wayne wonder...
i mean what does mia have???
the already proven washout that is UK hip hop... ms dynamite being a perfect example.. wasnt she HUGE in england??? won the mercury prize too no? yet North American success is WAY out of the picture.
and a dude who makes beats on ninja tune????
back to the point about the majors being staffed by people who want to push their marginal interests on the public.. i really don't know about that... my impression is that they're staffed by pretty clueless dudes desperate to roll the diceo nthe next big thing...
and this desperation is what leads them to overlook the massive uncomercial appeal of alot of acts they think are gonna be HUGE.
Pulp. Pap. Poop. Pop. repeat. That's my new bassline.
The problem with judging succesfull "urban" acts from the UK is that they got successfull because the average single buyer over there is 12 years old or so. Try to hype that to the US college/hipster demo and they'll catch on that it's crap before the LP has hit the stores.
And, yeah, the ipod phenom doesn't help.
Sade and Seal are the biggest selling UK acts in the last 20 years. (meaning off one or 2 big LPs)
why wouldnt someone with hot underground buzz not just settup their own label on the quickeness and sell a reasonable amount of units.. keep their credibility ..and probably make more money in the long term?
i mean it really doesnt make sense... if you know you have a market and you know how to hit that market up then why not market YOUR OWN product to said market???
i mean REALLY!!! people are crazy to think that dancehall ragga muffin baile whatever you wanna call it is gonna be huge ... people been fuckin with this sound FOR years and cannot break it to a major audience.
it takes major label talent to bring major success..
And it takes some know-how to run a successful business too...throwing some 'marketing' and a label together "on-the-quickness" is A LOT trickier than people think, and one of the reasons you have so much useless hype(because so many people still think it would be cute to 'run a record label').
I understand your point, buteven Prince probably stood to lose money in the short run, and he could bank on his name and catalog in the long run. And knowing you have a market in 2005 does not mean you will keep your market into 2006, it takes vision and persistence to do business right, and just because you can sing a song doesn't mean you know how the market works or even the best way to market your abilities. Doesn't mean you DON'T know, either, I'm just saying. There is a reason that some people push the paper and others handle the creative end.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
well this brings back the point why fuck with the majors if they can't move MAJOR fukin units.
and like i said before does this rest on the shoulders of the artist?
look at a catl ike prince.. he shifted major units.. made pennies on each album and then said fuck it im,ma sell this shit myself o nthe web and keep all the fuckin money.
obviously he's not goin to move as many units but he stands to make ALOT more money from the units he does move.
why wouldnt someone with hot underground buzz not just settup their own label on the quickeness and sell a reasonable amount of units.. keep their credibility ..and probably make more money in the long term?
i mean it really doesnt make sense... if you know you have a market and you know how to hit that market up then why not market YOUR OWN product to said market???
i mean REALLY!!! people are crazy to think that dancehall ragga muffin baile whatever you wanna call it is gonna be huge ... people been fuckin with this sound FOR years and cannot break it to a major audience.
it takes major label talent to bring major success.. look at a dancehall dude like Lenky... mo wax fucked around with puttin out some of his instros and people did not bite (bargain bins for the ole now thing comp)... then he hooks up diwali and moves major units on the strength of main stream figures like sean paul and wayne wonder...
i mean what does mia have???
the already proven washout that is UK hip hop... ms dynamite being a perfect example.. wasnt she HUGE in england??? won the mercury prize too no? yet North American success is WAY out of the picture.
and a dude who makes beats on ninja tune????
back to the point about the majors being staffed by people who want to push their marginal interests on the public.. i really don't know about that... my impression is that they're staffed by pretty clueless dudes desperate to roll the diceo nthe next big thing...
and this desperation is what leads them to overlook the massive uncomercial appeal of alot of acts they think are gonna be HUGE.
A lot of good points there. As far as UK hip-hop's concerned, everything that's gone over there from here over the last few years has started on the back foot because someone's said, "This is the UK answer to [whatever]". It isn't. I like Diz and Dynamite, I don't like The Streets, and I'm lukewarm on MIA, but all those acts are at least trying to do their own thing, with their own voice. US cats don't have to like it, and clearly most of you don't, but what I will say for them is that they're not trying to be American. The downside of that is that it means most of America isn't going to be interested. That's showbiz.
Back to the main point. MIA is signed to an indie over here, which is why I was so surprised to find she'd gone to Interscope in the US. I mean, there isn't a huge buzz about her in the UK, comparatively speaking - at least, not compared to Franz Ferdinand, who took their hot indie album to the US labels and were offered heaven and earth to sign by every single one of them. But the way I see it, you'd only want to do a deal with a major for the money and promo muscle anyway. Running your own label's all well and good, but if you run it as a sole trader, then all the admin shit will get in the way of making music, which is what you really want to do, right? So do you pay someone to do that for you, while you live on ramen? Or do you go with an indie, which may not be able to do much more for you than you can do yourself? Or do you return the calls of that enthusiastic Guy Oseary wannabe who's just got his signing budget back?
As for "a guy who makes beats on Ninja Tune"...well, you'd be surprised what can come from out of left field. A guy I used to work with took an a&r job for Zomba Music Publishing, and the first act he signed, off the back of a couple of OK-selling indie 12"s, was Daft Punk. The signing made front page of the trade mags, next big thing, yadayada. Back in the office, we all looked at one another and said, they'll never get a penny of that advance back. A few million albums later...
If the label's prepared to let MIA's record build steadily and find its audience on its own - and it'd be unusual if they did - it could yet happen for her. Universal, as a record company, is pretty steady right now. They've done the merger thing already, so the likelihood of all the people working her record getting sacked, and her being the victim of a roster cull, isn't as great as it might be elsewhere. And it's not a record that was ever going to sell millions right off anyway. Celray's point about hipsters overestimating their level of influence is something I completely agree with, too. It's a new hype every week in the UK, particularly at the indie-rock end of the scale, and a good 80% of it doesn't even have half of what MIA has going for her.
One final thing about Ms. Dynamite - she fell off the radar for a minute because she went off to have a kid. I heard from a lawyer friend of mine at Universal - and this isn't set in stone obviously - that, just before she dipped to do the single mother thing, Jimmy Iovine had been trying to tempt her to Interscope using Dre as bait. If she got on a Dre track, that'd be
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
The problem with judging succesfull "urban" acts from the UK is that they got successfull because the average single buyer over there is 12 years old or so. Try to hype that to the US college/hipster demo and they'll catch on that it's crap before the LP has hit the stores.
No, the problem is that majors sign them as "urban" acts and don't know how to market them. The records don't sell, so they try to turn them into "pop" acts, which alienates their core audience, while an indifferent pop audience sticks with pop.
Sade and Seal are the biggest selling UK acts in the last 20 years. (meaning off one or 2 big LPs)
Neither of these acts were really marketed as "urban" acts though, were they? Neither of them have much appeal to a black crowd in the UK either.
I feel you on some of your critiques below but I also think you're making a few assumptions that need to be addressed.
1) No sane music critic actually thinks that people BUY records based on their recommendations. I mean, a few might be gassed up on some bullshit to think that, but most of the people I know and work with all recognize that their tastes do NOT conform with populist tastes.
The most obvious example is comparing Billboard's year end charts with the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll. It's VERY rare that the two have much in common with the exception of maybe, 2-3 albums. For example, Pazz and Jop loved Lauryn Hill and Kanye West - so did the buying public. For the most part though, the albums that critics (rock critics - hip-hop critics are a whole thing altogether) get all galang galang about are rarely the same albums that the Walmart crowd gives a fuck about.
2) Moreover, aren't you taking a rather limited perspective on trying to equate hype with record sales? It's one thing to have three articles written on you in the Village Voice. That's the type of hype that will sell records out of Other Music. It's another thing to be a multi-platinum artist, kick out a member of your crew on the radio, then pop shots outside the station, then announce a truce a week later. That kind of hype gets you 2.3 million out the box.
I don't think anyone who's hyped M.I.A. thought she'd sell bushels of the records out the gate. Again, see my very first point.
3) To expand on that for a second, recognize that anyone who's cocky enough to call themselves a "tastemaker" isn't interested in making the tastes of Joe Average in Middle America. He or she is trying to set the trend among other trendsters. By the time the bridge and tunnel crowd get a hold of it, that's a sign that said trend is over and done.
You're conflating wanna-be tastemakers with industry strategists. The latter are trying to find artists they can retire off of. The former just want to be able to say they were the first to put an artist on their mix-CD. Two different ambitions.
I just think the idea that bloggers and critics think they can will anything to become popular doesn't exist within those communities.
4) I think it's totally cool that you hate blogger hype. Yeah, it is an insular community, yeah, it is a circle jerk. But why pay it any mind? It's not like bloggers are really being afforded a special place in the culture industry except by other bloggers. You might have a tiny, tiny amount of celebs out there - like Wonkette or whatever - but complaining about blog hype is like complaining about Okayplayer hype - I think everyone (including those of us inside of it) recognize that our opinions are pretty insular and that the main trends we think we're tracking is amongst ourselves.
5) My thing on M.I.A. is this:
I like her album, I like her music. Shit is catchy, it's fun to dance to. And that's about as far as I'll go. I don't find her political sloganeering very affecting but if I can shake my ass to it, that's good enough.
What I don't like about her hype is what my man Jon Caramanica lays down here:
DBC - don't get me wrong, I'm tired of the M.I.A. hype too because I think it too glibly treats her as this cute 3rd World revolutionary - Neneh Cherry meets Che Guevera. That's partly M.I.A.'s fault - I mean, she sells herself as such to a certain extent, but you read something like Rob Sheffield's review in Rolling Stone, where he talks about "jump rope rhymes in a war zone" and you just roll your eyes.
well, he DID say it was "bullshit shoved down throats by music critics"
I DID say that, and I stand by that statement, I mean why is a woman who has sold less records than 7L and Esoteric worthy of three articles in the Village Voice? But my personal issues with the music aside, my larger point is simply that I think that the insular community of music critics and cool magazines and party promoters or whatever are far too quick to pat themselves on the back and ascribe a tastemaker status that I think doesn't bear out...outside of that little community. I just think that the sollipsistic world of blogs and vice and hipsters cannot simply will something to be big merely by repeating that said thing is gonna be big, over and over again. I have not asserted that Interscope couldn't make MIA massive if they choose to focus their attention on her, I mean shit, Interscope can make a singing goat or the Black Eyed Peas (is there a difference?) popular if they choose to. A group of self-appointed cool kids, however, cannot. I am not downing anyone for liking her music, I just said that I, ME, PERSONALLY don't get it.
Oh, and on an unrelated note, Mullyman (full disclosure: my client) is THE SHIT and everyone needs to buy his 12" and write about him in their blogs so that Interscope gives HIM a deal
Good review link O, I do think that the author kind of misses the point in the conclusion though. This part in particular
In a further nod to Islam, the first word uttered on the album is a chantlike "Inshallah," a common Arabic phrase that means "God willing!" But this, like much of the album's politics, feels more like an idle attempt at provocation than engaged expression.
While the phrase does mean literally "God willing" in common usage by non muslim/jack muslim/non-parcticing/whatever you want to call them speakers of the arabic language it just means "hopefully". Like Q:"Will you make it to dinner tonight" A:"Inshallah". nothing religious or muslim to it really.
The reason that shit didn't sell is because of internet hype. If you hear about something on the internet, you are going to open Soulseek and download it. If you hear something playing in a record store, you are going to ask the clerk if they have it in stock. That and mufuckahs raving about her don't even buy music in the first place.
MIA's LP hasn't gotten the Interscope push yet, it's out been released by her UK label, so hold the fuck up.
I like her shit, I hate the hype, but I like the album. A lot.
and our boy Diplo did a lot of the production. /cheerlead
I was wondering about that Interscope business. The college station in Iowa City doesn't have a mark about her promo cd being on Interscope.
Concerning her hype though, I really don't see too much of that surrounding her. Granted, I do not read Village Voice weekly (and I'm pretty sure hardly anyone in Iowa does either). I have seen some hype in music/fashion magazines. I feel that's fine considering how it seems like The Bloc Party and a bunch of poorly constructed "disco-punk" bands have been saturating all music rags for the past few months.
I do love her single Galang (the video). Pull Up The People's not too bad. Most of the beats are that UK Grime flavor that's been slowly getting more attention.
Her political affliations I feel would not have any effect on her sucess in the US. I really think people, in the Midwest especially, do not really care about politics and music. The only exception would be if she were Iraqi or pro-Osama or connected to something that deeply affects America.
It's kind of funny how I ran into this M.I.A. thread after I had considered buying Arular today, which would be the first time I bought a brand new record in a long time. Instead, I bought the DFA Comp #2.
One more thing, whoever made that Des Moines comment, I would probably play her music if I had still lived there.
I saw the Sunshower video in Footlocker in ATL last week. Thinking: "wait, didn't Ghostface use this melody?" I guess her music is getting somewhere. Is she Tamil or Sinhalese?
I had considered buying Arular today, which would be the first time I bought a brand new record in a long time. Instead, I bought the DFA Comp #2.
This raises an interesting point. She's touring with LCD Soundsystem in the States, which to me sounds like settling for just selling this record to hipsters. Odd choice, with the *mainstream* takeoff of very similar music in the last few years (dancehall, crunk, reggaeton, grime -- in roughly that order) that there isn't more of an effort to push this record to the Missy/Gwen crowd. The fact is, 14-year-old girls are down to listen to some interesting shit if you give them the chance.
And with regard to the politics, shit, I started listening to RATM when I was 14, and didn't read the Communist Manifesto until like three years later. I think people can get down with one PLO mention per song.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, holmes.
I had considered buying Arular today, which would be the first time I bought a brand new record in a long time. Instead, I bought the DFA Comp #2.
This raises an interesting point. She's touring with LCD Soundsystem in the States, which to me sounds like settling for just selling this record to hipsters. Odd choice, with the *mainstream* takeoff of very similar music in the last few years (dancehall, crunk, reggaeton, grime -- in roughly that order) that there isn't more of an effort to push this record to the Missy/Gwen crowd. The fact is, 14-year-old girls are down to listen to some interesting shit if you give them the chance.
And with regard to the politics, shit, I started listening to RATM when I was 14, and didn't read the Communist Manifesto until like three years later. I think people can get down with one PLO mention per song.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, holmes.
My guess is that it'll eventually be picked up by the O.C. show and will be promptly name-dropped by their weird rebel geek poster boy, Seth.
Comments
Excellently said. There's a nice living to be made off the long tail (get your minds out of the gutter--I mean THIS long tail), but the hype machine crowing that MIA is "the next big thing!" has been demonstrated to be incorrect, and it also doesn't do MIA any favors in the long run.
EXACTLY
that's my point too.. why fuck with the majors when it looks like you're gonna get burned either way????
do people get sucked into their own hype???
"IM GONNA BE HUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGEEEEEEE"
blinded of the reality that they should really be stickin with a lower profile??
you could look at it the same way with dizee razcal... i mean come on.. that shit is obviously not gonna blow up huge in the malls of america ANYTIME soon.. especially when its put out on a shit indy rock label.
the kids these days would need a 50 / em / dre / jigga collab before warming to anything like this brittish grimey stuff..
i played it in miami - people likededed it.
I AM SAYIN' THOUGH
I am amazed--amazed!--that King Moist was able to post on the subject of MIA and not once--not once!--refer to her appearance.
See also Ms. Dynamite, whose album I fucking loved, but it did nothing, even though it only had one or two tracks that were even close to being "British grimey stuff." For the most part, it was great R&B--and very radio friendly.
***sound of Guzzo and King Moist girlishly tittering***
and delay hit the nail on the head:
when an internet following makes up the bulk of your fans, most of them are gonna be downloading it.
did interscope really expect this record to sell well out of the gate?
honestly i enjoyed her album a little more than i expected to, but i still don't think it's all that great.
Pump up the Galang!
There's a great remix promo of Dy-Na-Mi-Tee, produced by Swizz Beats feat Nas. Track it down, it's dope.
What I'm finding more and more is that major label A&R departments seem to be staffed by people who see their sole function as being to try and impose their (often marginal) tastes on the wider public. I like the crusading spirit of that on one hand, because interesting new music deserves at least a chance to find an audience, and a major getting behind anything that isn't cookie-cutter pop/rock/rap is a rare event in itself these days. But it seems like the key word when MIA's name comes up is "hype", which ain't good for any new artist. It's funny, because she's based out of the UK, got signed over here first, and was getting national radio play here with "Galang" over a year ago. Yet almost all the hype has been generated in the US, a country usually extremely sceptical about UK acts that are touted as The Next Big Thing. I dunno, maybe someone over there heard "Galang" and thought, this Bollywood/dancehall kinda vibe isn't too far away from what Timbo's been doing for a minute - maybe this can work in the US. Not gonna happen - it's way too specialised. A&R's often forget that popular tastes generally aren't that sophisticated. Most ordinary folks could care less about "cutting edge new music", and just because a few hundred people in Billyburg or Shoreditch think [insert name of hipster darling act/trend here] is the hot new shit, it's far from a given that some pumpjockey in Des Moines or Middlesbrough is likely to know, much less care, about it. I'm not trying to suggest that's how it should be - that's just an observation.
All that said, I don't think it's entirely fair to jump all over MIA, just because she didn't do 50 Cent numbers right out of the gate. She's on Interscope in the US, right? Well, where do you think most of their efforts will have been concentrated for the last couple of months? On something G-Unit related, perhaps? That's the nature of major-label priorities - the big dogs get the bulk of the attention and promo muscle, even though their shit could quite often sell by itself. MIA being adopted as the pin-up girl of the blogging community means that the label gets its promo done for nothing, or at least peanuts. Those of us who spend too much of our time on the internet know all about her for precisely that reason. As for the music, I think it's pretty good. Her album won't do big numbers because it doesn't easily lend itself to formatting and people are probably going to be a little confused as to what she "is". But if the high-fashion crowd pick up on it, or she gets a song or two in an ad or a hit movie, there's an outside chance of her record being a sleeper hit like Moby's "Play".
Note, I don't think Goapele is selling boatloads either...
I saw Goapele's album in the "3-for-??12" bin at my local mixtape spot just last week. I didn't even know it'd had a UK release. Anyway, on the headwrap diva tip, it's all about Conya Doss over here right now.
I DID say that, and I stand by that statement, I mean why is a woman who has sold less records than 7L and Esoteric worthy of three articles in the Village Voice? But my personal issues with the music aside, my larger point is simply that I think that the insular community of music critics and cool magazines and party promoters or whatever are far too quick to pat themselves on the back and ascribe a tastemaker status that I think doesn't bear out...outside of that little community. I just think that the sollipsistic world of blogs and vice and hipsters cannot simply will something to be big merely by repeating that said thing is gonna be big, over and over again. I have not asserted that Interscope couldn't make MIA massive if they choose to focus their attention on her, I mean shit, Interscope can make a singing goat or the Black Eyed Peas (is there a difference?) popular if they choose to. A group of self-appointed cool kids, however, cannot. I am not downing anyone for liking her music, I just said that I, ME, PERSONALLY don't get it.
Oh, and on an unrelated note, Mullyman (full disclosure: my client) is THE SHIT and everyone needs to buy his 12" and write about him in their blogs so that Interscope gives HIM a deal
and like i said before does this rest on the shoulders of the artist?
look at a catl ike prince.. he shifted major units.. made pennies on each album and then said fuck it im,ma sell this shit myself o nthe web and keep all the fuckin money.
obviously he's not goin to move as many units but he stands to make ALOT more money from the units he does move.
why wouldnt someone with hot underground buzz not just settup their own label on the quickeness and sell a reasonable amount of units.. keep their credibility ..and probably make more money in the long term?
i mean it really doesnt make sense... if you know you have a market and you know how to hit that market up then why not market YOUR OWN product to said market???
i mean REALLY!!! people are crazy to think that dancehall ragga muffin baile whatever you wanna call it is gonna be huge ... people been fuckin with this sound FOR years and cannot break it to a major audience.
it takes major label talent to bring major success.. look at a dancehall dude like Lenky... mo wax fucked around with puttin out some of his instros and people did not bite (bargain bins for the ole now thing comp)... then he hooks up diwali and moves major units on the strength of main stream figures like sean paul and wayne wonder...
i mean what does mia have???
the already proven washout that is UK hip hop... ms dynamite being a perfect example.. wasnt she HUGE in england??? won the mercury prize too no? yet North American success is WAY out of the picture.
and a dude who makes beats on ninja tune????
back to the point about the majors being staffed by people who want to push their marginal interests on the public.. i really don't know about that... my impression is that they're staffed by pretty clueless dudes desperate to roll the diceo nthe next big thing...
and this desperation is what leads them to overlook the massive uncomercial appeal of alot of acts they think are gonna be HUGE.
The problem with judging succesfull "urban" acts from the UK is that they got successfull because the average single buyer over there is 12 years old or so. Try to hype that to the US college/hipster demo and they'll catch on that it's crap before the LP has hit the stores.
And, yeah, the ipod phenom doesn't help.
Sade and Seal are the biggest selling UK acts in the last 20 years. (meaning off one or 2 big LPs)
And it takes some know-how to run a successful business too...throwing some 'marketing' and a label together "on-the-quickness" is A LOT trickier than people think, and one of the reasons you have so much useless hype(because so many people still think it would be cute to 'run a record label').
I understand your point, buteven Prince probably stood to lose money in the short run, and he could bank on his name and catalog in the long run. And knowing you have a market in 2005 does not mean you will keep your market into 2006, it takes vision and persistence to do business right, and just because you can sing a song doesn't mean you know how the market works or even the best way to market your abilities. Doesn't mean you DON'T know, either, I'm just saying. There is a reason that some people push the paper and others handle the creative end.
A lot of good points there. As far as UK hip-hop's concerned, everything that's gone over there from here over the last few years has started on the back foot because someone's said, "This is the UK answer to [whatever]". It isn't. I like Diz and Dynamite, I don't like The Streets, and I'm lukewarm on MIA, but all those acts are at least trying to do their own thing, with their own voice. US cats don't have to like it, and clearly most of you don't, but what I will say for them is that they're not trying to be American. The downside of that is that it means most of America isn't going to be interested. That's showbiz.
Back to the main point. MIA is signed to an indie over here, which is why I was so surprised to find she'd gone to Interscope in the US. I mean, there isn't a huge buzz about her in the UK, comparatively speaking - at least, not compared to Franz Ferdinand, who took their hot indie album to the US labels and were offered heaven and earth to sign by every single one of them. But the way I see it, you'd only want to do a deal with a major for the money and promo muscle anyway. Running your own label's all well and good, but if you run it as a sole trader, then all the admin shit will get in the way of making music, which is what you really want to do, right? So do you pay someone to do that for you, while you live on ramen? Or do you go with an indie, which may not be able to do much more for you than you can do yourself? Or do you return the calls of that enthusiastic Guy Oseary wannabe who's just got his signing budget back?
As for "a guy who makes beats on Ninja Tune"...well, you'd be surprised what can come from out of left field. A guy I used to work with took an a&r job for Zomba Music Publishing, and the first act he signed, off the back of a couple of OK-selling indie 12"s, was Daft Punk. The signing made front page of the trade mags, next big thing, yadayada. Back in the office, we all looked at one another and said, they'll never get a penny of that advance back. A few million albums later...
If the label's prepared to let MIA's record build steadily and find its audience on its own - and it'd be unusual if they did - it could yet happen for her. Universal, as a record company, is pretty steady right now. They've done the merger thing already, so the likelihood of all the people working her record getting sacked, and her being the victim of a roster cull, isn't as great as it might be elsewhere. And it's not a record that was ever going to sell millions right off anyway. Celray's point about hipsters overestimating their level of influence is something I completely agree with, too. It's a new hype every week in the UK, particularly at the indie-rock end of the scale, and a good 80% of it doesn't even have half of what MIA has going for her.
One final thing about Ms. Dynamite - she fell off the radar for a minute because she went off to have a kid. I heard from a lawyer friend of mine at Universal - and this isn't set in stone obviously - that, just before she dipped to do the single mother thing, Jimmy Iovine had been trying to tempt her to Interscope using Dre as bait. If she got on a Dre track, that'd be
No, the problem is that majors sign them as "urban" acts and don't know how to market them. The records don't sell, so they try to turn them into "pop" acts, which alienates their core audience, while an indifferent pop audience sticks with pop.
Neither of these acts were really marketed as "urban" acts though, were they? Neither of them have much appeal to a black crowd in the UK either.
I feel you on some of your critiques below but I also think you're making a few assumptions that need to be addressed.
1) No sane music critic actually thinks that people BUY records based on their recommendations. I mean, a few might be gassed up on some bullshit to think that, but most of the people I know and work with all recognize that their tastes do NOT conform with populist tastes.
The most obvious example is comparing Billboard's year end charts with the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop poll. It's VERY rare that the two have much in common with the exception of maybe, 2-3 albums. For example, Pazz and Jop loved Lauryn Hill and Kanye West - so did the buying public. For the most part though, the albums that critics (rock critics - hip-hop critics are a whole thing altogether) get all galang galang about are rarely the same albums that the Walmart crowd gives a fuck about.
2) Moreover, aren't you taking a rather limited perspective on trying to equate hype with record sales? It's one thing to have three articles written on you in the Village Voice. That's the type of hype that will sell records out of Other Music. It's another thing to be a multi-platinum artist, kick out a member of your crew on the radio, then pop shots outside the station, then announce a truce a week later. That kind of hype gets you 2.3 million out the box.
I don't think anyone who's hyped M.I.A. thought she'd sell bushels of the records out the gate. Again, see my very first point.
3) To expand on that for a second, recognize that anyone who's cocky enough to call themselves a "tastemaker" isn't interested in making the tastes of Joe Average in Middle America. He or she is trying to set the trend among other trendsters. By the time the bridge and tunnel crowd get a hold of it, that's a sign that said trend is over and done.
You're conflating wanna-be tastemakers with industry strategists. The latter are trying to find artists they can retire off of. The former just want to be able to say they were the first to put an artist on their mix-CD. Two different ambitions.
I just think the idea that bloggers and critics think they can will anything to become popular doesn't exist within those communities.
4) I think it's totally cool that you hate blogger hype. Yeah, it is an insular community, yeah, it is a circle jerk. But why pay it any mind? It's not like bloggers are really being afforded a special place in the culture industry except by other bloggers. You might have a tiny, tiny amount of celebs out there - like Wonkette or whatever - but complaining about blog hype is like complaining about Okayplayer hype - I think everyone (including those of us inside of it) recognize that our opinions are pretty insular and that the main trends we think we're tracking is amongst ourselves.
5) My thing on M.I.A. is this:
I like her album, I like her music. Shit is catchy, it's fun to dance to. And that's about as far as I'll go. I don't find her political sloganeering very affecting but if I can shake my ass to it, that's good enough.
What I don't like about her hype is what my man Jon Caramanica lays down here:
http://slate.com/id/2115958/
DBC - don't get me wrong, I'm tired of the M.I.A. hype too because I think it too glibly treats her as this cute 3rd World revolutionary - Neneh Cherry meets Che Guevera. That's partly M.I.A.'s fault - I mean, she sells herself as such to a certain extent, but you read something like Rob Sheffield's review in Rolling Stone, where he talks about "jump rope rhymes in a war zone" and you just roll your eyes.
MIA's LP hasn't gotten the Interscope push yet, it's out been released by her UK label, so hold the fuck up.
I like her shit, I hate the hype, but I like the album. A lot.
and our boy Diplo did a lot of the production. /cheerlead
I was wondering about that Interscope business. The college station in Iowa City doesn't have a mark about her promo cd being on Interscope.
Concerning her hype though, I really don't see too much of that surrounding her. Granted, I do not read Village Voice weekly (and I'm pretty sure hardly anyone in Iowa does either). I have seen some hype in music/fashion magazines. I feel that's fine considering how it seems like The Bloc Party and a bunch of poorly constructed "disco-punk" bands have been saturating all music rags for the past few months.
I do love her single Galang (the video). Pull Up The People's not too bad. Most of the beats are that UK Grime flavor that's been slowly getting more attention.
Her political affliations I feel would not have any effect on her sucess in the US. I really think people, in the Midwest especially, do not really care about politics and music. The only exception would be if she were Iraqi or pro-Osama or connected to something that deeply affects America.
It's kind of funny how I ran into this M.I.A. thread after I had considered buying Arular today, which would be the first time I bought a brand new record in a long time. Instead, I bought the DFA Comp #2.
One more thing, whoever made that Des Moines comment, I would probably play her music if I had still lived there.
This raises an interesting point. She's touring with LCD Soundsystem in the States, which to me sounds like settling for just selling this record to hipsters. Odd choice, with the *mainstream* takeoff of very similar music in the last few years (dancehall, crunk, reggaeton, grime -- in roughly that order) that there isn't more of an effort to push this record to the Missy/Gwen crowd. The fact is, 14-year-old girls are down to listen to some interesting shit if you give them the chance.
And with regard to the politics, shit, I started listening to RATM when I was 14, and didn't read the Communist Manifesto until like three years later. I think people can get down with one PLO mention per song.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, holmes.
My guess is that it'll eventually be picked up by the O.C. show and will be promptly name-dropped by their weird rebel geek poster boy, Seth.