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What Boycott? Scissor Sisters Sell 42,000 Records
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October 5, 2006
 Last week, I blogged about a bizarre little tiff that had erupted between Trans World Entertainment, one of the nation's largest music retailers, and the Scissor Sisters, a fun-loving band from New York that happens to have the #1 album in the UK. That album, Ta-Dah, made its U.S. debut last week, but not at Trans World stores, because the company CEO, Jim Litwak, said he felt Scissor Sisters frontman Jake Shears owed the company an apology for saying their CD prices were too high.
Well, here's the kicker -- despite the Trans World boycott, which kept Ta-Dah off the shelves of FYE, Sam Goody, Strawberries, Wherehouse, Specs, Coconuts and Planet Music, the Sisters' sophomore album sold 42,000 units last week, enough to give it the #19 spot on the Billboard 200 albums charts and the band's highest U.S. chart position ever.
I haven't read any follow-up elsewhere on this story, so I don't know the details -- it's possible, for example, that Litwak was just blowing smoke, and some of Trans World's many retail divisions stocked the album anyway. But assuming the boycott really went ahead as planned, Litwak can't be too pleased -- clearly, it made a negligible impact at all on the Scissor Sisters' sales. And to anyone paying attention, it casts further doubt on the relevance of traditional retail outlets when it comes to selling new records. Who needs FYE when you've got iTunes, Best Buy, Amazon, Target, Wal-Mart et al.?
By the way, this little sideshow is playing itself out in the shadow of a bidding war for the remnants of Tower Records, the bankrupted retail giant that's being auctioned off this week. Would you pay $90 million or more for a music retail chain in this day and age? Yeah, me neither.
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Bob Was Right: They Are "Atrocious"
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October 3, 2006
 Admit it: You wrote it off as the ramblings of an old coot when Bob Dylan called all records of the past 20 years "atrocious," complaining that "they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like -- static." I know I thought to myself, "Look, Bob, just because you're getting a little hard of hearing is no reason to condemn the whole recording industry."
But Dylan's comments, published in an interview in Rolling Stone in August, struck a chord, and not just with crazy audiophiles who are still obsessed with their old vinyl collections. Because it turns out that he may have been right. A fascinating article by Joe Gross in the Austin American-Statesman sums up the situation, revealing that a growing number of industry insiders are concerned about a mastering technique called compression.
Compression is a trick engineers use to increase the overall "loudness" of a record by flattening out its sonic footprint. The idea is to make the music sound as bright and punchy as possible, with few or no quiet spots to let the listener get distracted by the roar of their car engine, or the sound of the neighbors' kids screaming, or the chatter of their own thoughts. But it gives you an end product that has... well, that has sound all over it, with "no definition of nothing."
So in his own curmudgeonly way, Dylan summed up the problem fairly well. Even his seemingly knee-jerk, old-fogey condemnation of CDs as the source of the problem ("CDs are small. There's no stature to it.") was half-right. Back in the days of vinyl, engineers had to restrain themselves, because too much compression would literally cause the needle to jump out of the groove. Now that everything's digital, the sky's the limit.
Here's a link to Gross' excellent article, which gets a little more technically dense, but also goes into some fascinating detail in explaining how the whole industry, from executives on down to the artists themselves, is complicit in compression mania. And how it's affecting -- in all sorts of unintended and mostly bad ways -- people's music listening habits.
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The Tuesday Roundup: New Releases 10.03.06
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October 3, 2006
Modern Rock is Back!
 Well, for one week, anyway. For once, there are no major pop or hip-hop releases competing for chart domination; Oct. 3 is gonna be all about four new albums from four of modern rock's heaviest hitters, plus one big country release. Of those, only the Killers and Evanescence have any real shot at the top spot, and my guess is that Amy Lee and her gothy pop/metal buddies will carry the day. Despite the much-discussed departure of songwriter/guitarist Ben Moody, the new Evanescence sounds pretty much just like the old Evanescence, and it's a winning formula -- take a new agey, Sarah McLachlan/Tori Amos-style frontwoman, stick a hard rock band behind her, and have them crank out glossy, melodramatic pop-rock that recalls everything from Meat Loaf to Shania Twain. Their last album sold over 6 million copies in the U.S. alone, and judging from the success of lead single "Call Me When You're Sober," most of those fans haven't gone anywhere. Prediction: 600,000 copies.
Other Movers and Shakers
- The Killers, Sam's Town. I like this album's chances for having a monster first week, too. All the right people seem to like The Killers, and as a result they've been featured this week on Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel and pretty much every hipster blog you care to name, even if many of those hipster blogs have pointed out, rightly, that Sam's Town is a bloated and far less entertaining outing than Hot Fuss. Prediction: 275,000 copies.
- George Strait, It Just Comes Natural. The man's had 53 #1 hit country songs, including his latest, "Give it Away" -- I ain't betting against him. Prediction: 230,000 copies.
- Beck, The Information. By Beck standards, hardly any time has gone by since the release of his last album, Guero, so fans might be slower to catch on to this latest set of songs, on which the world's hippest Scientologist continues to play to his strengths, making mutant white-boy funk and bluesy pseudo-hip-hop. I think it'll still find its audience, though it won't outsell the very successful Guero. Prediction: 130,000 copies.
- Jet, Shine On. It's hard to justify the continued existence of a band this utterly lacking in fresh ideas, but their stitched-together riffs on old Stones, AC/DC and the occasion touch of Beatles and Strokes might still find a Stateside audience. Prediction: 80,000 copies.
- Monica, The Makings of Me. She's no Beyonce, but she's an old pro (her first album came out over 10 years ago, believe it or not, when she was just 14) and she's got a minor "club banger" hit with "Everytime Tha Beat Drop." She'll move a few units. Prediction: 60,000 copies.
- Ray Charles & the Count Basie Orchestra, Ray Sings, Basie Swings. This brilliant feat of studio wizardry pairs the Count Basie Orchestra of today with the Ray Charles of the early '70s, back when he could still belt out a tune like his life depended on it. It hasn't gotten as much press as you might think, considering the massive Ray hoopla we lived through less than two years ago, but it'll be on the shelves of Starbucks stores throughout the land, and that alone should guarantee a very strong opening week. Prediction: 55,000 copies.
Pick o' the Week
 Lindsey Buckingham, Under the Skin. Axl Rose got nothin' on the troubled singer-songwriter behind much of Fleetwood Mac's greatest music. It's been a mere 14 years since Lindsey Buckingham put out his last solo album, and Under the Skin feels like a record that took over a decade to make -- it's sparse but painstakingly well-crafted, filled with big ideas that have been pared down to their barest essence. Buckingham's intricate guitar work is mesmerizing throughout, and his delicate vocal harmonies often recall -- perhaps a little too deliberately -- another mercurial California pop genius by the name of Brian Wilson. But what really makes the album a standout is the fact that, underneath the experimental, claustrophobic tone of Under the Skin, there are gems of pure pop songwriting like "Show You How" and "It Was You" that rank with some of his most memorable Fleetwood melodies.
The Best of the Rest
- Delerium, Nuages du Monde. I had written off Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber's long-running ambient/new age experiment after 2003's awful Chimera, but their latest release is a nice reminder that they were actually pretty good back before they did that song with Sarah McLachlan, "Silence," and followed its astonishing success down a dance-pop dead end. They're still sort of a poor man's Dead Can Dance, but their slightly more trip-hoppy take on the same ancient/modern, goth/new age, western/eastern dynamics can weave a pretty seductive spell.
- The Decemberists, The Crane Wife. Too often, this Portland, Oregon band comes off like a charming but eccentric old uncle who won't shut up about his obsession with naval history. But as usual, their latest album has a few sublime folk-rock ditties hidden amidst Colin Meloy's folklorist pretensions.
- The Kooks, Inside In/Inside Out. What is it about the Brits that enables them to churn out bands like this? The saucy young lads of the Kooks will remind you of a hundred bands that came before them -- most recently, the Arctic Monkeys, Futureheads and Franz Ferdinand -- and you'll find them irresistible anyway.
- Sean Lennon, Friendly Fire. Yeah, he sounds like his Dad -- it's genetic, okay? Give the guy a break. This is only his second solo album, and first for Dad's old label, Capitol/EMI. As such, it might disappoint fans of his more experimental-leaning indie debut, 1998's Into the Sun, but in many ways it's a much better record, less concerned with all those inevitable comparisons and more content just to serve up its own low-key spin on Beatlesque pop.
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What's That Song Selling the New iPods?
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October 3, 2006
 You gotta hand it to Apple: Every new set of iPod ads just oozes cool. Never mind that the "new" iPods are basically just the old iPods with more memory and some new colors -- the new iPod ads are eye-catching enough to make you wanna rush out for the latest model. They might even make glowstick dancing cool again.
They might also give a much-deserved career boost to Cut Chemist, the man behind the catchy/scratchy track used in the iPod television commercials. Cut Chemist is a turntable guru with an impeccable pedigree -- he's worked with the likes of DJ Shadow, Ozomatli and Jurassic 5 -- but he's always stood in the, well, shadow of his collaborators. That finally started to change this year with the release of his first solo album, The Audience's Listening and should change even more now that the title track, "The Audience's Listening Theme Song", is out there selling iPods. Look what an iPod campaign did for Wolfmother.
By the way, I have to mention that if you like Cut Chemist, you should check out this interview I recorded with him back just before The Audience's Listening came out. He talks a little bit about the album and his early days in the L.A. underground hip-hop scene -- which started in a health food store. For real.
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Playlist: Guilty Pleasures, Part One
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October 2, 2006
Every music critic has a few tunes on their iPod that critics aren't supposed to like, and I'm no exception. In fact, if you believe the image most hipster music journalists project of themselves, listening to Surfer Rosa in the womb, I'm probably worse than most. Thankfully, most of my greatest lapses of taste are not available for your listening pleasure on the ARTISTdirect site, so you're spared the worst of them ("All I Need is a Miracle," anyone?). But here's a few other howlers from my misspent youth, presented here as a little appetizer while I work up the nerve to share the even more guilt-ridden guilty pleasures I listen to nowadays.
1. Survivor, "Eye of the Tiger." I grew up in Philly, so naturally me and my friends spent many hours air-guitaring and shadow boxing to this Rocky III theme and mother of all '80s rock anthems.
2. Bryan Adams, "Summer of '69." He was always sort of a cleaned-up, Canadian, wimpier version of John Cougar Mellencamp, but damn if that Bryan Adams didn't write some big, dumb, catchy guitar hooks. And he played it till his fingers bled.
3. Poison, "Nothin' But a Good Time." I'm pretty sure I didn't even like this song when I was a kid, but something about it makes me all misty-eyed and nostalgic now. Such is the enduring, timeless power of hair metal.
4. Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'." Speaking of misty-eyed, has any singer in rock history ever had a weepier voice than Steve Perry? Coldplay only wishes they could sound this sentimental and ass-kicking all at once.
5. Motley Crue, "Girls, Girls, Girls." I had to link to the video for this one, because you really need the visual of these four pretty boys (well, three pretty boys, plus the endearingly troll-like Mick Mars) sashaying into a strip club to remember just how weird rock music got in the mid-'80s. Yup, the blow-dried peacocks who made up the Crue were, briefly, the most feared and ferocious band on the planet. The Reagan era was such a simpler time.
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1. Survivor, Eye of the Tiger
2. Bryan Adams, Summer of '69
3. Poison, Nothin' But a Good Time
4. Journey, Don't Stop Believin'
5. Motley Crue, Girls, Girls, Girls
About the Blogger
Name: Andy
Location: Los Angeles, California
Andy listens to a lot of music his co-workers call "doonce," which seems to mean any form of electronic music they don't like. He is also a recovering Lost addict.
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