Why Do Some Technologically Advanced Countries Have Such Bad Taste in Popular Music?

This email arrive from Stefano today:

I just returned from a two week vacation in Israel where we traveled to the north then to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and south of Tel Aviv and throughout our travels I noticed a musical theme and that is that the popular music in Israel is the stuff from the 60's and 70's.  

I heard a lot of Beatles being played, the old stuff like "Can't Buy Me Love."  I also heard a bit of the Beach Boys and stuff like "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree." I don't even know who sings that one but we heard a lot of that genre of music.  

My question for you to ponder if you like, is why, in a country that is so technologically advanced, are they listening to music that is 40 or 50 years old?  

Great question.  Here's what I wrote back.

Great question about the bad taste in old music in Israel (well, as far as someone from Canada may be concerned.)  I'm in Singapore right now and their taste is even worse.  They seem completely frozen in the 80s--and the BAD 80s.  Rick Astley.  Tiffany.  Billy Ocean. Whitney Houston.  If they wanna rock, it's Huey Lewis and the News--and even that's pushing it. 

The best I can figure is that it's a matter of cultural, social, religious and political differences.  There are many parts of the world that have almost zero experience with what we'd call "classic rock heritage."  If the society didn't grow up with the Stones, Beatles, Led Zeppelin, etc., their development vis a vis the rest of the world becomes...well, stunted--at least compared to what we're familiar with in Canada, the US, the UK and other territories.

Here in Singapore and other areas of SE Asia, rock never had much of a change to penetrate society because of the aforementioned cultural, social, religious and political conditions.  They're trying to catch up but unless you have millions of people who actually LIVED through the Elvis/Buddy Holly/Beatles/Stones/Zeppelin/Etc eras, you're going to end up with something different.

Technological progress has nothing to do with it.  There's a lot more than that when it comes to divining a particular society's musical preferences.

Anyone want to weigh in on this theory?

The 100 Greatest Drummers in Alt-Rock

Spin must be hurting for page views, so they've created a slide show of their choices of the best drummers in alt-rock.

Problem is that they couldn't even come up with 100 drummers.  Sheila E?  An alt-rock drummer? (See #59). Ramon "Tiki" Fulwood of Parliament/Funkadelic? (#26).  

And no guesses where Dave Grohl finishes.

Meanwhile, Still in Singapore....

All this week, I'm at the Music Matters conference here in Singapore, the largest gathering of music industry types in this part of the world.  It also acts as something of a trade fair where music organizations from other countries champion their stuff to delegates from all over the region.

This year, in addtion to the Canadian contingent (Famous and Faber Driver are here last year; USS was here last year), there are music organizations representing Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Phillippines, Australia, host Singapore and--wait for it--Myanmar.

And while they haven't sent artists this year, Malaysia, China and a number of other countries have sent people to talk the business of music.

Each delegation is underwritten in whole or in part by some kind of government money.  Give it up to the bureaucrats for realizing that it's good business to spend a little coin to let the world know that their country's artists exist.

But did you notice the absence of a major Asia-Pacific player?  That's right:  no one is here flying the flag for up-and-coming US bands.  America is AWOL.

Believe it or not, it's only been in the last few months that indie labels from the US have been able to apply for a government grant that could be used to further export interests.  The grants are small--$300,000 max, which doesn't go all that far when you're an indie label hauling artists to events like this all over the planet--but at least it's something.

Yet there's been incredible pushback against this use of government money.  "It's a waste!  Who wants to hear these bands?  No one knows who they are!  With a trillion dollar deficit, this is government spending at its worst." Here's an example of the backlash.  And another.

What utter shortsighted bullshit.  It's precisely this sort of government money and mandated spending by the private sector that has allowed artists from non-US countries to flourish internationally.  And in the grand scheme of a nation's GDP, it's a pittance.  But the return on investment can be huge.  I can't remember the exact dollar figure, but the Canadian Independent Music Association commissioned a study and found that for ever dollar spent on indie music, the return to the economny was exponentially larger.

And people in the US are worried about a tiny $300,000 grant to an indie label to help them push their wares overseas?  That $300K wouldn't even buy a low-end drone.

Freakin' Myanmar recognizes the value of musical trade missions and the US doesn't?  Sad, really.

Meanwhile, Back in Singapore...

There's something about this city-state that keeps drawing me back.  i've made the 26 hour flight three times in the last year.  It's been mostly business, but there's so much else going on here that I find it hard to leave.  

They have the world's best airline.  Changi Airport puts just about every other airport on the planet to shame.  It's clean, safe and well-organized.  Taxis are stupidly cheap.  The Singapore dollar costs 80 cents Canadian.  There's no sales tax.  Plus there, the food, the architecture, the culture, the go-go-go attitude.  And now, music.

I'm here for the Music Matters Asia conference, a gathering of music and digital types from across Asia and from certain other pockets of the planet.

Click to read more ...

The Hugh Opportunity in High Quality Sound

MP3s suck.  Yes, they're awfully convenient, but they sound like shit.  Just compare any MP3 to the sound coming off a CD or a 180-gram piece of vinyl.

For the longest time, though, experts have been saying that the convienice of digital tracks will always trump high fidelity.  "Kids these days," they say, "don't give a crap about what we would called 'good sound.' They're perfectly happy listening to the tinny shit coming out of laptop speakers or bad ear buds."

That's true.  But is that new preference destined to last forever?  Maybe not.  From the BBC:

Eighteen months ago, I made a playlist for my son’s sixth birthday party. He chose the music: Dizzee Rascal’s Bonkers, Tinie Tempah’s Pass Out, some Jessie J and One Direction, and Michael Jackson’s Bad. I downloaded the tracks I didn’t have and at the party, after an hour’s football, followed by snacks and one of those mass pile-ons that small boys love (why?), I put my phone into the dock and pressed play.

The sound that emerged was OK. But it couldn’t really compete with the screeching of 20 children fuelled on sugar and additives, so I turned the volume up. The noise was horrible, like a badly tuned radio being put through a final rinse and spin. “Darn it,” I thought (or a stronger equivalent), “the speakers have blown.”

Then the Michael Jackson track came on. It sounded fine. Great, even. I turned it up, and up. No distortion, no fuzz, no problem.

What was going on with my music? Well, if you’re at all interested in sound, you’ll already know the answer. The Jackson track had been uploaded from a CD; the rest, bought online, were in MP3 format, the ‘lossy’ version that doesn’t have the depth and scope of a full recording. MP3s sound acceptable at lower volumes, but cat-scaringly awful when you pump up the jam.

This is sad, because many of us listen to our music, consciously or unconsciously, in MP3 format. 

Continue reading.