Lady Gaga: Pop culture turns sour
When Lady Gaga hit the scene, like most other early Shock Artists, she pinned herself to the genre of pop music. With songs like Just Dance and Poker Face, she set the tone (or at least we thought) of what she would continue to bring to the table. Let’s explore.
Early Gaga
In the early days of Lady Gaga, we saw an artist who, not unlike many past pop artists, turned to shock art antics on the stage. Artists who fit into this same mold include David Bowie, The Tubes, Alice Cooper, Madonna, Prince (for his sexcapades on stage), Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson and Tool. All of these bands had at least one pop hit.
Gaga has taken this same approach with The Fame. She cleverly uses straightforward pop music to rope in her fans. She then treats them to outrageous shock art antics both on stage and off, such as a raw meat dress and matching purse and hat. Or, her bubble outfit. She’s very good at both revealing parts of her body and covering them at the same time in a shocking way.
Her label hired a top-notch pop producer to produce The Fame as a classic pop album. In fact, the songs were very danceable with straightforward lyrics that most anyone can understand. Songs like Just Dance, Poker Face, Paparazzi and Love Game. She followed this album almost immediately with The Fame Monster and continued along these same lines changing the pop formula and song tone slightly, but retaining the straightforward pop lyrics with Telephone, Bad Romance and Monster. Although, by The Fame Monster, you could see hints of things to come, but it was still fun mostly pop music.
Later Gaga
With Born This Way, Lady Gaga took a decidedly different turn. This album saw a drastic change in compositions and lyrics. The music is less straightforward pop delving off into less pop formula at times. She’s now trying to push the envelope of the pop genre both musically and lyrically. Unfortunately, pop music has a very narrow range of formula and the boundaries cannot be pushed, not even by Lady Gaga. If you diverge from this narrow range in the pop genre, you are firmly outside of the genre. Meaning, Born This Way really wasn’t straightforward pop music. At best, it would be considered experimental pop. Born This Way (the album) just didn’t work as pop music as well as The Fame and The Fame Monster (and her charting of tracks from this release proved that).
By this time, though, Gaga had gained a large fanbase because of her two prior releases. Releases that were exceptionally produced and that had mass appeal. With Born This Way, she had to hope her existing fans would accept it. Thankfully, for her, they did. Unfortunately, Born This Way did little to rope in new fans as the appeal of the tracks on Born This Way would be limited.
Tracks such as Judas, Fashion of His Love and Marry The Night took a much more serious and darker tone, something which pop is generally not known for. The lyrics could be interpreted in ways that could be considered problematic by many. Unfortunately, this also means that Gaga has unpinned her roots to pop music with this release. Of course, Born This Way is her ‘second’ official album because The Fame Monster was an extension to The Fame. The fact that this album wasn’t as good follows with most artist’s sophomore releases.
Shock Art
For musical artists to utilize Shock Art properly, it requires grounding one piece of the persona to accepted social norms. For musicians, this means pinning the music and lyrics firmly to a common and popular music genre. Not only does this appear to ground the artist to some semblance of sanity, the shock art can be forgiven because of the quality music behind the shock. The pop genre also, when the music gets airplay, guarantees enough fans to continue to drive the artist forward.
Unfortunately, once Lady Gaga unpinned her music from the straightforward pop genre, she now risks losing everything she’s worked so hard to build. If people don’t listen to the music, the shock art has no place. People don’t go to the shows to see what’s on stage or watch the shock, they go to hear the music. The visuals simply come along as the frame around the music.
When you buy a painting, for example, you find a frame that suits the painting. You don’t buy some random gaudy frame that detracts from the art. You buy a frame that complements it. You buy a frame that guides your eyes into the picture and not to the frame itself. Without good music to back the shows, the only thing left to watch are the meat dresses and gooey concoctions she drapes herself in.
ARTPOP
Lady Gaga is releasing her new album ARTPOP on November 11th, 2013. One track has been ‘leaked’ called Burqa. Listening to this track, it’s clear that Gaga is pushing herself even farther away from the pop genre now more than ever. Some claim that it’s ‘club music’, but I don’t hear it. Club music is danceable. Club music has a beat that continues throughout the song. It is a 120-140 beats per minute track that gets people out of their seats and onto the dance floor. With Burqa, much of the song is devoid of beats. The sections that have beats still aren’t danceable.
The songwriting on the track is not pop formula. Most pop formula has a driving beat throughout with occasional breaks to heighten the track. Pop formula is usually ABAB or AABAABB or ABABBB similar. Where A is the straight sung parts of the song and B is the chorus or hook. Listening to Burqa, it’s difficult to find the formula because there’s not a driving beat and the chorus that’s there is not enough to get it stuck in your head. It’s structured, but not in the way that most pop songs are.
The point is that Gaga is now further pulling her music away from the pop genre and placing it into some kind of no-man’s land where it doesn’t fit rock, pop, dance or club. These types of tracks fit in the experimental category. Believe me, there are not many people out there who listen to experimental music. This genre is reserved for eclectic listeners. This is also not the demographic that tends to pay to attend concerts regularly. This is Lady Gaga’s primary mistake.
Gaga is washing herself out at a time when she could be firmly on top. Her label and her producers are not helping her either. They should be guiding her and keeping her on the pop track, but someone is giving her wrong advice (or no advice).
Ms. Germanotta, if you’re reading this, you need to head back to the studio and make sure your music remains firmly as ‘girl dumps guy’, ‘bad girl attitude’ lyrics wrapped in catchy pop tunes. This is the only way to ensure you can continue your rule at the top of pop no matter what you do on stage. The shock art may keep you in the tabloids, but the pop music keeps you on the charts and fans attending your concerts. Without The Pop, you won’t continue to have The Fame.
Create custom ringtones from mp3s in iTunes
You might think that creating ringtones from imported music in iTunes is complex. It’s not. It’s pretty simple and it’s free. Assuming that you’ve imported your music from CD as mp3, it’s easy. Note, this doesn’t work for AAC files (files downloaded from the iTunes store). For this reason, it’s really a better idea to rip your music as mp3 format. I recommend this anyway strictly because not all mp3 players can play AAC. Yes, AAC may be a slightly better format, but it’s less compatible across the board. There are no digital music players that I’m aware of that don’t understand mp3 files. Should you decide to get rid of your iPhone or iPod and go with another digital player, your AAC files may not work on your new player. Worse, if you’ve purchased any DRM protected AAC files, these definitely won’t play. So, buying music from the iTunes store basically locks you into an Apple music player. Anyway, I digress.
Steps to creating ringtones
- Identify the music files you want to convert and ensure they are not in AAC format (use right-click Get Info and look at Where under the summary tab)
- Listen to the track and determine the start and end points you want for your ringtone. You might want to choose the chorus of the song, but make sure it totals less than 40 seconds.
- Use right-click Get Info and then under the Options tab, type in the start and end times. Times are mm:ss.frame format. If you supply mm:ss only, it assumes the frame is 0 (zero).
- Click OK to save your start and end settings on the song. Double click the song to ensure proper start and end.
- Right-click the song again and this time choose ‘Create AAC version’. If this option is missing from the menu, you will need to change your import settings to import as AAC (to allow creation of ringtones) through the iTunes’ Preferences menu (Edit->Preferences).
- Once iTunes is done creating the AAC version, drag the song from iTunes and drop it on the Desktop
- Now, rename the song from song.m4a to song.m4r
- Move song.m4r into a ringtones folder somewhere on your hard drive where you remember. Place all your created ringtones here. From that folder, drag and drop ‘song.m4r’ onto iTunes.
- A ‘Ringtones’ folder will now appear in iTunes. This ringtone will now be available on your iPhone or iPod Touch under ‘Custom’ once you sync.
For example, to create Aqua’s Barbie Girl ringtone, you would set the start to 0:26.2 and ending to 0:41. Note the .2 frame. The frame part allows you to fine tune exactly where the ringtone begins and ends. This part is a little bit fiddly if you want an exact start and end. Note, after you have set the start and end times, you should double click to listen to ensure the ringtone is starting and ending exactly where you want before you convert and rename the file and before syncing with your device.
When you’re done creating the AAC file, renaming it and dropping it on iTunes, be sure to right-click the original song (not the ringtone) and choose ‘Get Info’. Under options, uncheck start and end so the track goes back to the song’s real beginning and ending. You’ll want to do this before syncing your device again. Otherwise, your music will end up clipped on your device as well. So, don’t forget to reset the start and end times. Yeah, there’s more than a few steps, but it’s easy once you’ve done it a few times and it’s also a whole lot cheaper than buying ringtones.
If you import CDs regularly, don’t forget to change your Preferences back to mp3 when you go to import. Otherwise, the music will import as AAC.
That’s pretty much it. If you have questions, please leave a comment below.
American Idol: Failure to launch (artists)
While I understand the hype about this series (the competition and all), I don’t really understand why this show continues to exist. Yes, we go through each season and whittle down contestents to the final two. But, after the winner is chosen, then what? Oh yeah, they get a recording contract. What happens after that?
Spotting Commercial Viability
The ‘judges’ (and I use this term loosely) seem to think they know what’s best in the ‘pop music biz’. Frankly, if they could discover real talent, they would be working for a record company locating and signing talent right and left and not hosting a silly variety hour show. But, here we are… and here they are. So, I must honestly question the sincerity and realism of this show. The whole thing is staged, yes, to find someone who can sing. But, it’s really there as a money maker for whomever is producing that show. The underlying values aren’t to get someone signed to a contract. The real point is to put on a show. And, thats what they do, for better or worse.
Judges
It’s funny that they pick judges who are has-been recording artsts and supposedly A&R people like Simon Cowell. What’s funny about Simon is that his ability to pick talent has been extremely spotty. For example, he signed and produced Westlife. Westlife is a boyband that’s a meager shadow of N*Sync and The Backstreet Boys at best. What’s even more funny is that THAT is really his BEST claim to talent selection outside of Idol. Every other artist beyond that isn’t even worth mentioning.
So, how do these washed-up has-beens end up judging a show that supposedly prides itself on selecting quality talent? Well, let’s examine Idol more closely.
Winning Contestants
Since 2002, there has been (in order), Kelly Clarkson, Rubin Studdard, Fantasia Barrino, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks, David Cook and Kris Allen (most recently). Arguably, the biggest name to come out of the Idol circle is Kelly Clarkson with Carrie Underwood as a solid second. The rest, well, what about them? They may have produced records, but few appear to be listening. This isn’t a good track record for Idol.
Let’s consider Kelly Clarkson for a moment. Even she has had her ups and downs (mostly downs). While Kelly has a resonably strong voice, the question remains just how commercially viable it is. With a name like American Idol, you’d think that Kelly Clarkson would have taken the pop crown away from the likes of Madonna and Britney. Yet, while Madonna’s star is fading, Britney has taken the crown over and firmly holds it as far as pop acts go. Britney wasn’t even ‘discovered’ on Idol. More than this, Kelly has a stronger voice than Britney, yet you see what that gets you. Kelly isn’t even close to being in Madonna’s league and, while Britney has her own personal issues, her music producers provide a much better music experience than most of Kelly’s efforts.
Outside of these ‘winners’, we also have non-winners like Jennifer Hudson (who’s at least as well known as Kelly Clarkson and she wasn’t even a runner-up) and she’s also an overall more complete ‘star’ than Kelly. Then there’s David Archuletta, Chris Daughtry and Clay Aikin. These four people are the proof that the judges cannot pick winners. In fact, these 4 people should have won Idol, but didn’t. Yet, they are still successful on their own.
Track Record
Just looking at Idol’s track record, you can see more of the Idol winners have failed to be commercially viable than have been successful (Fantasia who? Jordin who? David who? Rubin who? Taylor who?). The point here, that the judges clearly are not capable of spotting talent. Even when someone has real singing talent, is young and good looking, clearly that’s not everything that’s needed. Otherwise, everyone graduating from Idol would have become an instant success… which, of course, has not happened.
I understand the fervor over this show and I understand that the point in watching is more about the competition than the outcome. But, isn’t the outcome why we come to watch? Don’t we actually expect the winner to become popular, make great music and usurp the pop crown from Britney? After all, that’s what Idol started out promising.
Idol is Flawed
The premise of Idol is flawed. The barometer by which they choose winners is in versatility in singing already commercially successful songs. The real barometer of talent is both in songwriting and performing. Even though someone has a great singing voice, that doesn’t automatically make them a pop sensation. Becoming a ‘Pop Idol’ comes with singing unique new songs. Songs that have not been heard before. Better yet, it proves talent when the person can both write and sing their own music. Artists like Prince and Sarah McLachlan are capable of this. To me, this is talent worth finding. But, today, commercial pop music is more about the look and voice than it is about songwriting. Music producers are far too prone to run to Taxi and buy a song or commission their favorite songwriter to write a song rather than having the singer write something.
For me, Idol would be a much more rounded show if they actually required the singers to also write all of their own material. This would be a lot more time consuming, but requiring this would also show the true talent of the artist. This premise would show a contestant’s ability to write music under pressure and, at the same time, perform that music admirably. Using this model in the show would likely have changed both the contestants in the show and the outcome of the winners. I would also have a lot more respect for the winners of the show. I also believe the winners would have been far more commercially viable as artists than anyone Idol has, so far, produced.
Idol’s days are numbered
We are now going into the 9th season and I believe this show is wearing out its welcome. Talent shows like this do come and go, so I expect this show go packing probably in one to two seasons. If it lasts beyond 10 seasons, I’d be highly surprised. I’m honestly surprised that it has survived this long with its dismal track record of spotting viable commercial talent. Yes, the winners can sing, but can they produce an album that people want? In 8 seasons, I’d say the answer to that question is unequivically no. The spectacle of the live performance is great, but it doesn’t mean the contestant has what it takes to succeed in the music business. Clearly, Idol has failed at it’s primary goal.
Entertainment Awards: Why so popular?
What is it about entertainment awards shows that make people want to watch? Is it the women’s dresses, the celebrities or what? Whatever it is, I really don’t get awards shows. Further, I don’t get why news outlets feel compelled to show us these boring affairs.
What’s the point?
First, think about where you work. Then, ask yourself if you have ever gotten an award simply for doing your job? Rarely, if ever. So, why does the entertainment industry feel compelled to pat themselves on the back by giving out awards? If someone excels at doing a job well, that’s what the company paid you to do. They didn’t pay you to do a poor job. So, do you deserve an award for simply doing your job?
Celebrities are paid to act, sing, dance or whatever. They’re paid to do it well. In fact, the point to them paying the actor at all is to make sure the movie or music is done well. Sure, some of the quality is in the hands of the producer, director, writers and other technical behind-the-scenes people. But, a convincing performance is the basis for much of the quality of the entertainment. Again, that’s what they are paid to do.
Red Carpet
So, why do people feel compelled to watch celebrities strut down the red carpet in their latest (borrowed, in many cases) designer fare? Well, I can tell you that I am not one of those people. I don’t want to hear about them, I don’t want to watch them and I certainly don’t want to read about them in the news. For me, news is about events that matter. That someone was handed a trophy for doing a job they were paid to do doesn’t do anything for me. Watching someone thank every person who ever mattered to them (and possibly stumbling over their words, or on the carpet) doesn’t interest me overall.
Mutual Admiration Society
For whatever reason, Hollywood (and the rest of the entertainment industry) insists on foisting these annual awards programs on us year after year. I always dread the start of the new TV year just for that reason. I really don’t care that someone in Hollywood feels compelled to hand out a trophy (gold or otherwise). I don’t want to watch them do it. I don’t want to watch the entertainers who dot these extremely boring affairs and I certainly don’t want to be invited to any of these plastic mutual admiration events.
The Academy allegedly prides itself on its standards. Yet, year after year it digs itself into deeper and deeper holes by picking only those stars who produced the most ‘popular’ films. I can understand why some celebrities actually snub awards shows and refused to attend or accept any awards. Then you have the other side where certain celebrities want nothing more than to be graciously accepted with open arms. In fact, they try so hard that these awards outfits intentionally snub them time after time. So, it’s less about how well you do and more about who’s butt you kiss. And here I thought the awards were about how well you did?
Awards Shows and their societal significance
Considering that the best thing that movies and music do is fuel more movies and music (by unloading large sums of cash to that industry), this entertainment is simply vacuous forgettable time wasters. In a rare instance, Hollywood might produce a salient worthwhile work, but these are so few and far between that awards shows don’t need to exist. These rare worthwhile informative works are the ones that awards are made of. However, these cheesy Hollywood awards are given out so frequently to the wrong people, the awards themselves are meaningless trinkets.
Good Riddance
If the awards shows disappeared today, I wouldn’t even miss them. It might put a few people in LA out of business who might otherwise organize such an event. In time, society wouldn’t even miss them. As it is now, the media feels compelled to shove these trite affairs down our widescreen plasmas. However, I’d much rather see an actual educational and informative program than watching an hour and a half of vacuous boring people serving meaningless trinkets to people who simply did their job (or kissed a butt or two). I’m just confused by people who don’t understand that that’s an hour and a half (or longer) of your life that you will never get back when you watch these empty shows. So, why watch?
Songwriting Competition or Lottery?
If you are a songwriter, you want your songs to be heard. However, there are so many web sites and people out there that promise you the world and deliver nothing. This article will discuss songwriting competitions.
Is it a lottery?
Most songwriting competitions charge money for each song entry. Think of the song entry as a form. You might as well have just submitted this form into a barrel. Then, they have judges who are supposed to review the entries and pick winners.
Because listening to a song is based entirely on subjective likes and dislikes, there can be no objective methodologies to pick a winner. Thus, subjective criteria equals random selection. This means that, overall, this is tantamount to pulling a slip of paper from the barrel and choosing winners at random. Because you must pay to enter and because it’s a random selection, it’s a lottery. Don’t fall for lotteries disguised as contests. Worse, there’s no guarantee the judges actually listen to every song submitted anyway… which further makes this a lottery by random selection.
Don’t support pay-for-play competitions
If you are an independent artist, songwriter or musician thinking of entering a songwriting competition, think twice before entering. Many of these competitions are scams. They are there to take your money and leave you high and dry. Instead, use your money to further your career (buy recording equipment, pay for studio time, book gigs to make money). If you really must play the lottery, play the state lottery. It costs less and you have equal odds of winning.
Allegedly, one of the largest ‘competitions’ is the ISC (International Songwriting Competition). They boast industry seasoned judges and lots of impressive things, but overall it’s still a lottery. As far as I know, independent lotteries are still illegal in most states.
What you win
Should you win, let’s put a spotlight on this aspect. If you do enter a competition and by some miracle fluke the judges actually pick your song, what’s next? This is tricky to answer. You need to read the fine print on the competition. You might win a recording contract, but then you might be required to turn over all rights of your music to the contest. Are you willing to part with your music rights just to record or win? These are not necessarily lucrative contracts. On the other hand, you might win a small pittance of cash or some dinky thing and still be required to relinquish your musical rights. You need to read closely to find out what you might be giving up.
Turning over music rights
This is a tricky subject because there’s no right answer. However, consider this. If you’ve written what you consider to be an absolutely fabulous song and other people agree, then you probably do not want to part with the rights to this song. If you turn over all rights for this music to the contest, that means that any money made from that music is no longer yours. If the music, for example, gets licensed to Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears and they turn it into a #1 hit, you still won’t get any money from it. Of course, you can always try to sue, but the contest probably has a reasonably binding contract in place. Thus, you aren’t likely to get very far with a lawsuit.
However, there’s the flip side of that. If you are wanting notoriety, then perhaps it is worth giving up the rights. Meaning, if you’re hungry and willing to lose the rights to one of your songs in order to get your name on the songwriter line that does become a #1 hit, it may actually help your career. That is, of course, assuming the contest has any obligation to put your name on the song as author based on the contest rules.
Furthering your career
If you really want to further your career as a songwriter, you’d probably do better to list your music through an A&R service like Taxi (see below) or another placement service who can get your music out to artists, TV shows, movies or video games. It may cost money to place your music, but it’s not a lottery. It’s more of a ‘music store’ where entertainment industry professionals can find new music for projects.
How about free contests?
By all means, enter as many free contests as you can find. That is, if you can find any. But, ignore contests that charge you money. You have no idea where that money goes… and many charge as much as $25-50 per song! By comparison, you can put an entire CD on iTunes, AmazonMP3 AND Rhapsody for that same $25-35 (the cost of 1 competition entry) using places like CDBaby. So, save your money and invest it into equipment (instruments, recording equipment, computers, etc) or advertising. This will take you a lot further in your career by allowing you to produce your own music. You can self-publish or submit demos right to labels. You can also take out your own personal advertisements for your CD as well.
Careful with your money
Always be careful as there are many musician placement (A&R) services out there that will scam you before they give you any real level of service. Taxi is one of the few that appears to be reputable in this regard, but they will charge you money for each submission on top of a monthly fee (so be cautious even here). Broadjam is another, but they also charge to submit music ($5-15 per song on top of a subscription fee) for placement consideration. When businesses charge you money to submit music for placement, you should be wary. There is no real way to know that they are doing the right thing for you. So, if you submit music without response or get an unexpected (strange) response, don’t spend money for that again.
Bottom line, there are plenty of places out there that can scam you… if it looks like a scam, feels like a scam and acts like a scam, it probably is.
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