So Amazing, So Illegal

Jamie gave me a nice writeup of a mashup where the writer shares some random youtube mashup video that you maybe have seen before called the Mother of all Funk Chords. It's a pretty amazing artistic achievement and probably worth at least a quick glance of your time. But the larger point should be taken seriously. He says "If your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we'd go about suing someone who "did this" with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it's probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page. Because, this is what your new Elvis looks like."

Comments

Um, what?

[spiffyman]

it's probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page.

Can anyone explain what the hell this means?

Re:Um, what?

[ProppaT]

The whole write up was stupid. I think that he was implying that you're getting old and need to get with the times. The whole "this is your new Elvis" is a little sensationalist. This is no different than hip hop producers who've been mixing stuff for 30 years, it's just progressed over the years from mixing vinyl, using samplers, using computer, using computers to mash up songs, to mixing youtube videos now. It's not revolutionary, it's the natural progression.

Once in a while a transition in media is made quickly enough to where one person gets pegged as reinventing or revolutionizing the art. This is not that.

Re:Um, what?

[stoolpigeon]

not if one is a hipster doofus.

I'll confess it threw me for a minute, but I grinned once I put it together. It's a tad clever, if a bit awkward.

I think the guy is completely wrong about this being marketable - but hey, everybody is entitled to their own opinion and style. I think this is getting a lot of attention right now because it's novel and it obviously wasn't easy mixing it all together. But pull away from that and judge it purely as music - it isn't that great.

Re:Um, what?

[ShieldW0lf]

Where can I buy tickets to their live show?

Funk isn't something you admire while you're sitting alone in front of a computer, it's something you groove to with a scotch on the rocks in your hand while surrounded by a bunch of classy ladies who like to shake what their momma gave them. The band isn't there to perform something they conceived in a dark room, they're there to play the crowd, to react and interact with the people as they get excited, antsy, tired, etc.

If this is the future of music, then the future is bleak indeed.

Re:Um, what?

[Spazztastic]

If this is the future of music, then the future is bleak indeed.

That bleak future is here when American Idol has the highest ratings and even the ones who get disqualified within one week of the premiere get record deals. Have you taken a stroll through the CD store and seen the mainstream music? It's almost as bad as Nickleback.

Re:Um, what?

[fastest fascist]

Hence "off his meds".

Re:Um, what?

[2names]

Nothing is as bad as Nickelback.

Re:Um, what?

[hairyfeet]

The problem is with today's lawsuit society WE don't get to decide if it is good or not. Just take DJ Danger Mouse and the Grey Album. Nowadays you can't do ANY cool sampling or make any mixups without being sued by 50 bloodsucking leeches in suits. If we don't push to reform the insane copyrights and patent laws then the ONLY music we will end up with is some "corporate approved" American Idol style crap, because they will be the only ones that can fight off the wave of lawsuits put out by the trolls whenever they see somebody making money. Do we REALLY want that as the future?

Re:Um, what?

[stoolpigeon]

It may be better but what you emphasize actually proves my point. What is good and what is popular do not always align.

Re:Um, what?

[n4f]

Why does every band have to "push the envelope" or develop something "experimental" in order to not be called worthless corporate drones. Perhaps Metallica are popular because they make good music? It doesn't matter if it isn't genre defining or something 100% original. Its fun to listen to and I have a blast every time I see one of their shows. Metallica is just one example I used because you mention it in your post, but the same goes for a lot of mainstream bands.

What I hate are music snobs that think anything "indie" is god's gift to music, and anything you can buy from a record store is trash. I've heard plenty of indie and local bands who are absolute crap, but people insist that they're "awesome and misunderstood by the mainstream."

Just for the record, I love all kinds of music, both indie, local, and mainstream. Just because a band is able to sell millions of records does not in and of itself make it crap.

Re:Um, what?

[Kazoo the Clown]

Funk isn't something you admire while you're sitting alone in front of a computer, it's something you groove to with a scotch on the rocks in your hand while surrounded by a bunch of classy ladies who like to shake what their momma gave them. The band isn't there to perform something they conceived in a dark room, they're there to play the crowd, to react and interact with the people as they get excited, antsy, tired, etc.

I'm sorry to break your balloon, but not everyone likes to listen to music in small clubs. Even those who like Funk (which would include me, BTW). I understand the crowd-rapport thing, but that only works if the audience is <300 IMHO (well, it may work for the BAND, but it doesn't work for me as an audience member). But in the smaller venues, usually the music is 1) too loud for the acoustics in the room &/or their PA system, 2) crowded full of drunk idiots (and at one time or in some places, drunk and smoking idiots), and 3) was accompanied by expensive parking in bad part of town & cover charge. If that's your idea of the future of music, I don't want any part of it.

On the other hand, the last concert I went to was free, was at the local University music department, the sound system was right for the room and adjusted properly, and I got to sit really close without having to climb over drunk jerks (or vice versa) in the process. Parking wasn't cheap, but that's all the two venues had in common. It was for these guys.. Not exactly Funk, I grant you. But somehow I don't think they are particularly threatened by the competition from YouTube mashups.

But I don't go out for music all that often, as it's rare that a group I actually want to see will be in a venue I would want to go to. I don't care for the big mainstream bands that would book huge concerts, but the smaller bands tend to end up in crappy clubs that you couldn't pay me to visit. So, mashups like the one in TFA provide at least, some entertainment value now and then. But I'm over 50 so maybe that explains my low tolerance for aggregations of 20-something dipshits.

Plus, I like a lot of electronica, which often sounds a lot better on my own tuned up home sound system than in public venues.

Re:Um, what?

[badasscat]

Just because a band is able to sell millions of records does not in and of itself make it crap.

I agree, however it is true that most mainstream music sucks these days. It doesn't suck because it's mainstream, it sucks because it sucks.

You used to be able to see Billboard charts on iTunes going back like 60 years or something. It was pretty eye-opening, because normally that's protected info - you need to subscribe to their service to see it (and that's expensive). They issue takedowns to web sites that post it.

Anyway, in the 1960's and 70's you'd literally have stuff like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, etc. all over the top 40 charts. These were mainstream pop bands! It started changing in the 1980's, which is not coincidentally when radio moved to fixed formats (previously DJ's just played what they wanted on many stations) and when MTV started acting as gatekeeper to modern pop. Nowadays a band like the Rolling Stones would be lucky to get a record deal at all.

Most "indie" bands I know, and I do know quite a few of them, really don't sound much different from 1960's rock music, whether they call themselves "experimental" or not. They're usually no more experimental than Pink Floyd or the Beatles were in their later period. That stuff literally would have been top 40 material in the past.

Being a top 40, mainstream band used to be something everybody aspired to, whatever kind of music they were in. It didn't used to be derogatory, and you weren't considered a "sellout" if you reached that status. That's different now because the type of music on the top 40 chart is different now, and because those charts are now controlled by mega-conglomerates by way of their radio and TV networks colluding to shove this crap down people's throats.

Personally, if a great band manages to break onto the top 40 chart, it's certainly nothing I hold against them. I don't say "well, now they suck because other people like them." That's what a snob does.

But, that doesn't mean I don't think most bands on the top 40 these days do suck. They just suck for other reasons.

Re:Um, what?

[FiloEleven]

Unfortunately, it often seems that Christian musicians put all of the time and effort into the message, and aren't particularly concerned about the musical wrapper, thereby creating music that is often, well, bland.

That is because most CCM that gets picked up only gets picked up because it sounds like whatever is being played on mainstream radio. You get an imitation of already bland music with
s/(girl|woman|baby)/Jesus/g

There's some good stuff out there. One of my favorite bands, even after ditching CCM and most of Christianity, is Burlap to Cashmere, a Mediterranean-flavored group with very poetic lyrics and great arrangements. Even DC Talk turned into something special, albeit very much a studio product, with the albums Jesus Freak and Supernatural.

The primary reason CCM sucks is precisely because it is mostly imitative: it's a microcosm where the barrier for entry is set low because if it were up to mainstream standards (which doesn't set the bar very high to begin with) there wouldn't be enough acts to sustain the industry. Christian artists (which really means "artists on Christian labels") are also subject to "The Jesus Quota," wherein an album won't be released unless it mentions Jesus at least five times or what have you. Additionally, since Christian music is viewed as a reversal of mainstream music, very few artists are willing to talk about the negative experiences that they have as Christians: being friendless at a church, feeling hopeless due to an external situation, doubting God or some aspect of God, etc. These are things that nearly every Christian has to deal with at one time or another but they are not often represented in music, hence the shallowness of the lyrical content.

Re:Um, what?

[stewbacca]

Nah, I was just pointing out the pretension in your post is so thick that maybe you should sit back and reflect, and think, hmmm, maybe Radiohead isn't as universally excepted as great as I think. This is especially true when you trash relatively mainstream (and not horrible) acts like Metallica. Radiohead, for the record, is not their own genre. There were bands before them (U2) and bands after them (Coldplay) that are pretty much the same exact genre. For the record, I play blues bars gigs for beer/free/tips. Am I not a real artist because I play 50 year old covers all night? So you, sir, are welcome to "shut up with that crap", whatever that means, and feel free to keep your opinions about what "real" musicians are to your self, if you aren't willing to at least hear other people's takes on what that means.

Re:Um, what?

[Dogtanian]

what if your reaction is "this looks and sounds like ass" ?

What if your reaction is

(1) "Yeah, this is pretty good, but hardly the revolutionary work the summary makes it out to be", then
(2) "Are mashups really the future of music or in truth the *present* of music that's going to look as dated as hippyesque flower power and 'so 2000s' in ten years time?"... and then later on
(3) "This story- and the way it's presented here- is quite Digg-esque, isn't it?"

Re:Um, what?

[Mr2001]

As opposed to the bloodsucking leeches in sweatpants that can't think up their own guitar riffs or lyrics, and so they use someone else's? Or the bloodsucking leeches that are too cool to pay for any of the entertainment they want? Those kind of leeches?

Er, no. See, leeches in real life are little critters that suck blood out of bigger critters. They nourish themselves at someone else's expense, hence the metaphorical use.

"Bloodsucking leeches in suits" makes sense in reference to someone who sues musicians, because he's enriching himself at the musician's expense: if he prevails in court, that musician will have to pay a hefty settlement. The dude in the suit gets richer as a direct result of the musician becoming poorer.

But it doesn't make sense to call the musicians themselves "leeches", because they're not removing the original content. If you mash up 50 YouTube videos to make a song, the original 50 videos are still there for anyone to watch. You're not enriching yourself at someone else's expense, you're just building a new work on top of the existing works you see around you -- and the term for someone who does that is "artist".

Mashups

[Spazztastic]

I don't speak for most people, but I personally can't stand mashups. I don't find anything entertaining about it, there's maybe three I've heard out of all that have been good. It falls into the same group as artists like 50 cent taking "Crazy Train" and putting it into a song as background vocals or whoever did the same to "Riders on the storm."

In short, get off my lawn!

Re:But without copyright protections...

[agnosticanarch]

nobody would ever produce music, art, or literature. Which is also why works need to be protected for a century or longer.

This is, of course, why no one ever produced any music, art, or literature before copyright protection was in place. *ahem*

~AA

Hm

[pudge]

For a long-lived career, does a boot-strapping indie artist with giant niche appeal gain enough from a big-company relationship to offset the loss in agility, equity, and flexibility?

No, but you need to be able to actually do things live. Mashups won't make you any money, unless, of course, you can sell them, which you can't do if they aren't IP-clean.

The original content has to come from somewhere

[Consul]

These mashups don't appear in a vacuum. They have to get their source content from somewhere. There will always be a market for original work, if only to feed the mashup machine. Now, I would personally find it sad if the original creators were relegated to being raw material for commercially-successful mashups, but hey, it's a free market, and if that's what the kids want...

I personally think Kitoboy's accomplishment here is more one of editing than one of actual creating. Still, an enormous amount of work went into it, if not creativity.

Call me a Luddite

[Gothmolly]

But the future of entertainment is not a 320x240 flash video with a "mashup" of random songs.

This Isn't New

[Goody]

It's called sampling. Many artists have done it, but one you should check out is DJ Shadow. He takes old 45s, samples the smallest components and assembles them into songs. He admits that copyright laws haven't caught up with it yet, but they will someday.

Wrong.

[Weaselmancer]

Creed.