Year-End coverage w/ top 50 albums, staff mixtapes, artist's favourite fives, best photos, news round-up and our Lost 9 of 2009 - http://drownedinsound.com/lists/2009
Q: What do you think of the idea of themed weeks? Which bits do and don't you like? What weeks would like to see in 2010? Which bands should takeover the site? Respond below or via this thread on the DiS music forum...
DiS Stats From Google Analytics from January 1st 2009 - December 29th 2009
7,586,397 Visits 3,362,056 Absolute Unique Visitors 34,194,807 Pageviews 4.51 Average Pageviews 00:06:05 Time on Site (average)
Seems a bit early but I've already been asked for my top 10 albums of the year. Here's the 10 I just gave, in no particular order:
Top 10 Metric - Fantasies St Vincent - Actor Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Idlewild - Post-Electric Blues Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse, David Lynch, etc - Dark Night of the Soul Paramore - brand new eyes Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers The Veils - Sun Gangs
Still need to investigate a heap of records (loads of suggestions on here I've not heard yet) and still plenty more stuff to be released over the next 6 weeks (pretty much from mid-November albums don't get released cus of christmas nonsense/priorities).
Bat For Lashes – The Wizard Martha Wainwright – I Wish I Were Jeniferever – From Across the Sea Youthmovies – The Naughtiest Girl Is a Monitor The Koreans – Machine Code Kaiser Chiefs – Born to Be a Dancer (demo) Les Incompétents – How it all Went Wrong Metric – Handshakes thisGIRL – Oscilloscope Love Blood Red Shoes – Try Harder Kaiser Chiefs – Oh My God Metric – Monster Hospital (MSTRKRFT mix) Les Incompétents – Chapter Two thisGIRL – Drake Redjetson – This, Every Day, For The Rest Of Your Life The Stills – Helicopters Jeniferever – Alvik Emily Haines – Reading in Bed Emmy The Great – The Hypnotist's Son Martha Wainwright – Factory Brett Anderson – Love Is Dead Kaiser Chiefs – Caroline, Yes Blood Red Shoes – You Bring Me Down thisGIRL – Coffee & Giro Cheques Youthmovies – Archive It Everywhere The Stills – The House We Live In Adam Gnade – Hymn California Emmy The Great – Secret Circus thisGIRL – St. James Gate Marylebone Bat For Lashes – I Saw a Light Brett Anderson – The More We Possess the Less We Own of Ourselves Emily Haines – Our Hell Redjetson – Stay Comfortable (Birdpen East of Here Remix) Jeniferever – Closing In Click here to listen to this playlist on Spotify.
For anyone who's wondering, the label is currently "on hiatus" and although we've given all of the acts on our label their records back, the label have picked up the option for the next Martha Wainwright album (actually, it's her next two records) and patiently await its arrival. The singles club/RCRD LBL Mp3 blog are still ideas I wish to pursue but the past 12months (since the demise of a deal for DrownedinSound.com with BSKYB and the associated fallout) have been hell plus "the record business" isn't exactly a future-proof thing to be involved with at the moment. I've spent a few year's investigating other options and hope to get back to finding, investing in/licensing and sharing great music in the future.
Been pondering this bands as start-ups concept too but I have a huge problem with it. Been curious about the reactions to the NYT piece, especially as I was the guy who released Metric's previous record 'Live it Out' in the UK. They're an interesting example which kinda breaks this bands as a start-up concept into disperate red herring puzzle pieces.
My main issue is that start-ups and hyped new bands, both work on the premise of hope and potential, whereas any tried and tested company or band, has a quantifiable ROI (return on investment). This is problematic because the media is not that interested in bands or websites/tech which aren't brand new (as Metric weren't when we released their record, despite outselling the Gossip week on week until the NME cool list, etc) or massively successful. It's always a headscratcher when a band changes their name (like the Kaiser Chiefs did) or a website relaunches as something totally different, that it leads to press, which leads to other media coverage.
The economics (and perhaps ego-nomics) is all sorts of illogical when things are run on and driven by promise (see also: the banking crisis). All sense of scale is totally lost when people invest or talk about future projects, which is obviously what makes the world go around but at the cost of everything great that falls in the huge canyon between the stools of the new and the established. It's incredibly easy to miss a window of opportunity or jump the shark too early (often leading the charge for a lesser copyist), whilst for some reason never being allowed a chance to shine. I'm always fascinated at the different ways things worked when hits were slowburners or how books become paperback bestsellers from all the hardback praise (which I guess is kinda how imports or poor performing initial re-release get a massive second wind).
Without wanting to doom-monger: Metric's continued success isn't down to biz models and is in part down to consolidating all the great things they've done in the past (especially Emily Haines' solo album which opened various different doors) and the fact they've made a friggin' great record, during a window of time when there aren't a great deal of great records and less and less brand new major label bands. Yet, the fact Fantasies (much-like Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix) was overlooked in the UK in favour of the likes of electro-fronted ladypop from La Roux and Little Boots (who was once in a band named after a Metric track) or long-deadstars like U2 and Oasis speaks volumes about the state of the media and its problems which are more at the stagnant heart of the poor sales of records, much more than p2p.
Metric may have done better with this record but it's far from the best case scenario, they're still playing similar sized shows (billed exactly the same place on the Reading bill) but slowly starting to get a few mainstream breaks which might help them crossover in the states.
Ultimately, a bands success can't be gauged by recorded music 'sales' or ticket sales (especially as some of the biggest sellers, are small-fry live draws - pop acts with number 1 albums playing 1000 capacity shows at Koko or half-way up the V Festival bill, etc) and the only true return on investment with music is those wishing to be associated with its credibility and(/or) success. Starbucks had it right but were ahead of the shark and shoulda been giving music away as part of a loyalty points scheme. MyCokeMusic got their biz model wrong trying to find an Arctic Monkeys via a MySpace-like site full of shite and billions of other squandered pounds can never compete with labels like XL, Domino or Columbia, yet they barely compete with the financial upside that the likes of 02, Apple, etc get from being involved with music. Something like Dreamworks (Spielberg's imprint that put out Elliott Smith Figure 8 and developed Rufus Wainwright) Virgin Records, imploded and relaunched would be the future, great ears and vision meets a pile of dosh - just imagine if someone had given Tony Wilson/Alan McGee/Malcolm Mclaren the Microsoft/Newscorp/Disney chequebook, etc...
In short, the old model is dead but the new model is still an ugly mutant.
Phoenix – Love Like A Sunset Part I St. Vincent – The Strangers Handsome Furs – Radio Kaliningrad Sufjan Stevens – You Are The Blood Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Dull Life Dirty Projectors – No Intention Animal Collective – Brother Sport Passion Pit – Sleepyhead The Maccabees – No Kind Words / Bag Of Bones Part A - Album Version* School Of Seven Bells – Iamundernodisguise Manic Street Preachers – Jackie Collins Existential Question Time Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls Metric – Gold Guns Girls Temper trap – Science Of Fear PJ Harvey – Black Hearted Love Sunset Rubdown – Idiot Heart Andrew Bird – Anonanimal The Veils – Sit Down By The Fire Bat For Lashes – Pearl's Dream Soap&Skin – Spiracle Fever Ray – Triangle Walks Wavves – Goth Girls The Horrors – Scarlet Fields My Latest Novel – I Declare A Ceasefire
...i put this together at 4am with insomnia last night and there's LOTS more to follow when we run this next week, as part of DrownedinSound's year so far (in review) week as we cruise over the 6month mark this week.
Posts
