Her CD has a sticker: "The singer who webcast to the world from her Tooting basement". It is becoming clear that, far from being an impoverished artist using new technology to reach an audience, her success is a triumph of conventional marketing. The webcasts were effectively showcase gigs intended to garner major label interest, after last year's small-label release failed to get any higher than No. 55 despite Radio 2 airplay. The vagueness of ST and her backers about the numbers of viewers of the webcast smacks of fiction: if there really were 70,000 (or, later, 40,000) people tuning in having picked up on an Internet buzz, it is astonishing that so few blogged about it, mentioned in on a website measured by Technorati, or visited her MySpace site: the Internet buzz followed the press reports, not the other way round. It looks as if she used the webcast angle as a way of making unverifiable claims for popularity in order to get the labels hungry. They did, and RCA (or rather Sony BMG, trading as RCA) eventually snapped her up.
Her current success has been driven partly by expensive PR: when was the last time a debut (or 'debut') single was released (re-released) with two weeks of TV adverts? But more than that, there has been the collusion of the press, which has picked up on the webcast thing and given her massive exposure in the print media. A little digging, or even the application of memory or common sense, would have led to a more critical approach, but everyone seems to have concluded, with the editor in The Man Who Shot Liberty valance, that given the choice of telling the truth or printing the legend, you should print the legend.
The 'new star created by the Internet' story is a popular one, one that people keep trying to foist on any act with enough savvy to register their own web domain. I think the appeal lies in the Cinderella myth: the daydream that someone can become rich and famous overnight, without having paid any dues. ST has been plugging away for years, touring, recording, session singing, but that's not what people want: they want Chantelle success, similar to the daydream you enjoy in the period between buying a lottery ticket and finding out you haven't won. This is nothing new: when video first came along, Toni Basil found instant stardom (although Wikipedia tells me that her first single was recorded 15 years before 'Hey Mickey'); when Paul Macartney 'discovered' Mary Hopkin, she was already an experienced and well-trained singer in the Welsh music scene.
What is perhaps surprising is the fury that ST's success has unleashed. The air is thick with complaints about a 'cynical marketing ploy', a phrase that has always seemed to me to be redundant: what, you mean it isn't a good old philanthropic altruistic marketing ploy? Yet those who continue to be amazed at the antics of the music business always seem to forget the 'business' part. Music involves money. I can remember one rock god saying despairingly that you could tell you had made it when you were employing people you didn't even know about. Music is expensive. Mainstream acts can revel in this: the manufactured nature of the Spice Girls, Westlife, the Sugababes is part of the fun. But for left-field acts you're supposed to ignore it, so that U2, the Rolling Stones, Sting, retain some credibility (or are supposed to) while also raking in money faster than many small countries. Again, this is nothing new: Pink Floyd appeared in the 60s on the Harvest label, an EMI owned company which was intended to obscure the corporate nature of the organisation behind the band.
It would of course be totally cynical to suggest that the press gave the Sandi story such an easy ride because Sony BMG places so much advertising in their papers. It wasn't like that in '69 or '77. Except it was- as Patrik Fitzgerald said at the time, it was "Come and get your punk in Woolworth's / Bondage trousers - twelve pounds" (Make it safe).
I was going to put a link to Sandi Thom's website, but then I thought, 'Why should I? She never links to mine!' (Copyright the estate of Spike Milligan) Her website needs Flash to view it. These crazy web nuts!
Update
Sandi appeared on BBC Radio 4's arts magazine, Front Row, on Wednesday 19/7/06, and was asked specifically about the webcast/PR controversy. She said the whole 'penniless songwriter' thing had come from the press, not from her, since she acknowldedges she had the backing of a small record label, a management company and a PR firm before the Tooting webcasts started. This is a little disingenuous, since her she has certainly seemed keen to emphasise the squalor of the 'piss-stained basement', as if to imply that she had no backing. Quized about the webcast audience figures, she preferred to talk about how cool it was that people [however many there were] were viewing from all over the world. That doesn't impress me much: even this humble blog is regularly visited by sleepless people in Southeast Asia who want to know what "Blowin' in the Wind" means , or about megalomaniacs. Sher did end by endorsing the Web as a place where people can say what they think, which is good in its way, I suppose.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Bob Dylan and the Dead Sea Scrolls
"You gotta heed the Teacher of Righteousness
If you want to know the Way
The Wicked Priest's a spouter of lies
You can't belie-ee-eeve him when he prays"
Could be a John Wesley Harding , Slow Train Coming or Infidels outtake, but in fact has been cobbled together by me: the phrases in bold are from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Chronicles Vol. 1, and elsewhere, he has made it clear that he doesn't (as most of his commentators imply) sit down with his reference books around him and laboriously construct his songs like a crossword. Instead, he simply inhales a wide range of cultural sources and leaves them to emerge from his unconscious. But for all four of the key elements of the Scrolls texts to reflect so closely his concerns is evidence enough for me that he has at some point come across them.
BB7- the revenge of the housemates
I await with interest the Endemol producers' verdict on this series' selection process: were these really the most psychologically suited 12 people in Britain? Bizarrely, as series runs into series, while the viewing trend is generally down, the number of would-be participants continues to rise, even though it should by now be clear that even winning cannot provide lasting fame or even notoriety.
Previous series have provided most interest in demonstrating the Stockholm syndrome, as the housemates became institutionalised and came to identify with BB who exerted arbitrary power over them. This time around, it's more the Stanford Prison Experiment, as the group divided immediately into two factions and the dominant group then savagely attacked any non-conforming individuals. This might be seen as depressing, especially since many of the silent majority might be expected in other circumstances to protest against such victimisation. The risk, of course, is that to do so is to become a target oneself. But all this really shows is that tolerance is not a 'natural' product of human society: it has to be fought for.
But one has to wonder at those who volunteer to effectively be imprisoned for 3 months, with a group of unknown and possibly hostile co-prisoners, at the mercy of a capricious authority with the power to control sleep, food, and clothing. In the past, resistance by the inmates has been limited to arguing with Big Brother and refusing to cooperate in tasks. By definition, these fail. This time, the three walkers have shown the way. Rather than face the full-length ordeal, or the humiliation of public eviction, they have simply walked out once they recognised that they could achieve no more. Unless BB starts to substantially reward all those who stay the course, or really lock them up, then the merry-go-round of bringing in new housemates to replace the walked will become a standard feature of the series.
There has been some discussion about how to make the concept more interesting (now it is clear that 20s wannabe celebrities have no ability at all to say anything worth hearing), and one aspect that hasn't been explored is the exploitation of the isolation from the external world. For example, it would be very funny (for us) if, as a special concession, details of England's triumphant World Cup campaign were to be provided, so that when the victors emerge from the house, they are mystified at the despondency of the crowd who watched the early departure from the contest at the hands of plucky Trinidad. Or if BB were to announce that a Bird Flu outbreak in the vicinity meant that they would have to take all sorts of precautions, check for symptoms etc. Now that would be worth watching.
Previous series have provided most interest in demonstrating the Stockholm syndrome, as the housemates became institutionalised and came to identify with BB who exerted arbitrary power over them. This time around, it's more the Stanford Prison Experiment, as the group divided immediately into two factions and the dominant group then savagely attacked any non-conforming individuals. This might be seen as depressing, especially since many of the silent majority might be expected in other circumstances to protest against such victimisation. The risk, of course, is that to do so is to become a target oneself. But all this really shows is that tolerance is not a 'natural' product of human society: it has to be fought for.
But one has to wonder at those who volunteer to effectively be imprisoned for 3 months, with a group of unknown and possibly hostile co-prisoners, at the mercy of a capricious authority with the power to control sleep, food, and clothing. In the past, resistance by the inmates has been limited to arguing with Big Brother and refusing to cooperate in tasks. By definition, these fail. This time, the three walkers have shown the way. Rather than face the full-length ordeal, or the humiliation of public eviction, they have simply walked out once they recognised that they could achieve no more. Unless BB starts to substantially reward all those who stay the course, or really lock them up, then the merry-go-round of bringing in new housemates to replace the walked will become a standard feature of the series.
There has been some discussion about how to make the concept more interesting (now it is clear that 20s wannabe celebrities have no ability at all to say anything worth hearing), and one aspect that hasn't been explored is the exploitation of the isolation from the external world. For example, it would be very funny (for us) if, as a special concession, details of England's triumphant World Cup campaign were to be provided, so that when the victors emerge from the house, they are mystified at the despondency of the crowd who watched the early departure from the contest at the hands of plucky Trinidad. Or if BB were to announce that a Bird Flu outbreak in the vicinity meant that they would have to take all sorts of precautions, check for symptoms etc. Now that would be worth watching.
Global warming and the madness of crowds
Tolstoy:
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant. In solitude, a man generally listens to the first voice, but in society to the second." (War and Peace, Book X Chapter XVII).
"At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant. In solitude, a man generally listens to the first voice, but in society to the second." (War and Peace, Book X Chapter XVII).
Friday, June 02, 2006
Thoughts written on hotel notepaper
A distinctive smell, a mixture of gas, damp and tobacco, lingers in the carpets. The corridors snake around corners, ducking underlow arches, stepping up and down on a whim as they negotiate the building's extensions and additions. Passages run on out of view: this place could house an army. It's silent now, though: this is off season, and I'm almost alone.
Wind and rain deter all but the hardiest of tourists, and the high street wears its winter plumage of shuttered shops, closed restaurants, and ragged bunting left over from last year. The townsfolk have a haunted look- they know this place in both its modes, and would find it hard to decide which is better: winter solitude or summer overcrowding. But within them lies doubt- perhaps this time the visitors will not return, perhaps last summer was the final season.
As a result, I feel the weight of responsibility upon me- if I don't get a paper from the shop, use the telephone, buy a drink, the local economy may collapse into the chasm upon whose edge it teeters. When the best the marketing campaign can sugegst is a weterhered gravestone and an ill-defined association with Arthurian legend, eventual defeat appears inevitable.
Wind and rain deter all but the hardiest of tourists, and the high street wears its winter plumage of shuttered shops, closed restaurants, and ragged bunting left over from last year. The townsfolk have a haunted look- they know this place in both its modes, and would find it hard to decide which is better: winter solitude or summer overcrowding. But within them lies doubt- perhaps this time the visitors will not return, perhaps last summer was the final season.
As a result, I feel the weight of responsibility upon me- if I don't get a paper from the shop, use the telephone, buy a drink, the local economy may collapse into the chasm upon whose edge it teeters. When the best the marketing campaign can sugegst is a weterhered gravestone and an ill-defined association with Arthurian legend, eventual defeat appears inevitable.
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