LJ Idol Week #9 - Topic: "Normalization"

[prog_schlock]

This is my entry for Week #9 of therealljidol.

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Industry rule #4080Liz Phair brought her version of her self-titled 2003 album to her label, Capital Records, but they balked at releasing it unless she created some songs with hit-making team The Matrix. Phair recorded four songs with them, had her biggest hit to date, and pretty much ruined her reputation

Comments

[lordrexfear]

I can't tell if you respect The Matrix or not. They happen to have one of my favorite indie musicians as a member. They've also produced and co-written tons of stuff that would not be classified as pop. Critics be damned, cause they know jack shit about music. Especially PAID music critics. They no absolutely nothing about music.

I can't think of an answer to the question you asked. If I like a group and they change their sound I usually liked them for their sensibilities, not for the type of music they actually wrote. Steven Tyler went country and like it. Billy Joel went classical and I liked it. I can think of a reverse example. Taylor Swift went pop and I fell in love and then I gained a better appreciation for her earlier work.

Back to The Matrix... there's also this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soX3g3Qdju4

[prog_schlock]

The Matrix are great and I dig a ton of their songs. The only people I'm being critical of here are the executives of Capitol who forced an awkward change on Phair so they could shift units. They didn't see her as a unique artist, just as a pretty face.

Thank you for reading!

[lrig_rorrim]

I love learning things about the artists I listen to by reading your stuff. I'm one of those mostly clueless purveyors of music, who just kinda stumbles across things and likes them without (usually) knowing much of anything about their history or context. The context is super informative, though. I own whitechocolatespaceegg and quite a few songs (picked up randomly over the years) off of exile in guyville. I'd never heard "why can't I" and I really understand why folks who were into Liz Phair wouldn't like it. It doesn't seem like her music at all. I mean, that's her voice, but it's just so... yeah. It didn't hit me in the emotions at all. Put that next to "Polyester Bride" or "Ride" or "Six Dick Pimp" and it seems all wrong - alien, almost.

The way the record companies work seems to be incredibly fraught - it reminds me of an essay I read else-livejournal about the possible impending death of twitter ( here, and totally worth reading). Seems like they didn't want to make Liz Phair's fans happy. They wanted to make all the fans of

[prog_schlock]

That was a great Twitter entry. I left a comment and I couldn't agree with him more.

Yeah, the business of music and the art of music are two very different, often opposed things. Phair is hardly the only artist to have suffered from label incompetence or malfeasance (witness what is going on right now with Ke$ha) but its maddening to think that they would hire a musician and not understand why that musician is special. It makes no sense.

I feel the exact same way about TMBG. I think its a matter of authenticity - they seem to really enjoy making children's records from time to time and, thus, the records are charming. I mean, I am not your broom. :D

Thank you for commenting!

[anyonesghost]

I'm not sure I know an example of perceived implosion at that level. A lot of singers and bands who make the leap from indie to major league just go through diminishing returns (Interpol leaps to mind here), or they stay aggressively weird. Sia Furler might be the counter-example here of someone who did a lot of indie work (Zero 7) and then started popping up out of nowhere in the majors. (Of course, she's only just now getting to a sophomore slump, 7 albums in or whatever.)

There's also a story I've heard (quite possibly apocryphal) whereupon the Beastie Boys spent months trying to hammer out 'License to Ill' and getting notes slid back under doors to push it into as "broadly consumable" territory as possible. Which mostly worked, of course, but 'Paul's Boutique' sort of catapulted them forward well past what anyone was expecting. Self-definition as a career move doesn't work for all artists, but it does produce some interesting results.

[prog_schlock]

The Beastie Boys are fascinating for many reasons. Before License to Ill, they played with a variety of different sounds and after it, they went through a series of sort of unexpected transformations in terms of content and attitude. There reversal, especially, on disrespecting women in their music was kind of the sound (one hopes) of a pile of young men realizing that they needed to behave better, too. MCA, by the end, was practically a folk hero.

Oh, and Paul's Boutique was revolutionary at the time - the beats that The Dust Brothers especially were amazing. I dig the Beasties and have held off on sharing any of their music in case I want to write about them later. :D

[bleodswean]

Amazing, fierce women singer/songwriters and the f-bomb -

Liz has definitely had some industry struggles. You pay her great homage here.

If I truly love a singer/songwriter....I don't fall out of love with them when they experiment with change.

[prog_schlock]

Its funny - I follow musicians for decades and am loyal beyond reason sometimes. However, there sometimes come times where I feel like they're just going through the motions. Those are the times I lose interest - like they were just showing up to record for the sake of recording but didn't really have anything to say.

That Martha Wainright song is excellent. Thank you for sharing it and for reading!

[bleodswean]

Well, of course there are albums in a revered artist's oeuvre which aren't as successful as others. Same with writers! And actors! I am intimately familiar with the process of creating an album and a novel....and I feel a sympathetic empathy with a block or a miss or a failure. But I also feel that if I am being challenged by a new outing....I can't dismiss it out of hand, I have to take into account where the artist is and if perhaps the issue isn't more mine than theirs.

[rayaso]

It is so sad when an artist you love and respect runs into such difficulties. The business side of music really is hell.

[prog_schlock]

One thing I've learned while being an administrator is that most other administrators come from the administration class - a group of people taught to run things but not actually taught to really understand the things they run. I think that's what happened in the music industry. The earliest people running those companies at least knew and loved music. As they became more lucrative, they started recruiting admins who knew how to make money and stopped worrying about how to make music. So basically there's a real disconnect between what the companies do (make money) and what they appear to do (distribute music).

Thank you for reading and commenting!