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Daily Download: Albert Hammond, Jr., “Bright Young Thing”
12/02
myspace.com/alberthammondjr »
Before all of the industry magazines and other publications drop “year-in-review” pieces, I thought I’d post my top-four stories penetrating 2007:
1. Mark Ronson
People will recognize Mark as a modelesque celebrity DJ, an accomplished platinum producer and a light-hearted, taste-making radio show host, but what gives Mark his edge over other artists and musicians, in my opinion, is his knowledge of music history. He creates and crafts relevant music and connects with diverse audiences by applying this insight to his authentic blends, DJ sets and other noteworthy music productions. Often overlooked for his work in the studio (early on), he enlisted British darlings Lilly Allen and Amy Winehouse, who’s undergoing a monstrous metamorphosis, to grab unrelenting critics by the balls and seduce their deftly egotistical ears with his talents. It worked, and it would have worked without them. He’s a gifted, brilliant arranger, who I think we’ll still be talking about in 10 years as he transitions from DJ to producer.
2. Mixtapes & Wale
According to Yahoo! Buzz, mixtapes “have made headway with mainstream music fans,” and I don’t understand why more artists don’t take advantage of the massive mixtape market. I hear, “What about royalties? What about copyright infringement?” My response—that hasn’t stopped hustlers like Kanye or Jay or Lil Wayne who are kings of music’s upper echelon from dropping them at opportune points in their careers. Even though Lil Wayne has been hot fire this year, with searches for his mixtapes up 150% at times, look for Wale to make the jump to hip-hop’s elite in 2008. I don’t need to read the XXL Wale hype in all of the blogs and publications (or profusely profess it); his music and his performances speak volumes for themselves. What’ll be interesting though, is to see how Wale develops either as a strong solo artist with label releases (like Kanye or Jay) or as a collaborator (like Lil Wayne). Either way, he’ll be making noise.
3. Indie Goes Down
If you look back to the beginning of the year, a number of indie bands were poised to FINALLY breakthrough after years on the Warped Tour circuit or self-booked bar tours–The Almost, Bayside, Augustana, Boys Like Girls, Bullet For My Valentine, Cartel, The Cinematics, The Hold Steady, Meriwether, Madina Lake, Say Anything, Secondhand Serenade, Plain White T’s, ETC. What has really hurt these bands chances to have staying power has been the absence of a hit follow up record. They all put out radio friendly singles, with Plain White T’s scoring the biggest Pop hit with “Hey There Delilah” (a song that has been on every PWT album since 2005’s All That We Needed, where it appeared as the last track, unlucky #13). Each, though, has left fans wanting more and left an even HUGER void. If I were any of these bands, management or the record label, I would have been in the studio pounding out another hit. None of them have a loyal enough fan base or strong enough catalog of music to piggyback ONE song. It doesn’t help that many of these bands sound alike –the music’s not daring and it doesn’t make you stop and say, “What is this?!”, like hip-hop music has done for more than two decades. Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson though did an upstanding job of bridging indie with R&B/Soul, and at that point, Indie went down. If hip-hop’s the New England Patriots, indie’s any one of the other 31 teams cooling in their shadows.
4. “Record” Sales Slump
In a year where record sales set record slumps week-after-week, it would be criminal to leave sales off of the list. iTunes has been a big culprit, cutting a large piece out of the revenue pie. Every song bought and downloaded through iTunes equates to a significant percentage loss of an album sale. At this rate, the record business is doomed. I believe there could be a revolutionary shared-revenue-model that will save it, but it’ll be hard to develop and get buy-in for a widely-accepted model. Illegal downloads haven’t impacted sales like executives would like you to believe, and here’s the proof. Cassidy made a good point too during an interview on Power 106 last month, when he said it’s not just the record labels at fault, but also many artists’ lack of commitment to produce more than one or two potential hit songs on an album. If you want the artists you like to be able to continue to make the music you like, support them by buying not only tickets and T-shirts, but ALBUMS as well.
On a side note, Irv Gotti’s signing of Vanessa Carlton to the INC. after Maverick folded, signals the need for labels to diversify and look outside-of-the-box when signing new artists, to find new audiences for its existing catalog of music as well as for the new artist.
Larger Than Life in ‘08: Wale. Even with surging artists like Colbie Caillat, Feist, Jonas Brothers, Chrisete Michelle, Band of Horses, CSS and MIA, among many, many others, my money’s on Wale. He’ll have a greater reach and stronger connection with audiences, much like Panic at the Disco had in ’06 and Mark Ronson has seen in ’07.
Top 3 Pop songs:
1. Rihanna, “Don’t Stop the Music”
2. Mark Ronson f. Amy Winehouse, “Valerie” (I would like a version f. Kyle Falconer better though)
3. Paramore, “Misery Business”
* Most Outstanding Producer: Mark Ronson
* Most Outstanding Production Team: StarGate
* Most Outstanding Mixtape: Wale, “100 Miles and Running”
* Most Outstanding Music & Lifestyle Coverage:
-HITS (print magazine + hitsdailydouble.com)
-Billboard (print magazine + billboard.biz)
–New York Times Music Section (print newspaper + nytimes.com)
–Interview (print magazine + interviewmagazine.com)
-Fader (print magazine + thefader.com)
–Filter (print magazine and filter-mag.com)
–Nylon (print magazine and nylonmag.com)
I’ll wrap this year with an Elton John quote from the August Issue of Interview magazine. I wouldn’t have guessed that
I’d quote him, but here’s what he had to say to Ingrid Sischy about people not leaving enough to the imagination anymore and imagination
being what allows artists to do original work. It’s fantastic.
“I think that you need to be alone to be imaginative, and in order to do that today, you really have to work to cut yourself off from everything. You cannot possibly create something new by channeling all that is available to you, because you’re going to be subconsciously influenced by what you see in a million different ways.”
-Elton John
Happy Holidays. Love and Respect. +M
P.S. Props to Cousin Cole who released some of the dopest, illest, sickest (insert any other praising -est adjective) remixes of the year… and Albert Hammond, Jr. who released one of my favorite albums of the year,
Yours To Keep, second to Mark Ronson’s Version.
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Fergie, with her singsong chants about her feminine wiles, is the closest thing to a female rap superstar these days. 
Recent Comments
Daniel Weisman: from Wale’s manager…great write up
mike: US Release, VERSION in stores