2 MusicWeek 14.09.12 NEWS EDITORIAL
A high point for Domino
SORRY TO COME OVER ALL MARILYN MONROE HERE, but I like a man to sound like a man. It’s got to be tough for solo male artists out there at the moment. Not only do female performers dominate pretty much every mass-market chart in existence, even the few male stars that do slip through to the top of the pops end up sounding - how to put it politely? - ‘genteel’.
Picture the poor saps in their initial A&R meetings, browbeaten right in the middle of pop’s bubblegum machine. “You’re talented kid, but you’re too gruff. Mainstream radio today likes boys to sound like girls. So here’s your Swiss Army Knife. Scrape that over your crown jewels, drizzle over the standard issue vinegar and let’s go get squeaky down the studio.” My preference for an altogether hoarser howl - just like thousands of other individual peculiar pop predilections up and down the UK - inevitably leads to evenings whiled away on radio- unfriendly searches. And it was just one of these quests for the sandpaper roar of a rasping icon-in-waiting which brought to mind Domino; not a label with frontmen particularly known for their alpha bellow, but one of exquisite taste nonetheless.
“Indies should be able to adopt Domino’s model. I’m not sure majors could do so as successfully”
In an age of limitless online discovery, it’s easy to drown. You commence by casually looking for a band that sounds a bit like Spoon; you end up gawping at your iPhone circa 3am as it angrily dresses you down RE: your wanton abuse of its paltry storage boundaries. The next morning, you discover half of what you’ve downloaded/cached/’sourced’ was rubbish anyway. Domino’s new Drip service is exactly the sort of curated funnel that could be the natural next step in an era where unfathomable quantities of music are largely left unrestrained and unappraised by a media no-one wants to pay for anymore. Essentially a mixture of a downloadable fanclub and subscription platform, those who sign up to Drip can forever own the 30 tracks the label handpicks for members each month, regardless of whether they continue to subscribe. It does away with the drug-dealer model preferred by Spotify, Deezer and co. (i.e. The more you indulge, the more you have to lose.) The future of the subscription/download hybrid that Domino is pioneering relies intrinsically on the integrity of the label itself. With every false move, the trust in its curation amongst those paying $9.99 a month erodes by another few molecules. I’m sure other labels with an unblemished history of taste amongst niche audiences - from Bella Union to Mute, Ministry Of Sound, XL and 4AD - will be able to pick up Drip’s model and run to some degree. But it will be interesting to see if the majors - who can naturally ill-afford to sign acts purely on the basis of talismanic affection - can monetise audience brand loyalty with quite the same success. As for Drip, Domino says it’s already exceeding expectations. Extra credit goes to the label for demonstrating a genuine propensity to listen to its community: HQ FLAC recordings have already been made available after multiple fan requests.
Tim Ingham, Editor Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
tim.ingham@
intentmedia.co.uk NEW REPORT INVESTIGATES ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
How damaging is streaming?
DIGITAL BY TIM INGHAM
S
treaming could prove to be a far less energy- efficient model of music
consumption than recorded CDs, according to a new report. MusicTank’s The Dark Side Of
The Tune highlights the hidden energy costs of digital consumption and implications for the music business. It quotes data from previous
report Shipping to Streaming: Is this Shift Green? which shows that streaming an album over the internet 27 times can use more energy than the manufacturing and production of a CD. Renowned innovator Dagfinn
Bach authors the MusicTank document, and argues: “While there’s a huge difference between energy consumed by one streamed MP3 (0.16 Wh) and that of an uncompressed track (1.21 Wh), advances in network infrastructure speeds in excess of 100 mbps (wireless) mean that audio files would no longer need to be compressed in future. “Thus streaming or
downloading 12 tracks, without compression, just 27 times by one user would, in energy terms, equate
“Digital music is not distributed in an environmental vacuum” DAGFINN BACH, REPORT AUTHOR
to the production and shipping of one physical 12-track CD album. “By extension, exceeding 27
streams or downloads per track would result in a greater energy and network burden than its physical counterpart. “It would therefore appear
that repeated streaming of individual tracks may not necessarily be a desirable long- term solution with respect to energy consumption for the life cycle of a sound recording. “This is particularly true in
the case of subscription models in which there are no financial incentives for the consumer to limit the number of streams.” Bach also extrapolates data
from YouTube, suggesting that by 2013 usage of the streaming video site could equate to 1% of what the world’s total energy consumption stood at in 2010. Keith Harris, MusicTank chairman said: “The uptake of smart devices, mass connectivity and high-speed broadband
continues to revolutionise our consumption of music. These changes also have considerable implications for the environment. “Where, in the pre-digital era,
music fans stuck a needle on the groove or hit a play button, today they are increasingly turning to cloud-based streaming services powered by energy-hungry server farms.” Bach added: “Digital music
is not distributed in an environmental vacuum. While CD and vinyl pressing plants are becoming rarer, the growth in data traffic caused by digital content services comes with its own risks and problems. I hope this report shines a light on the issue and opens an important debate, both in the music industry and beyond.” The issue will be given an
airing at a MusicTank event at Fyvie Hall on October 11. Ticket details and speakers will be announced shortly. More info:
www.musictank.co.uk.
Fuller heaps praise on Lisa-Marie Presley
Lisa-Marie Presley’s new album has the potential to be a steady seller long into the future, according to manager and friend Simon Fuller. The American Idol mogul has helped oversee the creation of Presley’s Storm & Grace, which will be released in the UK via Island on October 15. Presley’s first record in seven
years, the LP has been produced by 12-time Grammy Award winner T-Bone Burnett, and features collaborators such as Richard Hawley and Ed Harcourt.
“Reaching an
audience for almost any music is difficult in these modern times and clearly with a personal and
reflective album such as Lisa’s it brings with it additional challenges,”
Fuller told Music Week. “I believe this is one of most honest and personal albums of the year, it has a timeless sound with an incredible atmosphere and has been produced beautifully by T-Bone Burnett. “It will find an audience over time and will continue to be discovered and enjoyed well into 2013 and beyond. We are
not looking for instant success and gratification.” Presley has told reporters that the album is a deliberately stripped-back affair, in contrast to her last, poppier effort, 2005’s Now What. “Lisa-Marie made this album with a single vision, she wanted to record an album that was true to herself, one that she would be proud of,” added Fuller. “This collection of intimate songs was not about chasing commercial success - it was about self expression and artistry alone. “When an artist records
music as pure as this the pressure of immediate success is lifted.”
www.musicweek.com
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