2 MusicWeek 02.08.13 NEWS
Is silence still golden? EDITORIAL
IF YOU’RE GOING TO BECOME noticed by the music industry in 2013, you’re gonna have to be loud and proud. Getting signed today is two parts talent to ten parts exposure. If you’re not hot off your own steam, you’re doing it wrong. If a
super-slick A&R’s going to take you seriously, you need a following; both out there on the treacle-sticky floors of Shoreditch gig venues, and in the empirically measurable realm of cyberspace. YouTube stats, Twitter followers, Facebook friends: prove you’re popular enough to be loved without a label, and the keys to the Kensington promo and marketing kingdom are yours. Which is all great, if you’re the kind of smart egotistical whizz who’s naturally adept at self-marketing. For the vast majority of emerging performers, I’m sure this isn’t a problem: for those dreaming of Glastonbury glory, relying on your own ability and energy to gather acolytes is surely preferable to the outdated alternative of flirting with the unpredictable whims of A&R men on the off-chance that (i) they’ll hear you and (ii) they’ll like you. So, artists are empowered by the great leveller of the internet.
DIY is the new de facto model. Those craven days of recording your demo and feeling the perpetual dagger of emotionless rejection from the record company HQ lottery is over.
“As we bemoan modern performers’ lack of
mystery, perhaps we should consider how much they have to give away just to get signed”
Everybody’s a winner, right? In the most part, maybe. The
opportunity might be there for the taking - but some geniuses just weren’t born with grabby hands. Sifting through a record collection at the weekend, I spotted a plethora of albums from publicity-shy hermits that have changed many of our lives for the better. Nick Drake, Lauryn Hill, Syd Barrett, Sly Stone, Brian Wilson, Axl Rose, Jeff Magnum, Kurt Cobain and, yes, even David Bowie (of certain eras). I was struck by how few of these might-be recluses would have
thrived in a world where self-propelled notoriety is the order of the day - and in which talent relies so little on the recognition of their brilliance by those much-maligned industry gatekeepers. That’s especially true for the least comfortable environment of the natural introvert: perpetual visual exposure. When launching the YouTube-focused All Def Music label last week, Universal boss Lucian Grainge was right to describe Google’s ever-mutating video monster as “a powerful new outlet for music and music-based content”. I’m just not sure that can be applied to those who struggle to make eye contact when hammering an instrument in anger, let alone the beady eye of an iMac’s in-built camera. This is certainly the era of the ego-surplus, self-made star: witness YouTube ‘star’ Alex Day gatecrashing the Christmas Top 10 in 2011 off the back of his own look-at-me YT channel and some suitably hooky ditties. But as we bemoan modern performers’ lack of mystery and intrigue, perhaps we should consider yesteryear’s wallflowers - who never needed to give everything of themselves away just to get their signature on a record contract. I sincerely hope that their natural descendants - awash with creativity, lacking self-importance - aren’t being left behind.
Tim Ingham, Editor
Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing
tim.ingham@
intentmedia.co.uk
Decca’s gold ambition for Pavarotti’s 50 disc
HISTORIC RECORDINGS APPEAR ON NEW COLLECTION
LABELS BY TINA HART
D
ecca is set to release the first recording ever made of Luciano Pavarotti’s
singing voice on a special new Best Of collection. The historic performance of
the aria from La Bohème, Che Gelida Manina, has been lying dormant in the archives for 50 years, and will be unearthed, re-mastered and made available to the public for the first time on Pavarotti - The 50 Greatest Tracks, due for release in the UK on September 2. Paul Moseley, the now-MD
of Decca Classics who began working with Pavarotti in 1990, has high hopes for the product in the UK, but even higher hopes for the worldwide release. The label has invested in
television advertisements for multiple territories. “Pavarotti is a global brand so we hope to go at least gold in the UK, but worldwide we’re looking at a much bigger number,” Moseley told Music Week, adding of the late singer’s extraordinary talent: “Quite simply, he had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. So bright and exciting, almost like a vocal trumpet. And his personality was big, everything was big, the charisma, the smile, the voice,the clothes and, of course, the man himself. “Just listening to all the tracks
over the last few weeks brings back that he was the original and best of the modern era, for example his Nessun Dorma puts everyone’s else’s into a very distant perspective.” The two-CD set contains 50 digitally-remastered tracks, from
Nessun Dorma to Caruso, La Donna E Mobile to Granada and duets with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bono, Eric Clapton and Sting. Speaking about the making
and marketing of the forthcoming anniversary record, Moseley reveals: “A few things took some time: we have remastered everything at 24-bit so we can truly say it’s Pavarotti as you’ve never heard him before.” And although Pavarotti’s
history and current product marketing is invested in TV, Moseley doesn’t think that the platform as a whole gives enough exposure to classical artists nowadays. “It’s a very difficult situation,” he says. “There’s BBC1’s Imagine and a few other bespoke shows. Of course people
Decca/(C) Vivianne Purdom
www.musicweek.com
like Gareth Malone and Howard Goodall do really great things, but outside of the Proms it’s no longer part of our culture anymore to expect to see, for example, orchestral music regularly on TV.” Moseley added: “Luciano
always wanted to bring opera to the widest audience. He loved Caruso, Mario Lanza and the great popularisers who came before him, and coming from a simple baker’s family he never lost touch with his roots. He always knew that concerts were the key to spreading his music wider than the opera house, but it was really in the USA in the 1980s that he started to achieve that through arena and open-air concerts, and of course TV.”
THE DECCA DEAL: PAVAROTTI’S LABEL BEGINNINGS
Fifty years ago, Luciano Pavarotti made his debut British TV appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium – one of the biggest television entertainment shows of its time. Earlier that day he received a
last-minute call, asking if he would stand in for an indisposed Giuseppe di Stefano on the popular ITV show, hosted by Bruce Forsyth. The performance was broadcast to 15 million viewers.
The 27-year-old singer then
signed to Decca, the label he recorded with for his entire career - making this one of the longest exclusive relationships an artist has ever experienced with a major label.
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