Journalist Sarfraz Manzoor visits India to meet a new generation of musicians and singers performing Indie, Reggae, Ska and Rap, and examines whether this western influenced scene can seriously rival the trademark sounds of Bollywood and Bangra.
Although Bollywood music is still the mass market choice on Indian stereos the alternative scene continues to grow and find its voice. Recently there’s been a notable rise in the number of rock music festivals, dance nights and music events attracting aspiring young Indians.
To discover the impact this alternative music scene is having on India, Sarfraz Manzoor journeys to the Hauz Khas Village in Delhi, often cited as the catalyst for introducing a wave of new bands and fresh musical genres into the market.
Hauz Khas is home to the offices of the Indian version of The New Musical Express and Manzoor speaks with its Editor Sam Lal and learns how the Village and the internet has been pivotal in the advancement and popularity of artists such as the Ska Vengers and Rapper Prozpekt who produce socially relevant music.
Exploring India’s first alternative radio station, Radio 79, Manzoor meets with Raghav Dang who broadcasts Pressure Drop and is a founder member of the band The Reggae Rajas. Meeting female artists Talia Bentson and Ritika Singh he also discovers why women are very happy to pursue a singing career in the East.
As India’s alternative music scene continues to develop Manzoor will explore the challenges ahead and learn whether these new songs provide a greater sense of identity for young people.
The average CD costs eight pounds. Who gets a share of it and how much to they get? Musicians, producers, songwriters and managers are just a few. It goes in lots of directions. Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Robbie Williams’ manager trace them in this clip from the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘You And Yours’.
In a remarkable low key way, on his 66th birthday, David Bowie has released a song taken from a new album (to be released in March 2013) to be called ‘The Next Day’
On iso/Columbia Records, available on iTunes in 119 Countries simultaneously
He also has relaunched his website www.davidbowie.com
The Next Day will be his 30th Studio Album
No interviews or statements were forthcoming from Bowie, though Tony Visconti has said that Bowie is happy and healthy, and has been spending the last two years making this album.
A spokesman added that Bowie was the sort of artist who “writes and performs what he wants when he wants”.A second representative subsequently told the Guardian there were no plans for interviews or live dates.
His first release for about a decade, new audio work by Bowie is rare these days following his withdrawal from performing due to a heart condition.
Bowie is a major figure in the development of music in the late 20th Century and is renowned for constantly re-inventing himself, and always surprising people.
Produced by long term collaborator Tony Visconti, ‘Where Are We Now?’ was written by David Bowie, and was recorded in New York.
This unusual video was directed by Tony Oursler and harks back to David’s time in Berlin. Apparently he appears with Bjork (a friend) projected onto dummy heads.
He is seen looking in on footage of the auto repair shop beneath the apartment he lived in along with stark images of the city at the time and a lyric constantly raising the question “Where Are We Now?”
Unsurprisingly, 10 years since he was last heard, Bowie’s voice sounds older and more world-weary. The melancholic song sees him reviewing his time in Berlin – where he created some of his most groundbreaking music in the 1970s – as he lists some of his haunts with the repeated line “just walking the dead”.
And in the video directed by Tony Oursler, with the musician’s pensive face projected on to a puppet, he appears to be almost biting back tears as he looks back on his life.
Where Are We Now? was written by Bowie and recorded in New York. It was produced by long-term collaborator Tony Visconti, who has worked on many of his most famous albums, beginning with 1969’s Space Oddity.
A follow-up album called The Next Day is set to be released in March.
How do you get your music to an audience? It’s a tricky question and one that students on the Level 2 module Music Production & Enterprise must attempt to answer.
Susi O’Neill is a musician and digital marketing consultant and came to the university today to give a lecture and to help the students devise their promotional strategies for the artists they are working with for this module.
Susi’s very informative lecture covered trends in digital marketing, her own research into independent music distribution and also new business models for music marketing and promotion. She included some very useful advice and a lot of food for thought regarding the state of the recorded music industries.
As a practising musician herself, Susi’s talk tackled exactly the issues and challenges facing the musicians, producers and songwriters in today’s digital environment. I wish she could come back every month!
It’s been six years since Nelly Furtado’s multi-platinum album Loose, which featured the smash hit single Maneater and collaborations with Justin Timberlake and Chris Martin.
She followed it up with a Spanish language record that missed the UK top 100 altogether. So, as she returns to a commercial pop sound, the Canadian star has everything to prove.
“If you wait this long to put an album out, you’d better be sure you tried your best,” says Nelly Furtado.
In fact, the 33-year-old devoted so much time to her new record that producer Salaam Remi accused her of being “three years pregnant” with it.
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These days The Videographer is very important
Every moment of the recording process has been carefully documented on video, with weekly “webisodes” being posted to YouTube.
What the videos illustrate is that, unlike some pop stars, Furtado is directly involved in the creative process.
One clip (above) shows the singer improvising a melody while producer Salaam Remi taps out a beat on a music stand. With the quick addition of some tape-slap reverb, the track gets a name – “popsicle jam” – and is pencilled in as an interlude on the album.
It’s a common part of music marketing these days – alongside free downloads, Facebook pages and endless “teaser” clips previewing forthcoming music videos.
“It’s become a content-hungry universe,” says Furtado. “The most important person on your team nowadays is your videographer because they’re constantly filming you. “But I’m quite private, so I get a little bit nervous about that stuff.”
The pressure to document recording sessions was particularly difficult. “At first, I wasn’t able to write a song with the cameraman in the room,” she says.”
The album has gone through two titles, half-a-dozen producers, and a mountain of songs – both old and new.
“In the final stages I was getting really anal about it,” says Furtado.
Why did she get so obsessed? The singer calls it “devotion to my fans”, but the reality is that she’s been absent from the charts for too long.
Furtado’s Spanish record was largely ignored in English-speaking countries but won a Latin Grammy
After the career-defining urban pop of her 2006 album Loose, Furtado followed her own path – getting married, establishing her own record label, and recording a Spanish-language album.Mi Plan sold well internationally, allowing the Canadian artist to tour South America for the first time, but she has been absent from the US charts for five years.
So it’s no surprise that The Spirit Indestructible revisits the pop hooks and colossal beats of Maneater – a song so incendiary it literally started a fire in the recording studio.
Furtado says the new material has “swagger in spades”. The lead single Big Hoops (Bigger The Better) rumbles like a volcano as the singer recounts her teenage love affair with hip-hop over a warped bassline.
“I’m channelling my 14-year-old self,” Furtado says. “She’s thinking about putting on her big hoop earrings and baggy pants and going to the mall downtown.”
The lyrics quote Salt-N-Pepa, A Tribe Called Quest and Blackstreet – bands the teenage Furtado listened to in the suburbs of Victoria, Canada.
“Hip-hop was super-exotic to us in Canada,” she recalls. “Because we were near the south, we could get some of the radio stations from Seattle.
“I remember attaching a wire clothing hanger to the antenna of my radio in my bedroom, so I could get the frequency and get that station and listen to the top 10 every night.”
“It was very liberating, finding that confidence through the music. And that’s what Big Hoops is about.”
Furtado took “six months off Twitter” to clear her head before writing the album
Nostalgia is a big part of the album. Parking Lot touches on similar themes to Big Hoops (“let’s dance in the rain”), while Waiting For The Night is based on a diary Furtado wrote as a “smitten sixteen-year-old” on holiday in Portugal.
To help recapture the sound of that era, the singer sought out Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, one of the biggest R&B producers in the 1990s.
Jerkins worked with many of the bands Furtado name-checks – playing keyboards for Blackstreet and writing hits for Michael Jackson, Aaliyah, Beyonce, TLC and Kanye West.
Making of the video for “Bigger the better”
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“One track that he did that I loved was The Boy Is Mine with Brandy and Monica,” Furtado says.
“He was telling me about the ad-libs – how they had to be equal and fair.
“They had to count out the number of lines to make sure everybody had the same amount.”
“I love hearing that kind of stuff.”
‘Content-hungry’
The singer’s own fans won’t have to wait so long to hear the secrets behind her songs. Every moment of the recording process has been carefully documented on video, with weekly “webisodes” being posted to YouTube.
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It’s a common part of music marketing these days – alongside free downloads, Facebook pages and endless “teaser” clips previewing forthcoming music videos.
“It’s become a content-hungry universe,” says Furtado. “The most important person on your team nowadays is your videographer because they’re constantly filming you.
“But I’m quite private, so I get a little bit nervous about that stuff.”
We’d only work ’til midnight at the latest. Rodney has two little kids – so he doesn’t go to bed very late”
Nelly Furtado, on her decidedly non-rock ‘n’ roll working hours
The pressure to document recording sessions was particularly difficult.
“At first, I wasn’t able to write a song with the cameraman in the room,” she says.
“I’ve always admired people who can write like that. I’ve been there at hip-hop sessions where Kanye West will walk in and write in front of all 20 guys in his team. I’d be like, ‘oh my God!'”
“But on this album, the videographer would stay in the room and I eventually forgot he was there. It takes practice. It’s another creative relationship.”
see: http://dynamicrangeday.co.uk
According to this campaign,”The Loudness War is a sonic “arms race” where every artist and label feel they need to crush their music onto CD at the highest possible level, for fear of not being “competitive” – and in the process removing all the contrast, all the light, shade and depth – ruining the sound.” (taken from dynamicrangeday.co.uk)
THIS VIDEO EXPLAINS MORE
Big-name CD manufacturers are distorting sounds to make them seem louder. Sound quality suffers.
What is Dynamic Range Day ?
The “Loudness War” is built on the idea that “louder is better”. However this concept is fatally flawed. The goal of Dynamic Range Day is to reveal this flaw and spread an alternative message:
The fatal flaw of the “Loudness War” sound
In a nutshell: it doesn’t sound good.
Research shows there is no connection between “loudness” and sales
People don’t notice loudness when comparing songs
Dynamic music sounds better on the radio – here’s the proof
Modern music players undo loudness by using ReplayGain
Most listeners just turn loud music down !
So – “loud” music on CD has no benefit on the radio, online, on an mp3 player, or in your CD player. That’s why I call it a legend – the “Loudness War” makes no sense, in 2012.
Stefan Goldmann on why Web 2.0 can work for you but won’t for most, where all the money went and how working against the market consensus can be a winning strategy.
My remix of Soul Renegades-‘Y’all Wont Let Me’ has just been released on the highly respected Instruments Of Rapture label . You can hear the track here
The track has initially been released on vinyl but will be also be released digitally in April
