Arts in Recession

My friends we are going through “troubling” “difficult” “unprecedented” “challenging” economic times.  Have you heard?

Apparently the art world has.  Check out this article in the New York Times Magazine on Jose Mugrabis and his sons.  They’re buying modern art as investments the same way that some people by securities, and they’re trying to corner the market so they can control prices.  Good luck.

Haven’t we heard that wealth built on ephemeral, hard to value items can be a dangerous proposition?  The value of modern art is clearly based on perception.  Almost like mortgages…

That said, it seems we’re entering a new gilded age where artists can operate for art’s sake.  Just ask Holland Cotter.

But then again, the Metropolitan Opera is offering its Chagall murals as collateral on an existing loan.

There goes that idea.

What Were They Thinking?

I watched I’m Trying to Break Your Heart recently, a documentary on the making of Wilco’s album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and it’s left me bothered.

The choice was partly to satisfy curiosity, and partly to offer Wilco another chance.  I’ve never been a fan of the band, and have had a hard time reconciling why they seem to be so critically acclaimed with why they just don’t do it for me.  True: their songs are catchy, sometimes difficult, and sometimes meaningful; true: they are trying new things with their production; and true: I’m probably not in a position to judge, having not heard too much of their music (although I do own Yankee Hotel Foxtrot).  I’ve never felt, though, that the sum of those parts are enough to make the album work.  Somehow they just don’t seem to fit together in a meaningful way for me.

But that disclaimer has nothing to do with my real objection to this movie – an objection that is aimed at what is likely the heart of the film.  Here’s a rundown: Wilco’s a great band, they’re making a record that Reprise records has given them complete control of, and is playing for, they drop the annoying guy from the band (can’t really blame them), finish the record, label doesn’t like it, drops band, band retains ownership of the record they’ve just made, beginning bidding war, band re-signs with another label that happens to be owned by the same parent company as the one that just dropped them.  Simple enough (sorry if I ruined the movie, but you’ll get over it).

What really gets me though, is the insistence on the part of the band and its management that getting dropped from Reprise records is somehow an injustice – or even an act of bad faith.  Sure, it sucks being dropped from anything (just ask the guy who didn’t make it through the movie as part of the band), but no one seems to recognize – or at least openly acknowledge – that the contract signed with Reprise gives them the right to take this action.

The argument that the band should have taken was that the artistic viability of their album was somehow misunderstood, or insulted by a bunch of suits with no idea what’s going on.  I’d accept that.  (True, they kind of did make that argument, but not explicitly [they really didn't have any great argument, really - they seemed really confused/bothered by the idea {which I can't blame them for}].)  Reprise wanted a sure thing from some guys who had since shown “promise”, and were left with a challenging and nuanced album without much to hang a marketing campaign on.  For a modern record company that’s pretty far from a sure thing.  Any kid on a label’s street team can tell you that.

Ultimately, the band laughed all the way to the bank, forging what seems to be a great relationship with Nonesuch records, while Reprise ended up looking pretty stupid.  The band got an album paid for by one label, and purchased by another (that’s about 100% profit if my math’s correct).

So before I let Wilco and their deep, brooding looks castigate Reprise Records to the ranks of record label infamy – not undeservedly – let me take a minute to defend Reprise, in principle.  Remember: when you enter into a contract with someone, and that contract stipulates that they can terminate the agreement any time they like, don’t look surprised when they do.  It may be a stupid decision, and it may suck, but Wilco gave them that weapon in the first place.

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Here’s a great review of Rick Rubin’s time as Columbia Records non-executive.  Rubin’s been a favorite of mine for a while because he’s so enigmatic.  In this case, the article’s insistence that so many at Columbia don’t understand him seems to hinge on the idea that he just won’t “play the game”, which is great on many levels.

I’m not sure what Columbia was expecting, but it should have been plainly clear when he arrived, refused a title, moved the label into a new space, and insisted on using more environmentally friendly packaging, that things would change under Rubin – and likley not for reasons that would appear defensible or logical to a record label.

As the article points out, it’s not musical ability that leads to success as a label executive (with or without title).  The suggestion seems to be that this could turn out to be the Matt Millen/Detroit Lions scenario of the music business.  Let’s hope not.

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Blue Note is turning 70, and to celebrate, the New York Times is asking a tough question: What’s going to happen next?

Among the highlights from this article:

“Branching beyond jazz, it has moved into what Mr. Lundvall calls ‘the adult sophisticated pop area.’”  [What's that?]

“Mr. Charlap, on tour with the Blue Note 7, an anniversary tribute band, added, ‘This is not Blue Note, the small independent record label, anymore; this is Blue Note, the subsidiary of EMI.’” [Why does this seem so troubling?]

“Over the last year Blue Note’s operations have been more fully absorbed into the structure of EMI, which was bought in 2007 by Terra Firma, a private equity firm. Though jarring in some ways — ‘At first I thought I was going to fight it,’ Mr. Lundvall said — the change has opened up new resources for the label.” [Interesting...]

Damien Hirst in the News

Apparently The Economist is not the only news outlet covering Sotheby’s auction of new Damien Hirst items.  Some more sources:

-NY Times

-Time Magazine

-Google News (everything else, actually)

Hirst w/Golden Calf

Odds & Ends

Catching up on a few items and events of the past few weeks:

An article in The Economist this week on Damien Hirst and his upcoming auction at Sotheby’s in London is curious in how it deals with the rarity of an auction of new works.  Typically, an auctioneer like Sotheby’s deals in pre-owned works – things that have been around at least 5 years, and had at least one owner.  The Hirst auction includes 223 lots, which are brand new.

Damien Hirst - The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

This colloquialism  – “brand new” – appears to be correct.  Hirst, known for, among other things, preserving animals in formaldehyde, has created a brand and production structure around his creations: 180 people, and at least four production sites, according to the article.

The butterfly pictures are made by fabricators who are given the dimensions needed, but are otherwise left to themselves to chose the colours and designs they want.  Having given his final approval – sometimes, one fabricator says, only by looking at a photograph – Mr Hirst signs and dates the back of the work.

For art that is not always produced by the artist, and is estimated to sell at prices between £10,000 and £2m ($18,000-$3.6m), the Hirst auction appears to be breaking two trends in the art market by eschewing the standard artist-gallery relationship under which galleries act as dealers and agents.

By going directly to Sotheby’s, Hirst is removing the waiting game that galleries make customers play.

“Dealers are gatekeepers who permit artists’ access to serious collectors.”…Auction rooms, by contrast, are more democratic.  Anyone with enough money can buy what they want – immediately.  They just have to be prepared to make that final bid.

In removing this barrier to entry, Hirst has enabled himself to control the supply of his work entering the marketplace (the article notes his counter-intuitive expectation to see his prices rise while increasing supply by 223 works).  In the end, though, the $18,000 price tag is still a large barrier to tackle.

Structurally, this change seems to embrace moves made recently by artists engaging in direct marekting to their audiences (see Radiohead, et al).  While diamond skulls and preserved animals may not be available via digital download, or on a pay-as-you-like scheme, Hirst’s ability to cut transaction costs by going directly to Sotheby’s fits neatly with his “something for everyone” business dream.  No matter the price, though, it appears he’s inching closer to effeciency in the marketplace.

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It’s not normally my place to dive into celebrity gossip, the tristes of rappers, or the truthfulness of what is supposedly “non-fiction”.  But when it was announced in July that Rick Ross, known for the song “Everyday I’m Hustling”, had previously been employed as a corrections officer, contrary to his rough-thug image (see the title of his song), the media reaction was somewhat tepid.

Not that I necessarily care about the accuracy of a rapper’s claims (let’s send a fact checker through one complete album and see what we come up with), but what’s separating the startling revelation of Ross’s background and that of James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces?  The answer is Oprah, who famously backed Frey, only to apologize later.

The lesson: if you’re going to lye, don’t do it around Oprah.

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Girl Talk - Feed the Animals

Finally, when I went to download the Girl Talk album Feed the Animals at illegalart.net, I was asked a simple but surprising question after I entered the my price of $0 in the pay-as-you-like website: why?

Some of the options, I have to say, were savvy, given the collage-like sampling method Girl Talk uses to create his albums, and the underground nature in which he is gaining notoriety:

-I may donate later

-I can’t afford to pay

-I don’t really like Girl Talk

-I don’t believe in paying for music

-I have already purchased this album

-I don’t value music made from sampling

-I am part of the press, music, or radio industry

-Other reasons

I chose the last, simply because the most obvious reason was glaringly omitted.  If you’ve already announced to someone in a transaction that you’re willing to give away your product for free, then what reason or incentive do I have to pay anything?

The message that these passive questions seem to be presenting is that altruism should lead you to put down a ‘fair’ price for this album as the producer sees it – ie something higher than $0.  But if the producer is willing to go as low as nothing, then why should I value it above him/her?  Clearly they have more familiarity with its content and the craftsmanship than I, and if their higher level of information leads to a possible value of $0, then why should mine go any higher?

This all reflects back to the days of Napster, in which downloaders argued that music and other art media constitute common goods, and therefore should not have a price attached.  Clearly others – mostly producers and musicians – did not agree, hence the lawsuits.  Interesting that now, as people are given the option to pay nothing, we’ve entered a hybrid state of the Napster days: pay what you like, but it should be more than $0.

Limited Resources

The episode of Project Runway my girlfriend is currently watching features a recurring issue: a lack of material. Strange as it may seem, it never occurred to me that musicians rarely face this same problem. There is simply no limit to the ephemeral and diffusive nature of ‘notes’.

I have a bootleg of Branford Marsalis in which he states “a long standing jazz axiom: ‘why say something in two notes, when 10,000 will do?’” Fair point, particularly when 10,000 notes are so easy to come by.

There are, of course, limits to composition and musical performance: orchestration, pitch range, duration of performance, etc. Technology, though, is allowing the limits of those factors to be met.

If only music lacked scarcity in one key department: gigs.

Barbarians through the Gate

Things at EMI, it seems, are not good.  In a profile on Guy Hands, head of Terra Firma, the private equity firm that currently owns the music group, the New York Times paints a grim picture of both Hands and his current endeavor.

First a recap: EMI is huge.  And it makes a lot of money.  The Beatles, Sinatra, Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye, Pink Floyd, and David Bowie were all at one time on their roster.  They own the catalogues not just to these guys, but also to all of Capitol and Blue Note, and have been in perpetual courtship with Warner Music Group, as both acquirer and acquiree.

And in the land of music and EMI, things were beautiful until a few years ago.  Then in 2007 Guy Hands and his private equity group, Terra Firma, bought EMI with bank financing for $6.4 billion.

 That was about 10 months ago, and now Hands has got a problem.  In addition to moving slowly on his turn-around plan (which included cutting about 1500 jobs, and scared away both Radiohead and Paul McCartney), Hands had the good fortune to secure a $6.4 billion loan from Citigroup just as credit was drying up.  (Actually, that turns out to be bad for both Hands and Citigroup, which cannot find any reasonable way to offload the huge debt they’ve incurred, meaning that Hands has only one creditor breathing down his neck – but one that’s breathing really hard, and really close.)

Now a little about Hands: according to the article, Hands’ years at Oxford, Goldman Sachs, and Nomura groomed him well for the world of business.  He had his wife run a chain of hotels, and he’s led Terra Firma through the successful acquisition and turnaround of chains of pubs and gas stations.  He’s also an asshole.

With all this grooming and experience, though, he can’t seem to figure out the music industry.  First, he’s offended nearly everyone at EMI either directly:

“They hate him,” said Hugh Hendry, a British hedge fund manager and former EMI shareholder who had publicly criticized past management, of artists’ opinions about Mr. Hands. “He’s rude. He’s abrasive. He wants to make money. He’s the first to say to artists, ‘We are not going to pay you too much money. Now get out of my office.’ ”

Or indirectly:

“I said Terra Firma people get in very early in the morning, work through the day, and go home,” he said. “In contrast, people in the music industry get in to work later, work later and then go out late to the clubs and look for bands.”

This, according to Mr. Hands, is what set off a storm of protest from artists and managers in the British press.

“He had this disastrous publicity campaign,” Mr. Summers said. “I thought it was terrible for the staff. And he was saying artists were all lazy.”

Then, he finds out that what he’s actually bought: an audit by KMPG revealed that EMI has actually lost $1.5 billion from the sale of new music during the past five years.  (To his credit, Hands said nearly 80% of the $6.4 billion price was for the company catalogue.)

But the Times piece is about much more than Hands or EMI.  While the article tells us clearly that business acumen will not necessarily get you success in the music industry, the reasoning plays mostly into Hands’ line of thinking: managerial and accounting problems.  Hands’ emphasis on the boost EMI will get from Coldplay’s new album was much more telling.

In an era of quarterly earnings and corporate profit predictions, commoditizing art seems a dangerous game at best.  In addition to facing the competition of other industries and sectors, entertainment companies also face the difficulty of trying to wrangle both the artistic process and consumer preferences for such products into a neat fiscal schedule.  Good luck.

Last time Coldplay released an album it did turn out to be a windfall for EMI, but the delay of the album skewed profit predictions, and had a negative effect on share prices that did not completely rebound when the album was finally released.  While this type of thing does happen with other goods, you do have to enjoy the comparison of music to other goods (lawn mowers, computers, industrial goods, etc.) that are produced by the companies traded on stock exchanges.

But look around the landscape of entertainment and you’ll see this type of thing happening more frequently than you’d imagine (as an intern at DreamWorks Animation I heard repeatedly that the company had made a commitment to its shareholders to release two movies a year [not convinced: the studio releases a film each fall and memorial day]).  Surely it happens with other entertainment production companies, but goes mostly unnoticed because either 1) the company isn’t publicly traded, and can cover its ass when this happens, or 2) they’ve got enough material put together to tide them over (how many movies do Paramount and Universal put out a quarter?).

What you should know about art is this: it sometimes  takes time, and you’re never sure who’s going to buy it.  Guy Hands seems to have missed these points.  And you can’t really blame the guy, either.  After years of success turning around low-impact institutions of consumerism, he decided to take a bite of a very different,  and much larger beast, but seems to have been caught in too deep. 

If this was any other industry, I might sit back and laugh at him with a kind of sick satisfaction, enjoying the hubris of someone who, by all accounts, is impossible to deal with.  But when he’s blindly running EMI into the ground, I can only cringe.

The Limits of Jazz

On August 28, 2007 Chris Potter and his label, Sunnyside records, committed a cardinal sin of the record industry, and in the process revealed just how far jazz has yet to come.  It was that day that Potter – or rather the Sunnyside record label – simultaneously released two new additions to Potter’s expanding discography: Follow the Red Line, a live recording of his “Underground” band (read: electronic); and Song for Anyone, the debut of the “Chris Potter 10”, a collective of jazz- and non-jazz instrumentalists.

With greater emphasis being placed on record releases, early sales, and time between releases, the double debut is notable for several reasons.  First, economically it reveals a great deal about Sunnyside’s motives and intentions.  In a world of diminishing sales, we would assume that profit margins are also falling, especially since these albums were recorded professionally, and not in the home-studio setups we all know are easily attainable and cost-effective (see Economies and Scales).

But at face value this decision seems to herald some desperation on the part of Sunnyside.  If record sales overall are falling, and the portion of the market devoted to jazz records is also diminishing, then jazz sales are plummeting at an even faster rate than the industry as a whole.  Surely Potter, by now one of the bigger names in jazz, is a top seller for this small label (aren’t all jazz labels considered ‘small’ by now?), and despite a large roster, their catalogue doesn’t appear to go too far back as in the case of say, Verve, Blue Note, or Columbia.  What’s more, with a smaller cache of ‘stars’ on which to rely, you’d think that Sunnyside would want to pocket one of these Potter discs to (1) help the stream of cash flowing into their operation, and (2) ensure that each release achieves its maximum sales numbers, rather than competing with each other in a shrinking market place.

So why put out two releases on the same day?  The answer, so far as we can deduce, appears to have something to do with the extents to which jazz musicians like to travel (musically speaking), and the commercial implications of those choices.  In the case of Potter, consider the two projects these albums represent: on the one hand, Follow the Red Line is a live recording of a small, electronic group.  With that information and a knowledgeable guide through jazz history you can probably rely on this album placing emphasis on one of the following: spontaneity, ‘groove’, group interaction, feats of musical skill and technique, extended playing time, etc.  In short, this album runs simultaneously to the ‘freer, more open’ side of the jazz structure scale, as well as the ‘in-the-pocket, jam-band-esque’ range of the commercial spectrum.  It is, by jazz standards, an attempt to show a more fun-loving, carefree side of not just Potter, but his whole band – ostensibly in an effort to pull in non-jazz and less-than-jazz fans (those whose tastes are probably tangential at best to most jazz).

And in those qualities, Follow the Red Line is, in jazz terms, nothing new.  While the musical content is in and of itself a new creation, the overall product is another step in a long and preexisting line of jazz-come-electronica.  The source of all this, of course, is Miles, whose restlessness, vanity, and admiration of the likes of Jimi Hendrix and James Brown lead him down the path to In a Silent Way, Bitches Brew, Live Evil, cocaine induced retirement, and finally, “the ‘80’s”.  And in these latter stages of Miles’ live we have the blueprint for what this genre has become: a collection of musical interactions set against a static or near-static harmonic background, eschewing the traditional jazz elements of swing, and at times, form.

Borne from Ornette’s “tennis without a net” approach, Kind of Blue modalism, non-jazz influences, and the Fender Company’s products, this sub-genre has become an outlet for jazzers seeking to show versatility and commercial appeal.  Especially in the 1970’s, with Miles leading the way, the greats were being lead in to this sub-genre in hordes: Headhunters, Weather Report, Mahavishnu, Return to Forever, etc.  And what was then a prerequisite for jazz musicians in the era of ‘fusion’ became even more vogue following the 1980’s ‘renaissance’: Joshua Redman’s Elastic Band, the RH Factor, Rosenwinkel’s Heartcore, and now Potter’s Underground.  (Notice too, that even in name there is greater emphasis on the collective rather than the individual [as if to say this is ‘our’ product, not just ‘mine’ – although there is usually one name attached to help place the creative aegis in a greater context]).

At the other end, you have Song for Anyone, the debut of the “Chris Potter 10”, a small orchestration of woodwinds (flute, clarinet, bassoon) and strings (violin, viola, cello) not usually found in jazz, added to Potter’s usual rhythm section set-up. Here, in juxtaposition to Follow the Red Line, the album is a picture of control: studio recorded, arrangements with written parts, limited solo space.  This album is at the opposite end of both spectra from the Underground band: simultaneous less spontaneous and more introverted.  Here we are shown a deeper, more artistic side of Potter’s oeuvre: his thoughts, his dreams – and not what he does with his ‘boys’ on Friday night at the Village Vanguard.

But here too, there is nothing really new to the statement, just an addition to the long list of cross-over project that jazz musicians use to distinguish themselves, and record companies use to broaden audiences.  Think “Bird with Strings”, Sketches of Spain, Wynton’s Hot House Flowers, Lovano’s Rush Hour, Roy Hargrove’s recent Moment to Moment, even Ornette’s Skies of America, a masterpiece of Harmolodic avant-ness.  These are the records that started as producer-driven crossover projects meant to increase sales and bring in new audiences.  Think of it: What can tame a drug addled jazz musician and make him acceptable?  A studio orchestra, of course.

This was the thinking, apparently, with Bird and Miles.  What worked for them became a statement for the musicianship and artistry for those to follow.  These days, the sub-genre works like electric-jazz, just the other way.  The idea is not to show how fun and loose you can be, but how delicate and soothing your music can be: to bring in those whose tastes are more towards the classical world.

In recent years, though, these projects have become scaled down in a more efficient, cost-effective statement of orchestration and artistic legitimacy: what was a full orchestra for Miles and Gil Evans became a stripped-down hybrid of orchestra and rhythm section.  Lovano seems to have kicked things off with 52nd Street Themes and other features of his short-lived nonet, which found its way to Wayne Shorter’s Alegria, and now Potter’s Song for Anyone.  What may have worked in years past has been modified, it appears, to maintain the jazzer-as-deep-thinking-artist aspect, while saving the costs of more than one musician per instrument.

But the output of these two sub-genres does not necessarily imply progress, especially with the lineage provided thus far.  What can be safely taken from all this is that while both the electronic and orchestrated jazz album are nothing new, the message of versatility they strive to project has remained constant.  And in this similarity, Sunnyside’s decision to simultaneously release both Follow the Red Line and Song for Anyone becomes not a marketing mistake, but an attempt – however ill fated, unreasonable, or potentially desperate it seems – to cast a wider net and potentially double both Potter’s audience, and the label’s market share in one fell swoop.

We will, of course, never know how successful this attempt was.  Given that Potter’s stardom has yet to transcend genres, and that Sunnyside rcords has yet to offer an IPO, these numbers may simply remain a private matter.  If, in the years to come, we see Potter teamed with the latest, or hottest singer, then we will know that, having completed the jazz-expansion trifecta of sub-genres, that Potter’s audience, in the eyes of his label, again has a potential for expansion.

Faulty Towers

Friday’s news that Clive Davis, longtime head of Sony BMG, is stepping down was treated rather lightly by the New York Times.  And why not?  At face value, Davis’ (or Sony’s) decision to step down may have more to do with his age, and a desire to spend his millions than anything else.  But the news that he will be replaced by Barry Weiss was notable in that it marks a changing of the guard at one of the five “majors”.

Weiss, who’s known as an early advocate of the digital age in a world of otherwise slow moving giants, is projected to move Sony BMG towards a more high-margin, cost-effective, “low-glamor” model.  Among the projects that the Times projects under his guidance: ring tones, tighter budgets, and T-Pain.

The beginning of the Barry Weiss reign at a staid and, until recently, trusted establishment of music production and distribution seems like as good a time as any to take stock of the other pillars of
the music industry.  So here they are, in no particular order:

-Warner Brothers Music, the only publicly traded “major”, has experienced a prolonged drop in stock price and volume over the past year (a 70% drop in price since January 2007, versus a 3.8% rise in the S&P 500).

-EMI, the British giant, home to such labels as Capitol, Virgin, Blue Note, and Apple, has been under a private equity buyout since 2007.  While this doesn’t herald serious trouble for EMI, and may, in the end, turn out to be a good thing, a buyout of this size ($4.9 billion), suggests that the company was wounded in some way, and that Terra Firma, the private equity fund which purchased EMI, believed it could turn things around.

-Universal Music Group, the worlds largest music company, has been staying the course as of late.  With a million copyrights under management, and the worlds largest music catalogue, Universal can afford these things.  But as the technology makes intellectual property controls more porous, the costs of controlling this cash cow will undoubtedly continue to rise.

-Sony BMG, as we’ve seen, is experiencing a changing of the guard.  Notably, Columbia records, a subsidiary, brought on Rick Rubin, legendary producer and grower of hair, as co-head in May of last year.  Sure signs that this company has seen its adaptability slow, and wants fresh thinking.

In the end, the movement of these companies to stay solvent and profitable, is a sign of life that seems to have come all too late.  As promising as these signs appear to be, they do suggest that a profit can still be made in the music industry at a scale that supports these giants.  And, in the case of EMI, it’s not just music companies that see a profit in this product.

But as the majors move to start quasi-indie labels, and dupe music fans into buying their product by disguising its big label origins, you have to wonder: is all this posturing worth it, or is it an early admission of defeat?

Goings on at the Met

What’s happening at the met?  Apparently, if it involves Wagner, something strange:

Two reviews of a recent performance of Tristan und Isolde: New York Times, The New Yorker (I like this one better).

And an argle-bargle (it’s like a fooforah) about Ring tickets.

Family Tree

It’s hard to escape the next-best-thing. And as jazz fans (nerds) love to point out, there is a clear lineage between the past, present, and what’s in between. With that in mind, here’s a refresher on the most critically adored saxophonists of the past 80 years.

Of course, many have been omitted here. With apologies to the greats, semi-greats, near-greats, and role players that have been left out, here are those who critics adore:

(click these images for a larger view)

*I speak of the Aulochrome. See it here.

**I’m, of course, referring to this.