Times Have Changed, but in Many Ways, They Haven't
November 8, 2011
I'm currently listening to "Midnight City" by M83 (right before, I was listening to "Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites" by Skrillex.) Times have changed, but in many ways, they haven't. When I started M-Halo in the 90's, my view of the world was to be different from what I saw on MTV. Even though I admired the likes of Depeche Mode, (The London) Suede, and Nine Inch Nails, I didn't want to be signed to a label. I wanted to forge out on my own and see how far I could get. I remember reading in magazines (I think they were Rolling Stone and Zero) that artists like Moby and Trent Reznor were upset with how record labels had such control over their music, careers ... in other words, their artistic freedom. I knew then that labels weren't for me. So, I set out on my own... created my own web site (with streaming songs), found my own photographer, and produced my own album. The very first official album was "Insanity From the Decaying Immunity". Down the line, I independently distributed my albums and even had the first music video ("Don't Argue") up on a web site (now owned by Yahoo! music) alongside the likes of Madonna. Mind you, this was before YouTube even existed. I had begun to crack the nut.
Fast forward to today. Depeche Mode and Radiohead are now independent artists. (Linkin Park tried, but I believe they are still tied to their label for whatever reason.) Record labels are collapsing or morphing into something entirely different from what I so wanted to rebel against. Today, I find great songs through friends and commercials --- mind you, I remember James being called something along the likes of "sell-outs" for allowing one of their songs to be in a commercial. It's commonplace today for artists to do this with their songs; for ecample, I found Skrillex because of a Best Buy commercial, The Unicorns because of a Target commercial, and M83 because of a Victoria's Secret commercial. I don't watch commercials much these days, BTW. Anyhow, I also discovered Mew because a nice fan really enjoyed "Don't Mix Too Fine" and wanted to do an acoustic cover --- she indirectly introduced me to "She Spider" and "156". (I've since met Mew briefly in Berkeley... great guys. Not sure what happened with that cover song, but "thank you" for the consideration.)
Anyhow, today... the music world is turning into one that is black and white. By that, I mean that we are finding obscure music that meets our specific needs --- though, we may only know a handful of people that are aware of them, and they may not even be the closest of our friends. We also have megastars like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga that everyone knows about --- and I believe we need them so we all have something to talk about. I don't know how long they'll last, and I remember that not too long ago Eminem and Britney Spears were under those same spotlights. (They do, however, still have great followings.)
It's those obscure bands, though, that seem to really capture my heart and remind me of the reason why I fell in love with music. Those bands that I seem to have found by pure chance. It could be the band or artist that was obscure, but then became popular on a mass scale for whatever reason and then "disappeared" again; e.g., The Unicorns. They forged out on their own and remained their own. Or it could be those bands that are hugely popular in countries other than our own, but may only be known for one or two songs in our domestic homeland; e.g., a-ha, Massive Attack, etc.
Where does that leave M-Halo? MTV as I knew it is dead. (Well, I do thank them for hosting the revival of Mike Judge's Beavis and Butthead.) Record labels are fading. The CD is dying a slow death. The music world has been turned upside its head. The very thing which I "rebelled" against is now the norm. I'm even questioning the purpose of the single... it was primarily for driving the promotion of an album (on the industry level), but I'm figuring now that the artistic license needs to be driving the purpose instead (always a focus for M-Halo). I'm still figuring that one out considering that "The Road of Janus" still has a lot of life in it.
Point is that if one of my primary motivations in the past was to differentiate M-Halo by going against the norm by proclaiming "Hey, you don't need a label to get far enough if you put your mind to it.", I need to also figure out what the driving factor for M-Halo is *today* now that the label is something different. Perhaps the motivation is in the original purpose: to experience the emotions that come from human expression.
November 8, 2011
I'm currently listening to "Midnight City" by M83 (right before, I was listening to "Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites" by Skrillex.) Times have changed, but in many ways, they haven't. When I started M-Halo in the 90's, my view of the world was to be different from what I saw on MTV. Even though I admired the likes of Depeche Mode, (The London) Suede, and Nine Inch Nails, I didn't want to be signed to a label. I wanted to forge out on my own and see how far I could get. I remember reading in magazines (I think they were Rolling Stone and Zero) that artists like Moby and Trent Reznor were upset with how record labels had such control over their music, careers ... in other words, their artistic freedom. I knew then that labels weren't for me. So, I set out on my own... created my own web site (with streaming songs), found my own photographer, and produced my own album. The very first official album was "Insanity From the Decaying Immunity". Down the line, I independently distributed my albums and even had the first music video ("Don't Argue") up on a web site (now owned by Yahoo! music) alongside the likes of Madonna. Mind you, this was before YouTube even existed. I had begun to crack the nut.
Fast forward to today. Depeche Mode and Radiohead are now independent artists. (Linkin Park tried, but I believe they are still tied to their label for whatever reason.) Record labels are collapsing or morphing into something entirely different from what I so wanted to rebel against. Today, I find great songs through friends and commercials --- mind you, I remember James being called something along the likes of "sell-outs" for allowing one of their songs to be in a commercial. It's commonplace today for artists to do this with their songs; for ecample, I found Skrillex because of a Best Buy commercial, The Unicorns because of a Target commercial, and M83 because of a Victoria's Secret commercial. I don't watch commercials much these days, BTW. Anyhow, I also discovered Mew because a nice fan really enjoyed "Don't Mix Too Fine" and wanted to do an acoustic cover --- she indirectly introduced me to "She Spider" and "156". (I've since met Mew briefly in Berkeley... great guys. Not sure what happened with that cover song, but "thank you" for the consideration.)
Anyhow, today... the music world is turning into one that is black and white. By that, I mean that we are finding obscure music that meets our specific needs --- though, we may only know a handful of people that are aware of them, and they may not even be the closest of our friends. We also have megastars like Katy Perry and Lady Gaga that everyone knows about --- and I believe we need them so we all have something to talk about. I don't know how long they'll last, and I remember that not too long ago Eminem and Britney Spears were under those same spotlights. (They do, however, still have great followings.)
It's those obscure bands, though, that seem to really capture my heart and remind me of the reason why I fell in love with music. Those bands that I seem to have found by pure chance. It could be the band or artist that was obscure, but then became popular on a mass scale for whatever reason and then "disappeared" again; e.g., The Unicorns. They forged out on their own and remained their own. Or it could be those bands that are hugely popular in countries other than our own, but may only be known for one or two songs in our domestic homeland; e.g., a-ha, Massive Attack, etc.
Where does that leave M-Halo? MTV as I knew it is dead. (Well, I do thank them for hosting the revival of Mike Judge's Beavis and Butthead.) Record labels are fading. The CD is dying a slow death. The music world has been turned upside its head. The very thing which I "rebelled" against is now the norm. I'm even questioning the purpose of the single... it was primarily for driving the promotion of an album (on the industry level), but I'm figuring now that the artistic license needs to be driving the purpose instead (always a focus for M-Halo). I'm still figuring that one out considering that "The Road of Janus" still has a lot of life in it.
Point is that if one of my primary motivations in the past was to differentiate M-Halo by going against the norm by proclaiming "Hey, you don't need a label to get far enough if you put your mind to it.", I need to also figure out what the driving factor for M-Halo is *today* now that the label is something different. Perhaps the motivation is in the original purpose: to experience the emotions that come from human expression.
