Category Archives: Music Industry

International Music, Music Industry

BIGBANG & K-Pop

I’m not even gonna lie, at this moment, BIGBANG is K-Pop.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know who BIGBANG is, they are the most popular boy band in South Korea, and they have been for a good while. Fun fact, they are from YG Entertainment, the same company which PSY is coming from. Yup, you know who I’m talking about. That PSY.

I’ve been a fan of K-Pop since when I was a teenager, even though I diverged a little to Western music when I first came to America for high school. I mean, the Koreans have been always big in China, but I only have followed a selected few. I’ve known BIGBANG for a while, but I’ve only started to follow them for a bit over a year.

The reason why I write about BIGBANG right now is because they’re back after about 3 years of hiatus. They are releasing a full album soon. But just yesterday, they released two singles, and I listened to both of them today. The two songs are “Loser” and “Bae Bae.” Now, when I say they are the most popular boy band in South Korea, you may wonder, how popular? Last time I checked, the Youtube views of music videos on their channel are pretty impressive: one is about 4.2 million, another has even passed 5.9 million. They are #37 on US iTunes chart, right behind Taylor Swift’s “Style.” And let’s not forget that it’s been like what, one day. Hm, maybe it’s a good sign for people to stop overlooking Asian markets. Music wise, I think “Loser” is pretty much BIGBANG’s distinctive style, and it tells a very heartfelt story about feeling lost. The feeling of not belonging and not being understood is so personal yet universal.

That’s one thing I find BIGBANG different from hundreds of other Korean boy bands and girl bands out there. Yes, they are very much produced and packaged in a certain way, but somehow, their music manages to tell very real and heartfelt stories, sonically and lyrically. As much as I love K-Pop and my very own Asian culture, the common practice of putting artists in an unrealistically high place for people to worship, that they are called idols is just frustrating. They are human beings. We all know that. They have emotions, frustrations, troubles; their world isn’t glorious or perfect. They have feelings of love, lost, lust, guilt, anger, regret… just about everything everyone else has. I’m really grateful that someone like BIGBANG step down from “I’m up high in the cloud and all you can do is to look up to me” to a place that we can all relate to. And it isn’t even about singing heartbreaking songs that just crying “oh baby you are my one and only love and you leave me heartbroken.” It’s fine to sing about heartbreaks, but not all in the same way. No two heart break alike, right? More importantly, c’mon, we all get sick of the same story over time, especially when they sound made-up. Music is a form of communication. It’s about being real and tell the truth, because truth, and only truth can connect people with the art.

Ok, take it to my favorite, “Bae Bae.” Honestly, it’s such a weird song. Yes, the lyrics is about impressing a lover, a girlfriend, someone special. Musically, it’s so BIGBANG, yet so not… It sounds like they put pieces together from their solo work and somehow made it work (?) The music takes so many different turns, so much so that when I first finished the song, I was like “WTF? I gotta listen to it again!” It’s really hard to describe with words. But in all seriousness, if you’re a fan of BIGBANG, you gotta be kind of… weird. Because they are weird. Well, I guess that’s good because in the end, everyone is a little weird.

“Bae Bae” definitely doesn’t sound like any K-Pop song you’ll come across everyday. Even it’s so weird and random, some pieces of it are really coming out of nowhere, it does sound honest and fun, which is quite rare in K-Pop. I mean, Korean music industry is probably more developed than everyone thinks, and K-Pop songs are products of detailed planning and manufacturing. No offense, the common trend I find is that K-Pop artists seem to all adopt the same kind of boy band or girl band style. They not only look similar in terms of dressing styles, but also sound similar too! I swear, even after listening to K-Pop music for this long, I still mess bands up all the time. Another trend I notice is that K-Pop songs are either copying the hottest Billboard songs or each other, which I don’t know how far that will go in the long run. I quite understand K-Pop artists’ desire to break into Western markets, and some of them have tried over the years; but still, we’ve really only got PSY, who was not even intended to be that way. In my humble opinion, “Gangnam Style” doesn’t sound like any ordinary K-Pop song you come across or any Billboard song you would expect on the radio. PSY simply did what he liked. Maybe that says something?

Well, if you make it to here, I can tell you one thing for sure: after this, I feel so motivated to catch up on my Korean lessons.

 

BIGBANG – Loser                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CTced9CMMk

BIGBANG – Bae Bae                                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKD03uPVD-Q

International Music, Just Music, Music Industry

Eddie. Eddie. Eddie.

Eddie Beatz, aka Eddie Chen. Not my brother, in case you wonder.

You may not have heard of him, not yet. He’s one of the most talented independent musicians I’ve met. He’s young and energetic. His understanding of music is mind-blowing. He always thinks outside of the box. More importantly, he’s my friend, my homie.

I’m not exactly a fan of electronic music, especially when I’ve been listening to Taylor Swift all these years (haha!). But ever since I’ve heard Eddie’s music, it’s really hard to resist it. Eddie always has got this super fresh vibe and just the right amount of boom boom kicks to keep you grooving. The texture is so thick yet so fresh. The right timing of drops keeps your ears excited, and the layers of different sounds are planned in such a detailed way. When you hear it, you know everything happens for a reason. Then you want to listen again. It’s truly a work of art. Here’s a classic example.

“Eight Zero Eight”

 

If you think that’s all Eddie can do, you would be so wrong. Some of his songs are melodically dramatic and simply, romantic. Eddie loves blending the vintage stuff with futuristic sound, one of the most compelling reasons why I’m into his music. When the music goes on, you feel like you’re floating in the air. When you close your eyes and imagine, you almost can see yourself in a dream from the 1980s, swirling on the dance floor of 2050s.

“Pieces of Memory”

 

His personal favorite is this one called “Curing Method.” More experimental than most of his other stuff. It’s like a poetry which blends time together. Or rather, it’s time traveling with the sound of music. It’s quite magical.

Funny enough, he calls himself “Space Man,” and isn’t there a recent movie, in which time traveling is one of those things they do with the space women and men?

“Curing Method”

 

My personal favorite from Eddie’s SoundCloud page is this track named “All-night Spirits.” Maybe the translation isn’t exact for this one, because there is no corresponding English word to express the true meaning of Chinese Spirits. This one reminds me of home and childhood. It reminds me of the traditional Chinese house I used to live in when I was a child. The night, clear dark blue sky, moonlight falls down on the courtyard. Wind blows by, gently brushing through my hair. All I can see is the memory of a long gone era. All I can hear is this music playing in my head.

“All-night Spirits”

 

You’ll be doing yourself a favor by checking out Eddie’s music. People who know me know that I’m quite picky about music, but I can see him becoming great with this amazing talent. Eddie is very active on Douban, a Chinese user-based website. But he’s also on SoundCloud with a selected few tracks.

 

Eddie’s SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/eddie-beatz      Douban Site: http://site.douban.com/eddie/                                            Weibo (Chinese Twitter): http://weibo.com/eddiebeatz

Feminism, Music Industry

Where Are We in 2015?

I was in London last week, reconnecting with some of my old colleagues and friends. This one conversation with a couple of friends inspired me to write this post.

It happened just around the time I was leaving London. We were in this group chat and talking about bad-mannered kids we encountered recently. One of my friends, let’s say her name was Rachel, talked about this story that happened around her neighborhood. She was going home one night around 11pm, and there’s this boy, alone, probably around 10 years old, came to her and asked her if she wanted some Skittles. She politely turned down and went on, but the boy chased her. She kept ignoring him and just went on her way. At one point, the boy probably got really angry. He ran towards her, took half of his pants off, put Skittles around his genital, and yelled the f word at her. She told us, “I wasn’t really scared because he was about 10, but I reckon he would rape me if he was 15 years old… I was like, where’s his mother?!”

It makes me sad and wonder, not only because I think it’s such a shame for a 10-year-old boy to do such disrespectful things to a stranger, but also because Rachel’s reaction of “where is his mother.” It is probably the first reaction for a woman in her situation to think that way, and I am not blaming her for that. But I can’t help but think if the father has to do anything with it; if we, as a society, are ignoring the importance of father’s participation in nurturing children, hence human development; and if society as a whole, until this day and age, still don’t understand the horrifying nature of making fun of human’s body parts, especially the ones that directed specifically to women.

I firmly believe that parents are the first teachers of their children, and whether one likes it or not, in general, women are still the ones that are mainly responsible of raising children in the families. In the case of a young boy in a family, once he reaches a certain age, he is aware of gender differences, and he probably does not want to be exactly like his mother because society tells us to be gender binary (the idea of women and men are opposites of each other, which is wrong in itself). If, for whatever reasons, his father is missing in his development, I can imagine, he probably wants to find masculine traits and learn to “be a man” from outside sources. In the era of Internet, when there are so much smoky information, he absorbs all sorts of stuff and lacks the ability to distinguish what is good or bad, right or wrong. In addition, because of the patriarchal society we live in, men are portrait as powerful, both mentally and biologically. Most times these images and messages can be exaggerated and even impossible to reach for average men, which is exactly why patriarchy hurts men as well. Hence, young boys and men may try to reach this ideal image of “man” in very extreme ways, not concerning of other people’s feelings, social norms, or even the law.

It is quite clear that, even in 2015, our society does not seem to understand how horrible and disrespectful sexual jokes and references are, and how the overwhelming majority of those jokes and references are directed towards women. In the rare case of the father involving in his young son’s development, if the father is not aware that making sexual references and jokes are very rude and disrespectful, and even better, if he thinks that his young son needs to learn “how to be a man” through such way, we really cannot expect the son turns out to be respectful of women, and that includes his mother. Most people, even some women, thinks that these jokes and references are supposed to be “funny,” and women are expected to laugh about it and shake it off. But no. I don’t see what’s so funny about making fun of a human’s body parts. It’s quite interesting and ironic to see how, at this point of human history, we are no longer ok with making fun of people’s skin colors, national and cultural identities, and even sexual orientations. In fact, we fight back and accuse people who do so. However, we live in a world where women’s bodies and biological natures are made fun of and objectified as a collective group on a daily, hourly, secondly basis. Just take a look around and pay attention. This phenomenon exists everywhere in our lives. It’s in our daily chit chats, music, advertisements, TV shows and movies, emails and office meetings, dinner-table conversations, everywhere. No one says a damn thing. No one even realizes how rude and offensive they are. Even more, if someone stands up and says, “Hey! That’s rude!” people look at this person as if she’s out of her mind. People ask why she doesn’t have a sense of humor and why she is angry. Well, is it funny to begin with?

I am not apologizing for writing a long essay about feminism in my music industry blog, since I think the music industry has a long way to go to be more respectful of women, both industry professionals and every woman out there. Because music is a powerful communication tool, it is possible to make progress through the art of music. All it takes is clear, critical minds, consciousness, and well-managed collective effort. I am happy to be part of this effort.

Music Industry

Lots of Blurred Lines

Of course, I wanna talk about the case. The Blurred Lines case.

I have been keeping my mouth shut and reading the press for the past few days, just hoping to make sense of all things associate with the case. Especially when it’s a contemporary hit with an all time legend, who wouldn’t wanna know what’s going on?

Ironically, like the song title, there are surely lots of blurred lines in this case. First, I have always been a little puzzled about how the current copyright law works when the last author die. The current copyright law says that the copyright of the song last until the death of last surviving writer plus 70 years. I’m all for the life of the last surviving writer part, but I have been curious about how the following 70 years plays out in reality. And honestly, 70 years is a hell of long time. We have seen in history that these copyrights have been handed to people who only use them for exploiting money. Some of them aren’t so creative. Some of them can be a little greedy. This is not what copyright should be about; however, I’ve seen it happen again and again in contemporary music history. Once I was upset that the copyright of Amy Winehouse’s music was partly handed to her father. And now, it appears that the Gaye family rely on Marvin’s music for livelihood, which I have always been wondering if it’s really fair.

Money is not even the worst part. The thing that really wowed me was that, put aside the $7.3m, the Gaye family “seek an injunction prohibiting the further sale and distribution of the track.” WOAH, wait a minute. That crossed the line a little, didn’t it? I mean,  the Gaye family is in it for the money, obviously. Ok, you got your $7.3m. That’s a lot, even for a hit song. Songwriters these days aren’t making zillions of dollars, not anymore, especially with the whole digital business we have now, which is still in heated debates. And again, it’s one damn song. What is that all about?

Another interesting thing I read in Bob Lefsetz’s journal about this case was that, the verdict was granted by a Californian jury. The key word is “jury.” The juries are different from a judge. As Lefsetz rightly points out, “… juries are notorious for going for feelings / running on emotions.” It reminds me how much a stir Blurred Lines made on social media couple of years back when it first came out. The song has a terrible message. It’s sexist as hell. It’s about seducing and sweet-talking women into sex in a really demeaning way. If the lyrics of this song translate into in real life conversation, it’s called sexual harassment. I didn’t even know that I can love and hate a song so much at the same time.  As much as I enjoy the rhythm and the throwback vibe of the song, the lyrics throw me off so much that I sometime hate myself listening to it. I would be so ashamed, as a young woman, to say that I like the song.

And when I think about it, if I were one of the juries, I would’ve made the same decision based on my emotion, even just to make people stop making these songs. But I know it’s not gonna happen. They are gonna do it again, and again. We’re up for a long battle.

My conclusion is also much align with Bob Lefsetz’s. Everyone is in it for their own interest. There’s really no clear line of which way is really just or fair. The two songs sound incredibly similar in terms of rhythm, vibe, singing style, maybe even the bass line a little bit, but are they really the same song? I personally don’t find much similarities between the two songs in terms of lyrics and melody, which are the two main things the copyright law protects. Oh well, but because it’s a jury, and if the lawyers of Thicke and Williams knew any better, they really should’ve settled.

 

Music Week’s press release about the Blurred Lines case http://www.musicweek.com/news/read/marvin-gaye-s-family-awarded-7-3m-in-blurred-lines-trial/061118

Bob Lefsetz’s journal about the Blurred Lines case http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/03/10/the-blurred-lines-decision/

Music Industry

Is Physical Still Worthy?

Long answer short, yes.

People always have different opinions about physical copies of music, aka CDs. The general view of bloggers, music professionals, customers, colleagues, even my college friends, is that physical will soon be gone or is already “dead”. Is it really true?

I want to take a hard look at this. In my mind, any channel of distribution needs to serve a purpose. Because music is so accessible through Internet nowadays, physical copies have to do more than just delivering music. That “something else,” which should be a unique feature of a physical copy, needs to trigger a connection between the art and its audience. The unfortunate truth is, increasing numbers of music consumers don’t feel that the physical CDs they get from record shops can deliver such value. The extra cash they pay seems to be worthless. Then of course, all of us would like to pay less than 10 bucks a month for streaming whatever songs we want. Sweet deal for us, bad news for the music creators.

One of the interesting things I found is that I only see physical sales dipped so much in the western music industry markets. Put aside how the Internet is so much faster and more commonly used in western countries, I want to know why, in other major markets, physical sales can do so much more that sometimes it increases. I want to use Japan as an example, since I was a crazy J-pop fan when I was a teenager, and I want to talk a little bit about my experience as a customer. Oh, just to give you a little bit of background, Japan is the second largest music market in the world, only behind the United States. Data wise, 85% of music sales in Japan are physical in 2014, and digital had even experienced a decrease during that year, according to Forbes.

Japan’s music industry seems very different from the ones of United States or Europe. That realization came to me when I moved to the United States and bought my first CD in US dollars. I knew it because I had a “Really? That’s it?!” moment. You may ask, well Sandy, why you felt this way?

It’s very simple. It’s just not enough. I felt like the dollars I spent on that CD was not worth what I was getting. When I was a teenager in China, most of my spending money went to CDs on a regular basis. Ha, my parents were definitely not the happiest during those days. But my point is, there were more content than just a plain old CD: postcards, stickers, short letters, handwritten notes, invitation to the fan club, coupons for the next concert… you get the basic idea.

Even better, specifically for J-pop music, there was and still is the tradition of releasing an early, limited / deluxe edition for each CD (aka 初回限定盤, in Japanese Kanji). I was obsessed with collecting those. It usually included even more content than the ordinary version, even for the singles. Sometimes it’s physical goodies, sometimes it’s an additional track, sometimes it’s a “backstage” or “in the studio” video, but there was always something more to look forward to and be excited about. Of course, it normally cost me about 1/3 more to get this early, limited, deluxe edition CD, but it made me feel so special as a fan. Through owning all of the goodies that suit the theme of the CD, I felt like I got to know the band and understand the music a little better. It made me more attracted to the work and the personalities through this beautiful art. Every CD was a sonic, visual, and emotional experience. It delivered way more than the pleasure of listening quality music. In the good old days, I was probably the happiest teenager I could be when I saved up enough to buy a new J-pop CD.

I think it’s a little sad that, many artists, managers, and companies in western markets are not taking full advantage of physical copies; it’s always just a thin little piece of CD. Instead, they switched their main focus to digital, merch, tour, social media promotion, so on and so forth. It’s great that these other things work out, and I’m by no means saying to eliminate those strategies. But what about the music itself? What about the excitement, the connection, the sense of understanding one another, and the feeling of belonging somewhere that can be communicated through music? That little something extra, which can lift this great excitement to another level, really says a whole lot and goes a long way. It’s almost parallel that in our Internet era, people ask “what’s the point of handwritten letters?” The Internet is great, but it’s just a tool. It works like a machine and pumps out information, data, music, whatever. But because we are all just facing our screens, it takes so much effort to come off as genuine and show our true personalities. So why don’t we do just a little more with the physical CD that can easily connect artists with fans? It’s tangible. When we open up a CD, it’s a magical connecting moment. It’s nice. We love it. Of course, making extra stuff is going to drive the sales price to increase. But if I love you as a fan, I gotta want to get to know you and touch your soul. A little extra expense? Not so much of my concern anymore.

You may understand me a little better now. When I got my first CD of an American band, I bought it for almost 13 dollars, with 10 tracks and a thin little lyrics booklet. Yeah, there were some gorgeous, obviously photoshopped pictures here and there, but they didn’t say much about either the music or the band. I guess sometimes, we all try a little too hard to look pretty.

 

Forbes on Japanese Music Sales http://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2014/09/21/85-percent-of-music-sales-in-japan-are-cds/

Global Music Industry Share Data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_music_industry_market_share_data