Rock
This is a serious, “behind the curtain” entry about facets of the music industry so please forgive my self-importance. I have utilised the “read more” feature so those who wish to read it can, and those who do not can listen to the best song of the decade and enjoy the sunshine.
Describe yourself in one sentence. What is your USP?
Selling yourself is not necessarily selling out but it certainly feels like it. Even the BBC ask you to give a description of what you’re “about” when you submit your works to their unsigned Introducing brand. Does the music not speak for itself? I’m not sure it does or ever did.
Even the good guys need a package. That’s the nature of the beast, I’m afraid. But there’s nothing that says you can’t take your approach into that realm too. The Golden Age, the 60s/70s/80s/whatever, that decade you hold in such high-regard - it’s all package. It’s just that it seems so much more credible. “There’s a Wikipedia entry on these guys so it must be legit”. It’s no more legitimate for your 4th album than it should be for you in Year Zero. Just accommodate your perspective.
All of that is a subtle reference to things happening. There’s nothing guaranteed and I even tried to not tell my family anything because hope is a terrible thing, but, behind-the-scenes, there’s been talks. The first thing to come out of whole situation is my questioning the veracity of bands who talk about never intending to attempt success with their music.
It is very easy to not be successful. Believe me.
So back to that first line. It’s quite hard to describe yourself to people you know and even harder to those you don’t. You can try and name the acts you are directly influenced by, but the wider public probably won’t know about them or what that influence precisely means. And talking yourself up to people you know and respect makes you feel like you’re dealing in platitudes.
To make matters worse, there is an unfortunate dichotomy when it comes to niche music: the more open-minded you are to music, the more closed-minded you are. It sounds weird but, in my experience, it is fundamentally true. Those who espouse Autechre or Animal Collective (eg. music that is not conventional and requires a receptive listener) will most likely turn their noses up at Vanessa Carlton or Beyoncé*.
As a group, we’re all varying degrees of open-minded about the spectrum of music. Some of us own multiple Kylie Minogue albums and make a point of being broad-minded but, on the whole, we all recognise a good song is a good song, regardless of who made it. This ideology informs the music we create. Unfortunately, it doesn’t lend itself well to description. When you’re copying a certain million-selling Britpop band, you have your targets: “bringing real music back”, “the saviours of guitar music”. Copy the formula and away you go.
But when you love a little bit of everything, it’s hard to find that narrative to frame yourself in. Even bands who preface their descriptors with “pop” are using the precedent Postcard Records set down 30 years ago. Public perception says we sound like Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian and Broken Social Scene. Maybe unrealistically, I’d say British Sea Power and Titus Andronicus too. And what is the common thread with all of these bands? I’m not sure if there is one, beyond they make good music and we enjoy listening to it.
Problems lie in the inability to sell yourself on a line like that and, furthermore, to identify the audience that you will try and sell yourself to. A person who is serious about buying Arcade Fire records most likely does so because, aside from enjoying the music, it represents a defiant “I don’t like the mainstream” attitude.
(I understand this is a generalisation but when you’re seriously using a word like “audience” like I have done, generalisations are trading stock.)
Would that same person buy into a band who encompasses large aspects of that ‘indie rock’ image but also presents an attitude of “I do like the mainstream”?
Describe yourself in one sentence.
It would be true and easy to say “We make music that we would want to listen to”. Unfortunately, we are not a large audience and the money men need a large audience.
DB x
*The common term for this is Rockism. It’s a culture I subscribed to during my early teenage years and, whilst I am fairly glad I grew out of it, there is nothing wrong with being a rockist.
