Wasted on hype (or: Am I having a crisis or what?)

As occasionally happens, I’ve been struggling lately with the influx of new releases to my desk/life, each weighed down by previous conversations with others about how good it is or how much people have been talking or writing about the band or who’s in the band and what they’ve done prior to my learning about them. It’s by no means an uncommon affliction for anyone interested in music; the ‘hype machine’ is often discussed as killer of all that is innocent in music appreciation. Nor does is take anything away from that greater interest in what can be achieved in the name of music or (for some only, perhaps) how that relates to the world. But it does have an affect on how music is accepted or processed, and it’s currently doing my head in.

For one, the talk of West Coast scenes and sounds and the seemingly never-ending line of bands and releases tagged with some kind of ‘60s pop or psych revival or featuring members of another band you only just heard of last month from some obscurely connected group of bands who moved to the Bay Area from Omaha and wear pastel smoks and Ray-Bans. Or was that the Williamsburg band who are, perhaps ironically (but who can tell?), incorporating ‘90s LA beach-pop sounds into their lo-fi garage songs? What were they called, again? Maiden Owl Bear Nothing?

I’m as interested in ‘happenings’ and influences on happenings as the next pop-cultural hack, but it’s easy to become cynical when it feels like ‘someone’ is constantly trying to throw an idea wrapped in marketing at you and claim it as the piece of your artistic appreciation or emotional experience that has been missing from your life. Particularly when that idea is just an idea; a bit of music recorded in one take by a few people who met each other a few months ago, intended as something instant and visceral. Thrown-together or improvised ideas can change the course of history, but it seems unlikely they can change an individual’s life when that individual lives hundreds of thousands of kilometres away and is streaming them via a blog in their bedroom. (This column/blog is also just an idea, and a thrown-together one at that.) A band has to change someone’s life to cut through the barrage of noise, but it feels like it’s getting harder and harder for that to happen the more noise there is and the more fragmented our access to music becomes.

Perhaps it’s just that, more than ever, it’s possible for a person or label or blogger to ‘discover’ a band they enjoy and then gain access to all the bands and ‘side projects’ attached to that band, creating instantaneous recognition of a ‘scene’ right around the world. It’s rare for bands to be publicised or even talked about right now as any kind of anomaly or example of a long, hard slog from the bottom made good. Besides in media that has no interest in music anyway, gone are the all-in ‘discoveries’ of the ‘best new band on the planet’ from Aberdeen. There’s a perceived equal playing field, thanks in large part to the continuing deconstruction of the role of major labels and also an increased awareness of how the ‘music industry’ has previously operated. That can have great benefits, but in place of the big-money push of an act (which does still happen, granted), now there’s a clusterfuck of smaller operators all still hoping to get their band some recognition and audiences and sales. People may celebrate the end of the major-label reign, but everyone still wants a piece of that pie.

I guess it’s just had me considering my ‘personal’ connections to the music I listen to and how important it is that exists. Recent news of the imminent end of Melbourne doom-thrash duo Wasted Truth (pictured) and Queensland/Sydney post-screamo pub rockers The Scare has reminded me of both bands’ gigs great and small I’ve been to and been a part of; the feeling of being involved in something and experiencing it with likeminded people. It’s natural to want to share that experience, and I’ve had conversations about how both bands “should have been better known”, but it’s also important to step back and remember that the experience of an idea, not the dissemination of it, is the thing.

The Runaways: Jerry Springer's best contestants

Belinda Carlisle gives a damn about her bad reputation. The former Go-Go’s singer has released a memoir in the US, titled Lips Unsealed, with much of the promotional material for the book focusing on her cocaine abuse and constant partying. But it was one sentence in an interview published in a news piece by Reuters last week that gave away what’s also on her mind as she tries to mine her own past lack of self-confidence for a bit of cash. When talking about the ‘legacy’ of The Go-Go’s, formed in 1978, Carlisle names them “the first female band (formed by women) to write our own songs and play our own instruments”.

Though it’s unclear in context whether the words in the brackets are her own or the journalist’s, it is clear that Carlisle is responding to the Hollywood-pushed legacy promotion of the band often given the title of the first to be all-female, The Runaways. With the feature film The Runaways to be released on 15 July in Australia and starring two of America’s most successful teenaged actresses, Kristin Stewart and Dakota Fanning, there’s little doubt The Runaways are about to have their ‘story’ cemented into the wider consciousness.

The band were essentially pieced together in 1975 by producer Kim Fowley, hence Carlisle’s firm claim to ownership of something she goes on to also claim as “revolutionary”. It might be a lewd precursory grab at the title, but there are obvious expectations that the film will make modern-day ‘stars’ out of The Runaways, if they’re not already. One is the Australian release through Shock of the documentary filmed by one of the band’s many bass players, Victory Tischler-Blue, titled Edgeplay: A Film About The Runaways, the week before the film is out. The doco was originally released in 2005 on the US cable network Showtime and has been reported to be part of the source material for The Runaways.

The formation of the band by Fowley and his subsequent management of the five teen girls are at the centre of Edgeways. Many times throughout the roughly shot but well constructed film do the former members, including singer Cherie Currie and guitarist Lita Ford, call his treatment of them “abuse”, though it’s never settled on whether there was any physical abuse involved. Joan Jett has stated in interviews she didn’t participate in the doco because it wasn’t the way she wanted the story of the band portrayed. (In Montreal’s Mirror magazine, a 2006 story quoted her as saying, “I’m not gonna participate in a Jerry Springer fest, bottom line.”)

Fowley certainly comes off as self-serving and uninterested in the mental health of the teenagers he took charge of. In fact, in interviews in the doco, he speaks of the girls being messed up more as a successful marketing point – an ideal of the ‘rock’n’roll dream’ – than anything to be regretful of handling poorly. However, he also doesn’t come across as a significantly interesting managerial figure in pop cultural history. He ran a “bootcamp” for five girls who couldn’t play their instruments well but wanted ‘fame’, based on a marketing plan for a band that was then run like a business with little regard for its underage employees. Sounds like many acts of all ‘genres’ who came before and have come since.

The women Tischler-Blue interviews – with the exception of Currie, who has a penchant for the dramatic – speak plainly of their desire for fame with the kind of perspective of people who haven’t been permanently ruined by it but have seen what it can do. How they were treated and how they interacted with each other led to their demise as a group, but it also played a large role in the fame they acquired in the four years they were together.

Whether The Runaways will show this relationship of market force and immature desire is to be seen. Knowing Hollywood, it will likely bolster the claim on the band’s legacy as the first something; a claim to a fame that didn’t do them much good at the time. No doubt (amongst other, better things) it will also inspire some teenage girl who’s willing to let herself be abused in exchange for fame. But then, there’s plenty of inspiration out there. And maybe it’s worth it. Belinda Carlisle obviously thinks so.

Kelis and Will.i.am's hunt for cred

Beware, Kelis fans. By reports coming out ahead of the New York singer’s next album, currently set for a 6 July release in Australia, there are many signs to indicate she’s been Black Eyed Peas’d. Her album, Flesh Tone (the title made incidentally more timely by the hoopla caused by the recent description of a ‘champagne’-coloured dress Michelle Obama wore as ‘flesh tone’ by the designer), led by first US club chart hit Acapella, is being released through Interscope via Black Eyed Peas member Will.i.am’s own label. Collaborators on the album include David Guetta, Benny Benassi and Boys Noize. In a recent interview with New York City’s The Village Voice, Will.i.am said of his partnership with Kelis, “She’s the cool people’s best-kept secret and I want to introduce her to the world.” Yes, tread carefully, or you’ll be wiping the back-spray off your face like Fergie after a long show.

Will.i.am’s quote, of course, doesn’t mean a whole lot, except to say that Kelis has many times attempted sustained ‘mainstream’ success and failed due to a generally acknowledged level of ‘artistic integrity’. She hasn’t done too badly for herself, with spiking single sales every few years with the likes of Milkshake and Bossy, but the appearance of a handful of tracks on which she was merely a ‘guest’ for other artists on her own ‘best of’ in 2008 speaks volumes. Kelis has been often used as the ‘credibility’ guest for more successful acts, including NERD, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Enrique Iglesias, but has had trouble turning that cred into ‘breakout stardom’. But if anyone knows how to overcome that hurdle, it’s the man who led the Black Eyed Peas’ once exploding-POW-sign hip hop into the musical (well, and visual) representation of the Speedracer remake, ie. a whole lot of shiny, expensive nothing.

Acapella so far hasn’t had the same kind of chart impact in Australia as it’s had in the States and also hasn’t made the jump to the main singles chart in the US, but it’s early days yet, particularly for a ‘dance crossover’ act, which often take some time to be latched onto by radio. The track is also not nearly as bad as anything BEP have given us of late, though it doesn’t touch her distorted pop of old. Of course, if the success doesn’t come, it’ll likely just add to her ‘credibility’ status and get her more guest work in the future.

The same could be said of fellow New Yorkers Ratatat, who released their LP4 record last week (through XL/Remote Control) and take a seemingly dichotomous approach to their work. On the one hand their ‘artist’ albums are straying further from ‘indie dance crossover’ land (the influence of structured French electro on their first two records) and taking more from Warp Records ‘sound-art’ and the French electronic approach to shoegaze (chillout?). Their peers at this stage are Air more than any of America’s newer crossover indie dance acts. It’s excellently textured stuff, yet their name is synonymous in many circles with club remixes and collaborations with more ‘mainstream’ artists.

Ratatat’s two remix albums have seen them work over Kanye West, Notorious BIG, Jay-Z and Missy Elliot. Last year they collaborated on two tracks for Kid Cudi’s album. Perhaps the biggest sign of their entrance into club culture are the lists of unofficial mash-ups other (usually pretty shit) DJs have made with their tracks. If you’re looking for a pumped up Nirvana or AC/DC song, an amateur Ratatat mash-up is waiting for you on Beatport or SoundCloud or wherever the ‘jockeys’ are uploading their tracks these days. There’s no doubt Ratatat could take their collaboration and remix success and translate it to their ‘artist’ work with their own ‘guest’ vocalists/rappers, or even fit their own sounds into a clubbier mould. Perhaps they’re happy to remain the “cool people’s best-kept secret”, particularly if it means not becoming Will.i.am.

Besides, it’s sounding like Mark Ronson is going to go there for them anyway. The first tracks released from his upcoming Record Collection album, Circuit Breaker and Bang Bang Bang, take the arcade-game structure of old Ratatat and push it into a cut-for-radio cube with a soul groove. A ‘kept secret’ it is not, but then, there might be a reason he’s releasing the album under the name Mark Ronson & The Business.