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MUSICNOTES
FACEBOOK
AND MUSIC
By eVa ReCinoS
it’S nothing neW that the internet haS
changed the music industry. But the Internet’s influence is not
letting up. In fact, it’s continuing to change the music world in
the manner that we share and discover new music.
With the coming of Spotify, the accessibility of music –
in a completely legal way – has changed drastically. But there
is another game-player coming to the table when it comes
to shaking things up in the music and Internet worlds: our
beloved Facebook.
The social networking giant is now teaming up with
companies like Spotify and Ticketmaster to make your
sharing and music experience completely different from how
it was 10 years ago, or even a few months ago. You can now do
things like check where your Facebook friends are sitting at a
Ticketmaster concert or see what your friends are listening to
on Spotify.
Suddenly, a scene that was mostly isolated in terms of
Internet use – you bought iTunes tracks on your own, and
if you wanted to share them, it was mostly done illegally –
has become much more communal. You can now see other
friends’ posts, photos, videos and everything in between and
know exactly what song they are listening to as they browse
Facebook. And it’s not uncommon to see a friend start a band
page for their newest project.
CDREVIEWS
Jack’s Mannequin
People and Things
(Sire)
It’s no secret that Jack’s Mannequin frontman Andrew
McMahon has leukemia and that his medical condition
contributed significantly to the tenor of the last Jack’s album,
The Glass Passenger. People and Things is also informed by
McMahon’s battle with cancer but in a back-to-business way;
“My Racing Thoughts” is positive and soaring, and you can
imagine that this is exactly the way McMahon wished he
could be while undergoing treatment. You can read all kinds
of things into song titles like “Release Me” and its lyric of
“take another piece of me,” but the truth is McMahon has
moved on and listeners need to also.
“Release Me” has a joyous buoyancy that mirrors the
Toto hit “Hold the Line,” while “Television,” also upbeat,
deals with the relatively mundane subject of distracting
oneself from bedtime loneliness by sleeping with the TV on.
McMahon’s current attitude is probably best summed-up
with the mid-tempo piano and violin number “Hey Hey Hey
(We’re All Gonna Die.)” Considering McMahon’s recent past
you wouldn’t expect him to come up with such a title but
the song is, surprisingly, a sing-along that like the rest of the
album is more a celebration than it is a dirge.
Grade: B
—Kevin Wierzbicki
People and Things is currently available.
Various Artists
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
(Columbia)
When legendary country performer Hank Williams died in
the back of his Cadillac in 1953, one of the few things he
16 Campus Circle 10.5.11 - 10.11.11
The Internet might not necessarily help out artists
financially, but it creates a completely different platform and
ease for spreading information quickly. Though you aren’t
actually required to purchase any of the tracks on Spotify, it
makes it extraordinarily easy to check out new music quickly.
You see a friend of yours listening to a band, and you can check
that band out with a couple of clicks at the most. Suddenly,
you’ve got the music world at your fingertips, and artists have
every Facebook user working as a PR person pro bono.
But though it’s easier for artists to be discovered, it’s
also more challenging. Hundreds, maybe even thousands
or millions, of musicians are posting music on Facebook,
Tumblr, Twitter and any other social media network possible.
There has to be something defining in their sound that catches
someone’s attention.
In a virtual world where we’re used to getting things
quickly – pressing enter gets your status published, a click tags
someone on a photo, a Tweet communicates your feelings
succinctly and quickly – our attention spans are much, much
shorter. There isn’t the excitement of opening up a CD or LP
and actually owning the tracks. There is only the intangible
clicking on a track to hear perhaps a few seconds before we
move on to the next one.
Having Facebook as a tool to market and identity is
useful, but there is much out there now that it will likely create
even more competition, even in the smallest of things. If a
Facebook friend sees a song title, is it intriguing enough for
them to want to click it?
Developments like these are only going to continue to
blossom. Ticketmaster is even discussing the possibility of
selling tickets on Facebook. The payoff, then, will also be large
for Facebook, which will only continue to be an open window
in laptops and computers across the world and for music
had with him was his ratty leather briefcase, inside of which
were notebooks containing lyrics for songs that had yet to be
finished and recorded. Now more than half a century later
a dozen songs have come to fruition out of the notebook
material, brought to life by a who’s who of artists whose own
careers have been highly influenced by Williams.
“You’ve Been Lonesome Too” by Alan Jackson and
“The Love That Faded” by Bob Dylan layer on pedal steel
guitar liberally to replicate Williams’ weepy style of country
music near perfectly, but it’s Jack White’s “You Know That
I Know” that through emotive, tremulous vocals better
captures Williams’ spirit. Surprisingly almost half of The Lost
Notebooks is performed by women with “You’re Through
Fooling Me” by Patty Loveless sounding like pure Hank,
while Lucinda Williams’ “I’m So Happy I Found You” is barely
distinguishable from her self-penned work, a compliment to
her own writing for sure.
The prize for sounding like Hank vocally and musically
goes to Levon Helm for “You’ll Never Again Be Mine;” the
song will make fans want to break out their original Williams
recordings. Merle Haggard, Jakob Dylan and Norah Jones are
among others contributing to this very interesting project.
Grade: A
—Kevin Wierzbicki
The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams is currently available.
Wilco
The Whole Love
(dBpm/Anti-)
Wilco’s eighth album, The Whole Love, is bookended by a
seven-minute snarl of sound collage and battling rhythms
(“Art of Almost”) and a 12-minute folkie epic that tackles
life and death (“One Sunday Morning”). So, yeah, a lack of
Campus Circle > Music > Music Notes
lovers tied to a spectrum of genres.
It makes discovering music easier, but it also makes it
even more unlikely that you’ll ever walk into a CD store again.
As has been said time and time again, the world in which we
purchased CDs and held them in our hands is slowly ending.
And the newest features on Facebook are only likely to add
to that.
So don’t forget to maybe buy a track or two when you
check out a cool, new artist. The industry has to survive in
order for you to keep sharing your favorite tracks.
Campus Circle > Music > CD Reviews
ambition is no longer
a problem. After the
three pleasant but
increasingly settled al–
bums that followed the
breakthrough Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco has
once again reasserted
itself as a rock band
filled with wild ideas
and loads of issues to
work through.
As the title suggests, singer-guitarist Jeff Tweedy has
opted for a more holistic approach, tackling issues of love
and life from a variety of vantage points, both lyrically
and stylistically. He can be straightforward and playful, as
he is in the upbeat single “I Might.” He can be moody and
contemplative, as he is in the orchestral folk of “Black Moon.”
And he seems on the surest footing with the clattering
defiance of “Born Alone,” driven by churning guitar that
gradually gets increasingly more agitated as Tweedy declares,
“I was born to die alone.”
The Whole Love is overflowing with cool twists and
unexpected turns – like the bloopy synths that invade the
otherwise Tin Pan Alley-era “Capitol City” – meant to
confound conventional thinking. Is Wilco an experimental
rock outfit or an alt-folk group looking to tell interesting
stories over pretty backdrops? The Whole Love suggests the
answer to both questions is “Yes!”
Grade: A-
—Glenn Gamboa, Newsday (MCT)
© 2011 Newsday. Distributed by MCT Information Services.
The Whole Love is currently available.
Keith Kochajda/Detroit Free Press/MCT