Idolator

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the controlled chaos of instant messaging. This week we bring you Sledge, the editor and proprietor of a long-running music Webzine. Online music zines, particularly the ones that have been around a while, sit in a precarious position, balanced between the huge sites like Pitchfork and the teeming blog masses. Some big ones, like Stylus and Splendid, have gone belly-up in the past few years. We asked Sledge—who was very affable—about the pressure to get "bloggier" or more like Pitchfork, whether digital servicing of media works for them, problems with publicists, and suggestions for writing an effective press release:

StumpyPete1975: what suggestions would you offer to bands or publicists doing promoting to you?
Sledge: well, one suggestion is: if you're writing a press release, don't make it a full-length review.
Sledge: simple and straightforward is the best.
StumpyPete1975: like a few grafs?
StumpyPete1975: what should it contain?
Sledge: in my mind, just the pertinent info regarding a release. not how the album should make us feel
Sledge: it just seems disingenuous that the publicist can LOVE every band they're promoting

More insights after the jump!

Count me among those instantly skeptical of any new business startup that has anything to do with the music industry, particularly as 2009 approaches. Heckfire, I was instantly skeptical of these nebulous businesses in the late '90s, when, as a music industry professional and a musician, I was bombarded with offers of liaising and support systems and synergizing by companies that probably had basketball courts in their offices and went bankrupt six months later. So when I read something like this on the site for the digital-music startup Topspin, it's hard not to get a high reading on the BS Detector:

Topspin is a media technology company dedicated to developing leading-edge marketing software and services that help artists and their partners build businesses and brands. We help artists manage their catalogs, connect with fans, and generate demand for music.

Ian C. Rogers is at the "helm" (their wording, not mine) of the aforementioned company, and he was the keynote speaker at *ahem* the GRAMMY Northwest MusicTech Summit 2008. Doesn't that sound exciting? Nothing gets me more excited than uselessly crammed-together words like "MusicTech" combined with GRAMMY written in ALL CAPS. But Mr. Rogers actually had some interesting stuff to say about the state of the industry, particularly in relationship to the recent David Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the letter thunderstorm of instant messaging software. Last week, we had an illuminating chat with Joe The Engineer, who has worked as an assistant engineer for five years at a major NYC studio, and whose credits include quite a few big-time pop and hip-hop records. We decided to bring him back for another round, and in this edition, Joe tackles overcompression, underwhelming Autotune usage, and whether hip-hop has lost its fire:

StumpyPete1975: someone asked if you had anecdotes that are examples of hip-hop losing its fire
JoeTheEngineer: how about an artist interrupting his session to meet with the designer of his new line of jeans?
StumpyPete1975: HAHA
StumpyPete1975: amazing
StumpyPete1975: yeah, I'd say that's not entirely street
JoeTheEngineer: I guarantee Biggie didn't do that when he was making Ready To Die

Your questions answered after the jump!

I'm an avid gamer, and I'm tired of the idea that videogaming is some sort of niche media populated by pimply Internet trolls who haven't seen the sun since World Of Warcraft came out. Sure, those guys actually exist, but Nintendo's strategy toward more casual games like Wii Sports—not to mention the whole rise in popularity of music games—proves that gaming's audience has a lot more room to grow. Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime once asked this pertinent question:

Do you know anyone who has never watched TV, never seen a movie, never read a book? Of course not. Now, do you know someone, maybe even in your own family, who has never played a video game? I bet you do. If we want to consider ourselves a true mass media, if we want to grow as an industry, this has to change.

While gaming is mainstream for the first time since the release of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, there is still plenty of room to expand. Video games are also surprisingly recession-proof, racking up big sales while most other major media, such as network TV or the music biz, struggle with declining revenue. Consequently, we've been treated to a lot of "Gaming Is Bigger Than Hollywood/Music Biz" stories recently.

Just today, the BBC reports that games are on pace to outsell music and video in the UK. Let's everybody take a deep breath.

Every week in the "Shhhh-it!" AnonIMous Super-Secret Music-Biz Interview Series (S-I!AS-SM-BIS for, uh, short) we interview a grizzled music industry veteran via the tumbling word parade of instant messaging software. We talk about the person's job, the state of the industry, and whatever else comes to mind. This week, we spoke with Joe The Engineer, who has worked as an assistant engineer for five years at a major NYC studio. Joe's done some rock sessions, but most of the artists he deals with are big-time pop, hip-hop, and R&B acts—artists that sell lots of records, and artists that we all know. As an engineer, he has a unique perspective on the current recording processes, whether big studios and producers are worth it, and whether pop stars are really as unimportant to the final recorded product as we think they are:

StumpyPete1975: today's pop stars
StumpyPete1975: I think there's the impression that they just show up for a day or two
StumpyPete1975: lay down some vocal tracks
StumpyPete1975: and then it's autotune away
StumpyPete1975: true?
JoeTheEngineer: right
JoeTheEngineer: well, most pop artists don't write their own stuff
JoeTheEngineer: so they come in and I play them a reference, which the writer laid down with all the vocal parts
JoeTheEngineer: then the artist goes piece by piece re-singing whats already on tape
StumpyPete1975: are you serious?
StumpyPete1975: so it's like Pop Star Hero?
JoeTheEngineer: yeah
JoeTheEngineer: I mean depending on the artist sure
JoeTheEngineer: but this is common
JoeTheEngineer: I've certainly seen a few big ones that were spoon fed all the lines they sang

The whole thing after the jump!