Sunday 26 October 2014

MUSIC: Thom Yorke and U2

Hey, look guys, it’s something we’ve never seen before – big names in the music world releasing stuff in a like, totally different way!  You know, like Beyonce did last year!



Or indeed, Radiohead did with 2010’s In Rainbows.  Let’s face it, the selling of music (as opposed to the making of it) has always loved a gimmick.  And you wait a year for a gimmicky music release then two show up at once.  


Let’s look at Thom Yorke first.  His latest solo album has been released on BitTorrent as an attempt to find a way for artists to be able to still earn a decent wage in these dark days of Spotify.  It’s not actually a novelty for Yorke to be releasing his album like this, not that much of one anyway.  He’s a man with a keen interest in technology and the music industry and always has been.  
Tomorrow's Modern Boxes - the music is about as colourful as the cover,
come to think of it.

I’ve delayed writing about this subject for a week or two because I really like Thom Yorke and I was trying to give his solo album more of a chance.  Unfortunately the album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is a little bit boring and very short, and the thing about a gimmick is that it’s a great way to set off a word-of-mouth campaign only if you’ve got some really good, like amazing product to sell.  But the album isn’t really good, or at least not good enough to give Yorke’s message enough weight.  It’s not awful either, but it doesn’t inspire the urge to spread the word.  It’s the worst thing you can have from an artist like Yorke – from someone who is seen as such an innovator, it’s very meh. 

The In Rainbows ‘Download and Pay-What-You-Want’ stunt worked at starting a debate about online music for a lengthier period of time (although not really that much lengthier) because the music on that album is outstanding.  And that was never actually going to be a meaningful direction for the future except for people who were already rich and could afford to take a risk in order to look cool (which is why Yorke’s stance against Spotify seems ridiculous as he is more responsible than most artists for encouraging the idea that digital music need not necessarily be paid for).  This new BitTorrent idea is a much more realistic proposition as a business model that could work, but because the content is uninspiring it will be ignored.  Also, it has been said that they see paying for a package through BitTorrent to be seen as an alternative to streaming music, but to me I can’t see that much of a difference between buying a BitTorrent package or an album through iTunes or Amazon.  It’s based on an old system, an album-buying system.  We’re in a world where a lot of people value diverse content more than 8 mediocre songs by the same person.  A last point about this - Thom Yorke is an established name, but if he wasn't how would we know what his album sounds like?  There's no airplay I'm aware of, it's not on Spotify or other streaming clients, you can't buy individual tracks on Amazon.  A new artist would not break through and be recognised through this business model.

Although it might  be slightly cheaper buying a BitTorrent 'album' there’s a reason why people associate torrents with pirating, and the idea of people paying any money at all for a torrent file at the moment seems laughable.  I’m by no means arguing that it is right to pirate by downloading torrent files, but it’s surely no secret that people who currently download torrent files are highly unlikely to be paying money for them right now, and it’s going to be very hard to encourage them to start.  It’s an alternative to streaming only if it is for free.  Which is expressly against Thom Yorke’s point.

And then there’s U2.  Their gimmick – having an album appear on Apple users’ gadgets overnight for free – actually is quite a sweet intentioned one and has been pretty successful for them.  Songs of Innocence is 13 (down from 6) in the album charts and so it’s not exactly been the ‘massive backfire’ some people in the press have dubbed it.  
Songs of Innocence's dreadful cover. Wonder what the follow up album
could possibly be called...?
However, it is a bit embarrassing if as an artist you demonstrably can’t give your music away to people.  To the extent Apple had to release an app to help people get rid of it.  People felt that having music put on their phone was something akin to an invasion of privacy.  I think that is perhaps overstating it slightly, but then I’m an Android user so what do I know?


Rather like Radiohead’s In Rainbows trick way-back-when, this idea of giving an album away for free is not a business model that can work for any band that doesn’t have more money than they need.  It was a shame that Bono had to apologise to people for what was intended as an egalitarian gesture.  It was definitely a gesture made by a band who are out of touch with their own popularity but it’s not really done them any harm.  In fact it’s done them a massive favour because if this album had been released in the traditional fashion hardly anyone would be talking about it.  As with Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes it is an album that comes and goes without making much of an impression.  Whereas Yorke’s music sounds unassuming quite a lot of the time however, U2 are going for epic, Epic, EPIC all the time and reliably not getting there.  It achieves the job of making a U2 album well enough but doesn’t seem to be interested in doing anything else at the same time.

Really this is the issue with U2 and Thom Yorke’s albums – it’s become about the medium and not the message for them now.  Or rather they think that the message is best expressed through the medium rather than through their art, since that's where they've chosen to put the emphasis in their interviews and promotion.  On hearing these albums it is no surprise whatsoever that the only things I have read about them in the press or heard about in conversation have been to do with downloads etc, rather than the music.  Regardless of intent when musicians talk more about the method of buying their latest album more than their art they sound only one step away from describing how an iPod works.  

These are artists clearly more interested, Yorke especially, with music formats and the future of the music industry than with the actual music.  Yorke seems keen to really change the way we listen now, but needs to seriously work on having some more interesting and exciting music if he wants to do that.  I’ve deliberately delayed this post to give both albums a fair hearing but I don’t think these are growers – they’re just some of the emperor’s clothes being repackaged again for the digital age. 

Thursday 9 October 2014

TV: Doctor Who - Sweary Man In Space

Since 2006 The Doctor has been an unambiguous hero, with even Christopher Eccleston’s prickly Doctor Nine being the guy you can trust to be your friend.  After the departure of Matt Smith as the lead Peter Capaldi is now The Doctor and the show has taken a complete departure as well.  



This is of course the beauty of a show like Doctor Who – it has its own built in reboot button meaning that every few years it can regenerate and become something completely different.  It can and does rebel against itself, meaning that Matt Smith’s cuddly Doctor Eleven has been replaced with Peter Capaldi’s spiky and truly alien Doctor Twelve.  The Doctor is now a very ambiguous hero, and a much more interesting one.

The infamous Capaldi eyebrows...

Peter Capaldi is best known (in Britain at least) as being the sweary spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It.  That role involved a lot of swearing and that probably isn’t going to figure much in his portrayal of The Doctor… It hasn’t yet, anyway.  He’s the first actor to play the Doctor in the new series to be so closely identified with another cult role.  Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant were established character actors and Matt Smith was virtually unknown.  To a lot of people Peter Capaldi is Malcolm Tucker.  This isn’t necessarily a problem, especially as Doctor Twelve shares a lot of Tucker’s character traits – it means there’s a shorthand way in to getting a hold on the character.  There were jokes aplenty when Capaldi’s casting was announced about how the new series of Doctor Who would be ‘Sweary Man in Space’, but I don’t think anyone expected that to actually happen to the extent it has.  In fact The Doctor is an even more intimidating figure than Malcolm Tucker ever was and that’s saying something.  He’s perhaps not as aggressive but he’s a highly volatile personality handling life or death situations and that’s worse, especially when you’re used to The Doctor being a friendly and open person.

In the second episode of this latest series, ‘Into The Dalek’, a soldier seems to be about to die and The Doctor throws something to him, smiles a crocodile grin and says “trust me”.  The soldier then dies quite gruesomely, and it turns out The Doctor was just using him to measure the radiation levels (or something).  Everyone is shocked but The Doctor brushes it aside irritably, saying “He was dead already, I’m saving our lives”, and moves on.  This is maybe something other Doctors would have done, in a tight corner; but no other Doctor would have behaved so callously.  David Tennant’s Doctor for instance would have said his trademark line in this sort of situation, “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry”, and looked… well, sorry.  Peter Capaldi’s smiles like a predator in order to manipulate the situation then gets on with the job.  This moral ambiguity has made for more complex themes so far.  For all of Christopher Eccleston’s angst in playing Doctor Nine, he was still playing a broadly heroic character that you could relate to.  This new Doctor makes you ask the question – does saving the day automatically make you a hero?  In the last episode, ‘Kill The Moon’, he actually walks off and leaves the humans to it – he says it’s their home at stake and he has faith in Clara to make the right decision.  Then buggers off, mid-adventure.  This is not typical adventure hero behaviour – but then when was The Doctor ever meant to be a typical adventure hero?
"Be my pal, tell me - am I a good man?"


Speaking of Clara – she’s great nowadays.  I never really took to her as a character when she started, mainly because she seemed all wrapped up in being a gimmicky ‘Impossible Girl’ plotline, but also because she didn’t seem to have as much chemistry with Matt Smith as he had had with Amy and Rory.  She really clicks with this new Doctor though, and has a real dramatic purpose as an audience identification figure.  There’s not actually been that much need for an audience identification figure for ages because The Doctor has been played as an essentially likeable eccentric.  Now he’s being played as a character just the right side of unlikeable she’s absolutely necessary to the show – The Twelfth Doctor, as with Malcolm Tucker, can only work well as part of an ensemble.  It basically feels like Clara’s regenerated as well, and definitely for the better.

The last few years have shown us The Doctor in a touchy-feely light – basically as a bit of a weird human.  Well The Doctor hasn’t been this alien since well before we actually knew he was an alien, back when William Hartnell was the guvnor.  The Doctor isn’t your fun uncle or eccentric older brother anymore – he’s your grumpy Scottish grandfather, and you were sorely trying his patience even before he walked into the room.  He’s still your friend, just, but he’s the kind of friend you worry about introducing to other people.

It’s quite shocking, and it’s refreshing after the charming characters we’ve got used to having as the lead.  The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors all have scenes where a great deal is made out of The Doctor being what monsters have nightmares about, or about being the ‘Oncoming Storm’ or the ‘Last Of The Time Lords’.  Most of the time however, they’re fun to be around.  The reverse is true with this one – he is witty, but he’s not a comedian and he’s more serious and alien than not.  Compared to the Classic Doctors, Doctor Twelve is like a cross between One and Six.  Colin Baker’s Doctor was meant to have a character arc where he started out brash and unlikeable and gradually became more and more at peace with himself.  It didn’t really work out that way because the cack handed way it was approached nearly killed the programme.  But it’s a good idea for a character arc and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what they’re trying to do with the character in his Twelfth incarnation, but this time doing it right.

And does it work?  Personally I love Peter Capaldi as an actor, and at the moment I’m enjoying seeing him be The Doctor a lot.  The character has obviously been designed to rub against the previous characters of the new series – sometimes this is overdone   when scenes make him just a bit too unlikeable, seemingly just to remind you that Peter Capaldi is not Matt Smith.  It works because it does what every new Doctor should do which is to shake the viewer out of their comfort zone and put them in an entirely different type of show.  His debut episode dropped Doctor Twelve into what would have been a fairly standard Doctor Eleven story and showed how different the series would be – Matt Smith’s Doctor wouldn’t have poured his enemy and himself a whiskey before throwing him to his death.  It’s a whole new game and one that's turning our to be a different kind of fun.