Commentary - On the banality of evil: Google vs. indie artists

Like most of us, I'm in thrall to Google. It's hard to track all the strands of how I'm tethered to them: my email server, my blog platform, cloud storage..the list goes on and on. They make it so easy because all of this stuff is more or less free. Actually, it's paid for by choosing to accept that they'll own all my metadata and connect the dots to know everything about me, from what my likely politics and income are to what kind of porn I'm interested in. It's kind of disturbing if you think about it for too long, but we're a captive audience with limited alternatives.

Google has so many balls in play, it's hard to keep track of them -- they are legion, after all -- but a particularly ugly one just caught my attention. I was listening to Zoë Keating on the February 5th episode of Studio 360, where she talked about her negotiations with Google over changes to their music services agreement. This has been percolating for months, but Keating's recent blog post has generated another round of attention. In a nutshell, Google is consolidating their contracts with artists to optimize their free YouTube and premium Google Play/Music Key services. Simplification is not a bad thing, but the devil is in the details...and these details stink.

What it comes down to is that Google is a jealous god. They are demanding that artists provide their entire catalog of work to Google and that no third party outlet should have earlier access to that material. In exchange, they're offering relatively crappy royalty rates and the privilege of not kicking them off Google's content services. This is especially problematic for independent artists like Keating or Jill Sobule, who have organically developed their fan base and make their music available via their own websites or third parties like Bandcamp. This would effectively mean that they couldn't release directly to their fans before making it available to Big G.

It's easy enough to see the business motivation here. It's harder to justify paying for a premium music service if you can get new music somewhere else first. It also makes sense to have the same rules for all of their content delivery services. It's all very convenient. Still, it's hard to see why Google absolutely has to have exclusivity. It seems like it would be sufficient for them to assert that music available on YouTube should also be available on Music Key. Allowing artists to control their own material isn't all that different from letting me decide whether to write an article for a blog post or for a media site. Google could continue monetizing the content that they have access to and the synergy of services they offer will make participating that much more attractive. If Google could settle for that, they wouldn't come across as bullies, crushing indie artists for legal expedience.

On the other hand, if they hold their ground and either screw or blackball indie artists, it's hard to see them as anything but evil. A bland, pedestrian evil, but still just as distasteful.

Commentary - Like the father, like the son?

I love my son and I'm proud that he's turning out to be quite the musician, too. Supporting him on his path of musical development is one of my pleasures of fatherhood.

Paul McCartney is no different, he just has more resources than I do. So, where I set Malcolm up with my Vantage Avenger guitar and a small Vox amp, Sir Paul produced his son James' two EPs. With all of the advantages James McCartney has had, my son is luckier in one sense: the odds are that Malcolm won't have a lot of people endlessly comparing him to his dad.



On this Letterman performance, you can hear a bit of Paul's voice, but Angel has a more modern Brit-pop sound that stands on its own. James clearly has some talent, both as a writer and performer. Unfortunately, he may be risking his shot at developing his own career.

Talking to the BBC, McCartney was asked about the idea of forming The Beatles: The Next Generation. Not only was he up for it, he made it clear that this had been discussed in more detail:

I don't think it's something that Zak [Starkey] wants to do. Maybe Jason [another of Starr's sons and also drummer] would want to do it. I'd be up for it. Sean [Lennon] seemed to be into it, Dhani [Harrison] seemed to be into it. I'd be happy to do it.

This seems like a formula for failure. These days, sequels are more of a cynical business bet that reheated leftovers offer a better return than taking chances on real art. McCartney and the other Beatles Boys would be effectively saying that their band isn't about talent or chemistry, but just the gimmick of who their dads were. When they inevitably fail to deliver on the ideal of The Beatles II, they'll be remembered more for sacrificing their credibility for a quick grab at money and fame. They'll also be remembered for poisoning the Beatles memory as well.

That said, I'm sure they'd find someone to promote and create an initial whirl of interest. I just hope that Sir Paul can offer his son some good advice...whether or not James will take it.

Music news - OK Go for the money

After treadmills, extreme timelapse, and the Muppets, it must be getting hard for OK Go to come up with entertaining video ideas. Where most bands might have a song that needs a video, OK Go has almost reached the point of being a video in search of a song. Eventually, the pressure to deliver will almost certainly drive the band crazy (which will probably be the subject of their final video).



Their latest, for Needing/Getting, is a collaboration with General Motors and director Brian L. Perkins. GM got a Superbowl Chevy ad out of the deal and the band had their next wacky video concept. It's sort of a variation on the Rube Goldberg machine idea: set up a desert course with instruments and other sound generating stuff and run a Chevy Sonic through it to "play" the song.

It's a cute idea and the band delivers total commitment to the premise -- "we're pop, but we mean it, damnit!" Getting someone else to pay the video production cost was nice, but OK Go's real win was the Superbowl exposure.

Of course, there's been some backlash against the band for selling out, although a fair number of fans are supportive. The whole debate raises the larger question about money's role in the arts. Effectively, corporate sponsorship is just taking the same place that the Medici's did in supporting Leonardo da Vinci (among many others).

That perspective has always been uneasy for rock and roll, though, where people like their rebels. The idea of Jim Morrison, John Lennon, or Jimi Hendrix shilling for the Man would have torpedoed their social cred. But modern aesthetics have come a long way. The Who Sell Out's social commentary has yielded to some artists making their first music sale to a commercial before they even cut an album. Now, when we look back at Microsoft's use of the Stones' Start Me Up for Windows 95, that's merely "ironic".

So, has OK Go sold out? Hipsters will be purist hipsters, but I'm pretty sure that working with GM didn't compromise OK Go's musical integrity.