Can't Talk; Hyping Part III: The Perpetual Debut Album

[Continued from yesterday: part I, part II.]

[W]hat about the bands from six months prior—Annuals, but also White Whale, Bound Stems, Tokyo Police Club, bands whose names even you, unfaithful reader, perhaps have already forgotten… I had begun to forget them, too.

Going back to the “Britainization” of the American music culture, there is an additional side effect to all this hype. Bill Wasik describes Annuals’ plight in his article:

[W]hy did so many of these bands disappear? What about the second album, or the third? Why did indie rock seem to have become wave after wave of disposable new bands? …. [KEXP DJ John] Richards said he now assumed that he would not even see second albums, no matter how good their sound. “Even an Annuals,” he said. “I’m not even thinking about a second album from them. I just assume that this is the document that I have.... You think: ‘This is a great movie—I hope there’s not a sequel.’“ But Richards acknowledged that he and the other indie-rock tastemakers bore some share of the blame. “A big deal with us is discovery,” he said. “And you’re discovering not just a song; you’re discovering a band. When you’re just discovering a second album, there’s not as much hype involved.”

One gripe you often hear when people are grousing about the music industry is the dearth of A&R people. Bands on corporate record labels are no longer given the opportunity to grow into their fans; they need to turn a profit within three months of their album’s release or their careers are in jeopardy.

Personally, I’m not too concerned with the fates of bands on corporate labels, and neither are most the blogs I read. We’re all supporting indies (or labelless bands), a culture that never supported the concept of an “A&R Guy” in the first place: bands developed their following through touring and word of mouth, and were given room to develop their sound by their fans. But now hype blogs and the “Pitchfork effect,” so wrapped up in breaking the new, are possibly eroding interest in subsequent albums, either by ignoring bands on their new work or by passing judgment months before an album officially drops. This could, theoretically, have similar detrimental effects on the long-term success of smaller bands, whose fan base has become more fickle, more distracted than in years past.

If a layman wants to be a part of the critical conversation, he or she must download the leak when the conversation is actually happening, possibly depriving the band and the label of a sale. What’s more, if that initial buzz (and that first mp3) is bad, the album is dead in the water—there’s too much new shit to keep up with to risk of purchasing an album that might not be good; or if the initial buzz is positive, it’s often expended well before the album hits, which dovetails instead with the backlash.

That’s not the hype blogs' fault—more so the fault of record labels that insist on abiding by the requisite long lead of print magazines. But until labels decide to put more stock in immediate word of mouth than in the review section of Spin or Paste (and it is happening—hello, Radiohead), then hype blogs’ rush to be first could sabotage the sales chances of the very bands they want to support.

The other side of that is that with so much hyperbole floating around out there, expectation for albums following the breakout record has never been higher, making it harder and harder for bands to grow into a more mature sound. The Shins, for instance, couldn’t possibly hope to live up to the infamous “This band will change your life” tag. But we’re told daily by blog after blog that this band, no this band, will change your life. Growing past your breakout album is a tall order. Annuals told Wasik that their plan was to retreat into different permutations of their band—each version led by a different member:

Annuals might be the perfect name, I realized, in a different way than I thought. Maybe their destiny is to be a march of bands in themselves…. Maybe they, and maybe we all, will learn to make art, to find narrative, in this churning, viral culture by embodying the churn, embracing it, by envisioning a life not as some decades-long epic, but as a succession of discretely plotted six-month shorts.

This reminded me of an article from the Believer magazine a few years back, “The Perpetual Debut Novelist,” by David Amsden, in which he imagined that he would change his name for every novel he published, so as to be showered with the press that is reserved for the rising stars of tomorrow. 

Call it the Era of the Debut Novel: where first-time authors receive treatment previously reserved for established writers; where an author’s entire career seems to pivot around his first published work; where important, reputable writers feel increasingly marginalized (because they increasingly are); where certain editors often seem to spend the bulk of their energy scurrying for the Next Great Debut as opposed to the Next Great Book; where the reading public, the bulk of whom couldn’t care less about any of this, is often repeatedly disappointed….

Then, if all goes well (which it often does not), by the time the book is actually published and reviewed something very funny has happened: it’s nearly impossible to remember that this is a first-time author who has, as yet, no Genuine Readers (and, no matter what, it’s still the Genuine Reader—he who reads for nothing more than an intense love of story and style, a fascination with the mutability of words, and a compulsive desire to simultaneously escape and learn through fantasy—that fuels the entire industry of literary publishing, or, at the very least, the artistic fantasies of the publishing industry.)

It’s not too difficult to apply this to music; just think of the Genuine Listener, who listens for nothing more than an intense love of lyric and chord, a fascination with the alchemy of sounds, and a compulsive desire to filter life and memory through song. As with the authors Amsden writes about, many of the bands proffered on hype blogs have no Genuine Listeners. For that we must buy albums, must sit with them, alone, undistracted, and hear them through our own ears, process them through the context of our own lives. For that, you've got to log off.

Later today, the last (planned) installment: Coalescence

Comments

[Tom]

The Britishisation of the US industry is a really good point, and one that's been kicking around my head for ages too. Worth noting though that the build-em-up knock-em-down publishing strategy of the Britpress DID in fact lead to some fantastic pop music and some fantastic writing getting pushed and published. The NME now sticks by bands for longer as long as they fit its narrow target demog, I think.

[Matthew]

There is, of course, the simple fact to remember that an awful lot of sophomore albums just aren't very good. Bloc Party, The Killers (yes, yes, I know I know), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the list goes on of highly anticipated releases this year that were crap.

It took The Arcade Fire, Beirut and Band of Horses to release decent follow ups, and the latter two were very late in the year indeed. But I do think they got the credit they were due, by and large - from the blogosphere anyway.

In general though, I entirely agree - the NME is a woeful publication and their frantic scramble to masturbate over everything they possibly can just in case one or two of the bands hit the big time and they can then say that they were there first is an unedifying sight indeed.

And it does lead to a similar scramble amongst the blogs, but that is understandable. The lack of periodic publishing deadlines means that this immediacy is an area where the blogs genuinely can outstrip entrenched media, so I can understand why people go for it.

The NME is pretty quick, but even they can turn a press release or a leak into an article in under twenty minutes.

That said, the hysterical rush to be first and most in the know has always reminded me of two things: firstly the Ben Folds track entitled There's Always Someone Cooler Than You; and secondly the legend of Sisyphus, forever condemned to be pushing a boulder up a hill for the rest of time.

It may be futile and pointless for me personally, but for blogs it is one area where they have a pretty unassailable advantage over virtually all other media, so I can't say I entirely blame the people who decide to go down that route.