Azealia Banks

some dude otm, the story of major label deals is "I knew it would probably suck but I could not turn down the chance and when it didn't pan out I wished I'd listened to the part that knew it was gonna suck"

but anybody who claims they really couldn't find good information about how major label deals work? after already having had a label deal with a large indie? come on, now.

I think there's just an assumption that once you have fame/a fanbase, there's always some kind of escape hatch for you. even if you have to beg to be dropped from your label on twitter to find the escape hatch.

i feel also like when '212' dropped there was more of a mystique about the song as a whole, and not just her rapping—and then the whole "(ft. lazy jay)" reworking of the song's official title happened, which took a little bit of shine off the idea that she was crafting beats instead of just rapping over previously extant songs in their entirety. obviously being skilled at picking banging jams and rapping like hell over them is nothing to sneeze at but that seemed to be the first crack in her veneer imo (and her subsequent feuds with producers who have worked with her to create beats tailored to her style haven't helped, even if you take prevailing notions about 'difficult women' into account).

"212" still slams

yeah but...this isn't exactly a secret? like, I feel bad for anybody who ends up in the grip of a shitty major label contract, but...it's not like people haven't been yelling for years & years & years that when you sign to a major, you're going to lose autonomy, you're basically trading it for an advance

so? doesn't mean it doesn't happen. not really surprising that every young brash upstart kid thinks they can make it work for them even despite the warnings.

i mean, it's not just sky ferreira and azealia banks. fiona apple, jojo, toni braxton, nina sky, that's just off the top of my head - regardless of whether they "should" have "known" the major label game they'd be expected to play, i don't think placing the blame on the artist is a particularly helpful way to assess these matters.

i think her problem is that she either hasn't shown the skill or the desire to write a crossover pop song

"212" was completely accidental in that sense. but everything she releases just screams "small and very limited fanbase"

it's interesting also how often this happens to rappers who aren't accepted by hip-hop's core fanbase, too - we were talking about yelawolf and angel haze the other week, both of whom never seemed suited to major label expectations/making crossover pop songs, but the fact that they stood out from other rappers (for superficial reasons as well as artistic ones)...made the major labels think they would be? azealia banks seems to fit into this pattern as well. the body of work that would display these artists at their best (reservation, trunk muzik, imagine a less amateurish fantasea) isn't accepted by the audience that would accept the equivalent from a chief keef type, but neither is it a crossover pop album in any sense.

i wonder if they'd have fared better on major labels a decade or two ago, when cult artists could be sustained in that system more easily?

i also wonder whether it'd be completely impossible for a major label to attempt to make some of the stronger/hookier moments on reservation a crossover pop hit, on its own terms? stranger records have charted.

i guess the larger question is what you do with critically acclaimed, very distinct artists with a cult fanbase that isn't part of a larger ecosystem.

i mean, it's not just sky ferreira and azealia banks. fiona apple, jojo, toni braxton, nina sky, that's just off the top of my head - regardless of whether they "should" have "known" the major label game they'd be expected to play, i don't think placing the blame on the artist is a particularly helpful way to assess these matters.

but...I mean...can you imagine any terms under which the majors would operate differently from the way they literally always have? I have punk rock sympathies too, I'd just love to run an editorial at MRR that really calls out these major label shitbags for the tools they are and gets serious results, but that's going to have zero effect, like anything else. hoping for an artist-focused major label is vain. the offices of big labels are staffed by people who intended to change things from the inside. "you can change things from the inside" is in fact a pitch they give you when you express reluctance about signing. the choice is autonomy one one's own terms without the global support of a major, or compromise. that's always going to be the choice.

right, i'm not disputing that, but you're saying it with the benefit of many years of experience. i'm saying that firstly, it's understandable that any young artist (not specifically AZV) would not heed that advice, and secondly, when her campaign turns into this mess, pointing the finger exclusively at her is probably unhelpful and doesn't tell the full story

Tangentially, re: Sky, I'd love to know how much her cancelled album cost. Reportedly featured Dallas Austin, Greg Kurstin, Paul Epworth, Bloodshy & Avant and Linda Perry. Proper old-school major-label $$$ madness.

For all I know, Banks's label team might be incompetent and/or malicious but her propensity to publicly fall out with collaborators - most recently Disclosure and Pharrell - makes me disinclined to blame the label alone.

i wouldn't say incompetent/malicious, just the usual narrow-mindedness about what a crossover pop hit can be. when i read that list of expensive sky ferreira collaborators my heart pretty much sinks. greg kurstin, sia, paul epworth, none of these are exciting musicians to me, and none of them are all that suited to bringing out individuality in artists. when i hear the angel haze album i certainly blame the label more than her for it turning out badly - she'd already proved herself capable of making great music, and maybe she had bad instincts but it was certainly the label who encouraged her to dump horrible "anthemic" choruses and sia moaning all over dirty gold.

prob worth pointing out that AZB's behaviour pales in comparison to, say, chris brown or r kelly, both of whom have strong industry-supported careers.

don't really want to be defending her this strongly - she seems generally unpleasant on twitter and i haven't liked any music she's done since "1991" - but i'm just wary of the increasing consensus that "AZB's making a mess of her album because she's such a bitch" b/c i doubt that's the whole story

Comparison to Brown and Kelly is meaningless. We're talking about whether she's difficult to work with, not weighing up Twitter beefs against violence and rape.

Tangentially, re: Sky, I'd love to know how much her cancelled album cost. Reportedly featured Dallas Austin, Greg Kurstin, Paul Epworth, Bloodshy & Avant and Linda Perry. Proper old-school major-label $$$ madness.

yeah there is a fascinating story in here no doubt

"it was certainly the label who encouraged her to dump horrible "anthemic" choruses and sia moaning all over dirty gold."

I'm not sure that's clear from Angel Haze's earlier records, though. Tracks like "CHI" from Reservation don't actually have Sia, but they do have the sort of big, "inspirational" chorus that you associate with Sia. You might not like that kind of thing, but it seems pretty clear that Angel Haze does.

yeah i don't know if there's any evidence to back up that statement about angel haze either.

i'm still really confused about why there was a rush to release it before the end of 2013. Some sort of contractual obligation?

IIRC she leaked it because the label was planning to sit on it until 2014 and threatened to continue doing so unless they put it out in 2013

the 2014 release date had been pencilled in for months and months so for haze to suddenly throw a fit in december was weird - i've no idea what actually went down but it's been speculated that either the label was trying to bury a poor album or something about an earlier release date would have somehow benefited haze contractually

Tracks like "CHI" from Reservation don't actually have Sia, but they do have the sort of big, "inspirational" chorus that you associate with Sia. You might not like that kind of thing, but it seems pretty clear that Angel Haze does

yeah this is true, and it's always been kinda-present in her music and definitely in her rhetoric, but the point is that left to her own devices the inspirational choruses weren't as heavy-handed or trudging as on her album

Tangentially, re: Sky, I'd love to know how much her cancelled album cost. Reportedly featured Dallas Austin, Greg Kurstin, Paul Epworth, Bloodshy & Avant and Linda Perry. Proper old-school major-label $$$ madness.

at the very least a million dollars, i think? from nabisco's piece on her:

“I signed a million-dollar record deal,” she says, “and never saw any money. It all got spent on planes and writing."

i think their logic was that if they just had her write w/ as many hit songwriter-producers as possible then she could score a smash and have it all work out, but the singles they had her record ("obsession" was meant to be the big one for the u.s., amusingly) really tanked and they had no idea what to do with her after that because they had lost so much money on the whole thing.

shoulda bought more planes, less writing

sky f.'s claim to have signed a contract that specified no advance of any kind is pretty fuckin' dubious

contracts specify cash advances, they happen before any recording or writing or anything else, it's industry standard

that jeff tweedy line about how only the privileged can afford to not sell out rings true in a lot of cases here i think

fuck it i'd take the advance too

i take a lot of the claims even from the artists' mouths with a pinch of salt - the "underdog artist held to ransom by The Man" is too attractive a PR angle to ignore

pretty much anybody would take a good-sized major advance but people should be honest about it a la Krusty the Clown: "they backed a truck full of money up to the house, I'm not made of stone"

it's interesting also how often this happens to rappers who aren't accepted by hip-hop's core fanbase, too - we were talking about yelawolf and angel haze the other week, both of whom never seemed suited to major label expectations/making crossover pop songs, but the fact that they stood out from other rappers (for superficial reasons as well as artistic ones)...made the major labels think they would be? azealia banks seems to fit into this pattern as well. the body of work that would display these artists at their best (reservation, trunk muzik, imagine a less amateurish fantasea) isn't accepted by the audience that would accept the equivalent from a chief keef type, but neither is it a crossover pop album in any sense.

Eh, I kind of feel like Yelawolf, at his best, has more of a sense of songcraft than Angel or Azealia (I feel like this is Banks' particular weakness as an artist. I said something a while back about her being able to come up with great parts of songs but having difficulty putting them together into songs that are distinctive from one another.) But also unlike Haze and Banks, he was fully given his chance and completely blew it.

hahahahahahhahahahahahhahhahhahahahahahhhahahhhhahaha http://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2014/02/19/azealia-banks-hip-hop-cash-princess-2/

"“I did a song with Ariel Pink on my album which is really weird"

oh fucking christ no

“I did a song with Ariel Pink on my album which is really weird, it’s a legitimate rock song – I’m wailing like Tina Turner,” Banks gushes excitedly.

:ooooo

This is the funniest fucking thing

How much do you all wanna bet that when she finally releases her album, the rollout will be accompanied by a "candid" profile piece where she either doubles down on her bullshit or apologizes for everything?

damn, she made a million last year

i wanna know what she saw in her bank account though. likely very low six figures and a closet full of amazing swag

damn, she made a million last year

BEFORE lawyer fees

“Because there aren’t that many good female rappers, it’s really that simple,” says Banks.

Well she's not entirely wrong. There are a lot less female rappers in general.

“Vagina power is like, the power of the world.”

i wonder if she is an alexyss tylor fan

http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/06/animated-siren-gif-animated-siren-gif-animated-siren-gif-drudge-report.gif She just deleted all her tweets! http://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2010/06/animated-siren-gif-animated-siren-gif-animated-siren-gif-drudge-report.gif

must mean the albums on the way

She got out of her Interscope contract. Not sure whether I care anymore, but kind of hope she can make headlines for decent songs again rather than lame beef.

Whoa there, one step at a time.

lol

perversely beginning to root for her now that everyone feels safe to slag her off in a way they'd never dare do to an artist at the crest of the hype wave

Aren't they slagging her off because she's spent three years pissing away goodwill and failing to release an album? I don't think people who hated 212 have been waiting three years before it was safe to speak.

In her defense, there was probably lots of label fuckery going on. (A recent profile of Mr. Motherfuckin eXquire, who was also a "beneficiary" of the internet-rap boom that swept her up, would bear this out, as would the trials of her rival Angel Haze.)

Also I suspect that the first "oh, huh" moment came when she had to pull the "212" video because she didn't credit Lazy Jay for essentially rapping over his unaltered track, which was a big factor in the initial bonkers reaction to it.

Here's the Mr. M.e. profile, btw. It unfairly reduces the Voice piece about him (which I edited) to being about his jokiness (which it isn't) but it is otherwise solid, and sad, and instructive as far as how hip-hop is received in internet-forward music culture.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mr-muthafuckin-exquires-music-biz-misadventures-20140620

No doubt the label botched this but other people who have butted heads with their labels, incl Angel Haze and Sky Ferreira, have come out of it with the public on their side. People generally want to believe that majors are full of know-nothing breadheads who ruin careers because they don't understand art, so Azealia's ability to alienate people who would instinctively back her up is quite remarkable. This is someone who recorded songs with Pharrell and Disclosure (presumably at significant expense) only to badmouth both of them. I'm generally on the artist's side and I hate snarky schadenfreude but come on, she's not an innocent victim.

i'm not defending AZB so much as rolling my eyes at the media and industry ppl who hyped her to the gills circa 212 but have now collectively decided it's ok to openly treat her like a joke. not doing a great job of being invested in her artistic development so much as ability to play the industry game

No doubt the label botched this but other people who have butted heads with their labels, incl Angel Haze and Sky Ferreira

i don't think this is true at all for angel haze, who put out a shit album that no one liked and/or bought. i also think this is azealia's problem.

I'm definitely not straight-up defending her. Just saying that watching the bubble (which slowly grew while I was running the Voice's music coverage) leak has been pretty interesting.

angel haze is an interesting comparison because she hasn't become a punchline in the same way that AZB has despite putting out a shit album that no one bought - she still gets taken seriously, gets coverage etc. it's not like she had HUGE hype in the first place anyway.

and yeah this conversation is about the life cycle of the hype bubble rather than any artist per se.