avant-rockers Battles are heard accompanying an Australian vodka ad.
The question is: What happens to the music itself when the way to build a career shifts from recording songs that ordinary listeners want to buy to making music that marketers can use?
Yeah I'm pretty sure that their ability to sell vodka in australia is really going to figure in to what battles does in the future. Even if there is a single example of the downstream effect he is describing (where music "recedes") good luck actually finding it.
It's almost enough to make someone miss those former villains of philistinism, the recording companies. Labels had an interest in music that would hold listeners on its own terms; selling it was their meal ticket. Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.
This is just gauzy memory-filter nonsense.
― the ref (ed hochuli ha ha) (call all destroyer), Sunday, 4 January 2009 17:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Actually it might have been the song where she told Barack Obama to fuck himself first
hang on which one is this? i have literally paid no attn to santogold's lyrics other than 'l.e.s. artistes' and the line "brooklyn we go hard" - she doesn't enunciate at all - it's amazing that i like her songs as much as i do without a lyrical entry point. the 'l.e.s. artistes' lyrics are really great, though.
― lex pretend, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:10 (fifteen years ago) link
this seems otm though, and would explain so much popular modern music:
"That creates pressure, subtle but genuine, for music to recede: to embrace the element of vacancy that makes a good soundtrack so unobtrusive, to edit a lyric to be less specific or private, to leave blanks for the image or message the music now serves. "
yeah, in the future music will be nothing but generalities and repetitive, obvious hooks! OMG POP HOW WILL I RECOGNIZE YOU?
― da croupier, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:19 (fifteen years ago) link
in the sense that artists are prob now thinking of what advertisers will like in the same way they once thought of what radio playlisters would like.
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:24 (fifteen years ago) link
Labels, and to some extent radio stations and music television, also had a stake in nurturing stars who would keep fans returning to find out what happened next, allowing their catalogs to be perennially rediscovered.
This is especially LOL, as in the '80s the bitch would be that labels were nurturing stars instead of supporting artists. Now no one's going to mind the factory! They'll just take your jingle and leave you to your own devices! Gasp!
― da croupier, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:26 (fifteen years ago) link
which is the latest fashions, obvious hooks and unchallenging lyrical sentiments in both cases.
― da croupier, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:29 (fifteen years ago) link
xpost to Lex: Maybe I (willfully) misinterpreted the chorus "We think you're a joke / Shove your hope where it don't shine" but it seemed pretty pointed to me.
― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:40 (fifteen years ago) link
hmm i've just looked at the lyrics to 'shove it' for the first time and the entire song makes literally not a jot of sense - obama doesn't own the word "hope", and nothing else in the song suggests that she's referring to him, or to anything much. she's never expressed any political views as such, has she? i suspect she's a bit of a div so i've never paid attention to what she says too much.
― lex pretend, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:46 (fifteen years ago) link
Brooklyn we go hardWe on the look for the advantage, we work hardAnd if we seem to rough it up a bitWe broke but we rich at heartPull ourselves up now we won't chokeIt's our time, put the lights on usWar tactics they make me sickreel your heart in run away with itSmile in your face, undermine your backgot guns for the strength they lackSo if you know another wayyou can't look the other wayif you know another way,tell them so right to their faceWe think you're a jokeShove your hope where it don't shine (4x)I pay for what's calledeccentricity and my will to evolveI hear them all saythat I got heartbut not everything that it takesTaint my mind but not my soulTell you I got fireI wont sell it for no payrollLet 'em hold me downI know if I know another wayI can't look the other wayI know another wayI'll tell them so right to their faceWe think you're a jokeShove your hope where it don't shine (4x)
War tactics they make me sickreel your heart in run away with itSmile in your face, undermine your backgot guns for the strength they lackSo if you know another wayyou can't look the other wayif you know another way,tell them so right to their face
We think you're a jokeShove your hope where it don't shine (4x)
I pay for what's calledeccentricity and my will to evolveI hear them all saythat I got heartbut not everything that it takes
Taint my mind but not my soulTell you I got fireI wont sell it for no payrollLet 'em hold me downI know if I know another wayI can't look the other wayI know another wayI'll tell them so right to their face
― ^likes black girls (HI DERE), Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:53 (fifteen years ago) link
This reads like a generic "fight the system" song; the only link to Obama is the word "hope".
― ^likes black girls (HI DERE), Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:54 (fifteen years ago) link
if anything the nameless "they" of the song seems to be the same "they" of 'l.e.s. artistes' and half the album, ie the people santogold would have encountered as an a&r in the entertainment industry around her every day.
― lex pretend, Sunday, 4 January 2009 18:58 (fifteen years ago) link
I thought "a&r" was "they"
― da croupier, Sunday, 4 January 2009 19:08 (fifteen years ago) link
love the album but her borough repping is on some http://www.defendbrooklyn.com/new_store/bk_black_t_drunkgirl.jpg level shit
― ❤¯\㋡/¯❤ (ice cr?m), Sunday, 4 January 2009 19:14 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah but didn't "hope" didn't signify "obama" this year? that's only my take, after all.
might have liked it anyway if it wasn't for all the other stuff i didn't like.
― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 4 January 2009 20:36 (fifteen years ago) link
Album came out in late April. No idea when it was actually completed though, but not hard to believe the reference had little to do with Obama.
This interview from February indicates she was an Obama supporter btw.
http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/02/super-tuesday-s.html
― Alex in SF, Sunday, 4 January 2009 21:22 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah okay doesn't matter though
― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 4 January 2009 21:33 (fifteen years ago) link
that line struck me as weird this year too & i couldnt parse it but im willing to believe it was just a coincidence
― choom gangsta (deej), Sunday, 4 January 2009 21:34 (fifteen years ago) link
she's been writing songs her whole adult life - id caution against the idea that this song was written in reaction to or even around the rise of obama
― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 4 January 2009 21:53 (fifteen years ago) link
what does that line about 'her whole adult life' have to do with it jordan? i'm older, i've been listening to music my whole adult and child life, she decided to get tough using the year's main signifier and it happened to clang harshly off my ears. it's actually WORSE if she is just singing another song about her poor artistic struggles, does she not have any other topics?
enough. my points are like this: 1. that's how i heard it so that's how i hear it; 2. my not-liking of that song is PART of why i don't like the album; 3. i might be wrong about this BUT WHO CARES. certainly not her, she's from brooklyn, SHE GOES HARD.
also it kind of pissed me off when she said that anyone who thinks she's r&b is just racist and lumping her in with r&b because she's black. what, is she a music critic too? ew, gross.
― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 4 January 2009 22:08 (fifteen years ago) link
o_0
― what U cry 4 (jim), Sunday, 4 January 2009 22:09 (fifteen years ago) link
relax man - just like you're throwing out the possibility that it's a song about obama im throwing out the possibility that she wrote the song before obama/hope was really a thing
― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Sunday, 4 January 2009 22:12 (fifteen years ago) link
jordan i just wanted to understand your point. i guess now i do. but don't worry, i'm really really relaxed right now. thanks for the advice though!
― Dimension 5ive, Sunday, 4 January 2009 22:13 (fifteen years ago) link
thank you for not transcribing spank rock's verse on shove it
― aggy new year (surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally), Sunday, 4 January 2009 22:28 (fifteen years ago) link
lol
― ^likes black girls (HI DERE), Monday, 5 January 2009 19:25 (fifteen years ago) link
whos said shes R&B? but to be fair, you could see how someone might hear some of the beat-driven tracks on the album and make the link.
― titchy (titchyschneiderMk2), Monday, 5 January 2009 19:38 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.mediafire.com/?3zzumkz2joj
santogold + project pat 2gether at last
― and what, Tuesday, 13 January 2009 20:58 (fifteen years ago) link
http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=Santogold&rh=n%3A39%2Ck%3ASantogold&page=1
― some dude, Tuesday, 13 January 2009 21:05 (fifteen years ago) link
lolololololol good job, Amazon
― ^likes black girls (HI DERE), Tuesday, 13 January 2009 21:06 (fifteen years ago) link
Did you find what you were looking for? Yes No
― Calling All Creeps! (contenderizer), Tuesday, 13 January 2009 21:07 (fifteen years ago) link
"Mark Ronson In Studio" is still fucking hilarious btw.
― Barack You Like A Husseincane (HI DERE), Thursday, 22 January 2009 19:47 (fifteen years ago) link
lawsuit from Santo Gold (jeweler) -> she's now called santigold -> http://www.myspace.com/SANTiGOLD
― StanM, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:33 (fifteen years ago) link
― baaderonixx, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:35 (fifteen years ago) link
should've gone with Santos L. Halper
― who's been dubbed Fanta Pants because of his bright orange shorts (some dude), Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:41 (fifteen years ago) link
santis partyhouse
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:42 (fifteen years ago) link
I just recently saw the video for Creator, the one song I really like. It's one of the worst videos I've ever seen
In general I think the MIA comparisons are apt not only sonically, but because she has the same half-assedness about her vocals and her persona -- actually much more half-assed than MIA on the latter.
― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:44 (fifteen years ago) link
also they both live in clinton hill and think its bed stuy
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:45 (fifteen years ago) link
OH DAMN
― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:46 (fifteen years ago) link
pre-brooklyn go hard i dug that shove it joint when i heard it last year on a mixtape after sensual seduction but clicking that vid up top is killin me - folks really argued she wasnt jackin MIA?? how many people could you play that for sight unseen & tell them its the new MIA joint and theyd be like, oh it doesnt sound like her? or ask em who it is & see who comes up
― and what, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:46 (fifteen years ago) link
i still think shes cuet inna diamond from crime mob kinda way
― and what, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Lyrics of that song are also annoying - "I'm creative! I break the rules!" also "I run the streets" - wtf does that even mean when she says it?
― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:49 (fifteen years ago) link
i enjoy her music but yah
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:49 (fifteen years ago) link
i dunno i do kinda see her & mia as good role models for young girls who maybe 10 yrs ago woulda gravitated towards i dunno tori amos or some such garbage
― and what, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:50 (fifteen years ago) link
hah dont let the lex see that
― The User Formerly Known As Pfunkboy Latterly Known as.. (Herman G. Neuname), Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:51 (fifteen years ago) link
― You just got HAPPENED (Hurting 2), Thursday, February 12, 2009 4:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
hahaha ya. i enjoy like 60% of what i've heard but that song is kinda wtf
― s1ocki, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:52 (fifteen years ago) link
whos the herb on the decks wearing the "baltimore int'l" shirt
― eman, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:53 (fifteen years ago) link
if a year or two from now diplo is collaborating w/another woman of color on some poppy/dancey/rappy shit will that be sort of weird
― ice cr?m, Thursday, 12 February 2009 16:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Actually I was told is was "the real Santogold"... http://www.santogold.com
― factcheckr, Thursday, 12 February 2009 19:10 (fifteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsulZKXFxK8
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Thursday, 20 August 2009 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link
First time I've ever heard that. I knew Santi had worked on some of Ashlee's songs, and kept meaning to go back and check into it. I LIKES.
― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 20 August 2009 22:28 (fifteen years ago) link
Had this since around the year it came out. I really didn't get it. Thought it was half cooked pop rock/MIA wannabe bull. However, listening to it on the way to work and realized it sounded great as a whole. I mean it's influences is worn on its sleeve still, but at least I "get" it now. Plus I tend to forget that MIA is a half cooked Neneh Cherry so it all evens out.
― lilsoulbrother, Friday, 5 March 2010 14:01 (fourteen years ago) link