Kenna: what happened?

:-)

The story of Kenna's big-name supporters, test marketing, and ultimate lack of record sales is covered by a whole chapter in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink, titled "The Kenna Dilemma."

Ironic emo-crunk band name, 2030.

I really like this record a lot, but then again I would. Same with New Sacred Cow. Actually makes me want to read Blink.

Gladwell's argument seems to rest entirely on the fact that nobody knows more about what'd sell in the contemporary pop marketplace than Fred Durst. It's not a very good argument.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN-ysBuRVQA

I like this, its gotta a "soulless in LA" vibe to it.

Looks like a bad trip at a Roxy Cottontail party.

pretty sure this made it on my top ten singles list, great song

that song is OK but I think I would've preferred if Pharrell never touched the album, the other song he co-wrote is horrific.

"Better Wise Up" is one of my favorite songs of 2007.

I need to listen to the album again.

What happened? Well, he spent too much time taking pictures of abandoned children and before you knew it, he was secretly photographing children behind inflatable moon rooms.

Oh, wait. It's Kenna you're talking about.

Abandoned churches. Fucked up my "joke".

As opposed to just enough time taking pictures of abandoned children.

Hmmm, hadn't heard this. Seems like a big departure from his previous tortured gothy sound.

Kenna fucked up the Pavement disc.server board once. We all logged in one day to find a picture of this dude spread out before a sunrise or some shit.

sigh, this dude should have been inescapable

"Freetime" is so so great.

If he'd made another album as good as New Sacred Cow, he might've been.

he's had a really weird mix of projects as a writer/producer/remixer the last couple years (JoJo, Ashlee Simpson, Kings of Leon, Wiley, Lupe Fiasco, the Cool Kids, Mae, William Orbit, Mark Ronson, Fort Minor), no idea if anything good's come of it all but i'm glad he's keeping busy, supposedly a new album's coming in 2010.

that is a weird mix of projects

If he'd made another album as good as New Sacred Cow, he might've been.

He did! No one listened to either of them, though.

Zuh?! "Either" of them? I only knew of Make Sure They See My Face!

oh DUDE you have to grab New Sacred Cow NOW

I should probably listen to MSTSMF again, but I don't remember it being anywhere near as good as New Sacred Cow.

I was pleasantly surprised by his second album (got it used for cheap), and there's an excellent run from track 3-6. Dan's OTM too, "Better Wise Up" is like some sort of Radiohead pop hip-hop thing, it's great. That's awesome to hear he's still doing a lot of projects, I was wondering what happened to him. That list seems to suit him, he's got a weird set of influences to his music as well.

jon, check this out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owS1coeoWEc (click through to view)

This is the first song he ever put out and basically, since hearing it, I've wanted to have dude's sonic babies.

I finally saw that short somewhere without the Kenna track on top and it just didn't seem right.

also to build on what Vinnie said, "Better Wise Up" - "Be Still" - "Wide Awake" was probably my favorite song sequence of 2007

i was underwhelmed by the album of his that i had, but this is still hell of great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsulZKXFxK8

No no, I think I misread something. I have, and deeply adore, both New Sacred Cow and Let Them See My Face. I was referring to this exchange:

If he'd made another album as good as New Sacred Cow, he might've been.

He did! No one listened to either of them, though.

― as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap (HI DERE), Thursday, October 8, 2009 8:49 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

My tired brain interpreted that as a reference to two follow ups, hence my confusion. Thought maybe there was a "lost album" or something.

ah no, I just meant both albums were awesome but only 6 people actually heard them

Yeah, I got that now. I'm totally in agreement. I went through a mini Kenna spurt the other night and I think I really turned my wife on to him.

I didn't know Kenna worked on that Ashlee song too, but I knew Santi did. If they'd join forces again with a better artist, the world would be a better place.

"Sunday After You" owns pretty hard, huh

Yup.

Gladwell's argument seems to rest entirely on the fact that nobody knows more about what'd sell in the contemporary pop marketplace than Fred Durst

Haha the book did a great job making him sound uninteresting. "Despite being given an award by Vh-1, scoring loads of play on MTV2, being loved by both Fred Durst and U2's manager, Kenna never made it. His two biggest influences being early 80s pop and hip-hop..."

I kept reading the chapter thinking "The world doesn't need a hip-hop U2." but I'll see if I can give it a listen sometime, since you guys have been raving about him.

So this dude's debut probably would have done well in the dubstep era, huh?

or in 1990

He picked the perfect poor timing!

http://open.spotify.com/track/1JGx2sXe7S5ygmWPtXjWYD

I didn't even know this had happened

oh that just dropped like a week ago, i linked it on the Neptunes poll: The Official ILM THE NEPTUNES Poll (#27 In Series) - Voting & Campaigning Thread (VOTING STILL OPEN) (I've been encouraging ppl to vote for Kenna on there, "Freetime" has been the rough consensus song to rally around but obv there are lots of great tracks)

he also dropped an EP earlier this year called Land 2 Air Chronicles but i like "Long Gone" more than anything on that

So, this happened:

Someone I met at EDM Biz who seemed cognizant of this was Kenna, a musician known for his frequent collaborations with Chad Hugo of the Neptunes, who now works as one of the lead creatives at the freshly relaunched MySpace. He’s also the son of an economist—he jokes that he was “raised by freaking Adam Smith.”

“Music,” Kenna says, “from a performance perspective is a little less interesting right now because of the rise of individualism. Everybody wants to go to a party and they want to dance their fucking asses off. They want to be with their friends and they might want to do a little something and they want to wreck themselves. They don’t necessarily want to look at the stage. They don’t want to look at the DJ but the light show could be rad and the performer that is up there might want to hype them in certain moments. That is what the EDM world is doing. It is bringing people’s individual interests into one area with music as with the backdrop.”

Some might argue that because of its extreme efficiency, EDM is the future of music. And it is, if you’re casting your vote for a totally rational economic future. However, the beauty of art is that, sometimes, what makes the least financial sense resonates most with people. On top of that, there is no accounting for the black swan, the idea that something completely irrational could happen and shake up entire infrastructures. These happen all of the time in American pop—think Elvis, The Beatles, Nirvana, Lil Wayne. This tension between what people should feel and what they actually end up feeling is one of the things that makes loving music so fun.

As to why EDM might be the perfect music for our new, technology-laden age, Kenna says, “You can find anything that you want to find out at any given moment. And with that kind of information you now have many choices to make that you never had to make before. I have so many things to think about. Now I have everything to think about. So what am I going to focus on? Myself. So if I have something that I want to believe in, it’s myself. So what actually allows me to focus on me? EDM does.”