Loading summary
Transcript13 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music. Early and ad free on Amazon Music included with Prime.
- [00:13]
B
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast Smart move Being financially savvy Smart move. Another smart move having State Farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling. Just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Cover options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [01:09]
A
There are so many things in the universe that we just can't explain. Scientists, law enforcement, researchers, Internet detectives, they continue to come up empty when it comes to certain things. The fate of Amelia Earhart is a good one. On July 2, 1937, she took off on the next leg of her attempt to fly around the world. And then she just disappeared. There are all kinds of stories about what happened or may have happened. Search missions have used sonar, aerial surveillance and underwater drones around Howland island in the Pacific, her last known location. But so far nothing. Who was Jack the Ripper? Again, dozens of theories and possible suspects. It might have been a part time school teacher named Montague John Druitt. Or maybe it was Aaron Kosminski, a local barber. Even Prince Albert Victor, the grandson of Queen Victoria, is a suspect. Ripperologists, and yes, that is a real term, are split and frankly have no idea what happened beginning in 1888. If you want something more current, there's the wow. Signal. A 72 second radio burst in 1977 that some believe was a radio transmission from extraterrestrials. Maybe, maybe not. However, there are some things that can be explained, or at least we can come close to it. Scientists are now pretty sure where the building materials for Stonehenge came from, even if there are so many other things that they haven't cracked yet. The fate of the Frankland expedition in the high Canadian Arctic. After about 160 years, wreckage was finally found. The infamous Tunguska explosion over Siberia in 1908, that flattened 2,100 square kilometers of forest. It's been proven that this was a meteor more than 50 meters wide that exploded at a height of about 8 kilometers. There are also plenty of unexplained things in the world of rock, things that we often don't question. Why do we do these things? Why is it called that? Who came up with that idea? Which now when we think of it, is actually kind of goofy. Let's deal with some of that. This is another episode of something I call the Rock Explainer. This is the ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross. There's David bowie from his 1973 album Pinups and his version of the who's Can't Explain, which kind of captures the vibe of what's coming up. Except that I think I can explain some things. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross and this is another edition of the Rock Explainer, a chance to understand why certain things in music are the way they are. Let me give you an example. Like I said, that Bowie track we heard is a cover version. It's his recording of a song Pete Townsend wrote for the who in 1964. Many other people have issued their own interpretations. The Scorpions, the Sweets, a British punk band called Snuff, a Dublin group called the Minutes, and so on. Again, when someone records or performs someone else's song, we call that a cover version. Okay, why? Well, this involves, believe it or not, some music industry racism. This is how it was explained to me. This whole idea goes back to the days when there was horrible segregation and racism in the music industry. Specifically in the 40s, 50s and 60s, black musicians were creating some of the most exciting music out there. However, there were many, many places where black musicians were just not welcome. Even their songs. Yes, these tracks would get airplay on black radio stations, but because of the inherent racism of the day, radio stations that catered to white audiences wouldn't touch this stuff. These original recordings were considered vulgar, overly sexual, and against the proper, God fearing beliefs of white Americans. This music was also considered to be destabilizing on society and would corrupt the youth of the nation at best and bring Satan into their lives at worst. However, record labels and music promoters recognized that this was good music and that given the chance, it would be very popular and profitable. So how could they get around these racist attitudes? Simple. Have a white artist record their own version of the black artist's song. These recordings were toned down, sanitized, and basically had all the rock and roll squeezed out of them. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. In October 1955, Little Richard released this seminal, groundbreaking rock and roll song. Now that was outrageously cool in its day and even cooler for those who knew about the original version with the lyrics that had the gay overtures. But for much of white America, it was simply outrageous and had no place in their God loving world. So how could the label get this song to be heard in mainstream? Which is to say white places get the squeaky clean Pat Boone to record it in a very, very, very, very toned down way. This came out a year after Little Richard's recording. Having Pat Boone record Tutti Frutti that way allowed the song to be played in more places, including all those hard to get white radio stations it reached or covered the rest of the marketplace. Ergo, such recordings were known as cover versions. The original definition has long been lost to history and this is now the universally accepted term. But if we dig deep enough, we see that the term cover version is rooted in the racism of the 40s, 5th 50s and 60s. With that being said, here's another cover version that was done not because the original artist was black, but because it was a good song that felt good to play and perform. This is the original version from 1964 by the Cincinnati born singer Gloria Jones. Now, in the 80s, the British band Soft Sal had a massive global hit with their cover version. So now you know what's referred to as a cover version, in which where that terminology all came from. Next explanation, There's a sample and its cousin, the interpolation. Okay, what's going on here? A sample is when you surgically excise part of another song, an existing composition for use in one that is brand new. You are using the exact audio from that other song's recording. This construction by deconstruction method of songwriting goes back to at least the 1940s, when French composer Pierre Schaeffer came up with something he called musique concrete. He made various recordings, trains and other vehicles, kitchen utensils, even vibrations of the human body. And then he cut them into bits and then rearranged them into audio collages. Here's an example. This is from 1948. Sampling was also done for comedic effect. Dickie Goodman, an American composer of novelty songs, released this in 1956. This is called Flying Saucer. We interrupt this record to bring you a special bulletin. The reports of a flying saucer hovering over the city have been confirmed. The flying saucers are real. Real. When I feel what my heart can't conceal. That was the clatters recording. Too real. We switch you now to our on the spot reporter. Downtown.
- [10:29]
B
Come on, baby, let's go Downtown.
- [10:32]
A
Take it away, John Cameron. Cameron. I know that's, that's cheesy off the charts, but back then it was hilarious. And reached number three on the Billboard singles charts. Goodman was taken to court for copyright infringement, but he was left off the hook when a judge declared that this was parody and therefore a brand new composition. He'd have hits like this as late as 1975. Such sound experiments, more sophisticated ones obviously, were also carried out by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and others. But the first musician to use a sample in the modern sense was probably Michel Bernholk. He was a French musician who released a song in 1968 called Burundi Black, which featured an excised recording of 25 African drummers from Burundi. Sampling got easier through the 70s and early 80s with new electronic devices. There was something called the computer music melodeon in 1976, which was used by Stevie Wonder for at least one album. Then came bigger machines like the Fairlight and the Sinclavier, which cost tens of thousands of dollars. Cheaper, more powerful machines soon came along. There was one From Toshiba in 1981, another from EMU Systems a few years later, and most importantly for the time, the Akai MPC 60. Very powerful and very popular with people like Trent Reznor and a huge chunk of the hip hop world. Then came this song, a number one hit around the world that was constructed almost entirely of samples. While there is some original music in here, much of what we hear was taken from no fewer than 29 other sources. 29 other records, ranging from old recordings to movie trailers. This is Mars and Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Pump up the volume. Dance, dance. Okay, I think we're now clear on the definition of a sample. It's an ethically and legally legitimate tool for songwriting and composition as long as you get permission from the original composer and pay them, two fees have to be paid. When you sample somebody, there's the master recording rights, which is the actual sound recording that you're using, and the publishing rights for use of the composition itself, the people that own that composition. So what's an interpolation? This is a re recording or recreation of something from another song without actually excising it from the original. Basically you're. Well, you're covering part of a song inside your new song, and you're doing it very, very exactly in other words. You're copying the writing, not copying the recording. This makes an interpolation cheaper than the sample because in this case you only have to pay the rights for the composition, not the master, because you are making a new master. Interpolations have been used a lot in pop and hip hop. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars interpolated Oops Upside youe Head in the song Uptown Funk. Mariah Carey's fantasy interpolates Genius of love from the TomTom club circles by Post Malone interpolates Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. And despite what you may have thought or heard, Vanilla Ice did not sample the Queen David Bowie song Under Pressure. For Ice Ice Baby, that is a recreation, an interpolation. And such a thing is okay, providing you acknowledge it and pay for the privilege. If you don't, you step over a very fine legal line into plagiarism, which is theft. Ask Noel Gallagher about some of his legal issues. Here's an example of a by the book interpolation. In 1981, Kraftwerk released a song called Computer Love. Fast forward to the summer of 2005, Coldplay released their X and Y album. It features the song Talk and it interpolates Computer Love. Yes, they did it knowingly and yes, they got permission. In fact, Kraftwerk shares in the songwriting credits and has made some, well, millions of dollars in royalties. All of us are saying, sure, you can use those nine notes. Pretty good deal, right? You could take a little picture of something you see in the future. So there you go. That explains the difference between a sample and an interpolation. Both those terms will come up again in a second. Because when the Rock Explainer returns, we'll look at why artists are selling their song catalogs for big money.
- [15:56]
B
Tito's handmade vodka is America's favorite vodka for a reason. From the first legal distillery in Texas, Tito's is six times distilled until it's just right and naturally gluten free. Making it a high quality spirit that mixes with just about anything. From the smoothest martinis to the best Bloody Marys. Tito's is known for giving back. Teaming up with non profits to serve its communities and do good for dogs. Make your next cocktail with Tito's. Distilled and bottled by 5th Generation Inc. Austin, Texas. 40% alcohol by volume. Savor responsibly. In the 70s, four young women were found dead. For nearly 50 years, their cases went cold. I'm Nancy Hickst a senior crime report for global news. In the season finale of Crime Beat, I share how investigators uncovered shocking evidence of a serial killer and hear exclusive interviews with the killer's family. Listen to the full season of Crime Beat early and ad free on Amazon Music by asking Alexa to play the podcast Crime Beat.
- [16:56]
A
Welcome back to the Song Explainer, an attempt to sort out some of the confusing or inexplicable things music fans have had to deal with. Here's the next question. Why are so many artists selling their music catalogs for tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars? Well, let's start at the beginning. When an artist writes a song, he or she has the copyright on it. In other words, no one can copy that song in any form until the artist is compensated. To help with that, the artist signs a publishing deal in exchange for a cut of the proceeds. It's usually 50, 50. The publisher polices all use of the artist's song and makes sure that the appropriate royalties are collected and paid. This includes everything from radio airplay to record sales, to streaming fees, to covers to all manners of public performance. And that's where the money in songwriting really lies. Publishing. The publishing rights, they are extremely valuable to the artist. Publishing is different from holding the master rights. If you hold the master rights, you own the actual finished recording, which is different from the rights to the songwriting. When you sign a record deal, the label almost always 100% of the time retains the master rights. This gives them ownership over physical and digital copies of the final recording. You see the difference? Now There are exceptions, U2 and Taylor Swift among them, but it's very rare for an artist to own their master rights. But back to music publishing. Since the mid 2010s, there's been a rush by a well financed group of companies to buy up the publishing rights held by artists. I've been maintaining a running list of such deals, and there were hundreds of them. Bob Dylan sold his publishing to Universal Music Publishing for something more than $300 million. Bruce Springsteen got over $500 million from Sony Music Entertainment for his, and Queen got over a billion dollars in their deal. There are companies like Primary Wave, Roundhill, Concord, and Hypnosis. They're all doing the same thing. Now, you're probably asking, why would an artist part with their life's work? Well, there are a couple of excellent reasons. First, let me explain why a company would enter into such a deal. Music is valuable. Great songs will always be great. Therefore, they in theory, should generate royalties for a very, very long time. That makes music a viable long term investment. Point two, Entering into such a deal gives the artist financial freedom with the proceeds of the sale of their publishing. They now have enough money to last them the rest of their lives. They can use that money however they want to record new music. Investments, activism, philanthropy, estate planning. How are these catalogs valued? Well, the buyer will look at the artist's work and determine how much it generates from all sources over the course of a year. Then they'll negotiate a multiple of that number. Five times, 10 times, 20 times, whatever the annual figure, and that becomes the purchase price. The artist then gets a pile of cash that they would have earned over the next X years. This is their money. They would have probably earned it anyway. They're just getting all that money up front now while they're still alive. See, the way copyright works in most countries is that an artist or their estate retains control of a song up until 75 years after the artist has died. In the case of multiple songwriters, the rights to the song stays with them until the last surviving member dies, plus an additional 75 years. When that time expires, the song goes into the public domain and no more royalty payments are required to anybody. It is up for grabs. Anybody can use it in any way they want. So let's say Bruce Springsteen died in 2025. He is the sole songwriter on Born to Run. That means Sony has until the year 2100 to make back its $500 million investment in Bruce's music and then return profits to shareholders before the song ends up in the public domain. So you see, these companies are playing a very long game. Now, back to the artist. If they keep their publishing, they're looking to get a royalty check in the mail every, what, six months or so? Governments look at that sort of revenue, the same as a salary. So that means the artist is taxed at whatever income tax rate applies. And that could be 35, 40, 50%, depending on where you are. However, if the artist takes all that future money all at once, governments consider that to be capital gains. Taxes on such things are generally much lower. In the US for example, that might be as low as 15%. In the UK it tops at around 20%. So what would you rather pay? 15% tax or 50% tax? It's a no brainer. Now, I should point out that Canada has a capital gains rate of 50%, which explains why we don't see a lot of Canadian musicians cashing in unless they're residents of the US or the UK or some other jurisdiction with lower taxes. Artists who have jumped on this bandwagon include the Killers, Blondie, Devo, Silver Chair, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sting, Motley Crue, Z, Todd Def Leppard, Alison Chains, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, the estate of Joey Ramone, Judas Priest, Imagine Dragons, and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of others. Another great example of this is Derek Whibley of Sum 41. The band is done and he wants to move on to make sure he and his family live comfortably for the rest of their lives. He sold his publishing catalog, all the sum 41 songs and anything else he's been involved in. And the buyer was a company called Harborview. He lives in Las Vegas, which means he's in a tax jurisdiction with a low capital gains rate. Whatever amount he received, although the official number was never made public, it's somewhere north of US$30 million. That means Derek will be just fine. Some 41 and still waiting from 2002. Derek Whibley wrote the song, but is no longer the owner of the song. He sold the publishing rights to Harborview Equity Partners. So how is Harborview and all these other companies going to make back their investments? Well, there's radio airplay, video airplay, streaming, public performances, other artists covering those songs, licensing of those songs for movies, television and commercials. And revenue will come from samples and interpolations. Here are some other questions you might ask. Let's say a group sells their catalog. What happens when they play live? Do they have to ask permission to perform what was once their own stuff? No, that's covered by the publisher and performing rights organizations. Can the buyer use the songs for absolutely anything? Well, generally no. There will be clauses in the purchase contract that stipulate what the songs can and cannot be used for. For example, use of a song in a partisan political context may be forbidden. Another artist may write in a clause saying that the song can't be used for advertising of alcohol. There are a myriad of other possible exceptions. What about any songs the artist may write and release after the deal? Generally, those songs are not covered by the sale and stay in the possession of the artist. Here's an example. In 2020, Imagine Dragons sold their catalog to Concord Music Publishing for a reported, wait for it, $100 million. They have since released two albums, Mercury Acts 1 and 2 in 2012 and Loom in 2024. Whatever they earn from songs like this and all the albums going forward is still theirs. Now let's talk about the money these big companies have shelled out. They have made big investments. Now they will actively encourage all those things that we talked about in order to wring out all the money they can from these songs. And it is in their best interest to keep these songs alive and in the mind of the public for decades and decades to come. Next question. Have you ever looked at the songwriter credits of some songs and see 10, 12, 15 people credited as having something to do with the song's creation? The old norm was 1, 2, maybe 3 attached to the writing of a song, sometimes to all the members of the group. Get a piece. They all contribute equally, at least legally. So what's the deal with having more than a dozen people contributing to one song? It comes down to record labels are in the business of selling noises to the public. These noises have to be as appealing as possible to the widest number of people as possible. Hit making is extremely difficult, and the public is very fickle. You can never predict what is going to be a hit. Therefore, the labels want to cut their risk of having a flop as much as possible. And how do you do that? Well, you bring in as many songwriting experts as you think you need. Much of today's music is written by committee. Labels and publishers round up teams of writers, producers, and those known as topliners who specialize when it comes to conjuring up melodies and lyrics. They might also call in people who do nothing but create beats. Instead of just one or two people working on a song, a group of experts are hired. Some work together in a room and others work remotely, sending digital files back and forth. The thinking is, the more writers you have, the better chance you'll have of getting a song with big hooks, memorable verses, and overall commercial appeal. These pros are brought together in songwriting camps where everyone works together crafting hooks for the chorus and the melodies and the bridges. Whatever the song needs, they will put it together. The best bits are taken, and as contributors, all those involved get a piece of the songwriting credits. In some cases, producers, managers, and the artist themselves might get credits. That's usually to cover some kind of legal contingency, or maybe it's just goodwill to keep everybody happy. Whatever. The bottom line is that much of today's music is extremely industrialized and almost factory like in its construction. And it works. In the case of Drake, his 2018 song Nice for what was written by 21 different people, and they were brought in all for different reasons. Two were even dead. And because of a sample of a sample contained within the song. All eight members of Wu Tang Clan were or making money from this song. What used to be simple and solitary is in many cases a group effort. But we still have people like Billy Corgan, who writes everything himself. One more explainer to go and I might need your help fleshing this one out. Upgrade your laundry routine with a durable and reliable Maytag laundry pair at Lowes. Like the new Maytag washer and dryer with performance enhanced stain fighting power designed to cut through serious dirt and grime. And what's great is this laundry pair is in stock and ready for delivery when you need it the most. Don't miss out. Shop Maytag in store or online today at Lowe's. Limu and Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings vary unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts here's one more topic for this edition of the Rock Explainer. I'm going to float this, but if you have better information, please let me know. It all begins with an email from Ray Whatever handedness you are, we all get that you do the bulk of the detail work with that hand. You eat with it, write with it, throw a ball with it, and use it as the primary go to for most things in life. So can you tell me why it is that a righty guitar has the right hand doing the strumming or plucking while the left hand, your worst one, is doing all the business with chording and such. I guess he means soloing. Seems to me that the left hand is doing the busy work while the right hand is taking the easier job. Should a right handed guitar not have the neck on the player's right to do the detail work with a dominant hand? That's the good question. I never thought of it, but let me take a stab at it. Today's guitar is the descendant of thousands of years of stringed instruments. We can go all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia for instruments like the lyre and the ood. Many hundreds of years later we had the lutes and the vohela, the first proper guitars or at least instruments that we would recognize as guitars today started appearing in the 16th century. The modern six string dates to the 18th century and by the third decade of the 20th century, the electric guitar shows up. Throughout all those iterations, the skill to playing was found in the right hand. As players picked and plucked the strings, the left hand was left to form chords. There was also a long standing stigma against Southpaws against lefties. They were associated with bad luck and even witchcraft. So to avoid being shunned or stoned or burned at the stake, southpaws worked to become right handed. This is something that continued in schools right through the middle of the 20th century. As your left handed grandfather may have told you, he had his knuckles whacked by a nun with a ruler every time he picked up a pencil to write with his left. The guitar solo, the idea of playing something crazy on the fretboard with your left hand is something that maybe dates back to the 1890s with the rise of the flamenco guitar, which was among the very first to showcase the guitar as a solo instrument. The first guitar solo on record in popular music might have been performed by Eddie Lang, a jazz guitarist of the 1920s and 30s. We can also look at blues players like Blind Mellon Jefferson. What we'd recognize as a rock solo first appeared in the 1950s. Credit might go to Scotty Moore on Elvis Presley's Good Rockin Tonight in 1954 and or Chuck Berry on the song Maybelline in 1955. Since then, we've had guitar heroes ranging from Jimmy Page to Eddie Van Halen to Jack White using their left hand to play those intricate solos. Dave Mustaine of Megadeth once told me he considers his left hand to be the money maker. There are exceptions, of course. Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain are all lefties and either use guitars specifically made for lefties or in the case of Jimi just turned his right handed guitar upside down. But in these situations, they use their dominant hand, their left, the same way a righty would use theirs to strum and pluck and pick at the strings. Their right hand, the non dominant one, forms the chords and goes wild for solos. So it's a mirror image situation. Bottom line, Ray, is that the guitar and all the instruments that came before it were built with right handedness in mind because of the way they were originally played, with the right hand doing all the work and the left hand just forming chords. That and the fact that being left handed might get you executed. So that's my explanation. If anyone knows more or has a better explanation, let me know and I'll include it on the next episode of the Rock Explainer. Meanwhile, let's have a listen to what I consider to be an extremely underrated guitar solo. The guitarist on this song is Burton Avere. This guy has some serious, serious chops with both hands. This was the sixth episode in the Rock Explainer series. If you have questions I invite you to go back through the podcast archive for the previous shows, where I tackle all sorts of things that require some deconstruction and, well, explanation. Those podcasts are available wherever you get your podcasts, and they're all free. If you have anything about rock that you need explaining, let me know and I'll put it on the list for the next edition of this thing. No question is too insignificant. And for God's sake, don't think for a second that your question may be stupid. Let's get to the bottom of everything. It's always great to know why things are the way they are. Meanwhile, let's meet up on any of the social media platforms. I'm on most of them. Check out my website, ajournalofmusicalthings.com it's updated every day with music news, opinion, music recommendations. You should get the free daily newsletter too, so you're always ahead of your friends. And there's my other podcast, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. This is where true crime meets music. Get those wherever you get your podcast too. Feedback to AlanAlancross CA with comments, questions, complaints and criticisms. I will write back technical productions by Rob Johnston. Talk to you next time. I'm alan Cross Friday, October 17 My name is Mickey Fox from the producers of Fire Country. I'm sheriff of Edgewater. A must watch new series on global and streaming on Stack tv. Drop the guns.
- [35:31]
B
It's a raccoon.
- [35:32]
A
I know them.
- [35:32]
B
I got it.
- [35:33]
A
In this town, fighting crime hits close to home. Sheriff's authority and recognized up here.
- [35:39]
B
Dale give it our best.
- [35:41]
A
Sheriff country new series Friday, October 17th on Global and stream live and on demand on Stack tv.