Artist of the Week: Mono and Nikitaman

With a great driving dancehall beat, Mono & Nikitaman represent Austria and the Netherlands respectively. Check out their videos on my "Artist of the Week" video link on the sidebar to the left (when it's not cluttered by advertisements). If you're interested in finding out more, check out their official website.

Video Review: Peter Fox and Cold Steel "Live aus Berlin"

Anybody who has spoken with me about music over the past year has discovered that I have an obsession: Peter Fox. No, I haven’t gone peculiar, but I have fallen in love with the music of an artist who has set the German music world on fire for years – first as a singer with the dancehall group Seeed, and more recently as a solo artist. For me, Fox’s 2008 album Stadtaffe was a revelation. Brimming with emotion and vigor, Stadtaffe seamlessly blended elements of hip-hop, reggae, jazz, rock, and even the sounds of a classical ensemble and the North Carolina based Cold Steel drumline providing percussion, to create a hybrid that is both danceable and thought provoking at the same time. So powerful was Stadtaffe that it peaked at Number 1 in the German and Austrian charts, and in the Top 10 in Switzerland and the Netherlands, with the single Schwartz zu Blau even winning the Bundesvision Song Contest for 2009. So deeply did this album impact me, and so surprised was I both by its success in Europe as well as its complete lack of exposure in the United States, that I felt compelled to search out other artists creating great music in other parts of the world that are never heard in the English speaking world and to write about them in this blog.

Being the inveterate consumer that I am, though, one album is never enough. That is why I was so excited to hear that Peter Fox released the perfect thing for those of us craving more: a live album along with an accompanying live DVD called Live aus Berlin. Well, I should qualify that. He released three different versions: the live DVD only; the live DVD with the live album; and for the fan with spectacular amounts of money, the DVD, the live album, a book of photos of the concert, and a second CD of instrumental versions of the songs on the original album. While I am, by my nature, obsessive about getting everything I can possibly get my hands on, I generally find instrumental versions of songs to be unappealing to all but the karaoke aficionados out there (you might as well release an album of songs without drums or bass). Therefore, I opted for the DVD/CD version of this release, and it was well worth the investment.

First, the live album is a real treat. While there is nothing new or novel about the presentation, it is an excellent recording of most of the songs off of the Stadtaffe album, plus a few classic Seeed songs for good measure. Fox’s backup band is huge, including the usual guitar/bass/drums triad plus two keyboardists (one presumably to mimic the sound of the orchestra on the original recording), a two-man horn section, three backup singers, and five members of Cold Steel, and their musicianship is flawless. Not only do they play the melodically and rhythmically complex songs with remarkable precision, but they inject a level of energy and vitality that is what makes a live recording special.

The real prize in this offering, though, is the live DVD. In addition to playing through the songs on the live album, the main DVD feature also includes outtakes from the tour, a brief description of how Fox found Cold Steel and involved them in the project, and a mind blowing drumline sequence involving Cold Steel and every other member of the band. But the true value is watching this band play live is, true to his roots in Seeed, so much effort and energy is put into the visual as well as the aural aspects of the show. For this, most of the credit goes to Cold Steel, who do things with percussion that make your heart race. The DVD extras add the live version of the song Zucker (which is on the Stadtaffe album, but was for some reason excluded from the concert feature), the music videos from the various singles from the Stadtaffe album, as well as a handful of tribute videos created by Peter Fox fans. While my collection is full of videos of live performances, many of which have only collected dust since I first watched them, I can watch Live aus Berlin over and over again.

Unfortunately, if my rather elementary German skills haven’t failed me, Peter Fox will not be putting out another solo album. Instead, he will be returning to Seeed, and will presumably turn his abundant talents more toward production, which is where his true love lies. But, if Stadtaffe and Live aus Berlin remain as his entire body of solo work, Peter Fox will be remembered as a unique and uniquely engaging artist.

The Just Discovered File: Mallu Magalhaes

This is my first installment of hopefully many that I am calling "The Just Discovered File". It will be a quick blurb noting an artist that I have somehow stumbled across whom I find interesting and exciting.

Anyway, my first entry in the "File" is Mallu Magalhaes from Brazil. At the ripe old age of 17, this innovative songwriter is already on her second album (both albums are called "Mallu Magalhaes"), and is taking Brazil by storm.

Her music is a mix of folk, rock, reggae, and any number of other styles you can mention. But what pulls them all together is her compelling yet vulnerable voice, fun lyrics in both Portuguese and English, and incredibly catchy tunes.

So far, she's not on iTunes or Amazon in the U.S.. You can find her on Amazon.de and Amazon.fr though, if you're willing to pay for shipping (which, by the way, is a couple of Euros cheaper from France).

International Copyright Law

This week’s post isn’t meant so much to be informative, as to ask a question.

I am hoping that somebody out there is an international copyright expert, because I’m trying to find out why it is so difficult to find music published abroad here in the United States.

I’ll tell you what I mean. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument that I’m trying to find the latest album by the group Jennifer Rostock (I know, it sounds like it’s a solo artist, but they’re actually a really good band). I start out hoping to get a hard copy, as I’m something of a Luddite, so I go to Amazon. Nope, they’re not there, and if they are, a new copy is $58 not including shipping. So, I go to Barnes & Noble, Borders, and most of the mass music retailers out there. Nothing. Okay, fair enough. They’re faceless corporations that care as much about music as I do about discount rates used in the pudding industry. I’m not picky. I’ll get a digital copy to save on shipping costs. iTunes tells me flat out that, despite the fact that they have Jennifer Rostock in their library, they’re not allowed to sell it to me here in the United States. Figuring it might just be an issue with iTunes, I go to the download store at Amazon.de (the German version of what we’re all familiar with). Again, they tell me to get lost as I’m not in Germany. Ultimately, my only option is to buy the CD from Germany, and suffer the insult and indignity of a $15 shipping and handling charge (which is still far less than that insulting $58 from Amazon in the U.S.).

I could be wrong, but I thought that one of the great advantages of the digital age was that borders would become irrelevant to commerce, and that digital transmission of data (including music) would mean that excess costs like printing, packaging, and shipping could be eliminated forever. This should be a great new age where artists from around the world can distribute their work anywhere without having to suffer the expense of printing out hundreds or thousands of CDs and shipping them hither and yon. Instead, here we are in the second decade of the 21^st Century, and we are still facing the same distribution limits that we did 30 years ago.

Well, I take that back. 30 years ago, we weren’t aware of music produced elsewhere in the world (except in the UK, of course), so we didn’t know what we were missing. Now, we are aware of this music, but we still can’t get it.

So, I have been thinking about this conundrum, and I have played out various scenarios in my mind. Perhaps it’s that music publishers do not want to have to spend the money to market their bands in countries where they don’t believe they would have any appeal. I could have understood this 10 years ago, when music was only distributed by CD, cassette, or album, and publishing and shipping costs would have been prohibitive unless a certain return on the investment could be reasonably expected. But, as far as I know, there is no additional incremental cost for selling a digital copy of a song in Uzbekistan over selling it in the United States. Even if only 5 copies are sold, that is 5 additional copies that cost nothing to produce or distribute.

All I can think of is that there is some sort of copyright exposure for certain artists trying to distribute their work overseas. I wouldn’t have thought this would be true, after all some artists send their work overseas all the time and are apparently covered by copyright laws – except maybe in China. But, does it entail some sort of extra incremental cost to copyright your work internationally instead of simply in your home country?

These are only the random speculations of a fevered mind, and they have no basis in any understanding of international copyright law. I am hoping that somebody who reads this knows more on the subject than I do, and can offer me some insights. If there are no good legal reasons why international music cannot be distributed in the United States, perhaps it’s time for a company to focus some energy on opening up international artists to American consumption. At the very least, perhaps it’s time for international publishers and distributors to open up the sluices and take away their silly regional restrictions on distribution.

Open World Music

Shhh. . . I don't want to burst any bubbles out there, but the United States and Great Britain aren't the only countries in the world that make great rock music.

"But Peter," you say, "I already knew that. I have the entire 5,000 volume set of Putamayo CDs, and I can sing Tajik falak music at ritual circumcisions with the best of them!"

Well, that may be so. But that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about the whole realm of rock music (including its subsets: pop, rap, reggae, soul, R&B, and many others) that is produced around the world, often in languages other than English, that should be extremely appealing to the American consumer, but that is all but unavailable through normal consumer channels.

As a rabid lifelong fan and collector of music, much of it rather more esoteric than the usual stuff you find on Top 40 radio, I have always been at least somewhat aware that there is a whole world of great rock music out there. When traveling overseas, or while making foreign friends, I have occasionally been exposed snippets of really exciting bands. While living in Prague in the early 90s, MTV Europe was burning up with videos of Mano Negra, a band that practically invented the genre of Latin Alternative. While visiting East Asia for business school in the early 00s, Tokyo was reverberating to the sound of Pushim, a band that performs hot vibe reggae and soul in Japanese and that has a lead singer who could blow Christina Aguilera (and others of her ilk) out of the water. And yet, despite the widespread success of these bands and many others in their home countries or geographic regions, few in the United States are even aware that these bands exist.

This issue ultimately came to a head in my own mind when I enrolled my daughter in the German School of Washington, DC this past September. As she follows in her parents' footsteps in being an avid lover of raucous rock and roll music, and knowing that many of my foreign born friends first learned English through their exposure to American and British popular culture, I naturally wanted to find her good German language music. Unfortunately, if you go to your local record store and look in the "German" bin or search for "German Music" on Amazon.com or iTunes, you could be forgiven for coming away thinking that all music produced in Germany is played on accordions and tubas.

Interestingly enough, it was YouTube and then later LastFM that offered me the "in" to German rock. It was there that I first became aware of platinum selling artists that, for whatever reason - be it cultural, linguistic, or legal, you will never find in the United States through the usual distribution channels.

Since then, I have made it my personal mission first to find these exciting musicians, and second to let Americans know about them. Up to the point that my ADD kicks in, and my obsessive interests migrate to something else equally shiny, I will be posting here my commentaries on the rock music scenes of countries around the world, reviews of artists and albums, links to places you can purchase international rock, and videos of songs that I particularly like.

This is not to say that I know more on the subject than anybody else. Rather, I am hoping that I can start a conversation with other music lovers, music producers, and music marketers. Tell me about what is going on in your music scene in your part of the world. Tell me about the exciting new band that you just discovered, or tell me about your band. Alternatively, tell me why you think American or British rock has more universal appeal than what comes from elsewhere. I want to know!

Frankly, I think there is something terribly wrong when the vast majority of European Grammy Award nominees are American artists, and I hope that - in my own small way - I can do something about that for people who want to know more.