Musicians Are Human Beings

I've wanted to write about this for a few weeks now, just because of something I've been noticing on Twitter. And I want to say that this isn't especially about any particular case, there've been a few instances I've seen where people have criticised celebrities for not replying to tweets, for "ignoring them" or favouring others or whatever.

This makes me really sad.

I see cases of people telling someone they're a fan of that they're excluding them for not replying to things they say on Twitter. People being upset with other fans for being "closer" to artists than they are, or taking personal offence for not having a question answered or a "hello" responded to.

And here's the thing. I think it's important to remember that we love these people because of the music they make, essentially. Because we heard a song and it made us feel something that made us want to invest in them. The things that come after, the learning about their personality through Twitter and Facebook, that's an addition and it's great being able to connect. Absolutely amazing. That the opportunity to tell your favourite band that their art has changed your life is not just something offered for people that have the privilege of being able to go to shows, but anyone with internet access.

But these people we're interacting with are essentially musicians. People doing their jobs That is the main thing. Not the ways that they do or do not commit to their fans using social media. You found the music first, not the character of the person that made it and 99% of the time I think that's what artists want. We love these people and invest in being a part of their fanbase in the first place because they make music. And sometimes they're kind. And sometimes they're beautiful. And sometimes they're hilarious. But they are not perfect, and they have flaws, and it's unfair and insulting to expect any of your heroes to be a fountain of knowledge or anything other than a human being with a life and with feelings. Calling them "angels" and "gods" is expecting a lot. It is a lot of pressure to be a role model. It is a lot of pressure to be somebody's hero.

From the perspective of anyone famous enough to get thousands of messages a day, replying to any of that shows a lot of kindness and commitment. I'm not suggesting for a minute that using social media to communicate with fans is completely unselfish, people have lots of reasons for doing it, but it's also very brave. It could be so easy to shut up in a studio making albums, or run to a tour bus and hide after shows, and that's fine too, that's completely allowed. Anyone putting in that extra time and effort to connect with fans on Twitter should be respected for doing so, not given criticism or put under stress for occasionally missing a message, or forgetting to reply to something. Social media is completely crazy, your time will come, it's no reason to feel excluded. And there is so much to take from being an intense part of a group of fans than just a relationship with a musician.

"Babel" Day Craziness

So today, Mumford and Sons second album, "Babel", is released out into the world.

I am just one devoted fan that's been waiting two years for this, and although there's been a lot of early versions of new songs going round on YouTube and Tumblr etc for the last two years I held back. I wanted to do the traditional thing; go out and buy a physical copy and listen to the whole record from start to finish, having heard none of it before.

I semi-cracked tonight: I listened to Ben, Ted, Winston and Marcus' Q&A with Geoff Lloyd on Absolute Radio, during which they played some of the new record ("Below My Feet", "Lover of the Light", "Hopeless Wanderer", "Whispers in the Dark" and new single "I Will Wait".)

I lay in bed in layers of jumpers, with wet hair, lit candles all over the room and just sat in peace with my eyes closed and listened.

And I was worried a little about "second album syndrome".

But it is so beautiful.

I'll write a review, maybe in a week or two, but for now that's all I can summon. Just... complete state of wonder. Sorry for being so inarticulate.

At the end of the radio show, "Lover of the Light" came on and my room smelt like pine. And singing along I felt a lump in my throat. And I realised I felt something I hadn't in years: I felt like it was Christmas. Like a kid on Christmas Eve. I don't even know, either.

I'm going to hold back from downloading it now, and going to the nearest record store forty minutes away straight after college tomorrow. But you can go on iTunes from right now onwards and get your copy, or buy one in most shops.

I'll talk about "Babel" properly after I've bought it tomorrow but I just wanted to document how happy I am right now.

Happy Babel Day, internet. xxx

On the Amanda Palmer, Steve Albini Scandal

In the development of her new record, “Theatre Is Evil”, Amanda Palmer opened up a KickStarter project to fund it and donations came in to $1.2million. On her upcoming tour, Amanda has invited fans to play with her and her band, the Grand Theft Orchestra, each night.

Producer Steve Albini said on an online forum about Amanda that if “"you are forced by your ignorance into pleading for donations and charity work, you are then publicly admitting you are an idiot.”

This just shows a complete lack of understanding of what the internet is doing to music, how things are changing. Amanda Palmer hasn’t “demanded” anything from her fans.

Asking fans who play instruments to play with her on tour is not cheap, it’s offering someone an opportunity, and from what I’ve seen on Twitter there are no horn-players that feel exploited or cheated out by this, the people that actually have a right to. It’s open minded, innovative and brave. These are musicians who are probably unprofessional, being offered an opportunity to play on stage with one of their favourite bands.  The people volunteering will do so because they love what they do, not because there’s money in it. And if they have a problem with being unpaid, they won’t volunteer. Absolutely no-one is being hurt in this process and it fails me to understand why someone could have a problem with it.

Albini commented on the fact that after the KickStarter donations project, she must have enough money lying around, and that the Grand Theft Orchestra, Amanda’s band, will be paid salaries. Here is the thing though: I am not suggesting for a minute that the musicians that are fans playing on stage with her are not hardworking and dedicated and deserve reward, but playing for one odd night on the tour in their hometown is completely different to a band of professional musicians giving up months of their lives to tour the world and do nothing else.

In her song “Map of Tasmania”, Amanda sings that “We are the Media” and I feel like this just completely sums up this situation. With the manifestation of the internet, musicians and fans aren’t closed off from each other anymore and art is open to everyone. Teenage boys can record a single in their bedrooms and post it online. Rockstars can chat to fans about their lunch. There are people out there that love music, and understand art is not about money.

"#3" - The Script

The Script are Danny O'Donoghue, Glen Power and Mark Sheehan, friends from Dublin that met in 2001 and have had a lot of success in the UK since the 2008 release of "We Cry". Their third album was released last Monday.

"#3" doesn't seem like the most inspired title for a third album, especially with the manifesto of "hashtags" but to The Script it means much more than that. First, there are three of them. The album was recorded in Studio 3, 3rd October is lead-singer Danny O'Donoghue's birthday. But more importantly, "#3" is a concept of what they see as the three most precious components of their music: head, heart and feet. Music with lyrics that make you think, make you feel, and you can dance to.

The record kicks off with "Good Old Days", and in terms of the aims talked about above it ticks all the boxes. "Good Old Days" is about a pub crawl, talks of smoking cigars and dancing in the rain and more than that, it's about music bringing a room full of people together. From the burst of life that is the introduction to the chorus you can't help sing along with, this song is so strong and it fills you right up. It just really sums up this band and all of what is unique about them and their background, and it's nice to see them venturing outside of what I think they know they do best, which is a really big break-up ballad.

Having said that, the second track, "Six Degrees of Separation" is exactly one of those, but it's great to hear a song from them that stems from just an acoustic guitar and drums, and reminiscent of their older music. "Hall of Fame", the first single from the album, is about "Ordinary people doing extraordinary things", and perfect for London's Olympic summer. It unexpectedly features the vocals of will.i.am, but The Script haven't let this shove them too far in the direction of being too heavily produced or commercial, though definitely more than their other stuff.

"If You Could See Me Now" is the song that Danny O'Donoghue and Mark Sheehan wrote because they felt a hole in the record, a song that was missing about a topic they hadn't been ready to touch yet, and this one, about the deaths of their parents, has been brewing for years. It's so honest, personal and brave; reflecting on the loss of a father and negative as well as positive life developments since his passing away, pondering achievements and fuck-ups. O'Donoghue said somewhere that "Art is the only justification that there is for pain." This just puts that into action: it is brave, honest and one of the best on the album. Mark Sheehan has said about it; "I can't even picture playing it live because it is so personal." On three intimate tour dates this week, they have proved they found the courage for this.

Listening to the lyrics of "Glowing" it is a ballad in the traditional sense - a story - and it's so abstract and confusing that it's almost a choose-your-own-adventure in whatever way you apply it, which I suppose which is a good thing, because as listeners we make lyrics belong to ourselves. It is about a girl running away, because she is being chased. "Give The Love Around" is a track that wanders definitely towards the ground of R&B and rap music, but the organic nature of The Script's music isn't taken away with this - you won't find any autotune or heavy synth parts on this album and I kind of like that they argued with a stereotype this way. They have lost no integrity. "Broken Arrow" stems from an acoustic guitar and instrumentally, it's more like their earlier two albums than this new-found genre, but again features Mark Sheehan's rapping. It's about healing, and grows and grows throughout, the vocals and the string arrangement are both full of power.

"Kaleidoscope"... "Kaleidoscope" has me dancing. It's like nothing they've done before, opening with an electric guitar playing arpeggios that sound just the right amount of fuzzy, and is one of those hopeful, perfect, unashamed love songs that fill you with euphoria. That's all I can say about it, it's just one of those songs that you can't help but dance to, the kind of song that you set as your alarm and hop out of bed smiling on the worst of days. Danny's vocals really climb here, thriving in his upper falsetto. The next song is "No Words", a song about love and devotion, another one with a rhythm sounding vaguely like an R&B/pop song.

And "#3" finishes in a full circle, with "Millionaires", back stumbling out of a bar - "Singing our hearts out, standing on chairs, spending our time like we are millionaires." It's proof that however much they've been able to adventure into new genres, they're still able to make music that sounds just like it could've been from one of their earlier records - The Script aren't afraid of growing and changing, but they haven't left their roots behind.

"#3" is different to their other stuff, no doubt. It's a little more mainstream and commercial, which I think there'll be people that are angered by, but another development they've gone through I've noticed is lyrically this third album is just so much more adventurous. The first two albums, "The Script" and "Science and Faith" have been heavily based around romantic love and relationships falling apart. "#3" is different. It touches on family issues, emotional healing, work and motivation, and more than anything, they sing about the values of friendship - "Good Ol' Days" and "Millionaires" particularly just remind me of being warm and drunk and laughing, singing along to something, ridiculously out of tune, and clinging onto friends' arms for support.

Yes, it's maybe more commercial but The Script haven't lost the elements of their music that come most naturally. Their music is more mainstream but it isn't cold, really, it is full of life and soul and, in fact, everything they aimed for - "#3" is music for the head, heart and feet.

"These Streets" - Paolo Nutini

For me there is some music that is always attached to personal experience, whether that's a place I listened to it in, an experience I went through while it was there, or sometimes, the person that introduced me to it.

The boy who gave me Paolo Nutini's "These Streets" was never one of my close friends. We never went to see Paolo Nutini together, we never talked about the lyrics or sang along in the car or anything. But he was a friend my dad and I met on holiday in Kenya, his mother and mine bonded when I was eleven and lost and shy. He was five years older than me, I remember quite charismatic and loved music , had wild curly hair and my dad thought he was the most charming person in the world I think.

His name was Harley, because of the motorcycle on which he was conceived. I'm not even kidding.

We left, there were a few emails and then we all lost touch, but this person will never realise how much they influenced my musical taste... at a time it was very easily influenced and fragile. Harley gave us a whole stack of CDs, and I can't remember what all of them were but it included the Fratellis first album. And one of them was Paolo Nutini's "These Streets".

Paolo Nutini is a singer/songwriter from Scotland, most famous for "New Shoes" and "Candy" but "These Streets" starts with "Jenny Don't Be Hasty", closer to a rock song than the rest of his stuff, a story about a girlfriend leaving him because he lied about his age.

"Last Request" and "Rewind" are both beautiful, soft songs about the ending of a relationship. Both are gentle, acoustic guitar led pop songs. The concept of "Last Request" is stunning and hurts a little, a song about knowing and accepting that it's over but pleading her for one last night with him, and "Rewind" reflects over a better time and wonders why it can't come back, with a chorus that is both catchy and full of soul.

"Million Faces" is a grower, and "These Streets", the title song, is wonderful - a song, like a few of Paolo Nutini's, about growing old and confused, and being lost in a familiar city, with a gorgeous string arrangement.

"New Shoes" was the first single from this album I believe, and it's gleefully carefree, the sort of song you walk down the street to on a really sunny morning and throw in a dance step on the pavement when you don't think anyone's looking. "White Lies" starts with a beautiful high pitched melody plucked on a guitar, another one about lost love. "Loving You" is full of energy, yet gentle and flirtatious, one of those on the album where Nutini's vocals really thrive.

"Autumn Leaves"... in the first few years of high school I would tell people it was going to be my funeral song. Maybe it still will be. Just his voice and a piano, a song about the death of a family member, but it's bittersweet rather than just gloomy, it ponders over a life, the good and the bad.

No song on the album tells a story quite as captivating as "Alloway Grove", with a refrain of "la la la la la's" that will have you singing along, it tells the story of chasing a promiscuous lover, of needing them in a way that they don't need you, and I misinterpreted the story in a weird way at 11 (for whatever reason, I thought she'd committed suicide but now realise she had just run away to London. You'll get what I mean.) The song fades, the simple chords strummed on an acoustic guitar bleeding into heavier, electric power chords. This leads into the second part of the medley - "Northern Skies", which is gorgeous, melancholy and quiet.

"These Streets" is a brilliant collection of songs and, equally importantly, stories, and in my opinion he didn't quite find this with second record "Sunny Side Up", where some of it seemed a little cutesy and Jack Johnson-esque. "These Streets" is a brilliant stripped back, acoustic folk-pop record, touching on both Nutini's Scottish and Italian routes and I really recommend it - as I'm sure Harley would too.