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One of the oddest aspects of the whole My December saga was the sight of critics from across the spectrum siding with the head of a major record label, especially against a young singer trying to follow her artistic vision away from singles-focused commercial music. Whether the critic seemed like the kind who doesn’t get these kids and their American Idol or the kind who happens to like singles-focused commercial music, they came to the same conclusion: The record company exec was right. Part of that reaction could be because Clive Davis has more cred than Kelly Clarkson (or, to be unfair, that what’s good for the gander isn’t good for the goose). But what if, instead, My December represents a landmark in the decline and fall of the record industry?
A common argument for why critics should beat up on mainstream pop music was the fact that it didn’t need the help. Pop music had achieved such omnipresent dominance that championing it would be as individually insignificant an act as voting for a major-party Presidential candidate. But nowadays mainstream acts do seem to need the help, as major labels lack the funds to make them ubiquitous and the public cares more about voting for them than listening to them. Music’s cultural importance has perhaps never been lower in America: while a TV show with a million viewers is considered a failure, you get a platinum plaque for selling a million albums. Sure, it costs more money and time to buy a CD than to watch a TV show–but that fact is precisely why we find ourselves in the present state of affairs.
And so as the record industry floats gently toward rock bottom, maybe critics are realizing that it’s not just that things are changing, but that something has been lost, that a creative method is slowly ceasing to exist. Sure, the means were and are deplorable. But check out those ends! Without the supposedly artistically bankrupt major-label system of songwriters and producers for hire creating an artist’s sound and style for–and/or with–them, we wouldn’t have “Heartbreak Hotel,” or “Like a Prayer,” or “Since U Been Gone.” And without the products of pop’s manufacturing line, the music made by all those small, artistically respectable artists critics are supposed to champion might be very different–or might not even exist at all.
My December and Kelly Clarkson here represent the last change for the system to function at peak capacity, to match a hungry, adventurous, golden-eared young phenom with the best talent money can buy, and to produce an album like Off the Wall or a single like “Heart of Glass.” Instead, in the view of most critics, it’s just another crappy self-written rock album, and worse, one that doesn’t even do the one thing rock albums can still uniquely do: exude bland authenticity (to confused white people). With Kelly going her own way, the era has perhaps officially ended for big-budget rock albums, and for all the sins of such gilded enterprises, a method’s just a method, and this one produced some classics. In the end, its erasure means new rock bands’ possibilities are circumscribed. Nevermore will a guitar act with members younger than 30 find itself in a $30,000-a-day studio with Desmond Child and the London Philharmonic. Even if that scenario doesn’t sound too desirable to you, in a genre ossifying itself out of options, it’s understandable that critics of all inclinations might lament its passing.
This was really well written; great job, Mike. I think it’s certainly fair to say that this whole debacle does represent the end of an era. It all goes to show what Maura and co have been saying all along; everyone in this business needs to get used to making less money.
The “if I’m right then everyone else must be wrong” mentality has been the excuse for major label excesses for a long time. When an artist of Kelly Clarkson’s magnitude adopts that strategy for themselves, there’s a 50-50 shot it will fail. In this case, it looks like the unfortunate results are clear.
This also exposes the truth about what A&R has become in a way that ordinary people can understand. See, all Clive was doing was what any good A&R person was supposed to do with an artist like Kelly: get them the good songs to sing. But Kelly wants her own identity, believes she is capable of having it, and lashes out like a petulant teenager.
I still say good for her, but now is the time to lick wounds and move on.
Kelly Clarkson remains an enormous talent whose talents may lie in places other than songwriting (at least right now). This thing is never over; it’s just taking a horrible, horrible beating right now.
Well, Clive was also then bitching at a corporate conference about how Kelly didn’t want the songs he offered (one of which was already on someone else’s album!) and how the songs she went with instead were crappy. That seems pretty petulent to me, to say nothing of unprofessional. I appreciate the value and art of good A&R work, but doesn’t really seem like the best opportunity to discuss it.
@Dick Malone: I don’t think I was defending Clive so much as I was saying that in his mind he believed what he was doing was the right thing to do — by that, I mean before the record came out. The Jerry Springertization of his actions past that, and the effect on our community notwithstanding, none of this behavior is either appropriate (or matters) if the record fails to deliver. At the end of the day, this is the only measuring stick.
What kind of genius label executive publicly badmouths his own artist while everyone else at the label is trying to set up her album?
Wait, let me see if I get this right: you’re taking the critics who slammed Clarkson to task, and then in a extremely roundabout way, you’re actually agreeing with them?
…and then complaining that the decline and fall of the industry will be the end of both big-production albums AND hitwriters?
This is like, kind of short-sighted and reductive of you, and I kindly beg to differ. Look at Linda Perry, for instance — she managed help to turn around the careers of Christina Aguilera and Pink, whilst unfortunately bringing us James Blount — but what a track record — both as a producer and songwriter. And, as Sanneh pointed out in his review of My December ALL THE INSTRUMENTS LIVE INSIDE THE COMPUTER NOW, who needs Davis and the London Philharmonic these days anyway? Just look at the 48 billion tracks on every song on that My Chemical Romance record, for instance.
I mean, seriously — have you listened to an “emo” record lately? Big production album rock is so not over, and using the self-indulgent sophomore slump of homegirl Kelly Clarkson ain’t the most stable foundation upon which to prop up that argument.
When it finally dies, I will miss the mega-bucks, major music label industry about as much as I lament the passing of the dinosaurs.
In finance, they have an oft repeated phrase, “Past success is not an indicator of future performance.” The assumption that gets me is the idea that all of Davis’ ideas for the album were solid gold awesome. Even in Davis’ phenomenal career, there have been missteps and failures (I can’t name them off the top of my head, but I’m talking about the names that are left off of the illustrious list when they talk about his heyday at Arista). A&R, even at its best, is no science.
Good piece though I have a couple of caveats. Though first: my friend Angus B., who writes over in the UK for a variety of publications, has been arguing this case for a while, if in more general terms. His main argument is less one of big huge indulgence as it is breathing room for creative impulses without having to worry about where your next meal/rent payment is coming from, and spending the concomitant time on same.
My main question is one of conflation: is it mainstream ‘rock’ music or simply mainstream music period? If there was a way to truly see budget numbers and profits on any number of high profile albums over the past twelve months — to pick some random but hopefully appropriate examples, Diddy, Jay-Z, MCR as noted, Modest Mouse, Hannah Montana, T.I. — then maybe we could understand what’s going on more clearly. As it is, Clive Davis being Clive Davis feels more like a petulant exception than anything else.
@plasticaisle: whatever dude, I’d love to see a dinosaur. Esepecially since they’ve therorized that some of them had feathers, not scales…
If I understand what Mike is saying, he’s predicting neither the death of the major labels nor the end of assembly line–maybe “assisted creation” would be the better term–music making. He’s simply suggesting that critics are coming to realize that no amount of “self-expression” is worth a flood of records that are mediocre or worse, and that the record labels themselves are realizing that they’ve been saddling themselves with talented but not particularly creative dinosaurs who spend tons of company money on “prestige” products that, in today’s market, stand no chance of turning a profit.
Davis’ public badmouthing of Clarkson may be his way of letting people know that the whole debacle is her fault, and a warning to other artists not to get out of line. And, really, what is it going to cost him? The record will go platinum anyway, and one mediocre LP (in terms of sales, that is; all of Clarkson’s albums have been mediocre in terms of quality) isn’t going to derail Clarkson’s career, especially if she takes this public spanking to heart.
Still, to imply that Clarkson, with the right guidance, could make an album as good as Off the Wall, is going way too far. To do that sort of thing, you have to match genius with corporate expertise, and Clarkson hasn’t yet shown any signs of being a genius.
I agree with your premise, but I’m not sure I see Kelly as a signal example of it. Clarkson, in her modest way, is an exception to so many industry rules – the way she came up through the system (skipping A&R via an unpredentedly popular TV show), the way she straddles tween-pop and (temporary) rock cred – that I don’t know that she represents the birth or death of anything. I’m loath to overstate her importance, even while I defend her right to pull a Lindsay “Tusk” Buckingham.
When my cousin’s former employer, the recording studio The Hit Factory, closed its doors in 2005, that’s when I knew an era had passed. My cousin used to hire massive children’s choirs and order in $5,000 takeout for the likes of Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey; that era of spendthrift pop got killed by laptops and home studios years ago.
I do see and like your point that ol’ Clive was just doing what came naturally: Why won’t this ornery little pop star just let me do my job?
But I fundamentally agree with @Chris N. that what Davis did, live on American Idol two months ago, was petulant and beyond the pale. Also, I’ll repeat something I said on one of Idolator’s myriad Clarkson posts since the spring: before anyone ever runs too far down the road defending Clive Davis, for anything he does, owes it to him- or herself to read Fredric Dannen’s Hit Men – Davis has been in the business a long time, and that self-regarding mofo is indisuptably wacko.
Man, I miss those Triceratops.
Don’t know how much of this directly relates, but…
Mike, just as you (rightfully) remind me that I’m not really engaging with the biz side, trying to figure out why so many critics tell this seemingly on-its-way-to-antiquated story about Clive and the “hitmakers,” I still think you’re undervaluing the extent to which Kelly C. was involved in her former successes — it’s something that doesn’t quite jibe with the (alleged) drama and the critical reception of the album. To me, “Never Again” and “Haunted” and several other tracks follow very naturally from Breakaway, so I think in this particular case the biz story is obscuring the music that’s actually on the album!
Also wanted to point out re: Ned’s comment above that Hannah/Miley worked with “a good friend” to produce Hannah Montana OST 2/Meet Miley Cyrus, and the results sound…kind of like she was screwing around in the studio! The collapse of sustainable music media monopolies is significant because it doesn’t seem to have an effect on content, probably due to the relatively accessible nature of pop production. (Compared to the film or gaming industry, where huge investments are put, about equally, into production and distribution.)
So I think we’re going to get — and are getting –very adventurous, generically (as in “genre”) ambiguous music; we’re entering a (potentially) pretty exciting frontier for a lot of mainstream pop genres, from rock to hip-hop to R&B, one that lets me cheer on the demise of the label monoliths and cheer on the mainstream artists (Fergie, Pink, Kelly, even MCR) simultaneously. The problem with the My December reviews is that they want to conflate rooting for Kelly (as Sanneh puts it) with cheering on the parent conglom (i.e. outselling Hannah Montana), and end up telling a story that’s entirely about the drama and not at all about the music. (As for the tangential think pieces, I think they’re generally dumb but inconsequential — if it sells papers, whatever, I just don’t think it’s very interesting in itself. Tho I like your take on it.) I think it’s possible, and necessary, to separate these ideas — esp. when writing a music review of an album that, like My December, is fairly adventurous on its own terms.
And speaking of institutional collapse, even Hannah/Miley is trying to sound like ambiguous classic rock in the Hold Steady vein these days…the magical world of inDiznie rock: East Northumberland High.
@therichgirlsareweeping: I’m trying to be value-neutral here, more pointing out what’s going unsaid in these reviews than agreeing or disagreeing. And all that “you can do anything with a computer!” rhetoric is seriously overheated–anyone who’s tried to make music that sounds like big-budget music without the money to pay for equipment and people skilled at using it will know just how hard it is.
There was a tangent I didn’t get into about just why this will effect a change, and it has to do with less money meaning less rewards meaning less time people are willing to put in to become these sort of finely-honed megaproducers/writers. I think Linda’s catching it right at the end here. Anyway, maybe I’ve just been spending too much time around economics lately.
And all that “you can do anything with a computer!” rhetoric is seriously overheated
You know more about this than I do, and I totally believe you, but it’s still interesting to look at, say, Noise from the Basement by Skye Sweetnam, almost all of whose tracks were produced in the basement of a totally brand-new 21 y/o producer for next to nothing. And the basement tracks are indistinguishable from the two tracks they rerecorded in the studio. (Also impt. to note that in, say, R&B and hip-hop, there’s a whole rising aesthetic of minimalism that’s TRYING to sound kinda cheap!)
(Don’t want to obscure the facts TOO much here, lest someone call me out…James R., her producer, was the son of a Canadian soundtrack artist, who presumably had some fairly high-end equip in said basement. But it’s still nothing compared to like $30,000 a day in a professional recording studio.)
To be more specific, there’s a strain in the commentary on this album that, had Kelly listened to Clive, the world would have been delivered 12 awesome tracks that would give birth to a million barbecues and roadtrips. Under Clive’s direction the album could have turned out like Liz Phair’s last few albums (not good). I’m not on the inside, so I don’t know. I do think it’s telling what people are assuming.
Yeah, exactly. Also, you can do wonders with mastering. My point is sorta that the price of the equipment might drop, but that just means the price of hiring someone who can use it right will go up.
This whole thing has seemed to me more like a freakout in the relationship between critics and the industry than within the industry itself (if you can separate the two).
Labels set up records to deliver first week sales, but that only hides the fact that the market is more fragmented than ever thanks to 1) more sub-genres and different versions of the same old thing, 2) people wanting to hear music they like, 3) demographical spreading (i.e. “old” people are listening to rap instead of still clinging to their Journey records) and 4) it’s cheaper to record and distribute music than ever.
So: large-circulation music criticism has to stick to name brands–whatever’s already selling regardless of what it sounds like. And that list of “name-brands” is getting smaller by teh day. Thus: freakout.
And anyway, the main reason the new album got bad reviews is because it’s good–have you heard “Yeah”? I was thinking of Clarkson when one of the best art shows I’ve seen in a long time just got trashed by the LA Times. Good review now = bad product, and vice versa.
Blender still fucking loves Kelly Clarkson.
I read this three times and still don’t know what it’s about.
Bottom line, My December just isn’t very good. For the most part, Clive and the critics have good ears. She swung and missed this time.
Now why this is the end of big hit records I’m not sure. Ask Justin, Beyonce, Fergie, or Nelly Furtado about the demise of the big pop record.
Sure, the industry is struggling because everyone steals music. Clive was just trying to make his company some money.
But wasn’t Clive’s argument, according to the rumors, that the album was bad because it didn’t have a hit single on it? He’s a nut, for sure, but no one can accuse him of not looking ahead. He may just be thinking in terms of the album market drying up completely, at least as far as pop is concerned, regardless of how they’re made or who makes them, a market where album artists are fringe artists, no matter how good they are. Put a couple of real pop songs on My December, and chances are he’d be satisfied (look for that special edition any day now).
@Dick Malone: I didn’t say that, Kelefa Sanneh did. Especially as what you were saying is that they gave Clarkson all these resources and she squandered them … and there she is, using synth-everything!
Believe me, I know about the importance of using live musicians.
But the thing is, the whole ‘you can do it with the computer’ is what’s going to save the industry in the end. Because for all the hemming and hawing about the decline of the majors, has anyone taken the time to take a look at what’s going on over at Merge, for instance. The market is fragmenting, that’s the economics of the thing. If you can fill the needs of a specific niche, you’ll be successful. If you try to be all things to all people, you’ll be trying to make a megaglobalpopstarconglomerate out of a girl who won a televised talent show.
Easily the best written piece I’ve sene on Idolator in a long time. Kudos, Mike.
But if big budget rock album “events” are gone, then what is next? Full-scale techno-folk revival? Should I get Rednexx on the phone for a “Cotton Eye Joe” 2008 remix?
Dude. Where are all my paragraph breaks? I sound rambly and scary. It wasn’t supposed to be like that!
Clarkson’s problem had a lot to do with the media hype she got from the last album. She’s a decent singer/performer and that’s it. She’s not PJ Harvey. Any artist that got the ego inflation that she got would start to believe they could do anything. Clive hasn’t really had a great track record with a lot of the other Idol contestants(Bo Bice, Katherine McPhee) but he did orchestrate Kelly and Carrie Underwood’s careers very well. She should have listened to the man with the most experience instead of her ego.
All of which begs the question, would Clarkson have been better off if she had recorded in her home studio, or at some hip small studio in Austin or Memphis? Or not. How many albums does she have left on her contract? It seems unlikely to happen at her current label.
@Dick Malone: This is true, and truly good studio survive, perhaps on leaner budgets. And most albums recorded at home/project studios that are released by a semi-large lable are remixed even before mastering. Take Wilco, they record and make rough mixes in their own studio, then take a week or two to polish the record up at a large studio with some serious outboard gear and good acoustics. I’m guessing the same with something like Postal Service. These studios are not going anywhere. But they do not live large as they once did; record executives would indeed do well to learn from example.
Anyway, having not heard this, isn’t it a little to early to announce it a complete failure commercially? Aren’t there a few songs on it that could become sleeper singles and thus raise albums sales? Just wondering.
@therichgirlsareweeping:
Yes. You put this much better than I did. But am I the only person who thinks fragmentation is not necessarily a bad thing? (Analogy: people who all shop at the Gap anre’t building a “community,” they’re enacting a Pavlovian response to target marketing.)
Though, if you can make it through the first few words of my comments without nodding off (understandably) it’s clear I have a weird “Kelly Clarkson as Goldfrapp” fetish.
But what’s so weird is that people are bothered by the fact that she released an album that’s neither PJ Harvey nor Hannah Montana, as if those are the only two options. It’s not as if she pulled a “Kid A,” either.
@ Dick Malone:
The fact that some of the songs offered to Kelly had already been recorded by other artists is irrelevant. Some of the biggest and best songs of the past 50 years have been remakes, and many of them were career-defining turns where the second artist made the song their own. very few remember that Sam Cooke recorded “Respect” before Aretha. Ike & Tina did a legendary spin on “Proud Mary”. Sinead re-did an obscure Prince-penned song “Nothing Compares 2 U” and it’s her signature song now. All of the artists, BTW, are far more artistically respected than Clarkson. There’s no reason to believe that Kelly re-doing an obscure song previously recorded by Lindsay Lohan — if the song were good — would have been viewed negatively or artistically compromising.
@therichgirlsareweeping: Right? I know you’re trying to tighten up the layout around here but would a few more pixels kill you? Then again I am rambly and scary, no matter how much leading you give me.
Please don’t tell me that we’re using American Idol’s Kelly Clarkston as the final nail in the coffin for the Record Industry. I thought we was saving that for Clay.
I’m not sure I agree with everything in the original post, but a lot of the commenters are touching on important points. The whole “Kelly vs Clive” thing is a false dichotomy. Just because the album is (arguably) bad doesn’t mean Clive was right, or that he could have made it better. Regardless of how KC became famous in the first place, she deserves to be treated like an artist. If a record label is not interested in nurturing its artists, then the record label deserves every financial woe that comes its way. Let your artists grow, let them fail, let them learn how to be better. Kelly Clarkson is not a piece of fruit to be injected with hormones and sold in a grocery store.
I loved this article. I think what gets lost in the mix is the fact that Kelly Clarkson’s “My December” album is really quite good. It’s just fascinating to watch a hand full of critics and Clive Davis himself malign this album enough to sink it before it even sets sail. Perhaps Mr. Davis was trying to make an example of Ms.Clarkson so that his “flock” wouldn’t stage a coup, start thinking outside of the box, and his company would be forced to put out music other than generic regurgitated trash. I’m generally a music snob and not particularly a Clarkson fan (too poppy), except for “Since U Been Gone” (but who wasn’t a fan of that song?)… yet, I’m finding that I quite like this album and that the tracks are smart, well crafted, with just enough hooky sound to please the old “Breakaway” crew of fans. Clive Davis is a business man, so you’d think that he’d believe his wallet and the 100 million dollars Clarkson brought into RCA, the Four #1 songs she wrote or co-wrote (having fought to have those included on the albums, I might add), and 4 ASCAP awards (songwriter awards including record of the year for “Because of You”)… you’d think he’d put a little trust in this young and upcoming songwriter. Truly this album is Grammy worthy and radio worthy as well, and Mr. Davis has lost a chance to capitalize on the momentum of Clarkson’s last project. This one was an easy sell and Clive missed the boat. All he had to do was resist the temptation to malign the CD at a public forum. All he needed to do was say it was “God’s gift” and people would be listening and buying now instead of calling this Gold record a “flop” after 4 weeks. The industry is on a downward spiral and old pros like Mr. Davis are making it worse. Long live the artists. I suggest Kelly Clarkson take her catalog of over 150 songs and move on to an indie label as soon as possible. This young star seems very much more concerned about artistic freedom than superstardom or money. Wow, what a concept! Ps Clive, you’re losing your touch.