[Hype Hype Hooray] Spotify, You Beautiful Wench

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Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

I was somewhere in the woods of southwest Washington, hiking a well-worn trail on a cool spring day. My iPod sat in my back pocket, headphones nestled into my ears, pumping the sweet sound of Foxygen to my brain. It was somewhere during their acclaimed single “Shuggie,” in the middle of one of the song’s sudden breakaway bridges, that the feeling overcame me. I was in love, I realized–in love with Spotify.

I hadn’t known the app long. I was in the midst of its two-day trial, a coy courtship meant to lead to a monthly subscription of their premium service. With the trial I got all the perks a premium user gets: instant streaming of almost any album ever made, ability to craft custom playlists, and the oh-so-important offline feature.

I took a break on a log, turned on alt-J’s “An Awesome Wave,” and sighed.

Back in high school, after MP3s swiftly subjugated the reign of CDs, I used to tell my friends “Just wait, something will come by someday and make MP3s obsolete.” They would scoff and say “Sure, but what could possibly be better than a digital music file?” nearly a decade later we have the answer: limitless streaming.

It’s pretty amazing when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We can now, at the touch of a screen, listen to almost any album ever made. The original iPods, which required the external purchase of music, are now nothing more than mausoleums for our dated goods. Who needs to acquire music when we can just have access to it all?

Spotify isn’t inventing the wheel here, it’s simply taking advantage of the inevitable change in technology and marketing it better than anyone else. And, oh, does it market it well.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] The Mixtape, Part 2: The Weird Kid From Portland

Mixtape

Jamie normally writes a very straightforward music column about very straightforward music things, but for the next few installments he will be exploring a childhood mixtape, recently found in a box in his closet. This is part two.

I stand in my kitchen at two in the morning, furiously cramming two AA batteries into my old walkman. For some reason they don’t want to fit. This shoddy machine is the only thing standing between me and my recently-rediscovered childhood mixtape. A tiny misshapen piece of plastic is ruining my beautiful moment. I stop, take a breath, and carefully fit them in.

I flip the tape to side B. I throw it in, I hit fast forward, and I wait. And I wait. And I wait. After 30 seconds I tell myself I appreciate the delayed gratification. A minute passes and the optimism gives way to rage. I start to remember why everybody was so eager to switch to CDs.

The tape finally stops. I pull it out, flip it over, and slide it back in. I press play.

The sound crackles warmly in my ears. Tiny, barely audible wisps of noise pop in and fade out–little pulses of electricity running across the weary tape. Then, suddenly, as if from behind a bush, Steve Harwell’s iconic voice jumps out and starts yelling.

“Walking out of the door I’m on my way can you tell me just where I’m going / Occupational skills would you give me a clue what to do ’cause my mind’s in motion!”

A huge smile spreads across my face. Oh, Smash Mouth. I remember them so well. They were one of the first bands I ever truly loved. Running down the track list, I see the love was not forgotten on Jamie’s Mix 1999. It includes not one, not two, but six songs by the short-lived pop/rock legends. But each song is a gem, in some way, to my strange 11-year-old self.

The whole track list, handwritten on the insert in pencil, looks like this:

Side A
Come On Come On
All Star
Can’t Get Enough of You
Walkin’ on the Sun
The Fonz
Padrino
One Week
Never is Enough
Who Needs Sleep
Come Out and Play
Pretty Fly
Jump Jive an’ Wail
Zoot Suit Riot

Side B
Semi-Charmed Life
Save Tonight
The Way
Whip It
Satisfaction (Devo)
Satisfaction (R.S.)
Working in the Coal Mine
Jocko Homo
Tubthumper

As the tape winds on the memories start flooding back. They sweep me up and carry me away, leaving me a helpless bystander to the past:

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[Hype Hype Hooray] The Mixtape, Part 1: Unearthing a Relic

MixtapeJamie normally writes a very straightforward music column about very straightforward music things, but for the next few installments he will be exploring a childhood mixtape, recently found in a box in his closet. This is part one. 

My hands rummage through an old orange shoebox from the top shelf of my closet. I’m looking for last year’s tax return–a document that always seems to stay lost. Wrist-deep in the box, I dig through an odd assortment of artifacts: pens, guitar picks, two pocket knifes, an old watch, cocktail recipes scribbled furiously on scraps of cardboard. Buried in the rubble, sandwiched between old check books, is a single cassette.

I pull it out and turn it over in my hands. It’s a mixtape, one of those old Maxell 90-minute cassettes I used to buy in packs of 20 at Circuit City. I find the title on the spine: “Jamie’s Mix, 1999.” I’m floored. This isn’t any ordinary mixtape–it’s the first mixtape I ever made.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] Tropicália: How Brazil Created the Greatest Genre Ever

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Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

Hey guys, Jamie Hale here. You know, when I’m not penning hot blog posts about the indie music industry, I like to sit back and relax with a cool drink, a big pair of headphones, and an album from my favorite 1960s artistic movement, Tropicália

You may know Tropicália as that genre that you heard about once, from where you’re not sure, but gosh it sounds so familiar. But do you know the true story behind Tropicália? Come along, won’t you? Today we explore the fascinating melodies behind the radical music that redefined Brazilian culture.

The story of Tropicália starts not in the ’60s, but all the way back in the 1920s. After World War I, Brazilians were tired of being defined by foreign cultural influences, so tired in fact that they decided to band together to redefine their entire national identity, not through politics, but through music. The modernismo movement, as it was called, ardently embraced traditional native folk, rejecting any outside influences that weren’t distinctively, and historically, “Brazilian.”

While the movement fell apart in the ’30s, it created a generation of Brazilians who fought, rather forcefully, against any music that wasn’t traditional. Bossa Nova fluorished in the ’50s, combining the traditional samba with cool jazz, but found an abundance of critics who despised its North American influence.

Those critics were in for an even ruder awakening in the ’60s, when rock ‘n’ roll came to town. Like young people everywhere else in the world, young people in Brazil hungrily absorbed rock ‘n’ roll records from America and Britain, emulating the style in a genre known as iê-iê-iê or yeah yeah yeah.

Their blatant disregard for traditionalism ignited a culture war in the country. The battle waged against the backdrop of the Brazilian military’s 1964 coup d’état over the national government. The coup subjected Brazil to a harsh military regime that actively promoted traditional music over anything that sounded remotely foreign.

But it wasn’t just the military who had an axe to grind. In 1966, critics of iê-iê-iê  gathered en masse in a protest known as “the march against electric guitars.” This new style was everything the modernismo movement was supposed to be against. There was no room for both the modern and the traditional, they said, when it came to Brazilian music.

Enter: Tropicália.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] The Dull and Pointless Sound

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Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

I’ve been struggling to explain how I feel about the modern-day indie scene and why I feel the way I do. I’ve stumbled between descriptions like “uninspired” and “endlessly dull,” but I just can’t seem to put it into the right words.

I see modern indie as something of a dismal affair. In my mind, trying to keep up with the latest “blogged about” bands is like living out an episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s all black-and-white and melodramatic. Maybe we open on a man behind the wheel of a car. A wave of sweat rolls down his haggard face. A thick droplet pools in a dark bag beneath his eye. He wipes it away and sighs.

The car speeds down an empty desert highway. On either side of the road is an endless swath of brown. Heat pulses off the asphalt in the late afternoon sun.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] How to Coax a Critic

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Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

One day, out of the blue, I got a Facebook friend request from somebody named Daphne Lee Martin. “God dammit,” I grumbled. “Who the hell is this?” I clicked through to Daphne’s profile, wondering why some woman in New England would friend some dude a thousand miles away. I found my answer nestled in Martin’s “About” section: “Songwriter.”

“It’s a trap!” I screamed to myself. “She doesn’t want to be my friend, she just wants publicity!” Theres a lot of shameless self-promotion I’ll put up with in this world, but dubious friend requests just don’t cut it. “Not today, sister,” I muttered, the cursor hovering over the blue “ignore” button. I wanted to click it, I really did, but something stopped me.

The girl was bold enough to friend a stranger, shouldn’t I give her a chance? What if her gesture was some olive branch between artist and critic? What kind of person would I be to reject it? Also, I mean, what if she’s really good?

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[Hype Hype Hooray] My Winter of Discontent or Why I Finally Get Grunge

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Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

Not long ago, I drove into Portland, Oregon–my car full of every precious thing I own, my heart full of hope for this Pacific Northwest wonderland. The sun shone brightly that day, a near cloudless winter sky greeting me to a new land and a new life. Then everything changed.

I now sit here in a chilly house in northwest Portland, wrapped in blankets, my red fingers numbly typing away at my laptop. I glance out the window, wet with freshly fallen rain, and I sigh. Why does it have to be this way? What happened to the sun?

I think I’m developing a vitamin D deficiency. I need to stock up on cod liver oil.

I scroll through my iPod, looking for something to fit the mood. Phoenix did it for me when I lived in vibrant D.C., and Toro Y Moi worked for the mystical deserts of New Mexico. When I hiked the hills of Idaho I dug Avi Buffalo, while Deer Tick took me through the farmlands of Iowa.

What do I listen to here? What fits this gloomy world?

I scroll by Arcade Fire, which doesn’t feel right, and past Radiohead, which seems too pathetic. Finally I happen upon a band I haven’t listened to in a while, Soundgarden. I press play, and oh does it sound so nice.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] I Don’t Care What You Say, Billy Joel Still Sucks

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

Listen, man, I’m a real easy-going kind of guy. Whatever you do in your own time is your own choice, but let’s get one thing clear: Do not–DO NOT–put on any Billy fucking Joel.

I know you and your friends LOVE The Piano Man, and you’re probably all “Heyyyyy! Don’t hate Billy just ‘cuz he’s talented, bro! You’re prolly just JEALOUS.” I only have two words for you, friend: uh-uh. I am not now, nor could I ever be jealous of that angel-voiced, smirk-faced asshat of a man. At the end of the day, I have exactly one opinion on the matter, three words I will take to my grave: Billy. Joel. Sucks.

BOOM. There. I said it. What. What are you gonna do about it? Cry heavy tears into your Yuengling to “She’s Always a Woman”? I bet that flute really twists your pain good, doesn’t it? I bet Billy’s salt-n-pepper goatee wrings it out, then whispers sweet beard nothings into your ear to make it all better. I bet you sniff up your snotty sobs and say “Hey thanks, Billy, you’re a real class act.” Then you get the sax and he takes the keys and the two of you gaze into each other’s eyes, harmonizing to “Just the Way You Are” for a packed house in Camden, New Jersey.

I don’t mean to be a dick about this whole thing, but I’m not going to sit back and pretend to be on the bandwagon. I won’t be one of those poor souls who grins through endless ballad hell, counting every second until another awful song fades away, only to linger for a moment before launching into another six minutes of suffering. I will not be a slave to the musical dregs of society! I will not sit down and take it anymore!

What’s that you say? “Wehhhhh, you can’t just hate on The Piano Man without giving a good reason at least! Myehhhh!” You know what? You’re absolutely right. What kind of horrible critic would I be if I didn’t offer an obnoxiously-detailed critique of the man? Well here you go, you bunch of freaks, here is why I REALLY hate Billy Joel.

1. That Goddam Look in His Eye

So what’s the deal with Billy Joel’s eyes anyway? What are those, frog’s eyes? Where is he looking with those bulbous things? Over at wilted lily pads slowly sinking into a grey pond? Or into painful memories of getting his ass kicked under the middle school bleachers?

I’m sorry, I’m not being totally fair to the man. He is, I admit, a very talented singer/songwriter/piano/harmonica-on-his-face-for-some-ungodly-reason player OK YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SORRY BUT I CAN’T DO THIS.

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[Hype Hype Hooray] Unearthing the True Message Behind “Monster Mash”

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

A sharp breeze blew through the cluttered streets of Somerville, Massachusetts in the brisk fall of 1947. While the world reeled from the aftershock of war, and carefully eyed the ominous rise of Communism, a young boy sat quietly in a Somerville theater, soaking up a much different world.

Young Bobby Pickett didn’t seem to belong in the culture of Somerville. Boys in town tended to grow into gangsters or athletes, and Bobby had no interest in either. What interested him was his father’s movie theater, where he would spend his time absorbing the monstrous worlds created by Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, of Vincent Price and Lon Chaney, Jr. He aspired to be an actor, to inspire the same love and fear his idols inspired in him.

As he sat in the chilly theatre, wistfully dreaming of the day his own face would be projected onto the screen, he could never have guessed his legacy would instead wind up in the world of music. While his face would later grace the silver screen, his name would be forever etched onto a tombstone labeled “Monster Mash.”

There’s no need to introduce the song–by now we all know it well. But as this year marks the 50th anniversary of the world’s one and only true Halloween song, I’ve decided to dig beneath the surface of the soil that covers the tune in its timeless grave. For many, it might be enough to know that the “Monster Mash” was simply a graveyard smash, to know that it did, in fact, catch on in a flash. But why aren’t we digging beneath the surface of the novelty hit? Why aren’t we excavating the coffin and ripping it open with the rusty crowbar it deserves? Join me, won’t you, in correcting this grave injustice, with: Unearthing the True Message Behind “Monster Mash.”

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[Hype Hype Hooray] Indie Music’s Watery Grave or How Carles Might Be Right

Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.

The header reads “R.I.P. Indie Music, Our Broken Indie Machine;” a hyperbolic epitaph that fits snugly into 2012, the year of the trendy apocalypse. The author inscribing the headstone is none other than the contrarian king of hyperbole (and king of indie snobbery) himself, Carles.

The screaming headline he wrote on his blog, Hipster Runoff, should be a surprise to no one – this is the place where indie music is chopped into bite-size witticisms, pockmarked with appropriately-adolescent abbreviations like “u” instead of “you,” and “2” instead of “to,” “too,” or “two.” It’s new-age Yellow Journalism that could make even Matt Drudge blush.

It’s all very annoying.

However, what should come as a surprise to the casual reader of Carles’ somehow influential music blog is that this epitaph for indie isn’t as radically and irresponsibly premature as you might think! For more, let’s go to Carles. Carles?

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