R. Kelly’s “When A Woman Loves”: when the music business goofs up and makes music

Something went wrong at Jive. And R. Kelly put on his booster rockets. This is other world. Or rather the real R&B world. Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and James Brown are smiling.

I’m a self-appointed wannabee music critic. Credentials: 14 years of violin + daughter of a man with a jazz collection that belongs in a museum + almost credible wannabee expert on Italian opera–mostly sopranos and mezzo sopranos–some of which I know by heart. After high school I wanted to attend Juilliard. I wasn’t prepared. Plus impatient.

But I love music. All kinds. This song by R. Kelly is a delicious freak accident of major record label doing. I say it because big labels mostly don’t do artistry, and hardly any R&B. They obstruct. They have formulas and repeat them to generate predictable returns. Like film sequels. Fixed income. It’s a bad business model for art (yes, I’m assuming there’s a good one). It’s how you build a plane or a widget but not create music.

I could write a longer post, but will just assert the following in no certain order:

• Unlike your ipad, some shoes or your orange juice, this could never come from anywhere in the world but America.
• Unlike math or history, it could never directly be taught.
• When you study great practitioners who have come before you, it will show.
• Daring to authentically differentiate amongst a sea of convention commands not only attention but brand respect.
• America’s finest art began in the lowest place–the cotton fields–with a sound that still moves and which we have never abandoned: the field holler.
• From Vera Hall murmuring, to Ella Fitzgerald scatting, to Louis Armstrong’s gruff vocals, American music, like visual and other art, isn’t just what you hear or what is even intelligible, or what you planned, but what you feel.

Click play. Because formulaic music outlets may not put this in rotation–despite a palpable demand signal (one need only see the hits and youtube comment stream). And the flute lines are hypnotic.

Update:
Here are my favorite comments on the video from Youtube:

make the product the ad

“Preachers err, by trying to talk people into belief; better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery.” –Joseph Campbell

bootlegging the bootlegger: cool IP lawsuit that never happened + the art that happened instead

Some music kept me from physically exiting a car, and for a really long time–like 20 minutes. I didn’t know what it was but knew it was the cleverest  mix movement I’d heard in years. Temporal and mathematical perfection. Art.

Here’s the deal.

Numero is a certified music center of gravity and archival record label “devoted to dragging brilliant recordings, films, and photography out of unwarranted obscurity.” They’re on “a dirty, labor-intensive mission… and it’s urgent as all hell.”

The car-confining auditorial bliss I experienced had been bootlegged from Numero:

“Over the course of seven years and over 70 releases, a fan began to create a mega-mix of his favorite loops, breaks, and vocal snippets, chopping them all up and piecing together an incredible musical narrative–a 40 minute, saw blade-labeled 12” boot that was pressed and seeded to [a] handful of DJs and producers. Naturally, word got back to Numero, but instead of issuing the obvious cease and desist letter, the label decided to go one better. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so in a true nod to all fans out there, the Numero Group, via our Numero imprint, is issuing Eccentric Breaks & Beats as an homage to the breaks and beats collections of yore, bootlegging our own bootleg, as it were. It took some time and effort, but we were finally able to track down the creator of this essential collection, and delighted to discover that it was the apocryphal label and production team, Shoes, who have previously re-worked Moodyman, Al Green, Miles Davis, and dozens more. Featuring over 50 tracks from some of the best artists associated with Numero, it’s both an essential turntable item and an intriguing musical puzzle.“

So yes: Numero took a liking to the bootleg (“Numbero”) and in turn bootlegged the bootlegger’s bootleg. Which fixed me in the car.

It ‘s a win, win, win: we have Numero’s mission + brand + stuff uniquely promoted, Shoes’ talent originally captured and boldly distributed, and me, a happy and paying consumer of the affair. I ordered a CD. I didn’t want the MP3 but a “hard” souvenir copy. At checkout I got this screen:

Numero is clearly human and knows how to both create and ask for the sale.

Suing is good and I’m all for IP. But it would be interesting to learn what other products there would be if companies occasionally did this. Like an intentional truce window to nurture creativity. A business development “jam session” where feeding freely off each other is allowed.

For now, I’m anxiously awaiting a fine little parcel.

Update: Side 1. Side 2.

a one-click clinic in branding

This is a tall glass of water in a tumbleweed and cracked dry land: James Hugh Potts II, LLC.

And how bad does it have to be for a law firm and centuries old category of service provider, to differentiate by branding itself as being customer focused and human.  Amazing.  This practitioner brand is, sadly and to my great relief, a shattering exception to the rule.

Horseraces: Not about the horses.

Calvin “Bo-rail” Borel is a creative spatial and strategic genius, and that’s why he’s in this blog 3 times. No other jockey has won as many Kentucky Derbys, nevermind on 3 different horses and within 4 years.

Betters think races are about horses. They’re not. If they were, we could run horses on treadmills and clock which was the fastest. Or jockeys wouldn’t ride any but the last one that won.

That’s what’s great. A team shows up at Churchill Downs. A team is in the gate. Parimutuelly, you bet on a horse. But you’re not. You’re betting on relationships. And when stars line up—between a challenged student and finally the right teacher, between a noncommercialized talent and an underground audience, and between a less remarkable racehorse and an adroit jockey—it’s breakthrough. And where Borel is involved, a thrill.

worthy digressions: Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird Ballet Suite

Italian composers above others have understood strings, by my judgment. In opera, a personal passion, their compositions have grandly showcased the instrument—the violin—and what it was supposed to do more than have works of other composers. They just write differently for first violins. As a previous student of the violin under private tutelage of a talented German teacher and lifelong violin lover, I’ll humbly purport to be a nearly credible judge. It’s no coincidence that Italy is home to both La Scala and the Stradivarius.

I cannot doubt, however, the rapture in this stringed glory by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky whose non-operatic composition The Firebird Ballet Suite struck me like a blunt object upon first hearing. It didn’t help that the recording had been made at the acoustical wonder of the Concertgebouw. I was floored.

Splendidly composed, strings feature prominently. They’re the central nervous system. And they. Are. Magical.

This clip of Stravinsky conducting the Lullaby and Final Hymn, at 83 , is a glorious sample.