It’s cool how copyright makes money for valuable Intellectual Property. And you can’t get a bigger and more valuable IP than “The Beatles”.
The thing is, not one of the members from The Beatles held or even hold their rights. At one stage, Michael Jackson was the sole holder of the rights.
And with all the transfers and sell offs, The Beatles catalog settled at Round Hill Music Royalty Fund. But like all companies on the stock exchange, the share price just didn’t reflect the true value of the Company.
In this case, shares in the company were trading around $0.70. And share prices this low don’t make share holders and board members happy.
So in comes Alchemy Copyrights with a $496 million buyout offer which means shareholders in Round Hill Music will get $1.15 in cash per share. Suddenly, you have happy shareholders and board members, who get a nice payday for holding shares in culture.
They created nothing culturally and yet still benefit. But I keep hearing how stronger copyright is needed to protect the creators.
Mmmm.
SHARE PRICE 2
Hipgnosis Songs Fund is also selling some of its catalogues for $465 million. This is to pay down debt and increase its share price
And as expected, the share price increased,
Again, you have an organization that created nothing culturally and yet it still benefits. And I keep hearing how stronger copyright is needed to protect the creators.
COPYRIGHT FAMILY DISPUTE
Motown songwriter and producer Ron Miller died in 2007. If Copyright expired on the death of the creator like it once did, then this would be a non issue.
But, Copyright doesn’t expire at this point. It’s still valid for another 70 to 90 years, depending on the country.
Fast forward to 2022, Sony Music Publishing signs a deal with Lisa Miller, for rights to 130 of her fathers songs.
But Ron’s other children Julie Moss and Mark Miller from Ron’s first wife didn’t like this and are now going to court.
They allege that Lisa Miller tricked her mother, Aurora Miller (Ron’s second wife) to sign away her claim to the songs.
The claim further states;
“As Aurora’s health continued to decline, Lisa began forging Aurora’s signature on notices of copyright termination.”
And I keep hearing how stronger copyright is needed to protect the creators. In this case a dead creator.
SHOWCASE
Spotify’s new marketing tool.
Artists can buy dedicated space on listeners home pages to promote new releases, deep cuts, etc.
Each click from a fan on the showcase button will cost the artist 40 cents per click until their campaign budget is maxed.
Spotify believes that people who see these ads are six times more likely to stream the release.
It shits me how artists always have to cough up cash.
Back in the label days, if the label marketed you, they billed you to recoup their costs.
If an independent act marketed themselves, they paid for a marketing campaign themselves.
Two years ago, the RIAA won a piracy lawsuit against two sites that offered YouTube-rippers. For those that don’t know, these sites allow the user to turn a YouTube video into an mp3.
After the verdict, the RIAA demanded $83 million in damages from the site owners.
“If the record companies can really get multi-million dollar judgments without having to prove a single instance of infringement within the United States, then no one who operates a website is safe,” Gurvits (Defense Lawyer) said at the time.
There has to be some onus on the RIAA to prove infringement.
And they can’t because they don’t know who infringed.
It’s easy to get a techie to run a report and say that the YouTube ripping sites were accessed by U.S IP addresses. But. It’s not easy to prove who is responsible when their evidence is made up of IP addresses.
But accessing the sites doesn’t constitute Copyright infringement. And the RIAA cannot prove what infringement took place or what videos from YouTube were turned into mp3s.
So why is the law allowing them to bring cases to trial without this proof.
JASON ALDEAN
The song “Try That In A Small Town” came out in May 2023 and it was out of the public conversation. It was a dud and no one cared enough to listen to it. His true fans did but no one else.
Then someone (Critic Zero) started the backlash against the song in the middle of July, 2023 and by doing so, they amplified the song by providing much needed free marketing.
The criticism then spread to other blogs and news outlets faster than Covid and as a by product the streams and downloads of the song kept going up. In the space of two weeks the songs Spotify numbers went from 1.5 million to 12.3 million.
To top off the controversy, Aldean and his team had to edit the music video because it contained footage which was copyrighted.
SPOTIFY INCREASE
The price of Premium Family is changing from A$18.99/month to A$20.99/month.
My favorite part is the reason Spotify gives for the increase, which is word for word to what Netflix gave a year ago;
We’re increasing the price of Premium Family so that we can continue to invest in and innovate on our product offerings and features, and bring you the best experience.
Really.
It’s nice to know that Spotify is using subscription money to pay people for podcasts that a lot of their customers don’t like.
BAND I’M SEEING
I’ve got tickets to watch “The Night Flight Orchestra” in Sydney next Friday. Readers of the blog will know that I am a fan. Each album has been reviewed glowingly.
In case you are interested.
You can read the debut album “Internal Affairs” (2012) review here.
It’s all about Copyright, that little piece of legislation meant to give creators a monopoly on their works, so they could create new works, however the creators now sell or license their rights to a corporation, who then seem to hold onto the rights forever and by doing so, the Corporations keep lobbying hard to change laws so copyright lasts forever.
THE VALUE IN COPYRIGHTS KEEPS GETTING BIGGER
It’s 2008 and the Global Finacial Crisis decimated assets across the world. In these wastelands, the Investment Houses turned to Copyrights to balance portfolios.
The arrival of streaming services took off the cloak and funny math on royalties by the labels. While artists complained about the pay per stream rate, one thing they couldn’t complain about was the amount of money paid to the organizations that held the rights.
15 years later, these portfolios keep making money for the Investment Houses as the majority of music consumers transitioned to streaming.
In 2022, Germany generated 1.656 Billion in streaming revenue. The total income for the country was 2.07 Billion so streaming equated to 80 percent of it.
Globally in 2022, streaming revenues reached 17.5 billion U.S. dollars. 70 percent of total recorded music revenue.
If you are not getting a cut of it, someone else definitely is.
The unusual trial will determine which of the two handwritten wills, including one found in couch cushions, will come in force.
The interesting part is how Aretha valued her earnings from Copyright, which she listed as $1. Meanwhile, the Estate earned $4 million in one year after her death.
It is estimated that Spotify has paid the rights holder of Sabaton’s catalogue between $9.6 million and $15.9 million during this time.
If Sabaton owned their Masters 100%, then they would have received between $7.6 and $12.6 million dollars from Spotify. It equates to $507K and $840K per year. There are five members in the band, so taking the lower amount, each member would get $100K each. This takes into account that they have no manager percentage, accountant percentage and so forth.
If they had a 50% Royalty agreement with their label, they would have received between $3.7 and $6.3 million dollars. It equates to $247K and $420K.
If they had a 20% Royalty agreement with their label, they would have received between $1.5 and $2.5 million dollars as the label would get the other 80%. It equates to $100K and $167K. Taking the lower value, each member would receive $20K for the year, which comes to $1,666 per month. This takes into account that they have no manager percentage, accountant percentage and so forth.
RE-RECORDINGS
The Law states that artists can get back their rights after so many years. But the labels are fighting each case tooth and nail.
So if the artists have the means, they are creating new masters and are making those new masters as canon. This in turn gives them control over their music and they can then license these recordings to TV Shows and Movies and Games on their own terms.
Metal music is always resilient to changes in genres however it’s also easily adaptable to other genres or it can be used as a fusion element.
And fusion is happening everywhere.
Taylor Sheridan is good at mashing unrelated and different story ideas into one cohesive story. Yellowstone is a mash up of Classic Westerns, Medieval dramas with a lot of back story and political thrillers. Tulsa King is “The Godfather” in a Western setting.
And then I did some research on em, and they have a gimmick, wearing face covering like ninjas from an anime.
If the artist doesn’t get paid from recorded music, well it’s their fault for signing a crap deal or for signing away their rights a long time ago for a big payday. Or they are not big enough to be paid.
And when the tickets to concerts are too expensive it is their fault as well.
Seen all the craziness around Bruce Springsteen and the prices charged for his concerts in the U.S.
For an artist on who has made his living from the heartland, the prices of $4K for a ticket due to Ticketmaster’s “dynamic pricing” algorithm (based on a simple design of high demand vs low supply = price increase on the fly), has left him and his team in damage control.
Even the biggest fanzine dedicated to the boss called “Backstreets” has ceased to exist after 43 years over this. But “The Boss” defended these prices last year. The way Springsteen sees it, someone else (like a scalper or secondary ticket re-seller) was going to sell the tickets at the higher prices, so why can’t it be him and his team that gets the difference between the normal price and the price the fan is willing to pay.
Is there anything wrong with this?
It was going to happen eventually.
Artists have been ripped off for decades so when they have been around the business for a long time, you would expect the artists to do the same as the agencies that ripped them off. Businesses pay taxes when they start out while the established ones pay no taxes. And when those small businesses get big enough and have billions coming through, suddenly they also pay no taxes.
But with the rising costs to put shows on, a lot of smaller to medium artists are cancelling tours because they don’t want to overcharge their fans but they need to overcharge, in order to make some coin. And for the ones who do decide to overcharge, well their fans are not buying the tickets and suddenly the tour or the show is cancelled due to low ticket sales.
The artists and their team (which includes, accountant, lawyer, management and most probably the label if they are on a 360 contract) control it all. The final decision on ticket prices comes back to this team. When Taylor Swift blamed Ticketmaster for her prices, she was trying to save face because she got busted ripping off her fans.
Springsteen had the view that since other agencies have been ripping his fans off for a long time and that’s okay, why isn’t it okay when he The Boss does it.
Ticketing companies then find other ways to get the money from the fans, via booking fees, parking fees and super expensive food and alcohol at the venue. The merchandise companies then find ways to rip off the fans by selling $5 dollar tops at $50, because they have negotiated a set fee with the artist to be the merch supplier to begin with and then they need to split the profits with the artist.
And the artist is central here, however they are just a cog in a massive machine, which likes making money of them.
The labels cannot make money if the artist doesn’t create a song that resonates with people.
Lawyers, accountants and managers cannot make money if the artist is a nobody. They make money if the artist is a somebody.
Promotors, ticketing agencies and merchandise agencies make money from the artists. Streaming services, CD and vinyl making plants and record shops make money because of the artist.
Publishing/licensing companies make money from the artists along with radio stations.
That useless entity known as the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame makes money from the artists.
And most of the people who make money from the artists are flying on their own private jets while most artists need to tour in busses and vans.
And all the artist wants to do is write and play music and if they have an audience to enjoy playing to them. As a by-product of creating music and having an audience, they would expect to be paid fairly.
I like doing these review posts as it gives me the opportunity to read my earlier writing. Some of it is okay, some of it is crap and some of it is good. But the life Reno’s I went through recently put a stop to these weekly posts.
You can read my review of Redemption’s new album at the time, “Long Night’s Journey Into Day”. Vocals on this album were provided by Tom Englund from Evergrey, while previous efforts had Ray Adler from Fates Warning fronting them.
Being a fan of Redemption before Englund joined, I was always keen to hear a new Redemption record, however I was even more keen to hear it when I knew Englund would be singing.
Back in 2018, we had gas poisoning and acid attacks in the UK, Russia meddling in politics (and still meddling via a pointless war in Ukraine) and mother nature taking back her lands via fires, volcanoes, hurricanes/twisters and earthquakes. We have a problem with pollution in the air and plastics in our waters. We have people carrying out mass shootings or driving vehicles into crowds of people. We have wars over religion and poverty/famine in Africa is still happening and as much as big business want to deny it, climate change is real.
And then of course we got lockdowns due to COVID-19.
The past is littered with bands and music in general taking a stand against a problem, a situation, injustice and war. But what about now. What is upsetting musicians enough that they feel compelled to write about it?
“Dr Feelgood” came out on the first of September, 1989. 33 years ago. The album cost me $19.99. I pay just a little bit more than that a month now for my whole family to listen to almost the history of music on Spotify.
The drug overdoses, the death and subsequent return from death for Nikki Sixx, the drugs, the crashed cars, the lawsuits, the drugs again, the imposter, Vince escaping jail, the women, the drugs again times two, the partying, the clashes with the law and the eventual “sobriety”.
“Dr Feelgood” had to be number 1. If the music didn’t do it, the stories would have. Apart from the big songs, the other songs on the album were not mere filler.
“Sticky Sweet” has a wicked solo section, “She Goes Down” has a great bass and drums verse section after the solo section, which ends with the sound of a zipper going down, “Slice Of Your Pie” is so Aerosmith, but it’s the Beatles “She’s So Heavy” outro that hooks me, while “Rattlesnake Shake” has a riff reminiscent to the 60’s blues guitarists that influenced Mick.
“Live After Death” on cassette was my first Maiden. I even high speed dubbed the album, just in case the cassette deck chewed up the original tape. “Powerslave” was released a year before “Life After Death” but it came into my collection a few years after because if you had “Live After Death” you didn’t really need the earlier albums.
The thing with “Powerslave” which makes it great is that it has the power and energy of a live album and the line-up is finally stable. When you don’t have to look for new musicians to fill the void, you can focus on writing great songs as they did with the “Peace Of Mind”, “Powerslave”, “Somewhere In Time”, “Seventh Son of A Seventh Son”.
For an album which is 38 years old, it’s still so relevant today as it was back then. That is the power of music and great song writing.
1979 was a year of transition. While some bands were on their last legs, some were just starting to find their own.
Led Zeppelin were coming to an end while Thin Lizzy was on the ascendancy. The Scorpions had bigger things waiting with “Rock You Like A Hurricane” and “Winds Of Change” while Fleetwood Mac and Bad Company delivered stellar albums that unfortunately got compared to their previous mega gazillion selling albums.
Aerosmith became a shell of the band they were with “Night In The Ruts”, while Motorhead after a few up’s and downs with record label crap, got lumped in with the NWOBHM movement starting off and started their brief commercial rise.
Uli John Roth left Scorpions and created Electric Sun, but in all honesty he should of stayed with Scorpions, while a supergroup of “musicians who all had small record deals” got together and called themselves Survivor. “Eye Of The Tiger” was a few years away, but you get to hear a band allowing their influences to shape their sound.
Basically, all the bands on this list just kept on creating, regardless of their status on the record label commercial tree. Because that’s why people get into music, to create. Not because copyright terms are forever or because some label said I will give you money to create.
Led Zeppelin – In Through the Out Door Scorpions – Lovedrive Thin Lizzy – Black Rose: A Rock Legend Fleetwood Mac – Tusk Bad Company – Desolation Angels Aerosmith – Night in the Ruts Motorhead – On Parole Motorhead – Bomber Motorhead – Overkill Electric Sun – Earthquake Survivor – Survivor Susan – Falling In Love Again
“Generation Swine” and “Saints Of Los Angeles” both came out on June 24, 11 years apart.
How fortunes change for a band in a decade?
Before 1997, Motely Crue was riding high after “Dr Feelgood”. They renegotiated their Elektra contract for a lot of money and dropped “Decade Of Decadence” with 3 new studio recordings. Life was good.
Then Vince left or was fired (depending on whose story you believe). Regardless, the Crue got Corabi and delivered a stellar self-titled album in 94. But it didn’t sell the way Elektra wanted it too, and since they were footing the bills, they wanted the blond guy back in. Yep, Elektra Records A&R Reps in 1995, referred to Vince Neil as the blond guy.
The Crue camp remained defiant and went ahead writing songs for an album to be called “Personality #9” with Corabi. But money wins in the end and Corabi was out and Vince was back in.
It’s never been confirmed, but the Chinese whispers were in full voice, and the story doing the rounds mentioned how Corabi’s wage was coming from the other guys. Basically, Elektra paid Nikki, Tommy and Mick. Management took their cut, legal took their cut, Corabi got paid a wage and the rest was shared between the other three based on the band agreement.
“Generation Swine” came out, you heard it was a confused album. During the tour, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil punched on and Tommy leaves, then comes back and leaves again. Nikki gets into a slanging match with Elektra and eventually the contract was terminated and somehow Nikki managed to get the copyrights of the Crue songs back in the hands of the band. They form their own label and away they go.
Randy Castillo comes in, “New Tattoo” comes out, Randy dies, Samantha fills in on drums, Nikki gets it going with Samantha and his marriage goes to pieces while the Crue play theatres and cancel shows all over the world. I know, their Australian tour got canned. And after “New Tattoo”, the Crue went on hiatus.
In between, they got some stories together and a book called “The Dirt” came out. The band got back together for a few select shows and demand was so huge, those few shows turned into a huge world tour which was encapsulated in the “Carnival of Sins” DVD release.
If you want to have a career as an artist, you need to be a lifer, and be ready to ride the journey. It’s not always bright lights and success after success. There are hard times and good times. Doors shut and other doors are opened. And when everyone wrote them off, they came back stronger than ever.
For a band who were just average musicians at best, they built a career 40 plus years long. And that period between 1997 and 2008 could have been the end, but it wasn’t.
I came across an interview from Vince Neil in Faces USA 1993. Post Crue departure, Vince was the man, the centre of attention. Here are some sections in italics.
Faces: What surprised you the most about the reception you received upon your departure from Motley Crue?
Vince: How quickly I was accepted. A lot of the labels had faith in me. I had a lot of different labels that were interested. It was a really exciting process, walking in there and talking with the different companies, like the heads of Geffen and Giant and Epic.
All these corporate presidents were like “Come on, come and be with us.”
I sat in with Mo Ostin at Warner Brothers and all these dudes and I felt so much power in the room. When I made the deal, went “Okay, give me the money I want and a Warner Bros jacket with Bugs Bunny on it and I will sign the deal.”
I went with a Warner Brothers basically because they gave me the money I wanted and the security of being on the Warner’s label.
Faces: Can you tell us what the deal was?
Vince: Eighteen million dollars for 5 records.
Think about it. Motley Crue signed a 5 album deal with Elektra worth $35 million and the singer who wasn’t even the main songwriter of the band, then goes and signs a solo deal with Warner Bros for $18 million and 5 albums. And the “Exposed” album is a great slab of hard rock during a time when hard rock albums started to disappear from the record store shelves. But in music, these long term deals very rarely are seen to the end. Two years later in 1995, Vince was no longer accepted, and he had no record deal and no management after “Carved In Stone” disappointed commercially.
The person who signed him, Mo Ostin left Warner Bros in 1994, so it’s safe to say the new team, didn’t really like some of the signings that the old team did.
Even Motley Crue didn’t see the end of their Elektra deal. The people who negotiated the Motley deal in 1992, were no longer at Elektra by 1995 and the new Elektra management team didn’t really care for Motley. All they cared about was the bottom line and Nikki Sixx constantly called out current Elektra boss, Sylvia Rhodes at the groups concerts, even calling her from the stage, so the crowd could tell her to fuck off.
So what’s a few million when bands make the labels multi-millions.
SOLO
I expressed my disappointment at the SOLO movie, which basically put into images the words that Han Solo said in the original Star Wars movies.
The problem these days is movies have a lot of action scenes and hardly any good dialogue scenes. Meanwhile TV shows are winning the story script war hands down.
And do movies need to cost $300 million plus to make. In my view the higher the cost of the movie, the less story it has. And people are attached to a story.
It’s sad reading stories about how far removed Copyright Law is from what it was intended to be.
Copyright battles are happening everywhere. Most of the news is on how the record labels and movie studios are calling on governments to pass stronger dictatorship style copyright laws which would give these organisations police like powers.
But Copyright was originally designed to help the creator of the art. However, it’s assisting the corporations to make billions of dollars while the creators make a lot less.
Remember the movie, “This Is Spinal Tap”. Well, the movie has made over $400 million in profits, however the co-creators have received $81 from merchandise sales and $98 from record sales. If you think those amounts are pretty low, well the co-creators thought so as well, and off they went to court, for fraudulent accounting and to get the copyright back in the hands of the creators. And lucky for them they got a judge that saw their side, so the case is going to get interesting. Unfortunately for UMG/Vivendi, the co-creators in this case, also found fame with “The Simpsons” and they have a voice in the market as powerful as the corporation.
8 Years Ago (2014)
EASTERN EUROPE
I was in the middle of our holiday around Eastern Europe and you know what, piracy is king in these countries. CD and DVD shops exist with forgeries. Clothing shops exist with forgeries.
But in all of this piracy, thousands of people turn up to watch artists perform live. Every artist tours Eastern Europe and I am pretty sure that sales of recorded music now and in the past didn’t correlate to the thousands who attended the shows.
I got back from Eastern Europe on a Thursday morning and by Friday night I was at the Manning Bar at the Sydney Uni watching Protest The Hero. The ticket for the night was $45 Australian plus booking fee of about $6. Compared to some of the prices I have paid for tickets, this was a good deal.
And that’s a wrap of about a months’ worth of posts from the past.
After battling to make a name for himself on the small Polydor label, Yngwie Malmsteen finally got the big label deal in 1992 with the release of “Fire And Ice” on Elektra. While the album did great business in the Japanese and Eastern/Northern Europe market, it failed in the U.S.
The million plus dollar advance from the label was classed as “unable to be recouped” and he was dropped from Elektra.
One door closes another one opens. A Japanese company called Pony Canyon signed Malmsteen. “The Seventh Sign” came out in 1994, achieving a Platinum certification in Japan, followed by “Magnum Opus” in 1995 which received a Gold Certification in Japan.
“Inspiration” is the ninth studio album by guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen, released on 14 October 1996.
Malmsteen was back to releasing an album a year, in order to remain relevant and in the public conversation during the hostile 90s. If he didn’t do that, obscurity was not too far away. Artists these days whinge about Spotify and how they believe that the service is making them release constant product. It’s not the service, it’s the market. The market demands constant product. It always did.
Yngwie Malmsteen on guitars/bass and Anders Johansson on drums play on every track. The rest is a cast of artists like Jeff Scott Soto, Joe Lynn Turner, Marcel Jacob and various keyboard players.
Carry On Wayward Son
Written by Kerry Livgren.
It shows the reach Kansas had, so that a kid from Sweden would consider the band as an influence.
Jeff Scott Soto is on vocals here and his Talisman buddy, Marcel Jacob is on bass. David Rosenthal is on keyboards. During this same period, Malmsteen also appeared on a Talisman release. A sort of, “scratch my back and I will scratch yours” type of agreement.
Malmsteen makes the song sound like an over-indulgent Malmsteen song with his over the top soloing on any part of the song that doesn’t have vocals.
Pictures of Home
It wouldn’t be an influence album for Malmsteen if there was no Ritchie Blackmore. Malmsteen’s poses and looks are straight from “The Look Of Blackmore”. This is the first of four Blackmore songs. Joe Lynn Turner is on vocals here, who also sang on Malmsteen’s most successful album “Odyssey”. Mats Olausson is on the keys.
The lead breaks are Malmsteen lead breaks full of legato runs and of course, sweep picking. A lot of sweep picking.
Gates of Babylon
From Rainbow and Jeff Scott Soto is on vocals here. His voice and tone is perfect for the song. David Rosenthal plays the keys here.
The song would not be out of place on a Malmsteen album. The riffs are already what Malmsteen plays and as soon as he throws in his sweep picking and fast classical legato lines, it’s basically a Malmsteen song.
Manic Depression
From Jimi Hendrix and like his idol, Malmsteen is on lead vocals. I suppose for all the shredding, Malmsteen doesn’t get credit for being a pretty crazy blues player. Vocally, he doesn’t have the swagger of Hendrix.
In the Dead of Night
From the band U.K., the song is written by Eddie Jobson and John Wetton. Mark Boals is on lead vocals here with Jens Johansson on keyboards. And for those who don’t know John Wetton, he’s appeared in King Crimson, Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash and Asia.
But the reason why this track is here is due to Allan Holdsworth being the guitarist. Holdsworth was an unknown name to me until Eddie Van Halen started mentioning him in his interviews in the mid 80’s, which led me to seek out his solo recordings.
Ty Tabor also mentioned in an interview (which can be found on the Wikipedia entry of the U.K album) that the self-titled U.K album is in his “5 Essential Guitar Albums” list, stating that he “had never heard anybody think about playing guitar the way that Holdsworth plays on that record.”
Holdsworth never got mainstream attention. Producers and label heads called his music “without direction”, however to guitarists he was like a god.
You can hear the melodic rock side of Malmsteen here with a bit of progressiveness and how songs like “You Don’t Remember” and “Judas” with the keys and guitars playing great riffs that complement each other.
The solo break groove is excellent, however Malmsteen this time is just too much on the speed, and it just doesn’t fit the groove.
Press play on this track first.
Mistreated
From the David Coverdale era of Deep Purple.
This is the third Blackmore track to appear on this.
Would Malmsteen have covered this, knowing that Coverdale wrote the main riff?
Regardless, the song is perfect for soloing and Malmsteen uses that opportunity to do just that. But if I had to pick a cover version, it is the Whitesnake version with Reb Beach soloing. That solo just hits all the right notes.
Jeff Scott Soto is on vocals here with Mats Olausson on keyboards.
On this version, press play to hear the solo that comes in at the 4.20 minute mark. Malmsteen harmonises, its bluesy like “Still Got The Blues” and I like it.
Also stick around for the ending. It’s excellent. Soto really shines here, as he adds in backing vocals that sound like Gospel vocals and while they are happening he is ad libbing his main vocal while Malmsteen is throwing every lick he knows to the Master Tape.
The Sails of Charon
Another guitar player that influenced Malmsteen heavily was Uli Jon Roth, so it’s no surprise that his most classical sounding metal song with the Scorpions is covered.
Mark Boals is on lead vocals here and does a great job on the vocals, however Malmsteen just solo’s way too much here.
Demon’s Eye
Joe Lynn Turner is on vocals here with Jens Johansson on keyboards. I like how Malmsteen included bluesy Deep Purple here and still added his classical licks with bluesy Chuck Berry’isms.
Anthem
From Rush and Mark Boals sizzles on lead vocals here.
The pace of this song screams energy and I like it. And goddamn it sounds so heavy.
Child in Time
Mark Boals does an excellent job on lead vocals again with David Rosenthal on the keys.
The keys actually take the lead here (i.e. they basically sound like Malmsteen is playing them), carrying the intro and verses. Malmsteen cranks in right when the ohh’s start.
Overall there are six main guitarists that serve as inspiration to Malmsteen. Ritchie Blackmore, Jimi Hendrix, Uli Jon Roth. Alex Lifeson, Kerry Livgren and Alan Holdsworth. Pretty cool inspirations if you ask me.
While the massive North American market still had its back turned to Malmsteen along with the U.K and parts of Western Europe, the Japanese, Scandinavian Countries and Eastern Europe markets kept sustaining him.
If you want to hear two songs from this album, press play on “In The Dead Of Night” and “Mistreated”.
If an artist released an album and it sold a million copies in the U.S, it would be given a Platinum award, but it only reached less than 1% of the U.S population, never mind the world. 99.9% of the population are ignoring the release, yet it is this commercial acceptance that artists try to chase.
Instead of chasing everyone, try to reach someone.
Every label head said Schenker was finished, washed up.
It’s 1991 and a supergroup called Contraband drop their debut album. And it keeps on dropping because it is so bad. The nice advance payment that Schenker got to be involved in the project didn’t do much to enhance or move forward his career. In fact his manager and ex-partner took most of it.
But he stays alive, because he’s a lifer. When you have been in the game for this long, the only thing you know how to do is play. And play he did. He jumped on board the unplugged bandwagon and released an album. He called up Robin McAuley and released another McAuley Schenker studio album.
Then he re-unites with Phil Mogg and they start writing. The songs got the labels interested and the “Walk On Water” album from UFO, released in 1995 surprised everyone. Suddenly Schenker was back on the agenda and he’s getting money thrown at him again. He had a lot of bad people in his life at this point in time, from managers and partners, so it was always going to happen that MSG would return.
I didn’t think it would be that quick. Because a year after “Walk On Water”, “Written In The Sand” is released, the eighth full-length studio album that falls under the MSG brand.
The only thing consistent with all of these MSG albums is the name and Michael Schenker himself. The other members are in a constant flux. For this album, Schenker is joined by Leif Sundin on vocals, Shane Gaalaas on drums, and Barry Sparks on bass. All the music is by Michael Schenker and all lyrics by Leif Sundin.
Ron Nevison is doing all the Producing, Engineering and Mixing.
It’s not on Spotify which irks me, but YouTube has it.
Brave New World
It’s got groove, swing and lot of rock and roll. And the first thing that grabs my attention are the vocals from Leif Sundin. His voice is very melodic, fluid and unique. I would say he’s up there as one of the best singers in MSG.
The lead breaks are impressive, with Schenker even soloing over a harmony solo which acts as a rhythm guitar.
Cry No More
Press play to hear the intro. Its heavy and a lot of acts who went alternative to survive weren’t doing riffs like this during this period. The song could have been on a Deep Purple album and it wouldn’t be out pf place.
I Believe
It’s a ballad that turns into a rocker. It’s not original, yet it is an easy listen.
Back to Life
No one was writing riffs like this in 1996. Its old school and I like it. Barry Sparks is massive on the bass here as well.
Written in the Sand
This track is essential MSG. It has a sleazy bluesy riff and a lot of melody. And Schenker delivers a tasty guitar-solo in the middle and for the outro.
Essenz
It wouldn’t be an MSG album without an instrumental. This one has an “Eruption” vibe before moving into a fast blues. Think of “Hot For Teacher” when it picks up.
Love Never Dies
Imagine “Finish What Ya Started” merging with the melodic rock genre. Well this is the outcome. Another close favourite with a killer Schenker lead break.
I Will Be There
Press play to hear the verse riff. Schenker makes it sound technical, yet it rocks so fluidly.
Take Me Through the Night
Its classic heavy metal while the singing is happening and the solo section is barroom blues brawling.
It wouldn’t be out of place on any metal album from the early 80’s.
Down the Drain
The album closer showcases how Schenker decorates in a creative way. You cannot ignore how good it is.
While Schenker’s North American career had stalled, he was still a big draw in Japan and certain European markets. And just like that, the whole “Contraband” affair was forgotten. That is if you heard the album. Which wasn’t easy to do.
I was a fan back in the day and I still enjoy cranking their tunes. They released two official albums that I am aware off, in “Rise” (2008) and “iMerica” in 2010. There was an “Unplugged EP” in 2012 and a Kickstarter project that release new songs to the backers only in 2014.
I hope Anew Revolution make more music. They have fans. We probably won’t make the band millions, but we will listen.
Once upon a time, it used to cost a lot of money to record. Very few acts, got signed and even less acts got a chance to record and get distributed. Getting inside the record label machine was hard, however if an act could penetrate, they could have a long career even if they never had a hit on the charts.
The label did have good intentions to keep you in the business and the label would promote you. All at your cost of course. But the truth is, it was harder to keep a record deal than to get a record deal. Especially if you didn’t sell. And even more so, once MTV came out and you didn’t sell.
Kiss benefited from this business model. They relied on the label putting some money upfront for the recording of the album, for the film clips and for tour support.
Then Napster came, then torrents, the iTunes store and streaming and Gene and Paul just kept on shouting it loud to everyone about how there is no music business, while they toured non-stop and made money from the music business.
In the process they recorded two albums during this period.
Yep, two albums. “Sonic Boom” and “Monster”. But for all of the complaining about streaming they did, the Kiss catalogue was on Spotify Australia. Then half of it was off. Then it was back on after a few weeks off. Madness.
I’m against bands withholding their music from a service that people legitimately pay for.
It’s all about consumption. Funds are tight, but Google and Spotify is not the problem. The artists are getting squeezed by the consumer. The consumer either listens or doesn’t want to listen to your music.
For any artist thinking of withholding their music from a streaming service, don’t do it. Don’t hold back progress. Because if you look at the past, you will see people who said the internet would kill the incentive to make music. Wrong, there’s so much more music than ever before. People said streaming would kill the business. Wrong, revenues are up and streaming is seen as it’s saviour.
What can I say, there is something about TNFO and the music they create that hits a nostalgic spot for me. And I’m digging it.
Album number 4, “Sometimes The World Ain’t Enough” is full of massive sing-along choruses and derivative versions of some of the best pop songs ever written.
For example, if you like Deep Purple, Supertramp and Rainbow, then you will like the opening track “This Time”.
And that’s how the album flows. A road trip down memory lane, done in a new way.
2014 (8 Years Ago)
I was preparing for my European holidays.
A day before our flight, the news doing the rounds was the MH17 disaster. Then our flight got changed to an earlier time. But no one told us until the last minute.
And I had questions.
Because the new schedule would give us an 8 hour stopover in Bangkok instead of the normal 2 hour stop over.
And holidaying is meant to be relaxing and easy.
Thanks for reading folks, that’s another wrap of DOHistory.
In Australia, the End Of The Financial Year is 30 June 2022. And man there is a lot of work to be done a few weeks before that date and a few weeks after that date.
Coming into 1984, hard rock and metal bands started popping up everywhere in the mainstream. Magazines moved their reporting from different styles of music to cover only hard rock. The labels even started promoting rock music as different genres. Eventually, the heavy metal section of the record store would be divided to include hard rock, speed metal and extreme metal. In a few more years after that, glam metal and melodic rock would also be listed as categories. But in 1984, regardless of what “genre” a band got labelled with after, we still found the albums in the heavy metal section of the record shop.
Judas Priest still had the world in the palm of their hands with “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin” and then they dropped “Defenders Of The Faith”. “The Sentinel” is my favourite track on the album. I could listen to it over and over again.
The debut album from the “guys from Jersey” is tiny compared to the albums that came after, but it still has some worthy riffs to talk about. So press play on Bon Jovi’s debut.
The fury known as Yngwie Malmsteen dropped his debut album “Rising Force” and neo-classical got an adrenaline shot.
The Fish led era of Marillion dropped “Fugazi”. It was an acquired taste and I enjoyed the music more than the vocals.
When I first heard “Ride The Lightning”, I didn’t even know what kind of music it was. I felt like a chainsaw assaulted my earbuds. It didn’t sound like the hard rock mixes I was used to, as my ears were conditioned to enjoy the Tom Werman, Keith Olsen, Bruce Fairbairn produced albums.
It was original, progressive and it set the track list running template for the future albums which followed.
I didn’t know it then, but Y&T would became one of my favourite bands ever. Their big money Geffen move didn’t happen until the late 80’s and A&M was the wrong label for their classic era. Regardless, Y&T’s is part of my DNA. “In Rock We Trust” I say.
From a copyright point of view, how the hell would David Coverdale do the accounting for the “Slide It In” album. There are the songwriters who would deserve their royalty and then there are the two versions of the album, with different members who would get a performance royalty.
The final Cold Chisel album “Twentieth Century” came out months after they played their final show in December of 83.
And it had three classics in “Saturday Night”, “No Sense” and “Flame Trees”. It’s also hard to believe that “No Second Prize” from Jimmy Barnes solo album that followed this, was submitted and rejected from this album.
I absolutely support that musicians should be paid for their work.
What I don’t get is how the record labels and misguided artists feel entitled to push for stronger copyright enforcement as a way to guarantee an income which is contrary to the foundations of what copyright was designed to do.
The song “Happy Birthday” goes all the way back to 1893 and it was under Copyright protection until 2030 because someone decided to retroactively place it back under copyright. Then there was outrage and then it was part of the public domain.
Copyright protectionism is about protecting old business models. Stronger Copyright has nothing to do about supporting thriving new industries. Stronger Copyright has nothing to do about finding new ways of doing things.
And people do pay for music.
Metallica’s self-titled Black album is still moving on average 2000 units a week. And it is doing this even though millions of copies of the album are available to be downloaded for free. It is doing this even though it is available for streaming on Spotify and YouTube.
Volbeat has been selling records on a weekly basis in the U.S since 2011. They are doing these numbers even though their album/s are available to be downloaded on peer-to-peer networks. They are doing these numbers even though their albums are available for streaming. Same deal with Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold and Skillet. Still selling, regardless of the state of piracy.
So what is it. Do artists need stronger copyright laws or better business models and terms that pay them a fair days pay for a fair days work?
What a great band name, using a police slang term for a motorcyclist crashing and skidding along the road at high speed. Their so called overnight success was 14 plus years in the making that began in different states and different cities, far removed from the Sunset Strip of LA.
Vocalist Gary Jeffries has a huge story to tell. He put in a lot of time playing the bar circuit and his origin story dates back to the Seventies. Eventually he came to L.A in the mid Eighties to audition for QUIET RIOT after original vocalist Kevin DuBrow left. He didn’t get that gig, losing out to Paul Shortino from Rough Cutt.
Start with the debut album. They wanted to call the album “Mood Swing” and once you sink your teeth into it, that is exactly what you will get.
It was produced by Greg Edward who paid his dues as an engineer on big albums like “Scarecrow” from John Cougar Mellencamp and “Like a Rock” from Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. Virgin Records released the album and it looks like they had no idea how to promote the band or the album in a changing musical landscape.
It was a million dollar blockbuster and the mythology around Motley Crue by 1989 supported and underpinned this blockbuster movie. The drug overdoses, the return from death, the crashed cars, the women, the drugs, the partying, the clashes with the law and the eventual “sobriety”.
It is their first album with Bob Rock, who Nikki found via Ian Astbury from “The Cult”. Remember that music is a relationship business. That is how we are meant to roll. It was recorded in Canada at Little Mountain Studios at the same time that Aerosmith was recording “Pump”. Both of the biggest party bands had committed to a healthy lifestyle, going on jogs together.
The piece de resistance is “Dr Feelgood”. Musically, it is a Mick Mars composition, that he had completely mapped out on his own. He had to take the song to the band a few times before they started to pay attention to it and it was the song that started the ball rolling with Bob Rock, after the band sent him a demo.
Can you imagine Vince Neil singing for a whole day and only having one line of a lyric that was deemed usable?
Yep, that was the standard set by Bob Rock. Of course a million dollar budget didn’t hurt. And didn’t they come a long way from the seven days recording session for “Too Fast For Love”. Album number five left no loose ends.
“Dr Feelgood” set a new standard for hard rock and a lot of the bands like Dokken, Great White, Firehouse, Poison, Ratt and so many others just didn’t take that next step. And of course, shortly after the album was released, Metallica went to Bob Rock and said that they want their own “Dr Feelgood”.
“Today I Caught the Plague” was first. I thought the band name was crap but the debut album “Lore” was a real stand out for 2011. I came across the band by sheer luck when I saw a tour poster from “Protest The Hero” and it had “Today I Caught The Plague” as one of the supports.
While “Lore” was an independent release, “Life In Lucidity” is on Sumerian Records. A label that is perfect for them. Because labels are still the answer to get your name out to the masses. As much as the internet was meant to level the playing field, the labels have more power than ever. So if you want to be on a label, you need to be on a label that specialises and deals with bands that are of similar styles.
The first song I listened to was “Heritage” and I bought the album on iTunes not long after, ordered the CD from Amazon and put it as a favourite on my Spotify playlist.
A very long post covering Zakk’s long career with Ozzy, Pride And Glory, Ozzy again and Black Label Society up to 2014. Check out what I think are essential songs that people should listen to from Mr Berserker Wylde.
And I just kept talking about “Angel Of Mercy”, spreading the gospel on the song from Black Label Society.
Great music must contain emotion. That is why “Angel Of Mercy” connected with me. It hits me emotionally and it makes me feel something. All the great songs do? And because I care for the song, I can’t stop sharing it and talking about it with people who want to listen. And when music is done right, it sells itself.
And that’s a wrap for a month’s worth of DoHistory. Let’s get back to reading blog posts and posting some more content.
