realm's word

Undistorted Views (through rose-tinted lenses)

BLACKsummersnight - Maxwell

Posted by Realm 12 May 2009 comments (0)


Well, seven years since his last LP and I'm very VERY pleased to say Maxwell has deemed it time to return. I know that his public persona is a mixture of Neo Soul/Pop/Sexy etc so some may view him as a contradictory artist in as far as the Prince-esq element of him immediately sets him apart from the Indie Soul scene. And there's a great deal of truth in that - like Prince, his music is about love and sex, invariably. And as such, his music instantly propelled into the Pop charts and appealed to the masses- hence going multi-platinum. That said, following Prince's lead (as did D'Angelo to a certain extent), Maxwell managed to prove that keeping the quality of his music 'true', he was able to remain respectful to the foundations of real, credible music whilst managing to sustain a high profile career.

All the while, taking some seven years out of music and the public eye out of conscious choice, it is testament to his character - a guy who is not driven by money or fame, yes he openly admits to making music to (and I quote) "clean the kitchen or make love to your girl to and make babies", he has grown from the embryonic days of his career (excuse the pun) and if you go on to YouTube, you'll see recent interview where he proves to be down to earth, have humility, humbleness and to a certain extent, shyness.
His first single 'Pretty Wings' is classy, sexy and understated. He has not tried to compensate for being away in this new single, instead he's managed to draw on his experience and has grown as a person and artist. Gone with the indulgent 'fro haircut, he is a normal guy and said himself that to make music of worth, you have to have life experience - something that is very tough to do whilst in the public eye.
I'm waiting with great anticipation for the new album (Tuesday 7th July 2009) and as a long term fan, I like many others feel like I know him in my own strange way. I'm proud to say I'm a fan and I admire him for his conscious decision to take so long to develop as a person and artist. He will likely sell millions of his new album by default - past fans still listen to his old music and would purchase the album regardless. But I dont think he's worried about this album blowing up or simply simmering gently. He's done it for himself and is thankful to have the attention of so many ears...and we (the fans) are in turn grateful to have him back in our lives.

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Diggers

Posted by Realm 1 May 2009 comments (0)

Up to and including about 5/6 years ago, there was a major step forward in technology for music. Don't get me wrong, I've been into 'mp3' audio files in addition to my Vinyl and CD collection for quite some time before this, but it's only been recent times that storing your entire music collection digitally has taken over as the main method. Our mindset has altered dramatically, whether you're an artist, consumer or DJ and it feels like mp3's have been around forever, but cast your mind back only by a few years and you were buying CD's at HMV or on Amazon etc. It was at this time that there was an important decision to be made as a DJ. New DJ's had the option of being a 'Vinyl DJ' or a 'CD DJ' - those who are of this crowd will know what I'm on about - your choice of audio medium would immediately define what type of DJ you were and was the cause of long debates and the start of the great DJ divide. Many (myself included, as a 1983 baby) had little option but to embrace both, after all - whilst I've been buying new, classic and rare Vinyl since the mid to late 90's, some things are just too hard to come by and so CD's offered me the ability to build my collection. For me, CD's were instantly integrated into my personal and DJ music arsenal.

Enough blabbering on about my own experience, this blog instalment is about the question of :''What is 'Digging' and does it still exist?''
If you were unfortunate enough to have been born after the time when certain music was readily available - for example, when Motown was in the charts originally, as a Music philanthropist, you would 'have to' sift through second hand stores, records shops and the like, in search of that one Single, EP, or LP... and at the time, this was your holy grail - the one you'd been looking for since you can remember.
Eventually somehow (maybe destiny and karma mixed with re-presses?!) you and your desired record would cross paths and your search would end and simultaneously commence at that moment - after all, once you've found 'the one', there's instantly another 'one' that you 'NEED'.
I for one was and am still a Digger - I actively go out of my way in a relentless search of music, whether it be something I already know or something that I've caught a snippet of whilst being out and about (you know, when you hear a song, don't remember much other than you liked it and the tune went something like 'la, la lalala, da da de da da' or the lyrics said something particular or there was a violin intro).
But original Digging began and ended with Vinyl. That's it. That's where the term 'Vinyl Purist' comes from and it refers to the mantra of music is only credible when listened to and played on records - which encompasses a more organic sound and was the original way of recording music - making it available to the masses. Dont forget, to make a sound from a record, it involves physical movements and vibrations. So with this in mind, the 'purists' have a point and this translates well to the DJ world where 'proper' DJ's used to be the ones who used Vinyl as it involved the above physical elements, plus human physical intervention. The 'mixing' of records which DJ's employ has on occasion been put under scrutiny as it has been argued that it is an insult to the original tracks which have been crafted from end to end - the result of this argument has been a break-away group of DJ's who source rare records and stage nightclub events where the records are played from beginning to end with no DJ intervention/playing around (no scratching, beat juggling, mixing etc). These DJ's are the very critics of those who opted for Digital DJ methods which seemingly involved less talent and had little integrity, seems to me that there is certainly an element of hypocrisy there. Still that's another argument all together (especially as I'm one of the people who criticised CD DJ's at first.
Things have gone digital and Serato scratch allows a fusion of Analogue techniques with digital attributes - music technology has finally entered into a place where it walks hand-in-hand with the human element.
So with all of this in mind, the simple answer to whether or not Digging for records is still around - yes. I haven't purchased Vinyl for some time now, everything's Digital, although my lifelong quest to seek out new music, artists, styles and genre's is still there in full swing. The difference is that I get the added benefit of finding what I'm looking for and actually hearing it whenever I wish. That said, there are those occasions where you just can't replace Vinyl, as music has fused genre's since the beginning of musical time, so have the ways in which we listen to it. A Digger these days will know this and a true Digger will place more importance upon them music itself as opposed to the machine playing it. Music has always and will continue to remain the constant.

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