Full Sail Music History 2 Pretty Lights Podcast

Pretty Lights - Independent Research Entry

Derek Vincent Smith, more popularly know as Pretty Lights, has changed the game in terms of how to make it to stardom in the modern music era.  His approach to the music business is entirely contradictory to the traditional means of they way the industry works.  Smiths’ reinvention of the music business fits lock and key with his approach to production.  The marriage of Derek’s production style and business savvy have proven to be tremendously successful as Pretty Lights becomes a household name in the electronic and independent hip-hop world.  

Pretty Lights is best known for the flagrant use of classic era r and b, soul, gospel, blues and rare funk samples to produce some of the most entertaining instrumental hip hop and electronic music to date.  With the amount of sampling Petty Lights uses in the production, the licensing fee’s required to secure the sample rights to an entire albums worth of material would prove to be incomprehensible.  As each song produced by Pretty Lights plainly references a famous drum loop, horn stab, vocal hook or guitar lick, Smith has decided forgo the whole process of obtaining the costly rights to each of the samples he uses.  Smith brilliantly decided that instead of paying upfront licensing fees; Pretty Lights would side step the music industries traditional distribution channel of album sales and opt for a more pervasive tactic and give away all of the music for free.  Armed only with the strength of the music, Pretty Lights began distributing music for free via the Pretty Lights website back in 2006 with the release of the album “Taking up Your Precious Time.”  This album is best know for the song “Finally Moving” where Smith sample’s a heart wrenching vocal line from the Etta James song “Something’s Got a Hold On Me.”  Although the music took a few years to grasp the public’s attention via word of mouth alone, Pretty Lights' popularity has sky rocketed since 2009 playing large venues and music festivals across the nation.  As Smith’s popularity grew by leaps and bounds, Pretty Lights soon became the main attraction and now headlines every show performed. 

Having never received a penny from album sales, Pretty Lights has clearly redefined the path to success in the music industry as his compensation for performance comes in among the top paid acts in modern music.  Clearly Pretty Lights has achieved greater success than most artists who participate in the music business via traditional album sales and has undoubtedly reinvented the modern day business model for success in the music industry.   As current album sales plummet, and the internet seems to be providing the free acquisition of music at an alarming rate while the business of live performance thrives and proves to be the only concrete means of income for an artist in today’s music business.

As a listener, pretty lights immediately grabs me and says its ok to use large amounts of sampling to innovate upon in order to create new magical works of art that take pieces of the past and pushes them into the future.  As an industry professional, Smith’s production, arrangement and sound design are definitely ahead of his time.  Smith has persevered and kept producing music that found its way into the hearts and minds of the mainstream concert goers. I doing this, Smith's proven success has allowed him the ability to run his own label where other artists albums with a similar feel to Pretty Lights are distributed for free on the Pretty Lights Music label website.  With the popularity of Pretty Lights as an artist, the Label new artists such as Super Vision, Michael Menert, Paper Diamond, Break Science and most recently Gramatik are also sharing in the spot light and are also seeing success having a performance schedule that most modern artists only dream of.  With this, Pretty Lights has redefined acceptable modern music production as well as the business approach that suits it.

Peer Comment Week 4

In this post I took the opportunity to read Michael Garced's post on Scott Storch that can be read here:
Scott Storch Independent Research Post

Dear Michael,

I thoroughly enjoyed your post about Scott Storch. It was very informative and I learned some new things about the producer that I did not know beforehand.  It is surprising to know that the lyrics in the Timberland song referred to Storch. I was always curious to know who Timberland was talking about.  Seeing as how Storch put Fat Joe back on the map it makes sense that he would use his talent on the piano to create infectious riffs like the one heard from a violin in “Lean Back.”  You are definitely right to say that in order for Timberland to recognize Storch and comment on him in a song of his he must have in some way seen him as a threat.  Overall I really enjoyed your post.  The only recommendations I can make would be to look for a few grammatical and punctuation errors and maybe a sentence fragment here or there. I look forward to reading your blog in the future.

Electronic Music Innovation - Skrillex

Aside from any other modern electronic music artist today, Skrillex has invigorated the modern electronic scene like most other producers in the field can only dream of.  With an arsenal of new production techniques and blistering new soundscapes, Skrillex burst on to the electronic music scene in 2010.  With the free release of the "My Name is Skrillex" EP on his official MySpace page, he has redefined the avenue to success in the Music business as well as the sound of modern Dubstep and electro house.  In 2011 Skrillex, Sonny John Moore, the former vocalist of the hard core band “From First to Last”, was nominated for five Grammy Awards and took home 3 in one night. Winning for “Best Dance/Electronica Album,” “Best Dance Recording” and “Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical,” Skrillex has paved the way for modern electronic music, and primarily the genre of Dubstep, to enter the mainstream of popular music.  

Listening to Skrillex we hear sounds that we have never heard before.  With the likes of his remix of “Cinema” by Benni Benassi, we hear a production style and technique that is in a category all by itself.  Skrillex has undoubtedly broken the boundaries of what was thought of as sonically possible.  Now, in short 2 years later, we hear many producers replicating his achievements in terms of style and sonic flavor.  In addition to breaking sonic boundaries, Skrillex has recreated the pathway to success in the modern music industry itself.  With the ease of “acquiring” music these days, the industry is beginning to lean heavily towards the cost of music being free where the performances are becoming the majority of today’s artists income.  This holds true in the case of Skrillex as he has been named the 15 million dollar Dj in the August 20th 2012 issue of Forbes magazine. 

When I listen to Skrillex I hear the future of music for a time to come. Everything he touches as a producer and a re-mixer literally turns to gold.  His style is by far one of the most original and innovative the industry has ever seen.  Skrillex has had such an impact on modern music that he has had the opportunity to record with music history giants and has even turned original recordings he produced with the remaining members of the “Doors’ into jaw dropping releases.  As he continues to release musical gems its hard to see the end of the road for this artist.

Electronic Music - Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is undoubtedly the most influential electronic artist in history.  With innovations in sound design all the way through to having original instruments created specifically for their new explorations in modern music, Kraftwerk paved the path for a new form of artistic expression in music that other artists would copy and build upon for decades to come. 

As we can imagine with the use of new instruments and sound Kraftwerks music was amazingly futuristic and ahead of its time.  Their image however was very retro and conservative on the contrary.  With classical musical training the sound of Kraftwerk was the perfect marriage of old and new as was the image they projected.  As the sound heard in Kraftwerks albums mature through their releases during the late 70’s their image transformed into that of a machine like               entity producing more sophisticated yet ironically simple dance tunes.

In 1974 with the release of the Autobahn album, Kraftwerk made a break from the traditional sound heard in their previous albums.  This new sound was aided by the use of new instruments and synthesizers primarily the Minimoog and the EMS Synthi AKS.  These new machines would give way to the cultivation of a new soundscape for Kraftwerk’s music.  This new sound was pushed forth and focused by the new incorporation of a theme for each of the bands albums from 1974 to 1981.  With Autobahn it was a feel motivated by driving where Radio-Activity was motivated by the influence of the Radio and Nuclear Activity while Trans Europe Express was all about train travel.  It wasn’t until the release of Man-Machine in May of 1978 that Kraftwerk saw major chart topping success in the UK and Germany.  This album was geared for more commercial and dance oriented scenarios after the group often frequented the discothèques to hear how the sound they developed was being innovated on the dance floor. 

Kraftwerk’s success was defined by their innovative use of new instruments and their classically educated implementation of those new sounds into a music that was engulfing and mysterious.  In addition to using newly developed instruments, Kraftwerk employed the expertise of friends whose skill in building electrical equipment came to play in creating custom instruments for the group. With this arsenal and a classical savvy it is well noted that Kraftwerk was the Godfather of electronic dance music and the innovators of the earliest forms of trance music.  There aren’t many artists’ that can say that they have innovated or created an entire genre of music.

For me the Impression I get when listening to Kraftwerk is of a forward thinking group that was ahead of its time. Kraftwerk was a group that had to wait until the industry and musical culture of the time caught up with them for their success to really blossom.  I am grateful of the legacy Kraftwerk has left on us and how the post punk electro bands of the 1980’s like Softcell, Gary Numan, and Depeche Mode took their sound to the next level. How electronic hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa made twisted the sound even further and reinvigorated the energy Kraftwerk gave to electronic music in the early 1970’s.

Peer Comment Week 3

Below is my review of a fellow students blog post found at http://brandonhortonmh2.blogspot.com/2012/09/electronic-music-innovations-entry.html

Hello Brandon,

I enjoyed reading your post on Run DMC very much. Thank you for the informative and entertaining read.  I did not know that the group paved the way for so many other hip hop artists to employ the use of drum machines and other electronic instruments.  From my earlier knowledge about Hip Hop and the history of Djing I was pleased to find in the book “Last Night A Dj Saved My Life” by Bill Brewster, I was aware that the genre started in the Bronx sometime in 1977 with Dj Kool Herc.  Herc was a transplant from Jamaica who was familiar with the sound systems of Kingston and began playing the breaks of disco and funk records back to back using two turntables and a mixer while and adding what is know as toasting in Jamaica or the original term of the DJ or Disc Jockey, as in someone who rides the beat with vocal rhyming, who is known today as an MC.  This follows your reference to the earlier hip hop artists sampling the breaks of funk, soul, and disco records to formulate the backing tracks to rap over.  I also enjoyed your fact regarding the industries advent of MIDI however I would have been please to know what year exactly this took place in. This is the same year, as you mentioned, that “Sucka MC’s” was released which employed the use of the Oberheim DMX drum machine that signaled this break through and electronic crossover.  Overall I really enjoyed your post thoroughly and hope to read more from you in the future.

Peer Review Entry

The following post is focused on a review of a peers blog that is quite informative and informational.
Follow the link to read his posting Brandon Horton Music History 2 Blog.

Hello Brandon,

I have to say that in reading your blog about the Velvet Underground I am very enthralled in the way you describe the band. You weave a simple but interesting story as to which I am able to focus on the facts and also enjoy thoroughly.  The only thing that I can see the need for addition would be the fact that Lou Reed was noted as the primary lyricist for the band where John Cale was most notably responsible for the arrangement and left field sound scaping.  The fact that Any Warhol included the band as the primary performance in many of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable Parties held at “The Factory” can also be attributed to the bands widespread success at the time. Other than these minor additions your review was extremely informative and put forth in a very educated manner. Thank you for your post and I look forward to reading more of your blog in the weeks to come.