Nightwish’s new singer

After months of build-up, Nightwish have finally revealed the identity of their new singer, 35 year old Anette Olzon. (It seems like something of an anticlimax to announce the new singer is a virtual unknown after such a dramatic build-up, but it was all fun none the less.)

Furthermore, four samples have been made available via the band’s website of new tracks showcasing Olzon’s vocals, so we can finally get on with the business of comparing the new singer to former vocalist Tarja Turunen.

I was never one of those observers who thought that Turunen was Nightwish; she was not a writing member of the band, and during live performances the characters of all four members would come across distinctly and vibrantly. Also, I often found Turunen’s performances on record lacking, as if she didn’t have sufficient power to give the songs the performances they required. A notable example is on the band’s cover of Phantom of the Opera, on which after a seriously under powered vocal performance, the final histrionic squeal that provides such a dramatic ending to the original track is entirely absent.

Having said all that, Turunen’s operatic style always set her apart somewhat from her contemporaries and helped Nightwish maintain their distinctive sound as more and more symphonic metal acts appeared around Europe.

Olzon is not a classically trained singer, and has a more rock orientated style than Turunen. Many Nightwish fans have criticised her for what they see as a lack of distinctiveness and power in her vocals, and I share the fear Nightwish may have lost some of the distinctive qualities of their sound with Olzon’s vocals. However, the samples of new material that have been revealed do not suffer from the sense of being under powered in the way I described above, with Olzon matching the passion of the male vocals admirably.

The greater test for Olzon will be live performances, in which she will have to interpret Nightwish’s back catalogue and make it fit her own style. Nighwish’s live performances with Turunen were a stunning spectacle, and this is the area in which Nightwish fans can be expected to be least forgiving. I can’t wait to see what she’s capable of and I wish her luck.

Reznor deals major labels another blow

In a recent interview Trent Reznor has expanded on his eariler comments about the behaviour of record labels and gone as far as to indicate an intention to leave Interscope as soon as possible. He says that he is contractually obligated to deliver one more album to Interscope, but if he could he would cut out the labels altogether and sell the next Nine Inch Nails record online for a meagre $4. (He went as far as to note that consumers would be able to download the record at “as high a bit-rate as you want”, a detail I greatly appreciate.)

Since MySpace and Snocap teamed up to allow artists to sell DRM free music direct to consumers I’ve been disappointed with the uptake. I was looking forward to being able to buy tracks from all those great unsigned bands I’ve come across on MySpace, but months later, it’s still a rarity to see the Snocap player on a band’s profile. Hopefully Reznor’s stand will encourage more artists to go down the direct to consumers route.

“Heart Shaped Glasses” – Manson controversial again?

It seems that Herr Doktor has made a slight return to the controversy he used to inspire so effortlessly at his peak; and all it required was a rumor that the sex scenes in his latest video were not simulated.

This comes at a time when Manson claims to be uninterested in being shocking, and considering the themes of this latest era contain no controversial ideas, I take this claim at face value. After The Golden Age of Grotesque failed to raise any such controversy and suffered from a sense that Manson was trying a bit too hard, I see this kind of attention as a sign that his art is flowing more freely and honestly in this era, and I’m glad of it.

Reznor lashes out against record labels

A few days ago Trent Reznor lashed out against record labels he believes are ripping off fans. (The statement was originally post on the official NIN website, but has since been removed, so I’ve appended it to this post.)

I entirely agree with him, particularly on the “Maxi Single” point. I’m a sucker that bit of extra content they tack onto releases to get you to buy the same thing twice, and to discourage you from buying cheap imports. In the vast majority of cases this exciting extra content is under produced filler bollocks that you’ll watch once and forget about.

It’s this kind of attention that makes Reznor such a worthy rock star. Here’s the origional post from Reznor:

Posted on [05_13_2007]

As the climate grows more and more desperate for record labels, their answer to their mostly self-inflicted wounds seems to be to screw the consumer over even more. A couple of examples that quickly come to mind:

* The ABSURD retail pricing of Year Zero in Australia. Shame on you, UMG. Year Zero is selling for $34.99 Australian dollars ($29.10 US). No wonder people steal music. Avril Lavigne’s record in the same store was $21.99 ($18.21 US).
By the way, when I asked a label rep about this his response was: “It’s because we know you have a real core audience that will pay whatever it costs when you put something out – you know, true fans. It’s the pop stuff we have to discount to get people to buy.”
So… I guess as a reward for being a “true fan” you get ripped off.

* The dreaded EURO Maxi-single. Nothing but a consumer rip-off that I’ve been talked into my whole career. No more.

The point is, I am trying my best to make sure the music and items NIN puts in the marketplace have value, substance and are worth you considering purchasing. I am not allowing Capital G to be repackaged into several configurations that result in you getting ripped off.

We are planning a full-length remix collection of substance that will be announced soon.

Who cares about royal recognition of metal?!

I discovered recently that a petition has been created on the 10 Downing Street website to get Iron Maiden founder and bassist Steve Harris included in the next round of honours to be handed out by the British government. It seems that after Ozzy Osborn’s appearance at the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002, some metal fans have developed a taste for royal recognition of the subculture. However, the obvious question seems to be, why should metal fans care if the governing classes recognise the achievements of the genre or not? While I don’t dispute the importance of Steve Harris’s contribution to music, I don’t see what purpose is served by chasing after a handshake from the monarchy. Thus far only around 1,500 of the Iron Maiden faithful have seen fit to sign the petition, so maybe they don’t either.

Eat Me, Drink Me

I’ve gone ahead and downloaded the leaked version of Eat Me, Drink Me to give it a try before I get my copy; so, here’s my review…

Leaving behind the production sheen characteristic of Manson’s previous releases, this is a lo-fi, straight up rock album, complete with some compelling extended classic rock guitar solos from Tim Skold. I was glad to find that subtle shades of the dark aesthetics of The Golden Age of Grotesque remain in the form of some pleasing keyboard breaks. Manson’s talked a lot about how he wanted to sing skillfully on this record, and he’s delivered a strong and engaging vocal performance.

With his new lyrical style, concentrating on personal themes of love, sex, and celebrity, Manson has lost most of the air of rebellion that he exemplified so powerfully earlier in his career. The fact that he has done this voluntarily now is probably a good thing, as his credibility in that role had already slipped considerably, and this new focus has served to make him more personable than ever.

With Eat Me, Drink Me, Manson has produced another great album, once again unique from each of his previous records.

“Heart Shaped Glasses” Video

The video for Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand) has finally been revealed, and the good news is that it holds together well and makes the song seem less wet. The car scene in the extended into sequence is, in my opinion, the best thing about the video; firstly because it adds reckless driving to the list of things-you-shouldn’t-do-that-Manson’s-done-in-a-video, and secondly because the dialogue between Manson and Wood seems natural amongst the pleasing noir aesthetics.

Though the initial sex scene is pretty explicit the video doesn’t quite deliver the “near pornographic” content promised. However, the indications are that there is a more explicit version to look forward to.

I’ll finish this post by pointing out the coincidence of Manson releasing a video including a scene in which its raining blood soon before embarking on a tour with thrash metal legends Slayer. As Manson generally has an eye for these kind of thing, perhaps the correlation between his blood drinking concept on Eat Me, Drink Me and Slayer’s famous famous track Raining Blood contributed to his decision to do the co-headlining tour.

Update: I’ve just discovered that Bleeding Through will be joining Manson and Slayer on tour; I think there’s a very clear blood theme developing.

Music you can savour.

While drinking a bottle of fine English ale this evening I found myself reminded of Bauhaus defining single Bela Legosi’s Dead (if your unfamiliar with it, check it out on Bauhaus MySpace profile). The connection is in the experience of savouring. The feeling I get holding my unspoiled beer glass in my hand and taking in the aroma of the liquid within is exactly the same as that I get when I hear those initial beats on the drums and guitar squeals of the aforementioned goth classic. The metaphor is now burned into my mind for all eternity, and I doubt I’ll never hear those beats again without remembering to savour them.

I’d love to know; what songs do you savour?

The end of album art?

One of the reasons I continue to buy CD’s and haven’t yet switched to buying music from download services is that I love album art. One of the reasons the replacement of vinyl with CD’s and cassette tapes is so lamented is the fact the packaging is so much smaller and therefore the art work printed on it can’t be as detailed. Now that with have distribution of music through Internet downloading, which of course requires no packaging, then I guess that’s the end of album art altogether, right? Well… hopefully not, as with a little bit of imagination, the opposite could be true. Computers, as digital photographs would agree, are actually very good at displaying graphics. Why not use this capability to provide vivid and detailed artwork to accompany the albums we buy on-line?

Currently, a lot of media software is capable of associating a small thumbnail of an album cover with the tracks in that album. The approach is generally to have a record of what the CD packaging is like. Why not cut out is CD packaging middleman, and produce graphics that take advantage of the rich graphical capabilities of modern computers? Then we could begin to enjoy album art as high resolution graphics suitable for viewing at full screen.

My point is that the end of physical music packaging doesn’t have to mean the end of album art; on the contrary, it could spell its return.

Marilyn Manson not industrial anymore

Despite Marilyn Manson’s upcoming album, Eat Me, Drink Me, being a close collaboration between Manson and industrial powerhouse Tim Skold, it seems that this time round all industrial elements have been purged from Manson’s sound. So what does that leave us with? Judging by lead single Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand), we may be left with a set of rather limp, radio-friendly rock tunes. However, the only other track to be made public so far, If I Was Your Vampire, is a lot more encouraging. The track is a powerful morbid fantasy that comes close to full-filling Manson’s “vampire national anthem” promises.

In a recent press conference Manson stated that he indented to make Eat Me, Drink Me more like the music he listens to at home, mentioning David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, Radiohead’s Ok Computer, and Prince’s Purple Rain as examples. Hopefully the rest of the new album doesn’t stray to far into this world of softness, and delivers plenty more gothic grandeur like If I Was Your Vampire.