The music industry is a funny place. Hunter Thompson, the journalist famous for taking massive drugs and reporting on music for Rolling Stone Magazine, once described it as such: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” For a vast majority of it he’s quite right. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Despite that light, there are still people that bring music a bad name.
I’ve been doing some co-writing with a couple of females (Jan Linder-Koda and Heather Bradley). One of them has been going through that hallway with a former co-writer that she did a lot of writing with. The gist of it is that her former co-writer ended up taking their material, putting a new singer on it, then go himself a major deal with a major label. In addition to that he licensed some of the music for film and tv without telling her or the label. The problem in the situation is that he claimed full copyright ownership in the songs, as well as the publishing. The reality is, he didn’t have either.
The music business is small enough that most people on the inside will hear about things. Heather found out about all of it. She contacted the label and explained what was happening. Now it’s turned into a huge issue for the former co-writer. He’s likely to get pushed out of his deal and has certainly tarnished his track record. Not a good thing to do. As they say, Karma will always come back to bite you in the butt. I certainly hope that Heather gets what she is due.
The light at the end of the tunnel for most non-signed and hobbyist musicians is CD Baby. Derek Sivers has created a great niche for distribution on a global scale for CD’s and now iTunes (I’m not sure if I’ve even mentioned the story about some of the iTunes trials here on the blog). It’s great thing, there’s no doubt about it. As I mentioned earlier in this week, Derek held an event at Hotel Cafe in Hollywood. I met quite a few artists that day, which is a great thing. One of them was a pretty woman who came up to greet me. We had a short conversation, she gave me her card and wanted to get me to hear some of her music. And here I am. You’re listening to one of her songs.
Larkin certainly has a presence that most artists don’t have. Even though she came off a bit shy in introducing herself and chatting with me, she had a very sexual presence. The album from which this song comes from doesn’t hide it either “X-Rated Musical”. There’s no doubt that sex sells. it’s used all the time in marketing and advertising. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s how we’re all still here on the planet. If we didn’t have sex, we wouldn’t be here. Anyway, it’s certain that Larkin isn’t hiding anything. There’s even a video on her website that is quite racy for most people. I was actually surprised by it and I’m not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, I’m a guy, I watched the whole thing.
Prince and Madonna are two artists that instantly come to mind when the words sex and music are mentioned. They reside primarily in the pop genre, thus they’re popular. Larkin is much more upscale with her sound, uh, Jazzy. I never really associated Jazz with sex because it’s such heady music. If Larkin was more pop oriented I have the feeling she’d be enjoying that similar controversy that Prince and Madonna have enjoyed. Regardless, there’s a sensual quality to what she’s doing that kept me listening. That there is a pre-requisite for me wanting to blog about someone. She obviously passes my muster. It’s up to you now to add her to your music library. Remember this is a whole musical, not just one song!
Oh, and I don’t think that Larkin is a slut.