Where is the fun ?
From browser based music games to apps and from mobile social music games to consoles, there is a huge audience out there willing to embrace the best upcoming products.
Markets to watch: Japan, China, South Korea.
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IS FREE THE RIGHT PRICE FOR NEW DIGITAL MUSIC ?
If you look at your favorite new music from 2011, chances are that you got a good part of it for free. Personally, mine was ALL free*.
thx to : The Weeknd // Criolo // Frank Ocean // Asap Rocky // Drake
*But willing to spend money on live, merch, music objects …
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WHERE ARE THE NEW MUSIC OBJECTS ?
Sales for Dr. Dre´s Beats approached $500 Million for 2011. It would take 50 Million albums´ sales at a gross ppd price of USD 10 in order to generate those same 500 Millions… So, what are we waiting for ?
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Few weeks ago, a website had brought back the fun into the music discovering process. This week was also interesting for the future of music consumption. While Bjork is working on a music school project for very young kids as well as a highly anticipated set of apps, our favourite belgian djs uncovered their record collection by releasing an awesome new music app :
Long gone are the days where most apps were purely promotional without any kind of interactivities. If you want to have an interesting product for your fans today, it would be better to work directly with developers, interactive designers and visual artists.
try it HERE, if you are like me, you might having a hard time listening to it while not watching it. For some of us, artworks are parts of our strongest music memories …
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Just a few reasons why music will always need a physical support :
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Great and simple presentation about our future – including social media, relationships, sustainability, sharing, new forms of currency and content.
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Sounds and Colours might become your favorite destination if you are, like me, passionate about South American culture and music. This is a perfect interview if you want to know more about the constant transformations of music creation in South America. Here it is, S&C’s Editor in chief, Russ Slater, pointing the new genres emerging, the impact of technology on music creation and promotion, and of course a very nice top 10 2010 with music from Chile, Brazil, Argentina and more …
Where are the new music epicenters of Latin America?
Well, Sounds and Colours focuses on South American music rather than Latin American as we feel that this music does not get as much attention as it deserves, with often music from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Mexico getting all the plaudits. Within South America, Colombia and Brazil are the two most high-profile countries, and quite deservedly so.
Colombia has some amazing new artists mixing Latin culture and beats (especially cumbia) with elements of hip-hop and pop, with Bomba Estero, Systema Solar, Choc Quib Town and Pernett all breaking new ground in this area.
Brazil on the other hand continues to attract people with hybridisations of samba and bossa nova, as well as the new phenomenom of baile funk. Yet this only begins to tell the story as some of the best independent music in Latin America comes out of Brazil with bands such as Otto, Eddie and Lucas Santtana mixing Afro-Brazilian rhythms with electronics and other more left-field influences such as kraut rock. You also have great bands making alternative rock/pop records; Mombojó and Do Amor being two who have released revelatory albums this year.
Mentions also have to go to Argentina for their electronic cumbia scene, as well as a thriving indie-pop community, Chile as the center of electro-pop in South America, and Peru for a very interesting avant-garde rock scene.
Beside Cumbia and baile Funk, what are the next musical trends you see emerging?
Brazil has a habit of creating new genres through splicing together a number of existing ones, and the future looks no different. In the North of the country you can find technobrega and tecnomelody (sometimes referred to as eletromelody), which are modern updates on Northern rhythms such as brega and frevo. In many ways this movement has emerged due to the same cultural conditions as baile funk in Rio; people have far better access to electronic instruments and they are able to sell their music via pirate CDs and earn money in a way which would not be possible via official means. Both technobrega and tecnomelody are largely electronic affairs with local rhythms and hip-hop-inspired vocals. Tecnomelody is the slightly slower of the two styles and has its spokesperson in Gaby Amarantos, a lady often referred to as the Beyonce Knowles of the Amazon. Due to the sheer infectiousness of these movements I really can’t see any reason why they cannot make an impact abroad.
In Argentina right now there’s an interesting evolution happening with “digital cumbia.” This style, which is an off-shoot of “cumbia villera,” (Argentina’s rawer and more urban cumbia) has now begun to take on a more distinctive sound, with artists such as Axel Krygier and Tremor bringing in folkloric melodies and rhythms from their native country, meaning that we’re starting to see Argentine artists get in touch with their roots and responding via electronic instruments. While there is no specific name for this movement yet (it’s generally referred to as “digital folklore” or similar) this is one area that we can expect a lot of developments in. As with these examples, a lot of the new movements coming from South America will involve mixing traditional forms with electronics, as well as a greater influence from hip-hop. We’re already starting to see this in other countries too with Novalima fusing Afro-Peruvian music with electronics and Los NIN mixing the music of the Ecuadorian Andes (i.e. woodwind and charango) with rap and rock guitars.
I am quite familiar with music from Bahia, Brasil where you can heavily feel the african influences … but is there other countries in latin america where you still feel a direct musical african heritage too ?
As well as Brazil, African influence is felt largely in the music of Colombia, Peru and Uruguay. In the cases of Colombia and Peru this music is now having something of a renaissance. For many years, the African influence had been neglected by the upper and middle classes, but now things are starting to change. In Colombia it is largely on the Pacific coast where the influence can be felt, especially in a music known as Palenque. This was brilliantly compiled this year on Soundway Record’s Palenque! Palenque! compilation where it seemed almost impossible to notice any difference between the music of Fela Kuti and artists such as Son Palenque and Wganda Kenya in Colombia. In Peru, the same thing happened with people listening to criollo music rather than traditional Afro-Peruvian music. Again this has changed, largely thanks to amazing ambassadors for the genre like Susana Baca and Eva Ayllon who have really ensured that the people take notice of the form.
Uruguay’s African influence is something of an anomaly in the history of South American music. Although the colonialists tried to malign the music of the African slaves, they could only resist for so long, and eventually would join in the celebrations. So it was that the music of the slaves slowly become the music of the people, and candombe and milonga took over, with white people blacking up their faces and wearing simple shoes and clothes to impersonate the slaves. Candombe is now central to life in Montevideo with drumming groups parading throughout the city during the week as well as playing a crucial role in National holidays such as The Day of the Wise Men as well as Montevideo carnival.
How do you see the new generation of Latin American artists using the web and the online world ?
It’s fair to say we are going to see the use of digital tools increase, especially in terms of spreading the word. In some countries, such as Chile this is being helped by the Government who are putting money into building websites for artists and musicians, but in most cases this is happening simply as a means by which any artist can reach the rest of the world. We are seeing the results of this increasing use of the web in the successes of artists such as Javiera Mena and Gaby Amarantos, who I mentioned earlier. Javiera is an electronic musician from Chile who is now able to play gigs in Mexico and the US as word-of-mouth on her debut Esquemas Juveniles album caused people to take notice of her talent. However Gaby Amarantos is probably the best example.
Although Belem is a big city in Brazil it is fair to say that far less people would have heard her music had it not been for Twitter, where she currently has around 4,500 followers. In a country as big as Brazil many musicians have to circulate their music virally before they can begin to look at touring or selling their music legitimately, and this is exactly what they are doing. In the case of baile funk, you now have a phenomenom where the music of Rio’s favelas can be playing within the clubs of London or Paris just days after a new song is made.
@OlivierRosset
Sounds and Colours website
Sounds and Colours Official.fm profile
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From Mambo to Hip Hop: Interesting 56 minutes documentary on the adoption of Cuban rhythms to create the Bronx salsa sound, which laid the foundations for Funk and Hip-Hop :
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