Indie Dispatches: The xx’s Mercury Prize & More Musings on the U.S. – Australia Music Divide
The xx take home this year's Mercury Music Prize
In another scout around the globe this week, the first stop is the UK, where congratulations go out to The xx on winning the annual Mercury Music Prize. While it did seem they were on the short list of favorites, the trio beat out some more storied competition including the Modfather himself, Paul Weller, as well as Corrine Bailey Rae and Biffy Clyro (soon to be playing locally in LA at the Bootleg Theatre). The band, who already had solid sales in the UK, benefited from the usual Mercury winning bump, and rocketed to #3 in the charts, with their (now prize-winning) album having now sold over 212,000 copies in the market. Add that to the massive number in the USA (and elsewhere) and it is a bona fide success story for the band and their label, XL Recordings.
Of course success in a band’s home territory is not an instant guarantee of worldwide sales, with a recent sampling in Australia making obvious how long and deep the list of very successful Aussie acts who can barely get arrested in North America is. Angus & Julia Stone may have a top selling album that has perched in the higher echelons of the Australian charts since release, but despite support from local tastemakers such as KCRW, their notoreity in this country is nothing close to that level. The massive venues the band play in their home country being replaced by the El Rey in Los Angeles – a modest sized venue in comparison. The dichotomy may be even more glaring with Birds of Tokyo, whose latest self-titled album has gone Gold down under, but they’ve yet to play beyond a tiny Viper Room gig in 2009. Tame Impala have done better than others, receiving the support of Pitchfork, yet they still havent reached comparable sales here (even in a larger marketplace). Meanwhile new Warner Australia act The Versus would elicit a “who?” from most American consumers (and most likely be confused with re-formed indie rockers Versus, who just released a new album on Merge). Ivy League Records may have a solid local roster of Australian acts like Cloud Cult, but none are achieving anything close to the success the company had with Jet and The Vines internationally. Of course the most extreme case is the band Powderfinger, who are massive in their home country of Australia – positively U2-like proportions. A bit of research gives the impression that their last Los Angeles headlining show was at the El Rey in 2002, and the U.S. doesnt even seem to warrant a stop for the band on their string of farewell shows this year. Whereas if you travel down into the southern hemisphere, you may just spy a jet airliner from the local Jetstar fleet with a Powderfinger logo emblazoned in giant letters along the side. Now that is what I call a big fish in a small pond.
- Cool Hand Luke
08.31.10Indie Dispatches (Goes Walkabout): Australian Labels Feel the Industry Slump, While Foreign Artists Flourish
Australia's Music Industry in Flux
While some detractors talk disparagingly about Australia as being just like Southern California but with funny accents, there is no disputing that the ties run deep across the Pacific, especially when it comes to music. Turn on JJJ radio and you are likely to hear WAVVES; open the local free entertainment weekly mag and there are full-page adverts for upcoming live dates by Silversun Pickups along with a feature on Autolux and a large interview with Best Coast - the latter can also be heard on the airwaves with local Melbourne community alternative station RRR-FM featuring Crazy for You as their “album of the week”. Even L.A. newbies Foster the People are popping up on JJJ with their single “Pumped Up Kicks”. And you could be mistaken in thinking you were in West Hollywood with the list of recent and upcoming tours including Ben Kweller & Delta Spirit, New Pornographers, Low, Jonneine Zapata, Band of Skulls, Passion Pit and Broken Social Scene.
This is not to say that there isn’t a healthy local music community here, as witnessed by the emergence of Tame Impala in 2010 and the release of excellent records by the likes of Sally Seltmann and SXSW buzz act The Middle East, but dark clouds are appearing on the horizon. The global slump in music sales is hitting hard in Australia too. Recent weeks have seen two of the country’s major independent companies, Shock Records (who handles everything from Vagrant and Epitaph to Rough Trade), and Stomp (distributor for Sub Pop and others) facing liquidation and being taken over due to crippling debts, possibly even taking some of the distributed labels and artists’ money with them. Domestic CD prices in Australia are around $24 retail (in U.S. dollars that’s about 21 bucks!!!), and when compared with cheaper direct imports from retailers like Amazon, that makes difficult conditions for the indies. More consumer dollars seem to be going towards the slew of foreign touring artists and the large major label-funded companies (Modular, Dew Process, etc), with indies willing to invest in local talent becoming scarce.
Though it is not all grim news. A bright spot is the re-emergence of New Zealand’s premiere independent Flying Nun – with original founder Roger Shepherd reclaiming the label from Warner Music, there are plans to relaunch with a choice selection of new artists (NZ act Die! Die! Die! being one of the first) and a welcome revamp and reissue of their legendary catalog of releases by The Chills, The Clean and more. There are also a host of companies developing a hybrid of great international catalog combined with some of the best local releases. These include Remote Control, who along with achieving great success with the Beggars set of labels (including chart topping releases by the White Stripes and The xx album that is steadily heading towards gold status), also handle the marketing for a host of up-and-coming local acts such as Parades, who are also signed through their inhouse Dot Dash label. And plowing the same territory from Sydney are both Spunk, who handles a lot of the Merge catalog including Arcade Fire and Australian newcomer Bearhug, and Popfrenzy - home to Best Coast, HEALTH and The Drums as well as Antipodean acts like Songs and Surf City.
- Cool Hand Luke
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