Halls - White Chalk (Live Video)

Music isn’t just about hearing something, it’s about feeling something. We’re pretty sure Sam Howard aka Halls knows this. Because with White Chalk, taken from his album Ark, Howard creates something that makes hidden emotions surge through the body. There’s grace, calm, heavenly beauty, isolation and a sense of otherworldliness in this beautiful piece.

Taken from a live session recorded in London in the summer of 2012, complete with a small choir, this live take of White Chalk is compelling stuff.

You can hear the whole of Halls debut album on Soundcloud (here). Take some time out and give it your attention.

Halls - White Chalk (Live)

Curxes - Spectre (Video)

The industrial pop din of Curxes recent single Spectre may already be a distant memory such is the speed at which the internet turns over new music, but now the UK south coast duo have released a video to accompany the song and plug it back into the sockets of our brain. The music may have an aggressive punch, but this layered animation created by the bands lead singer Roberta Fidora (pictured above) is more compassionate, dealing with loss, depression and having the people to save you from that. You’ll probably need to watch it a number of times to take it all in; from the floods, the spinning silhouetted buildings (if you live in the Portsmouth area you may recognise many of them) and the record titles referencing the storyline of the video.

Spectre is available to purchase via iTunes or on good solid vinyl from the bands shop (here). 

After a number of recent live dates, Curxes take a break from raging your senses until next month when they'll be playing a show in a town once named as the second best place to live in the UK - Leigh on Sea. It may seem an odd choice of location to play, but let us not forget that a certain Depeche Mode (who make an appearance of sorts in the video) originated from only 10 miles further down the road. The gig is part of The Christmas Box at The Ship and takes place between 7pm and 1am on the 14th December.

In addition to the video, floating through the sea mists comes this haunted galleon of a remix of Spectre from Rudi (better known as DJ Dave Saunders) ready to haunt your thermal underwear off with its ambient nocturnal horror film soundtrack style. It's available as a free download.

Curxes - Spectre (Video)

Curxes - Spectre (Rudi's Down Mix)

San Cisco - Beach (Video)

Remember San Cisco ? We introduced you to the perky Australian band back in May and since then they’ve signed a record deal with Columbia in the UK and RCA / Fat Possum in the US. We’re taking a wild stab and saying that at some point this probably means that their cute Darwin Deez referencing song Awkward will probably get a re-release. It certainly deserves to.

But for now they have another new song, Beach, the video for which (are you ready for this) was filmed on a…..beach ! You can imagine the complex discussions that went on in the concept meeting. “Hey guys, so we’ve got this song called Beach and we’re looking for ideas where to film it……”

Of course this is no ordinary beach, this is a windswept Brighton beach in the UK, a place where Breaking More Waves (the clue is partly in our blog name) has spent many a happy day (and night). If you’ve ever visited Brighton you’ll recognise all the landmarks in the film, from the pier, the Royal Pavillion to the North Laines. Brighton Council tourism department must be pleased.

San Cisco - Beach (Video)

Is The UK Top 40 Singles Chart Irrelevant?

A few weeks ago, following some lively debate on twitter about the state of the UK Top 40 singles chart, Mike from Brighton’s The Recommender posted this blog called The Final Countdown. His argument was that the music in the UK singles chart is generally a pile of crap. He argued that the charts have become generic, diminished in quality, lost all relevance to his music listening and are hence dying. He suggested that the real reason for this was that most people are very stupid and are led in their music purchasing by marketing.

After this Chris from The Metaphorical Boat followed on with some well thought out reasons why the UK singles chart doesn’t contain the types of music you possibly like in a post called Six Reasons Why The Artist You Love Isn’t In The UK Charts.

Here’s a few follow up thoughts, from our chart listening selves. (We might not like everything in the charts, but we still listen week in week out for those special moments when a song we love does go top 40 and hence vindicates our taste not being as wildly out of sync of the rest of the music purchasing public as we thought) This piece attempts to deal with some of the core issues of relevance, quality and the value of the charts in the digital age of music consumption. If you’re short of time, just skip to the bottom and read the summary.

The UK singles chart is still relevant to the job it does.

That job is to measure sales, pure and simple. The chart remains the only available and well-regulated tool to measure this. It has its flaws; it doesn’t for example measure all sales (the second hand market, purchases direct from artist websites etc) but still gives a broad picture of what songs have sold in any particular week.

The bigger question is, does the measurement of sales still count for something / anything? Are sales relevant anymore?

To look at this we need to consider two elements – the music industry itself and then the public at large.

For The Music Industry

Certainly for the music industry it does count. More sales and a higher chart position is still a measure of ‘success’. A higher chart position can mean more exposure for the artist, particularly in terms of radio play. More exposure can mean more earning capacity in other areas, from selling tickets for concerts to sync deals. This article by The Guardian explains just how important chart positions still are to parts of the music industry and how bands can be dropped like a ton of bricks if they don’t achieve the chart placings that their labels expect of them. The chart is also useful to show trends, which the industry can use when considering future developments. For example, old songs have re-entered the charts after being covered on the TV show X-Factor. It’s a signal to labels that it might be time to promote that particular artists greatest hits album perhaps?

However in this digital age, the currencies are slowly changing. Non financial audience interactions are becoming the new currency. You Tube and Facebook likes have developed a value all of their own – witness the transition of Psy’s Gangnam Style, from a viral You Tube sensation, to radio play, to eventual sales and chart success. However a word of caution about You Tube hits – they often represent short term success. Facebook likes are a better measure of long term organic popularity.

For The Public

Personal relevance is harder to judge. The Recommender suggested that the charts are not about quality (a highly subjective word in terms of listening to music – for quality we could insert the word taste) and have become generic and therefore mean nothing to him. We’re sure many other people feel this way. Yet even now just under 2 million people (including ourselves) listen to the Radio 1 chart show on a Sunday evening. This is a far cry from the 7 million or so that Bruno Brookes used to get on Radio 1 many years back, but the wider availability of channels (radio, internet and personal vehicles for listening to music) was more limited then so audience figures were higher for all shows. However these figures demonstrate that some people are still interested in the charts – they still count for something for the public as well as the industry.

If sales still count for something (albeit less than they did years ago), what about quality? Has that really dropped?

Through the ages, the main goal of most pop music has nearly always been to entertain for commercial reasons, rather than having artistic depth. (Hence the title pop (=popular) music). Therefore as a genre pop music is likely to be recorded in a way that desires to have a mass audience appeal. It’s for this reason that every decade is identifiable as a having a certain sound – because what sells well will be copied. If we asked you what ‘80’s synth pop’ or ‘50’s rock n roll’ sounded like you would probably instantly know, because the pop music of the time often had common characteristics that have proved to be commercial. So, pop music by its very nature and ambitions is generic. But this is often perceived as low quality by those who want greater artistic depth rather than just to be entertained.

We’re not entirely sure if the ‘quality’ of the charts has deteriorated, and besides to accuse them of doing so is ultimately pointless. The charts have never measured quality, nor do they claim to do so, so criticising them for not having quality is like criticising a crocodile for not being a banana. Yet the official charts certainly don’t fully match our listening taste. A quick scan of this weeks chart finds only 5 songs that we could say we like (by Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Adele, Of Monsters And Men and Florence And The Machine (Calvin Harris Remix)) but who is to say that our choices are better quality than someone else’s different choices ? Likewise looking back at past charts it seems that our ‘quality’ threshold is always at about the same level. Take any chart from the last 30 years and it’s rare that we like more than 10 songs or less than 3 songs in it. Quality, when it comes to music is an intangible and subjective characteristic.

So in summary….

1. The charts still do the best job of measuring sales – it’s not perfect but it’s the best we’ve got.

2. Sales (and therefore the chart) still have some value and relevance to both industry and the public, but with the changing digital landscape, possibly less than they used to.

3. ‘Quality’ in music is often misinterpreted as ‘taste’. When the charts get ‘worse’ it probably just means that your taste no longer aligns with the charts. In order to survive pop music has to undergo stylistic change in order to excite consumers, this change may not match with some consumers taste anymore, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the quality has reduced. (We would argue the charts have always contained a lot of crap, but there's always been some good stuff as well - that's our taste.)

4. The charts have never measured quality, nor do they claim to do so. So there’s little point criticising them for it.