About This Time 20 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of April-ish 2005!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

On November 6th 2004, Billboard published its first Ringtones Chart.

But Billboard could hardly ignore the phenomenon. Ringtones were estimated to be worth $3 billion annually! Such a figure is particularly mind-boggling when you reflect that most of the ringtones at the time were not snippets of hit songs, but dinky Atari-game sounding covers of hit songs.

Billboard even handed out “Ringtone Of The Year” awards: 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” won it in 2004, and what a banger it was!

Whilst “Candy Shop” – also by 50 Cent – won it in 2005. But ringtones cost far more than 50 cents! They actually cost far more than buying the whole song on iTunes! Hence the $3 billion industry!

Much of that $3 billion seemed to go to the makers of the Super Mario Brothers Theme. Other songs came and went, but the appeal of the Super Mario Brothers Theme was eternal.

But it wasn’t his name in the Guiness Book Of Records under the heading Biggest Ringtone Artist In The World:

That accolade went to our hero, Akon.

This was no accident. It was the result of a well-thought-out and meticulously planned business strategy. Akon didn’t sell millions of ringtones simply because his voice was so crisp it sliced through the sound of your miniscule Nokia speakers. It was because Akon designed his hit songs with ringtones in mind!

Here’s Akon describing his lightbulb emoji moment:

“Everywhere I’d go, I would hear songs on people’s phones! And I said, ‘Yo, how much are you paying for that?’ They said, ‘$4.99.’ I said, ‘Damn! That’s for a couple of seconds?

So, Akon called up his attorney to ask him how much he was getting from ringtone sales. But the word “ringtone” was nowhere to be found in his contract!

“So then I started making music specifically for the phone. Cause it’s $4.99 for a few seconds! Any basic businessman will tell you that’s where the money is! So every song that we were releasing was very ringtone-friendly, especially ‘Mr. Lonely.’ “

“Every record I produced, I made sure it was ringtone-friendly.”

Did Akon choose “Mr Lonely” to cover – originally a hit in 1964 for Bobby Vinton, who, with his nasal falsetto chirp, was clearly the Akon of the 60s – simply because he thought “I’m loneliiiii” would make a good ringtone? How would you feel if you found that someone had designated “Mr Lonely” as the song to be played whenever you called them?

Akon didn’t write “Lonely” around “Mr Lonely” exactly. Akon wrote “Lonely” whilst he was still in prison. But then he got out and “that’s when I was going through my crates” he says, as if he’s DJ Shadow or something, “and I heard the Bobby Vinton sample… and I sped that up.”

Which makes me wonder what other nightmare records can be found in Akon’s collection. It’s lucky for Akon that he found that sample. Although “Lonely” would have been far less irritating without it, it would also have been far more forgettable. Akon would be toppled by T-Pain in 2007, but in 2005 and 2006, Akon was the ringtone king!

Because not all ringtones were created equal:

• There were polyphonic ringtones, which were just dinky MIDI covers.
• Then there were ‘Master Ringtones,’ which were snippets of the actual recording.

Master Ringtones became so popular over the course of 2005, that Billboard issued a second ringtones chart:… the Hot RingMasters chart!

“Lonely” wasn’t only big on the cellphone scene. It was also big in the strip-clubs. Here’s Akon again:

“I never knew “Mr Lonely” would be the biggest stripclub record in Atlanta! I never knew that!! Like how would I know that? I didn’t realize how many lonely-ass strippers there are out there”

This probably explains why Akon spent the next few years predominately writing love songs to strippers. Also to sexy bitches/chicks (“Sexy Bitch” is a 7.)

All of this is exactly the sort of business savvy that one would expect from the inventor of Akoin:

The cryptocurrency planned to be the official currency of Akon City, a city Akon planned to build in Senegal, with a sister city – also called Akon City – in Uganda.

Years have gone by, and other than a single half-finished building with a spiral staircase, nothing has been built. Even more seriously, the value of Akoin – initially 15c – has tumbled to 0.03c. On top of that, the Senegalese authorities don’t regard Akoin to be legal tender. They regard it as illegal tender.

So Akon has a few issues to work through. To be fair, the entire city would cost $6 billion. Even Akon never made that much from ringtones.

Let us therefore help Akon and the future denizens of Akon City out, by listening to “Lonely” in the format the creators intended.

I’m not sure that I can really tell the difference.

“Lonely” is a 3.

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Meanwhile, in Dance-Punk Land:

Ladies & gentlemen, I present to you, Music Nerd Number One… James Murphy.

Never has one man looked more like the walking-talking embodiment of a middle-aged music nerd; the kind that spends so much of their paycheck on the collection of vinyl, so much of their time making sure said collection of vinyl is correctly alphabetized, that they can’t afford a decent haircut… or clothes.

“I’m basically a schlub”, James needlessly informed the Guardian.

Although I’ve never heard James mention it, I’m pretty sure he has trouble getting into his own shows because the bouncers won’t let someone so shaggy looking in. Journalists usually describe him as a teddy bear.

At least one of the records in James’ record collection was by Daft Punk. James was, after all, the first guy to play Daft Punk, to the rock kidzzzzz. He played them at CBGBs…

Amongst all the many, many claims of “I was there” contained within LCD Soundsystem’s first hit “Losing My Edge” (which is a 9), James being the first to play Daft Punk to the rock kidzzzz might be the only one that at least verges upon the truth.

James almost certainly wasn’t in Jamaica during the great sound clashes. He almost certainly did not wake up naked on a beach in Ibiza in 1988. He definitely wasn’t at the first Can show, in Cologne, since that happened before he was even born!

“When I first did the band and came up with the name, I was never going to differentiate between doing DJ sets and band sets. You were going to book it and it was going to be what it was going to be. If it was a rock club, I was going to show up and DJ; if it was a dance club, I’m going to show up with a band.” 

It was whilst pulling that kind of shit that James began to become sort of famous. This was after trying to be famous, and failing at it, for many, many years. James likes to remind people that he was a failure: 

“I was really a failure” he said in an interview that found somewhere online, “like really, really-really, really, really-really, really a failure… not even an epic failure, just a sad, pathetic failure.” 

Which is a lot. Throughout the 00s James would find himself featured on “cool” lists a lot. He’d always be the least “cool” looking person on that list.

Before LCD Soundsystem, James had worked at a record store – he had everything, before everybody – where he insists he wasn’t a High Fidelity style music snob making fun of everyone’s music taste. He also spent that decade in noise-bands.

None of them did anything. Nobody even goes back to them to see where it all started.

There’s a single review for Pony’s Cosmovalidator album on RateYourMusic, which describes James as “Fred Flintstone channelling Ethan Hawke,” which is exactly right. The reviewer calls himself DollarBinDaze, he only buys CDs from the dollarbin, and he appears endearingly unaware that this Fred Flintstone/Ethan Hawke channeler would one day become kind of famous.

James didn’t find his true path until he was in his 30s, which is pretty late for a rock star. For many people, it’s that “it’s never too late to find your true path” narrative that makes James a true hero, almost as much as the music itself.

It was whilst in his 30s that James started DFA, or Death From Above Records:

In fact, James sued the band, so they changed their name to Death From Above 1979.

DFA was also James’ DJ name.

In addition to Daft Punk, James played a zany collection of post-punk records – a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed – and then, when other DJs started playing the same records, he got terrified that, after years of not-being-cool, and then suddenly becoming cool, he would equally as suddenly not become cool again. James’ worries a lot about the dynamics of cool.

And so he wrote “Losing My Edge.”

Unless you are one of those people who like to laugh out loud simply to show that you understood an obscure pop culture reference (I myself have been accused of doing this), the song probably inspires little more than a wry, “I see what you did there,” smirk.

James is inherently funny though. He was offered the chance to be the first staff writer for a new New York-based sit-com in the early 90s. An offer that he turned down.

A sit-com that turned out to be Seinfeld. If writing for Seinfeld feels like a weird job fit for a guy playing in noise bands, you should know that James was also an English major at NYU.

DFA wasn’t all James. There was also Tim Goldsworthy, who had spent the 90s in UNKLE. If you know UNKLE at all it’s for the nightmare-inducing video for “Rabbit In Your Headlights”, featuring Thom Yorke on vocals. When Tim got rocker-James into dance music, he’d already had some experience at that sort of thing.

Calling LCD Soundsystem dance-music doesn’t really feel right though, does it?

They certainly weren’t playing “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” in the dance clubs. It wasn’t racing up the Hot Dance Club Play chart. But that was probably Billboard’s fault: the clubs that Billboard tracked weren’t the kind of clubs that played tracks like Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” (either the original or the DFA remix), Peaches’ “F*ck The Pain Away”, or !!!’s “Me and Giuliani Down by the Schoolyard.”

That stuff is definitely party music, though. Party music you could dance to… and what’s more, rock out to… “Daft Punk…” rocks harder than anything Daft Punk put out, harder than the distorted-almost-guitar-like hook of “Da Funk”, harder than the Eddie Van Haleneseque synth solos of “Aerodynamic”… okay, maybe “Robot Rock” rocks more, but “Daft Punk…” is harder… better… faster… stronger.

“Robot Rock” dropped at about the same time as “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”, and is widely regarded as Daft Punk’s first giant misstep. The parent album, Human After All, was the first Daft Punk album to be received with a bit of a collective shrug; an album that, presumedly unintentionally, proved that they were human, after all.

“Robot Rock” wasn’t bad, exactly.

Because now that “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” was being played at every house party where the host might possess such aspirations, Daft Punk had officially become legends; legends for rock kids who secretly liked dance music, for ravers who secretly liked rock; kids that “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” could be a genre-mashing mantra for.

Also kids who liked cowbells. Turns out,”cowbell” is not just a punchline. James loves cowbells: “I think they’re really happy and they force a space that’s really different.” Which is why there’s a cowbell solo on both “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and on another track that James had produced a couple of years earlier:  The Rapture’s “House Of…. The Jealous Lovers… BREAK DOOOOWWWWWNNN!!!!” (“House Of The Jealous Lovers” is a 10.)

Compared to the shopping list of obscure but “important” bands on Losing My Edge – Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice”… who are these people? – “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” is practically a mainstream crossover move. One based on a cute short story written in James’ head:

“Wouldn’t it be great if some kid wanted Daft Punk to play at his house?“

“So he rings the agent who says they’ll cost $40,000 and he saves for seven years and finally gets enough money and flies Daft Punk over. And the kids would be earnestly trying to meet all the rider requirements, but Daft Punk would still end up playing in the basement next to the washing machine.“

“A local hardcore band is supporting, and the PA consists of all the local kids’ amps and stereos taped together.”

James’ tried to get Daft Punk to actually appear in the video, performing next to the washing machine, but it never happened. Maybe he couldn’t afford the $40,000. Didn’t matter, “Daft Punk…” was an era-defining hipster-house-party smash anyway.

A whole bunch of kids, coming up from behind. Better-looking people, with better ideas and more talent; would James Murphy lose his edge again?

“Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” is a 10.

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Meanwhile, in Emo Land:

“Emo” was a word. A word that had lost all meaning.

Initially it meant something, back in the Washington D.C. hardcore scene of the 80s where it was short for “emotional hardcore.” Possibly, “emotive hardcore.” No-one really knows because no band described as emo back then embraced the term, thus introducing a tradition, in which no band has ever been described as emo without the band instantly protesting “WE ARE NOT EMO!”, like a knee-jerk reaction.

It’s more the history of a catchy word looking for a definition to latch itself onto. And by the mid-00s it had found one.

Since it is essentially a slang term, the place to go for definitions of “emo” is not Wikipedia, Cambridge, Oxford, Merriam-Webster or any other grown-up dictionary.

Where we find such informative gems as:

• “A group of white, mostly middle-class well-off kids who find imperfections in there (sic) life and create a ridiculous, depressing melodrama around each one.”
• “People who need a hug. A BIG, WARM hug”
• “a musical genre/ scene that has almost 1000 definitions in urban dictionary most of which are making fun of it.” (1,181 definitions as of September 2006 apparently)

By the mid-00s the phrase “emo kid” had entered the lexicon, and the phrase “cheer up, emo kid” had become a catch phrase:

Emo kids – or just emos if you are feeling too lethargic for two words – wore a lot of black, black eyeliner, black hair – maybe with a shock of pink or purple – with a novelty size fringe. And hoodies. The whole hoodies/novelty size fringe combination was perfect for hiding yourself from the world.

A cottage industry of emo-explainers emerged: trying to answer the question “what is emo?”, “is your teenage child emo?”, “am I emo but didn’t know it?”

Also:

There was a widespread perception that emo kids’ hobbies included cutting themselves for fun and popularity. Although, why songs about your father taking you into the city to see a marching band might inspire such leisure activities was never adequately articulated.

Emo ended up becoming a catch-all term for any white-men-with-guitars band that couldn’t be thrown in either the butt-rock or New York hipster-band bucket.,

And which somehow managed to include everything from My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco to… tonight’s guests:

It was the former who got most of the attention, particularly My Chemical Romance, probably because they were pretty boys who looked like the unholy spawn of Billy Corgan and Marilyn Manson.

This popularity for all things emo was probably responsible for elder-statesmen of emo, Weezer: Having their biggest hit around this time with one of their worst songs (“Beverly Hills”, it’s a 4) They would later fully embrace the emo love of long song titles with “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To.”

Lengthy song titles appeared to be a defining characteristic of emo bands, both at the folksy and the glam-metal side of the spectrum. An article on “15 of the Longest, Most Ridiculous Emo Song Titles”, includes such songs I’ve never heard, but now suddenly want to, as:

• “What Happens If I Can’t Check My MySpace When We Get There”,
• “I Liked You Better Before You Were Naked On the Internet”,
• “I Slept With Someone In Fall Out By And All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me”
• And the immortal classic:
  “Someday, in the Event That Mankind Actually Figures Out What It Is That This World Revolves Around, Thousands of People are Going to Be Shocked and Perplexed to Find Out It Was Not Them. Sometimes, This Includes Me.”

Those songs weren’t exactly hits. But Panic! At The Disco’s “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage” and “Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” certainly were. For music that was supposed to be cripplingly depressing, these songs titles were a lot of fun. Not the songs so much though. (“Lying Is The Most Fun…” is a 6)

And Conor Oberst – aka Bright Eyes – was Emo Kid Number One.

Conor’s emo-credentials were unquestionable. He had the fringe. He had album titles such as Lifted or, The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.

And he sounded like a literal kid. Conor started making records when he was a teenager, and he never sounded as though he grew up any further. Conor always sounded so… sensitive. So, in touch with his feelings. So… emo-tional. Usually those emotions were sad. Even when he was feeling horny, such as on “Lover I Don’t Have To Love”, Conor sounded incurably sad (this is the official video, and a spot-on re-creation of a Sound Choice karaoke video – except that their backdrops were always blank black – and “Lover I Don’t Have To Love” is a 9.)

Even when singing about falling in love, as on “The First Day Of My Life”, aka the song most played at emo-weddings, when two emos come together, to celebrate their emo love, Conor sounded sad. Not just wistful sad either, but verge-of-tears cripplingly-sad.

Also uncertain.

“And I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go”

How many love songs end with “I mean, I really think you li-ike me”, as if Conor had never met a girl who liked him before?

This was the epitome of emo-bait.

Because he wrote lyrics that read like private diary entries, or, what is more likely, less private LiveJournal entries.

Conor has described “The First Day Of My Life” as a “pure love song.” I’d describe it as a true puppy-dog love song. He’s also described it as “corny” much to the disappointment of the guy who was interviewing him at the time.

“I put a lot of darkness into the atmosphere. And so maybe karmically that song can help balance the scales of all the other songs I’ve written, I don’t know.”

Don’t be so down on yourself, Conor. You also put “Bowl Of Oranges” into the atmosphere. That was a big dose of positivity (“Bowl Of Oranges” is an 8)

Or to put it another way:

Cheer up, emo kid!

“First Day Of My Life” is a 7. The video, needless to say, is utterly adorable.

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