vrijdag 5 december 2008

Presenters go home

Earlier on I ranted about the ridiculous use of capitals in naming songs. But there is more. Today's topic: Presenters



In the early days of house music upcoming producers came up with the idea of using various aliases to be able to release more than one track at a time or to produce different styles of music. A rather clever approach I might say, since that gave them the flexibility to develop and test their styles and see what would work best with the crowds and the record buyers.

Essentially that same concept still lives on today. Even though most producers don't use fantasy names for their primary act anymore, there's quite a few of them that like to release stuff under aliases as well. But here's the diff: every single one of them nowadays adds their regular artist name to it as a "Presenter". Johnny Producer Presents: The Ugly Alien. What the hell is that good for?! I mean the whole idea of an alias is that people don't immediately recognize the track as a Johnny Producer track. So adding your regular name to the artist credit is just plain ridiculous. Either you release something under your own name or under an alias, but not under both, it just doesn't make any sense.

If you produce a tune and you want the public to know it's by you than for crying out loud just release it under your own name and stop using these stupid "Presenter" credits. And not just because it's ridiculous, but also to stop another trend in dance music: obnoxiously long song names:

Johnny Producer & Jamie the Recorder Present: The Ugly Alien Featuring Jody Vocal – Track Name (Jimmy the Remixer vs Blah Present: O.M.G.'s W.T.F. Stupid Title Remix)

By the time that title has scrolled over the screen of Joe Average's iPod the song is already finished. Come on guys, if you want us fans to take you serious then stop this nonsense. Whatever happened to: Abba - Waterloo. Arghhhh, those were the days.