Pretty Lights

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wCgxkQj_Qo

A chap showed me this Pretty Lights dude the other day who apparently gives all his music away free from his site and makes his dosh from these big shows which aren't expensive for tickets (£7 I was told)!

I know other big artists have given away free albums like Radiohead, Prince and Jarre who have also used it to mainly promote tours soon after but this is the first person I've seen to get notoriety from this formula alone.

Musical opinions aside is this the blueprint concept of the future superstar music artist?

where you from?

here in southwest virginia, USA pretty lights is everywhere.

you could walk up to pretty much anyone between the ages of 17-23 or so and they'll tell you they like him.

personally i find his music kind of boring

never heard of this dude but isn't this how every new band does it these days? hardly anyone makes any money off music sales anymore. it's all live shows & merch sales. makes sense to give away your music for free, build up a following, then go play shows and make money that way.

this guy sounds like a Justice wanna-be and looks like a douche. with this type of user-friendly party/dance music it must be very easy to get gigs and build up an audience. but try and do that sounding like autechre or something and it ain't gonna work.

I've never heard of him but then again I'm pretty much out of the EDM/teen-bopper rave scene anyway, since the brostep shit became popular.

Cynicism aside, can't hate the guy. He's not joining some major label like LMFAO or 3OH!3. He's focused on throwing cheap, entertaining DJ sets. The music isn't great, doesn't have the funk of French House, UK Garage/Dubstep, or German techno, etc but whatever. It's free and he isn't selling shitty DJ mixes. That's a good development.

I don't like the music, neutral towards the artist, and quite like the "blueprint."

Idk about his more recent stuff, but his first few albums were pretty laid-back beats with almost a Four Tet vibe, IDK about all out dancing to it but it's good summer music, and works great as background for backyard BBQs or beach gatherings...

I always liked this one a lot..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9aWww2nUKQ

  On 6/28/2011 at 6:14 AM, digit said:

never heard of this dude but isn't this how every new band does it these days? hardly anyone makes any money off music sales anymore. it's all live shows & merch sales. makes sense to give away your music for free, build up a following, then go play shows and make money that way.

can't put musical opinion aside cause this is the biggest pile of wank i've heard since skrillex

Yeah it's crap. I'd rather listen to skrillex. Ok maybe no. But that's close.

the music is pure bubblegum but does it have to be this 'entertaining' rather than artistic for this formula?

I suppose its a good way of getting a lot of kidz together quickly, if the music had more merit i suppose it would take a lot longer to build up a firm fan base for gigs or would decent shit just cut through?

I suppose you'd have to design the music to work best in a gig format rather than delicate studio production that would get lost in this senario.

He seems to know what his audience is and plays to it with a smart business model. The music itself probably won't have much longterm value for the audience or music in general, but then again most music doesn't.

  On 6/28/2011 at 7:40 AM, ghOsty said:

I always liked this one a lot..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9aWww2nUKQ

^That's not half bad. So I officially consider him better than Skrillex

  On 6/28/2011 at 1:48 PM, soundwave said:

the music is pure bubblegum but does it have to be this 'entertaining' rather than artistic for this formula?

 

I suppose its a good way of getting a lot of kidz together quickly, if the music had more merit i suppose it would take a lot longer to build up a firm fan base for gigs or would decent shit just cut through?

 

I suppose you'd have to design the music to work best in a gig format rather than delicate studio production that would get lost in this senario.

Well, people have been doing that for years, and with applications like Ableton live, there's not even much hardware needed. There's demoscene, which is very focused on quality but in a competitive sense. There's Baile Funk, it's pop music and breakbeats. That's been huge in Brazil, is almost completely driven by live performances and uses very limited gear. DJ culture in general has relied on bootlegs and white labels that are "free" and with file-sharing rampant most fans get digital copies of even "exclusive" tracks. So yeah, it can be artistic, I just don't quite see Pretty Lights as an excellent example of that aspect, so I'm gonna stick with saying he's an entertainer. I guess my only question is whether you're talking about someone like him replacing folks like Tiesto, Oakenfold, Carl Cox, etc.

Yeah so I listened to the video in the original post and compared it to the song I posted, and I can see why you're calling Pretty Lights wank now. It seems he's shifted his his sound to a more dubsteppy/electro to match whats "in with the kids" right now. It is pretty wanky and definitely a sad step down from what he built his following making. His first three albums were all very quality more laid back beats... He should go back to that, it was a HELL of a lot more musical and showed MUCH more talent. I kinda wish I didn't decide to watch the OP vid, ignorance was kinda bliss on this one.

TL;DR: his sounds changed for the worse, first 3 albums are different and a lot better.

Friend of mine is obsessed. She showed him to me a few months ago. I've definitely heard worse, but I don't go out of my way for it. I do like his business model, enough that I might just support it by going to a show if he ever stops by here.

first song seems like a lot of fun in a live setting, second one seems just pretty straight up good. seems alright to me. agree he looked like a douche tho. never heard of him previously.

  On 6/28/2011 at 3:50 AM, fiznuthian said:

where you from?

here in southwest virginia, USA pretty lights is everywhere.

you could walk up to pretty much anyone between the ages of 17-23 or so and they'll tell you they like him.

 

personally i find his music kind of boring

yeah, pretty much the same here. he comes through quite often