Crossing the long legs of his lanky frame, the music mogul
looked casually at the two young men staring at him in rapt attention. He
leisurely adjusted his nine-hundred dollar glasses frames, and phlegmatically
cleared his throat. With
purposeful lethargy, he reached for his iPad and scrolled the screen with his
fingers. Turning his head ever so slightly, he observed his Starbucks Latte,
extra foam, two Splendas. With
delicate precision, he stretched for it, careful to maintain his serene pose
while balancing his tabular computer. With two conspicuous slurps of his
coffee, he addressed the young men.
“Well,” he drawled, careful not to hold either man’s eyes
for more than a moment, “It seems that the synths aren’t quite right. Let me
ask before I get too far into this: Is this song supposed to be top 40?”
The two men looked nervously glanced at one another, and
laughed wryly.
“Yea, that was the plan…You know, sorta like Ke$ha or
Rihanna or something,” Anthony answered, his brother Wellington nodding next to
him.
“Mm,” slurped the mogul, adjusting his iPad to better view
the screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed his emaciated assistant
slip silently through the door.
“Jim,” he called syruply, “I think there’s sugar in this
coffee. Would you go back to the ‘Bucks and get me one with Splenda? Thanks
man.”
As Jim scurried out, the mogul swiveled back to the boys,
careful to move with diligent slowness.
The two boys leaned eagerly forward on the brown leather couch.
“Guys, I think your both talented and its awesome that your
going for it,” the mogul breezed unconvincingly.
“ You remind me of me and Alex when we were getting
started.”
The mogul never lost and opportunity to talk about the
success he and his writing partner had had over the years.
“We came to the city during the 80s, right when the drum
machine was getting big,” he mused thoughtfully.
“I remember we wrote this killer tune back then, oh man it
was hot….it started sorta like DO-DOKAH-DO-DO-DOKAH!” The mogul sung with clear
nasal precision.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we basically created the
New Jack Swing sound,” the mogul shrugged indifferently.
The assistant noiseless entered the room with a new latte, generating
an unctuous “Thanks Man” from the mogul.
“Honestly though, the days of creating new material are
over,” the mogul continued after a moment of scrolling his iPad and blowing
over his hot coffee.
“You’re not gonna find stuff that’s overly...deviant, if you
know what I mean.
Anthony and Wellington didn’t have the slightest clue what
the mogul was saying, but nodded vigorously anyway. Anthony had set up this meeting. He had interned for the
mogul’s production company in his senior year of college and had become enchanted
by the behind-the-scenes view of the pop music creative process. After graduation, he and his older
brother Wellington, who was also a musician, had begun writing pop music of
their own, and were looking for writing tips…or maybe even a record deal, if
the mogul liked their stuff well enough.
Still, they were realists and had come in with low expectations. What they were hearing, however, was not
remotely what they had expected.
“Take or example that hit Alex and I wrote for Rixi Stephens,”
the mogul yawned.
“Do you know how we got that? No, of course you don’t. Well,
we basically listened to everything out on the radio and copied what we heard.
I would say that we reinterpreted existing music, but that would be giving us
to much credit.”
After a pregnant pause in which the mogul seemed glued to
the screen on his lap, Wellington erupted.
“You mean you STEAL your material from other people?!”
“Yes,” the mogul answered laconically, openly laughing at
the discomfort on the men’s faces.
“Good musicians borrow, great musicians steal, haven’t you
heard that before?”
The brothers stared vacantly.
“Listen fellas, the synth in your tune is off, the vocals
aren’t compressed or auto-tuned, your side-chain bass is all wrong, and your
lyrics are too coherent. And I got all that after 30 seconds of listening to
your shit,” the breathed, rattling off his points between sips of his Latte.
Silence descended upon the room, save for the mogul’s
occasional tap of the iPad.
“Will there be anything else?” the mogul closed, not
bothering to untether his gaze from the electronic device on his lap
Anthony and Wellington both stood up awkwardly, as Jim
ushered them hurriedly out of the room.
“How’d it go,” Jim asked, his gaunt features twisted in
concentrated interest.
“Well,” Anthony sighed, “I’m not sure.”
Wellington remained silent for a minute and shook his head.
“I think…I think he said we have a hit,” he gushed, his face
turned toward the open door of the mogul’s studio.
He felt both vague disgust, and reverent awe.
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