S.With its years of past experience, Gracenote is now launching its service for the Indian market, providing easier access to delivering advanced search, discovery, and navigation of somewhat cluttered and complicated regional content within the country and to the Indian diaspora across the world.-based company purchased by Nielsen last year.Ezrin also spoke most fondly of being involved in the production of the debut album from former Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel — who I saw perform live in 1988 — whose self-titled debut album was released in 1977 (Gabriel would also name his next three albums the same as the first, ‘Peter Gabriel’). However, Gracenote’s proprietary ID system makes the search easier not only for audio tracks, but the search facility also cuts across music videos, films, linear TV, and VOD/DTH platforms.The other fascinating session at ‘All About Music’ was a masterclass on audio production.The writer has been part of the media and entertainment business for over 23 years." "We got to a town square," added Ezrin, "and (Peter Gabriel) looks up and points to a building which simply had the following words written on it: Pink Floyd! Remembering that (instance) still provides me with goose bumps as it suggests that music starts revolutions.Do conferences really serve a purpose? For the purpose of networking, the answer is a comprehensive "yes" but often, year in and year out, you have the usual suspects featured as speakers who, in turn, rejig presentations from the past in a new avatar and expectedly foist them on to the unsuspecting audience.
Ezrin’s first ever production work occurred on Alice Cooper’s Love It To Death album in 1971, although their first meeting was not ideal. However, for me, the larger interest was understanding his interaction with artists such Lou Reed, Kiss, and Deep Purple, among others, who he has produced through the years. In tracing his history into the production world, Ezrin spoke fondly of his mentor, fellow Canadian Jack Richardson, best known for producing the likes of The Guess Who (the band behind the original American Woman), Poco (which provided Eagles their bassists, initially Randy Meisner, and current member Timothy B Schmit), and Night Moves by Bob Seger (a singer-musician who went onto co-write Eagles’ "Heartache Tonight"). "When I met the band for the first time," reminisced Ezrin, "I saw five creatures of undetermined sex."While I could go on exuding eloquence on this genius, Bob Ezrin’s musical prowess, what really was a surprise was his appearance at this conference had such a low-key promotion. The value addition of Gracenote really is in making the content easier to search and discover by supporting key regional languages, commencing with Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Punjabi. Even if one was to consider film music catalogues, as against a backdrop of Western music catalogues being organised in a much simpler manner by way of primarily artistes, recordings, and albums, in India the task becomes more confusing with the "introduction" of playback singers who "substitute" for actors, and the inclusion of music directors who support innumerable lyricists.
