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Tony Chats With Singer-Songwriter Nix Correa
92 Plays2 years ago
This week, Tony chats with Toronto-born Nix Correa. Correa is a singer-songwriter who has a dazzling voice that reflects the old and new sounds of pop and R&B.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Update
00:00:00
Speaker
And another thing And another thing And another thing
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of and another thing podcast. I'm your co-host Tony Clement, absent Jodi Jenkins. Yes, this does happen from time to time. Jodi is off this week and then I'm off next week with the big crews coming up.
00:00:34
Speaker
Everybody who listens to this podcast knows about the disco cruise. So we're splitting our time a little bit. We've got so much to talk about Jody and I, but it'll have to wait for another episode. Lots going on in the political world in Canada, but we're not just about
Sponsor Acknowledgments
00:00:49
Speaker
politics. And that's why we've got our special guest today, but first.
00:00:52
Speaker
We also want to thank our amazing sponsors, in particular, John Mutton and the gang at Municipal Solutions. They are Ontario's leading MZO firm. They are there for development approvals, permit expediting, planning services with municipalities, engineering services, architectural services, even things like minor variances and land severances.
00:01:15
Speaker
municipalsolutions.ca is where you go for that and we very much appreciate them being a title sponsor. And then Halton GR. They are found at haltongr.com. They are your West GTA GR firm. They specialize in sourcing land for development, acquiring
00:01:34
Speaker
the ideal land, as well as obtaining zoning permissions and bylaw modifications. They keep the project going through the process. They even help putting putting together the financing. Their motto is let's get this done. Go to Halton GR dot com and Steven Sparling will help you there. And finally, of course, we want to
00:01:58
Speaker
tip our hat to Hunters Bay Radio, huntersbayradio.com. Every Saturday morning, they have a whole stable of podcasts that they repeat, including, and another thing, podcast. They've been doing that for a few months now, but there are other wonderful podcasts that you can find available there. So if you're in the listening area, it's 88.7 in Muskoka, but also they live stream at huntersbayradio.com.
Guest Introduction: Nix Correa
00:02:27
Speaker
Our guest today is Nix Correa. She is a local broadcaster and a singer. And we're going to talk a little bit about the music industry. And I'm very happy to have you here. Thank you. Welcome to the program. Thanks, Tony. I'm so excited to be here. I must say I'm a little disappointed that Jodi isn't here.
00:02:48
Speaker
I know. He's really the star of the show. If he were here, he'd say that we're the podcast that's leading all podcasters and that sets the bar. He's a great friend and partner and we've been doing this for well over close to four years now. Can you believe it? It's just amazing.
00:03:19
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. I was going to say I was just listening to your latest podcast with him. You guys were talking about Chichen Itza. Yes, yes, yes. I'm surprised Jodi hadn't heard of it. I've been there. I climbed it. I climbed Chichen Itza about six months before it got shut down.
00:03:43
Speaker
because you're not allowed to climb it anymore. You're not. No, because someone had unfortunately fallen to their death. Ooh. Ooh. Well, that was an interesting episode. I liked the ritual. I'm sure they did some ritual things. Chichen Itza back in the day, but that's unfortunate. But I'm just there for, I'm just there for the selfie with the pyramid. So that's, that's fine by me. But so that, have you seen any other pyramids in your life so far?
00:04:10
Speaker
No, just those ones in Mexico. I have to make it to Egypt at some point. I definitely want to see Giza and some of the other pyramids there too. But I'll start off with Chichen Itza. That's a good place to start. It's the Luxor account in Las Vegas.
00:04:30
Speaker
Oh, you forgot about that. I've been there. I've seen the Luxor. That's a good point. I've seen the Luxor and I've seen the Pyramid at the Louvre as well. Okay, then there we go. We're such well-traveled, well-rounded individuals. Yeah, exactly. Tell the audience a little bit about your life. What's your background? What are
Nix Correa's Music Journey
00:04:53
Speaker
you doing? That kind of thing.
00:04:55
Speaker
Well, thank you. Hello, audience. I'm Nix Correa, and I'm a Toronto-based musician, artist, and I've been on the scene now for about five or six years professionally. COVID unfortunately stripped away a good two of those years.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yes, but that's okay. Yes, and I write pop music, pop R&B music, and I've worked with a number of acclaimed and amazing talented producers and songwriters in the industry. Yeah, I read your bio. That's quite a roster you've got. Tell us a little bit more about those people.
00:05:35
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah, well, I have, you know, one of the first industry people I ever worked with is Roy Hamilton III, the great grandson of Roy Hamilton from the 50s. And he's worked with Britney Spears, Beyonce, Michael Jackson. I think he was the youngest A&R, youngest guy to work A&R at Capitol Records.
00:06:05
Speaker
Wow, which is I think he was in his early 20s, which is insane. Yeah So I worked with him on a number of tracks. He's still a close friend. He's he's local now He's so he's originally from Jersey Okay, now he's that he made his way up to this great country of Canada And so now he's here and that's how so when he came to Toronto I was introduced to him through someone else in the industry and so he's great. Yeah, I've worked with
00:06:35
Speaker
Matt Teofilo, who's worked with Madonna, Miley Cyrus, and Diplo. He's a Canadian born and bred. And I've also worked with Grammy-nominated songwriter Ethan Hulse, who is American. He's from Nashville, and I wrote a few songs down there as well. Were they more country, or were they still pop?
00:06:56
Speaker
Oh, no, they were still very much pop. One was more R&B style, but very much pop. Nashville is a great hub for East Coast pop artists so that they don't necessarily have to travel all the way to Los Angeles. I know people think Nashville is purely country, but it's really not. They do. Not anymore. Jack Wade, of course, is there too with third man records and a lot going on there.
00:07:23
Speaker
And really big in the Christian music industry as well, of course. But yeah, no, pop.
00:07:31
Speaker
pop is what I specialize in. So when you're working with these producers, do they tell you stuff like, well, when I worked with Madonna, she did this or Michael Jackson did that? No, they're pretty cool. They really don't say much actually at all unless you pry and of course I'm one to pry. Respectfully prying. Sure. I mean, you have to ask. Absolutely.
00:07:56
Speaker
No horror stories, which is amazing. Apparently all wonderful people. So that's a huge lie. No, I'm kidding. The kids would all be wonderful. No, I'm sure they are. No, not all the time because it's a high pressure industry, especially when you've got studio time, like, you know, the clock is running, right?
00:08:16
Speaker
Exactly, exactly. When you're in the studio too as an artist, you let your guard down. It's not like you're trying to impress anyone or be on your best behavior. You very much see the real version of someone in the studio.
00:08:34
Speaker
Now, when you go into the studio with these producers, do you already have the song pretty well laid out or is there a lot of creativity that's done in the studio setting?
00:08:48
Speaker
It depends on how you approach the songwriting process. I've done two ways where I go in with absolutely nothing at all and I might just have an idea for a song or just a song title or I know I went in with Matt and it was
00:09:11
Speaker
I think it was August or September, and I said, I want to write a really dark song for Halloween, like a Halloween theme, really dark and twisted. And that's all I went in with. And then we came up with my single, Perfect Misery. Other times, I'll come in with some lyrics.
00:09:32
Speaker
And then other times, like what I did in Nashville, the producer already had like a draft sort of track laid down. And then what you sort of do with the songwriter is, I guess what's called in the industry is called top lining and you basically write
00:09:54
Speaker
That's when you come up with the melody and the lyrics. It's sort of an instrumental that's already made. I've approached it from every type of angle that you can. There's not one that I prefer to be honest. Would there be session musicians there or would that be sort of post-production?
00:10:18
Speaker
That would be actually I've had had session musicians there once, but that more comes later. Sometimes if you're doing it more the organic way, you I would just start with like a piano or maybe just a guitar. So it would just be the me producer and a guitar, the producer and a piano. And then, you know, just to get down the basics and then later bring in.
00:10:38
Speaker
session musicians like Trumpet or Bass or whatever else you may need. Right, gotcha.
TikTok's Impact on Music
00:10:46
Speaker
And before we go on, because we do want to talk about the industry in general, which is a major topic for this podcast, but just where if people want to find your music, where can they find it?
00:10:59
Speaker
Go to my website, nyxcarea.com, that is n-i-x-c-o-r-r-e-a.com, because from there you will find my links to Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram, and you can find just everything in that one spot, so I suggest going there.
00:11:19
Speaker
Right. And you're on Instagram and, um, yes, yes, Instagram. My handle is at it's Nick's Korea. Um, so you can find me there and I would appreciate the follow. We all appreciate the follow, which I will get into about why I think Tik TOK is kind of a ruining slash disrupting the music industry.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yes, because this is a great topic because this is something I've popped off about as well in the previous few years. And of course, TikTok has only gotten
00:11:59
Speaker
more huge. It's basically for musicians now. I mean, more so than YouTube now, more so than anything else. It is the platform. So give us your assessment of what's going on with TikTok and why it's problematic.
00:12:21
Speaker
Okay, so TikTok has about a billion users, which is insane. And for those who don't know, its predecessor was an app called Musically, where users would upload short dance videos.
00:12:40
Speaker
That's how TikTok started. These influencers or creators would create short dances to music. It spread like wildfire and obviously other types of videos were shared, not just dances, but that is how it started. Obviously with a good dance, you need a good song.
00:13:01
Speaker
Then it started to really take off and people were realizing that, wow, these 15 or 30 second little videos were going viral and creators were using the same music because they wanted to recreate the dance. Right.
00:13:24
Speaker
I guess certain songs became viral hits and then people realized, oh, I guess, you know, if you want to get viral and get the next viral hit song, you should make a TikTok.
00:13:34
Speaker
and make a TikTok dance, because at the end of the day, it is a video platform. You have to have a visual for it. And that's how people were sharing things. But I think now what it's turned into is essentially factory farming for musicians. And I think it's all about the money now. And it takes out what the meaning of music is, or the reason for music, which is artists who are creative.
00:14:03
Speaker
creating something special and just wanting to share it. And now it's just pretty much just about who can be viral and make money because it's monetized. Right. So is it monetized on TikTok or it just throws you to Spotify where it's monetized? So that's actually a new thing that they're doing. I understand TikTok is trying to get into Spotify's business.
00:14:30
Speaker
TikTok is trying to do that and they recently signed deals with major labels because they noticed that so much of the music that was being put online was
00:14:45
Speaker
getting traction and what's the word I'm looking for was getting played so much. Yeah, getting exposure. Yes, getting exposure, but they're actually completely separate. So if you stream a song on or listen to a watch a video on TikTok, listen, watch, it's all the same thing. I guess it's not going towards a Spotify stream. Those are separate. So I guess actually what's
00:15:13
Speaker
A new thing that I just read starting this year in 2022 is that the link between what's being played on TikTok is not really translating anymore to Spotify. So the correlation between TikTok usage and US streams is actually declining. Yeah. Why do you think that is?
00:15:41
Speaker
I think people might be over it. I'm hoping. That's what I, as a musician, that's what I hope. There's been so many musicians that have, you know, shown their distaste for how they've been treated with TikTok. The fact that they have to sort of get a viral moment in order for either a song to be released by their record label, which I think is insane.
00:16:10
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the thing because it's all about virality or whatever you want to call it. Right. That, that, uh, your, your point is that it is affecting the songwriting process, the music making process, and it is, it is basically emphasizing virality over everything else. Is that exactly what you're worried about? So that the quality, the qualitative aspect of songwriting is, is being left at the altar as it were.
00:16:38
Speaker
You took the words right out of my mouth, Tony. I think, yes, I personally think that what you're getting is a plethora of like cheap music from social media influencers and music that sounds like all the same. There have been a number of songs.
00:16:59
Speaker
that have come out of TikTok because they stick to a formula that they know works for this dance sharing app. There are songs that they do the number thing. There's a song called like 10 Things I Hate About You. And she lists like one, you're this, two, you're that. Then there's that song that basically lists the entire alphabet, A, B, Z, D, E, F, U. And it's like,
00:17:25
Speaker
There's like a theme. So they try to pick up on these themes. Okay, well, if this was successful, maybe I'll do the alphabet backwards and that will trend or something. So it's not even about any more really a song that you want to make because of what you're feeling as an artist. It's more just about, well, what's trending? How can I get this?
00:17:49
Speaker
to go viral. I'm going to play in a little bit of devil's advocate with you. Yes. Just because I think this is an important when I look back at the 60s and 70s, way, way before your time, I know. But, you know, when the Beatles were breaking, that was a new and unique sound. All of a sudden, people are going, hmm, how can I do a song that's like the Beatles so I can get a hit to or, you know, or or when the psychedelic era came, you know, all of a sudden,
00:18:19
Speaker
uh maybe that was with sergeant pepper and and so on well the rolling stones had to do a psychedelic album too so uh you know there's a lot of in the music industry people having regard for musical trends trendsetters musician trendsetters and saying okay well maybe i'd like to do a song like that uh so and you know at the height of disco all of a sudden the rolling stones had a had an album emotional rescue which was you know
00:18:48
Speaker
Mick Jagger singing in falsetto with a thumping beat that would look would do well on a disco floor. So is this kind of that, but on steroids? Is that is that the issue or the problem?
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. I would say exactly that. Of course, yes. Like you said, people are always influenced by other things. They want to emulate it. They want to replicate it because they think, oh, well, if that was successful, I want to do it. But this is at such a much faster pace. And it's also not even a full song. If you think about it, people used to love buying albums, right?
Digital Platforms and Song Duration
00:19:25
Speaker
They would go to the record store,
00:19:26
Speaker
They'd buy a whole album like an artist made maybe 12 or 16 songs Then it became you know, the rise of I guess, you know, the digital evolution and streaming technology It was the single more artists are now putting out singles right now. It's not even about the back to the back to the 50s Yeah, right, but now it's not even about like a 1 to 3 1 to 3 3 minute song. It's about like 10 to 15 seconds of a song. Yeah which
00:19:55
Speaker
It's like, what is that? That's not a song. That's a jingle.
00:20:00
Speaker
No, that's a joke. And, and this, I think, yeah, I mean, and this, this kind of plays into my beef with Spotify because the artist gets paid if the person listens for 30 seconds, doesn't get paid at 29 seconds, but gets paid at 31 seconds. So all of a sudden that the race, uh, to beat the algorithm at Spotify is okay. I got to throw everything at the, the, um,
00:20:27
Speaker
the listener in the first 30 seconds. I got to throw my chorus in. The first thing you hear is going to be the chorus. It's not going to be a lead up to the chorus. It's going to be the chorus because if I don't, if I don't get them hooked in the first 30 seconds, I don't get paid and they're already onto something else. So it's changing Spotify is also changing the way songwriting is done for that very reason. And then there's no incentive to have a four minute song or a five minute song or a six minute song.
00:20:55
Speaker
Because after thirty seconds, you know, why are you wasting your time, right? So that's why we're getting these shorter and shorter songs. And in fact, the.
00:21:06
Speaker
the industry analysis I've seen is that I think that the average song is now 40 seconds shorter than it was five years ago. Have you noticed that too? Oh, yes. I've noticed a lot of songs now in the 230 to 245 range, which is pretty short.
00:21:27
Speaker
For a song, but it used to be based on the seven inch single, which could comfortably have three minutes of of audio. And that was about it. Right. And when when the when the 12 inch album was was the standard.
00:21:46
Speaker
in the, in the late sixties and seventies, then songs kind of expanded and then probably expanded too much. You know, Oh my gosh, do we have to hear a nine minute song again? Kind of the kind of thing. But now we're back to singles, as you said, uh, and shorter, which is where, where the trend is now. So that you've noticed that too.
00:22:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah, and even with my own music, I'd write something with the producer and then I'd send it to my manager or you know, playing it back. Hey, what do we think of it? Okay, let's shorten the intro. The intro is too long.
00:22:25
Speaker
Meanwhile, the intro might be like 20 seconds. Well, let's shorten it to five and then come in with your verse or something. Yeah. It's like, okay. So yeah, shorter and shorter. And like you said, um, being hooked in the first, I mean, you could argue too, though, that it's always been like that. Um, when people would send, you know, CDs to record companies, if you didn't catch their attention,
00:22:51
Speaker
in the first 30 seconds of the song, they're onto the next. They're not listening to the full song, right? Yeah, but there were possibilities like Phil Collins in the air tonight. I mean, it actually doesn't get the actual song for like five minutes in, right? Right. So those things could happen or a U2 song where the streets have no name, the buildup to that
00:23:16
Speaker
has got to be at least two minutes before they even get to singing by Bono. So you could do those kinds of things and you wouldn't, you wouldn't, there was no way to lose the audience because they, they, first of all, they'd purchased the, the song and there was just a lot more latitude to that kind of construction of songwriting. But I, I agree with you that that is not the case today.
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I think like, again, with the Uchu song, the buildup is nice. That's what makes it. It's a form of artistic expression and the fact that now you have to sort of cut it down.
00:23:55
Speaker
because of what? Not because it doesn't sound good. Whatever the algorithm, whatever that means, I don't even know what that means. It's like blaming everything on supply chain now. I'm sorry, I can't do that for you because of supply chain. The same thing
00:24:16
Speaker
with, uh, algorithm, you know, I'm sorry that, that, that, that song structure doesn't work because of the algorithm. That's the way it is. Not because it doesn't sound good, you know, it sounds great, but not going to work. Um, so how do you, uh, you know, how do you and your fellow artists, you've obviously talked to other artists about this too. So, uh, do you think that there's starting to be a reaction to that?
Artist Reactions to TikTok Trends
00:24:41
Speaker
I think it's amazing that so many already established artists and pre-TikTok artists, so artists maybe who haven't emerged because of TikTok are speaking out against it. There have been a number of them, which is great because
00:24:58
Speaker
We need that support as unsigned and more independent artists who do approach music and songwriting from the creative lens and not necessarily from the money making lens. Right, right. I think you're right and I think that there's always a reaction to these trends and artists by their very nature
00:25:27
Speaker
want to express themselves in ways that are not with the trend all the time. I think that we can wait and see, but there will be a reaction to that. So that's amazing. Well, listen, it's been great to have you on the program. I want to thank you for expressing yourself on a
00:25:50
Speaker
on a 30 minute podcast, if nothing else. And, uh, again, yes. And again, uh, name your website where you can, you can find your music again, next Korea.com and on Instagram at it's next Korea. And I hope to meet a bunch of new fans.
00:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, that would be lovely.
Conclusion and Broadcast Information
00:26:13
Speaker
We've had musicians on this podcast before. So you're in you're in a great company. Gil Moore has been on and Kim Mitchell has been on and a few other musicians besides. So thank you for joining. Thank you. I want to thank our sponsors once again, Municipal Solutions, of course, John Mutton and the gang and then Steve Sparling at Halton GR.
00:26:37
Speaker
dot-com finally hunters Bay radio.com where you'll hear this podcast and others every Saturday morning. Thanks for joining us. I'm looking forward to be back back with our, my co-host Jodi. It's just not the same doing it without Jodi. I got to say, and we're always a good team. So don't worry fans of other and another thing podcast will be back together soon enough. We'll see you next time.