Question re: Naang Naang album - eligibility - Suggestions

Repo
BeA Sunflower

Location: Forest Park

MadhattanJack wrote:

I'm taking it upon myself to move a more recent discussion from this other thread over here to this one...

This album is not a "bootleg," and it's only "unauthorized" in that the Burmese government wouldn't allow it to be manufactured and sold the way pop records in the West were. The word for this album is underground, in the truest possible sense of the term.

After the military takeover in 1962, the Burmese government became extremely anti-Western, ultra-nationalist, and isolationist, banning all imports and exports — not only of LPs, but everything from the West, including any form of audio/video technology. By the early 1970s, wealthier Burmese citizens and businesses were able to buy some hi-fi and recording gear manufactured in China and other non-Western countries, but it was still illegal to sell any music, literature, films, etc., not approved by the military government, which included all pop music. (Dead Can Dance didn't exist at the time, otherwise their heads might have exploded.) There were no record labels, and all facilities for pressing or tape duplication were nationalized and government-controlled.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio..._Pop_Music

So by 1978, what pop groups like Naang Naang had to do was to go into a "music production shop," where they were allowed to record pretty much whatever they wanted on whatever gear was available. Once they had a finished tape, the shop would then make a few copies of it, and the band could then give (not sell!) those copies to whoever they wished — typically, owners of tea-shops and diners that had stereo hi-fi systems. Most people couldn't afford anything more than a cheap transistor radio, so they'd hang out at tea shops just to hear music through a decent hi-fi. If you could get a tea-house owner to play your tape, someone who heard it might hire your band to play at a party or a wedding, and you could maybe make some money.

https://turnaround.home.blog/2019/05/22...elic-rock/

Le' Ywei Sin Tei Mya is one of those tapes. For most people accustomed to Western pro recording standards, it's practically unlistenable, barely reaching the level of a 4-track Portastudio demo or In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. But considering the risk and effort that must have been required to produce it, it's quite a remarkable achievement, and to de-list it simply because it wasn't manufactured and distributed by a Western-style "record label" would be a terrible injustice.

It would be nice if there were a way to recompense these musicians directly after all these years, but first you'd have to find them, and many of them are probably deceased by now. Regardless, they'd probably be happy knowing that people can still listen to this material and enjoy it.

https://www.isupportmyanmar.com/

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

လက်ရွေးစဉ် တေးများ [Le' Ywei Sin Tei Mya] by Naang Naang

For this AMAZING write-up alone, Naang Naang should persist!

Save Naang Naang!!!

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

albummaster wrote:

EDIT: FWIW, in the Discogs mod history- "According to Nang Nang, the company that released this tape didn't get her permission, nor gave her any compensation."
Source: https://www.discogs.com/release/6973864

I'm gonna have to set up an account on that site one of these days, so I can see stuff like that... d'oh!

Assuming that's true, then that would override most (if not all) other considerations. The only counter-argument I could think of might be that the cassette used as the source for the sold copies and the digital uploads (on Youtube and elsewhere) is probably a dub from one of the original cassettes — i.e., the original cassette was authorized but copies made from it by a third party, and then presumably sold, were not. (It's a common problem for cassette albums in general, obviously.) As long as the packaging is identical though, there's probably no way we'll ever know. The digital transfers/uploads themselves are probably unauthorized too of course, but that's a side issue since they're not specifically listed on Discogs or the other websites.

If it were my site (and I do realize it isn't, I swear!), I would still make exceptions for material produced/released under what could be termed "blanket censorship conditions." BEA isn't actually distributing the material (i.e., the music) itself, so there shouldn't be an objection on that basis, and I'd still maintain that the original tapes in this case must have been authorized to whatever extent was possible in Burma/Myanmar at the time. Of course, that's also putting aside the fact that the term "authorized" barely has any meaning under blanket censorship conditions.

In any event, situations like this are likely to be extremely rare, and the term "blanket censorship" should work to circumvent any future arguments in favor of putting various conventional bootlegs in the database...

The theoretical risk, though, would be that some guy who's a 70s Burmese pop aficionado might come along and insist on adding large numbers of censored Burmese pop cassettes into the database as his 100 Greatest Albums of All Time, and it would be difficult or impossible to verify if any given entry is real (though you could at least require a Discogs entry, which would help). I'd say it's a fairly minimal theoretical risk, but if the policy here is to avoid theoretical risks altogether, then I guess you'd have to go with the policy...?

Hayden

Location: CDMX

Thanks for all the write-ups MadhattanJack. I think you've made the best points (particularly the first two posts).

Quote:

Assuming that's true, then that would override most (if not all) other considerations.

I don't see why. People post music that doesn't belong to them all the time. It still exists.

Le' Ywei Sin Tei Mya exists. It's a tape, that existed, that the artist made. In fact, I think it's actually a rather important one.

While I 100% understand the no-bootlegs rule, I genuinely believe this is a different circumstance. I think this is more along the lines of an undocumented lost tape being posted online 35-ish years later. The fact it has a release date at all is something. Most other Burmese tapes from the time don't even have that. I think most albums by a contemporary like Sai Hsai Mao were released similarly.

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

Hayden wrote:

I don't see why. People post music that doesn't belong to them all the time. It still exists.

Le' Ywei Sin Tei Mya exists. It's a tape, that existed, that the artist made. In fact, I think it's actually a rather important one.

I agree, and you're right — I guess the problem here, in terms of site policy, is that there's a miniscule chance (I would say around 0.1%) that the artist didn't want this material to be heard at all, and we have to decide if that miniscule chance is enough to overcome the 99.9% likelihood that they did want it to be heard. I'd say "yes it is," but it's not my website. Though one might even argue that if the artist objected to the sale/distribution of these cassettes at a time when blanket government censorship was still in place, the artist could not have responded any other way than to object, at least not without significant personal risk of being fined, arrested, imprisoned, or even forced to become a parrothead or something.

That's why my idea was (and still is) that we could "work around" the miniscule-chance problem by making an exception for stuff recorded by people living under blanket-censorship regimes. These could even be case-by-case exceptions, as I don't think anyone would seriously object to that. To me, that makes more sense than saying "we're going to make an exception in just this one case," because that's arbitrary, which can often be a bad thing. But what makes sense to me isn't always what makes sense to everyone else. Sad

One thing I would add (or reiterate, really): If it were a live boot or a rehearsal demo where someone just ran a tape recorder in the corner and then made copies without the artists' knowledge or consent, then this would be an easy call, right? But it's not that, it's a studio album, for all intents and purposes — again, meant to be at least heard, and 99.9 times out of a hundred, distributed too. And I know there have been cases where people have made completed albums that never got released, usually because their record company didn't think they would sell sufficient units, but this isn't one of those situations either.

albummaster
Janitor

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Location: Spain
Site Admin

MadhattanJack wrote:

I agree, and you're right — I guess the problem here, in terms of site policy, is that there's a miniscule chance (I would say around 0.1%) that the artist didn't want this material to be heard at all, [snip] That's why my idea was (and still is) that we could "work around" the miniscule-chance problem by making an exception for stuff recorded by people living under blanket-censorship regimes. These could even be case-by-case exceptions, as I don't think anyone would seriously object to that. To me, that makes more sense than saying "we're going to make an exception in just this one case," because that's arbitrary, which can often be a bad thing. But what makes sense to me isn't always what makes sense to everyone else. Sad

Tbh, in terms of site policy, pretty much the only factor BEA considers is whether a release is a bootleg or not (regardless of why that bootleg exists). If we had to have case-by-case debate putting forward reasons for each bootleg, the site wouldn't be able to function as effectively as we would require arbitrary debate about each release, taking into account new factors such as whether a bootleg was released under 'blanket censorship' (whatever the definition ends up being), and then whether the release was authorised by the artist who performed the material and not a pirate etc, and who's going to be the judge and jury of that? (I can guarantee we'll then end up having leeway in certain circumstances etc to allow other albums onto the site, and the flood gates will then be open with few controls left in place). In terms of this release, it was flagged as a bootleg on very credible sources including RYM and Discogs (who also commented, as per previous post, the release was not authorised by the artist).

I totally understand the no bootlegs policy can be restrictive, and I'm a music fan as much as anyone else, but the site has to have a line somewhere to make the site as easy to understand as possible to ensure consistency and help the site to run (fairly) smoothly most of the time. (I appreciate that sometimes it doesn't, but the resource constraints the site runs under are considerable.)

MadhattanJack
I mean, metal is okay, but...

Gender: Male

albummaster wrote:

If we had to have case-by-case debate putting forward reasons for each bootleg, the site wouldn't be able to function as effectively as we would require arbitrary debate about each release, taking into account new factors such as whether a bootleg was released under 'blanket censorship' (whatever the definition ends up being), and then whether the release was authorised by the artist who performed the material and not a pirate etc, and who's going to be the judge and jury of that? (I can guarantee we'll then end up having leeway in certain circumstances etc to allow other albums onto the site, and the flood gates will then be open with few controls left in place).

Perfectly understandable concerns! This is a complicated issue and I don't want to cause "drama" or draw this out any longer than you probably do, but I do want to be clear on three things, and then I'll shut up (unless I'm specifically asked to respond to something).

First, I'm not suggesting that you change the site's current policies and procedures for this at all. Nothing would actually change. You'd continue to justifiably kick all bootlegs out of the database as you always have — it's just that maybe once every few years, someone might post an "appeal" in which they say, "this studio album was recorded by an artist living under a total censorship regime, so our conventional definition of 'bootleg' maybe shouldn't apply." And maybe there'd be a forum discussion like this one, and we'd all check this out, and maybe you'd say, "okay." If it happens more than, say, once a year, I'd be extremely surprised, and then I'd say go back to having no exceptions.

Second: This exception should only apply to studio albums. That should eliminate the vast majority of other potential cases/scenarios immediately. (I regard the Naang Naang album as more of a "promo" than a bootleg anyway, in case that helps...?)

Lastly, I'm not exaggerating when I say this will only happen once every few years, maybe once a year at the most, and I'd like to explain why I say that. I might even say that doubt this has happened before, and it might never happen again. As for verification, I don't recommend that anyone ever use Wikipedia as a source, but they do maintain an historical list of music censorship incidents and regimes by country.

Many countries on that list don't really belong there, including the US and the UK, but there are only five countries listed that have ever imposed blanket censorship on pop music, and these countries are Afghanistan (Taliban eras), Burma (1962-88 ), Iran (1979-ca. 2000), North Korea, and North Vietnam (during the war). I'd also add a sixth, namely Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (and this is why you should never completely trust Wikipedia, by the way). Those are the only countries that would be covered by this exception, and how many albums of any description have come from those countries? Hardly any, for obvious reasons. Now, there was also some censorship practiced in South Africa during apartheid, and Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe, as well as China and Malaysia at various times, but even this wasn't blanket censorship; you could still record, sell, and perform as long as you didn't criticize the government in the process.

Which leads me to point out that Burma was practically unique among these countries, because they still allowed pop music to be recorded and performed somewhat freely — they really only banned public sale and distribution (mostly because they were concerned that seemingly-harmless-looking domestic pop cassettes or LPs might be falsely labeled and actually contain super-dangerous black-market Western pop content). The other five countries banned everything, full stop. So, if a situation like this ever comes up on BEA again, it's very likely to be another Burmese pop album.

So will this Naang Naang album somehow lead to a sudden wave of global popularity for 1970s Shan Burmese stereo pop music, and a subsequent surge of minimally-distributed Burmese-pop cassette albums being added to the BEA database? The answer is no, of course not — there's been plenty of time for this to happen already, and it hasn't. The Naang Naang album is a viral oddity. It first appeared in 2014 on this blog, and first appeared on Youtube in 2016. The earliest RYM reference to it seems to be this comment from BEA's very own SuedeSwede, also from 2016. It's been small-scale viral since mid-2019, but only about two or three other artists, like Sai Hsai Mao (whom Hayden mentioned), have benefited at all from the "reflected exposure."

Even then, I myself hadn't heard of any of this at all until last month, and I keep up with this kinda stuff probably more than 98% of music fans. So... my conclusion? It's just not that big a deal. I could be wrong, but like I say, I'd be really surprised.

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

For the record, RYM no longer considers this a bootleg. Here's the explanation from their edit log:

Quote:

Also, this cassette cannot be filed as a bootleg since it was released under a label in which Nang Nang and several other Shan artists released their albums, see https://www.discogs.com/Various-%E1%81%...e/13257375

"According to Nang Nang, the company that released this tape didn't get her permission, nor gave her any compensation." Even if there is any evidence that she ever said that, there are countless albums released by recognized labels in which they don't give any royalties to their signed artists.

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hwex9000

Gender: Male
Location: Chicago

baystateoftheart wrote:

For the record, RYM no longer considers this a bootleg.

Since I'm the one who started this thread, I'll weigh in to say that given this change I'd be more than happy to see the album restored to the database.

Romanelli
Bone Swah

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Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

baystateoftheart wrote:

For the record, RYM no longer considers this a bootleg. Here's the explanation from their edit log:

Quote:

Also, this cassette cannot be filed as a bootleg since it was released under a label in which Nang Nang and several other Shan artists released their albums, see https://www.discogs.com/Various-%E1%81%...e/13257375

"According to Nang Nang, the company that released this tape didn't get her permission, nor gave her any compensation." Even if there is any evidence that she ever said that, there are countless albums released by recognized labels in which they don't give any royalties to their signed artists.

Even in RYM doesn't consider it unofficial (I could not find the comment you referenced), Discogs still does. The trust factor with Discogs is, I believe, much higher than RYM. It may be on a label with other official releases, but there is also no proof that this was done not just with or without the artist's consent, but also in line with whatever contract exists. Also notable is the fact that outside of this album, the artist has no other releases with this label, other than an appearance on a various artists compilation.
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albummaster
Janitor

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Location: Spain
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Just to state BEA's position remains unchanged due to reasons outlined earlier in the thread. This has been discussed a lot already and many factors have already been considered. Romanelli has summarised this pretty well. If Discogs change their position, this could possibly be reviewed.