People like to say, ‘Ah, he just knows how to rap.’ As if I didn’t know my music. My dad played bass with Héctor Lavoe, with Marc Anthony, with Ricky Martin, with people who had nothing to do with reggaetón. I grew up watching him play all kinds of instruments. It’s something I carry in my blood. | | | | Lady Gaga in Miami, Feb. 1, 2020. "Chromatica" is out today on Streamline/Interscope.
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “People like to say, ‘Ah, he just knows how to rap.’ As if I didn’t know my music. My dad played bass with Héctor Lavoe, with Marc Anthony, with Ricky Martin, with people who had nothing to do with reggaetón. I grew up watching him play all kinds of instruments. It’s something I carry in my blood.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Kudos to CORY DOCTOROW and the ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION for some out-of-the-box thinking in proposing a blanket music license for every user, big and small, and nearly every use case on the internet. The TL;DR version of a plan that would seemingly nullify and replace every label deal with every streaming service and every other site that wants access to "SAVAGE," "SAY SO" and "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY"—file under "wishful thinking"—is that there would be a central clearinghouse/collecting society from which anyone could get a compulsory license based on their reach, and "If you have one user and FACEBOOK has 2.5 billion users, then your license fee is 1/2,500,000,000 of Facebook's fee." Doctorow's plan, which is as full of holes as it is appealingly simple, assumes, for example, that such a license would give any would-be giant killer "access to the same catalog that AMAZON, APPLE, and GOOGLE claim," but doesn't ponder how that would-be giant killer with a few thousand users, a few thousand dollars and no label relationships would get actual copies of the tens of millions of tracks that would make that possible. Or how music's underpaid long and medium tails would fare in a payment system based on the equivalent of airplay monitoring. On the other hand, no one's figured out a great way to license music for podcasts, and even giants like INSTAGRAM are still struggling with how to incorporate music into their business plans, so if someone can kickstart *that* discussion, kick away... Do I want to devote three and a half hours to another two-part documentary about Los Angeles music in the 1970s? Yes if the director is ALISON ELLWOOD, who perfected the format with 2013's HISTORY OF THE EAGLES and who returns with LAUREL CANYON: A PLACE IN TIME, premiering Sunday on EPIX. Sunday's part one has "more of the light, and the second part would be more of the darkness," Ellwood tells the LA TIMES. "There’s tons of light that comes through the darkness in Part 2 as well—it’s not like it was doom and gloom. But it shifted.” As it too often does... Can MTV pull off a traditional VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS show in August with live bands in front of a live audience in Brooklyn? Though it's making backup plans, too, the network says it's trying... Knowing me, knowing the new president of the global rights society CISAC... Forty years ago this weekend in Washington D.C.... BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT files for its IPO in South Korea... I looked for LADY GAGA's new album, CHROMATICA, on SONOS last night by searching for her name. On SPOTIFY inside Sonos, it's pretty much at the top of her page, right under Lady Gaga Radio and a top tracks link. On TIDAL, a click on "Own Albums" takes you right to it. On APPLE MUSIC, ugh. A single scrolling page of 60-plus items, with "Chromatica" about two-thirds of the way down. If I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, I'm never going to find it. Please work this out, Apple and Sonos. In related news, this remains ridiculously sweet ear candy... It's FRIDAY and that means in addition to GAGA there's new music from LIL YACHTY, ANUEL (Latin trap provocateur), MALA RODRIGUEZ, MEDHANE, DIPLO (goes country), ENRIQUE BUNBURY, KANY GARCÍA, CIRCO, 2ND GRADE, FREDDIE GIBBS & THE ALCHEMIST, ACE HOOD, PROBLEM, KIP MOORE, ONDARA, NICOLE ATKINS, DEERHOOF, INVENTIONS, M IS WE (cassette-only release arrives on BANDCAMP for the three or four of you without working tape decks), SWEET SPIRIT, NOAH REID, ALEC BENJAMIN, CAROLINA CALVACHE, JEAN-LOUIS MATINIER & KEVIN SEDDIKI, PALAYE ROYALE, XIBALBA, BEHEMOTH (this one's for you, BERTIS DOWNS), SORCERER, KYGO, FLYING LOTUS ("Flamagra" instrumentals), SÉBASTIEN TELLIER, HANIA RANI, DAVID GRUBBS & TAKU UNAMI, SOULWAX, JIMMY BUFFETT, the LONG BEACH DUB ALLSTARS, NEW FOUND GLORY, MRS. PISS, JADE HAIRPINS, JAIME WYATT, JOELL ORTIZ & KXNG CROOKED, VISTAS, the REFLECTORS, TEDDY THOMPSON, CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON, PAINTED ZEROS, VARSITY, the WHITE BUFFALO, RICARDO ARJONA, CHIQUIS, BANDA LOS SEBASTIANES and the IGGY POP box set THE BOWIE YEARS... And finally, let's pair all that listening with a good burger. Our friends at OFF THE MENU are sponsoring the BURGER SHOWDOWN, which matches celebs with chefs in 10 cities to collaborate on new burger recipes that you can watch them make online and then order via UBER EATS. It's a benefit for FRONTLINE FOODS, which supports local restaurants and feeds Covid-19 responders. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | Electronic Frontier Foundation | | As Congress gets ready for yet another hearing on copyright and music, we’d like to suggest that rather than more “fact-finding,” where the facts are inevitably skewed toward the views of the finder, our legislators start focusing on a concrete solution that builds on and learns from decades of copyright policy: blanket licensing. | | | |  | Billboard | | Artists like Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Baby and Nav have bulked up their track lists to super-serve fans during the pandemic -- and the strategy may be here to stay. | | | |  | NPR Music | | After detouring from the sound that first made her famous for Joanne and A Star Is Born, Lady Gaga's return to high-concept dance pop is a something new and old at the same time. | | | |  | Stan | | As more and more artists embrace Instagram to communicate with their audience how can they leverage their platform to turn followers into fans? | | | |  | Trapital | | Hip-hop blogs were an organic moment for music discovery and curation. That's hard to replicate in the streaming era. | | | | | NPR Music | | Musicians, fans, venue owners and employees are wondering what will become of the live music industry following the coronavirus pandemic. Bob Boilen pays tribute to the club that changed his life. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | "Laurel Canyon," the new two-part documentary on Epix premiering Sunday (May 31), is the most comprehensive and musically satisfying document of a notably insular scene. | | | |  | Vulture | | Fifteen years ago, a dance-hall riddim and a Bajan teenager laid the groundwork for a pop icon. | | | |  | Variety | | It took some 35 years, but '80s metal band Ratt has finally returned to television screens with the sort of frequency it hasn't seen since its MTV days. In a popular campaign for Geico's home and car insurance bundles called "Ratt Problem," frontman Stephen Pearcy and his bandmates illustrate an unexpected nuisance for homeowners. | | | |  | Metal Insider | | Faith No More keyboardist and rock legend Roddy Bottum recently released the first single from his new project, Man on Man, entitled "Daddy." This new song release came with a video that features Bottum's boyfriend, Joey Holman. The video was made by the pair while in isolation due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. | | | | | Billboard | | He shot to fame as a rough, provocative counterpart to his fellow chart toppers. On 'Emmanuel,' he's ready to show the musical pedigree few knew he had — and level up to global stardom. | | | |  | The Conversation | | From music to porn, online platforms including Twitch, Patreon, Streamlabs, OnlyFans, and SubStack are becoming more familiar to consumers. But will they give creators an income? | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | “It’s more about getting a sense of what they want to do and sharing how you can help,” says the artist liaison, who spent almost a decade at Sony’s Columbia Records before jumping to the tech side of music. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Apple Music has claimed an approximate market share of all hip-hop on-demand audio streams in the United States of 45% from January 1, 2019 to now. | | | |  | Guitar World | | "When the show is over and the gear is packed up in the truck, it’s satisfying to see 75,000 people leave with smiles on their faces" | | | |  | The Vinyl Factory | | As artist Junior Tomlin releases a new book collecting his iconic flyers and record covers, we delve into Tomlin’s journey – from a sci-fi and music obsessed kid in West London to a pioneer of dance culture’s visual language. | | | |  | Americana Highways | | In recent weeks, Springsteen has taken to the mic of SiriusXM's E Street Nation playing songs and providing commentary and empathizing with the challenges we are all going through during the pandemic. | | | |  | GQ | | Zach Baron on why now is an excellent opportunity to excavate music from your past. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | David Jassy masterminded "San Quentin Mixtape Vol. 1" featuring prisoners who channeled life experience into potent verses. | | | |  | Complex | | The 21-year-old Toronto rapper was killed on Tuesday. But while he was still alive, he told us what he wanted his legacy to be. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | "Did you hear what I said?" On first impression, a pretty great dance-pop album. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
