| People will ask, 'Why does this even need to be talked about?' and personally, I agree with that. But for me to show up at an awards show with a man would be jaw-dropping to people. It wouldn’t be like, 'Oh, cool!' |
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Shuffle this: Bernard Purdie at the Lone Star Cafe, New York, Sept. 3, 1985.
(Ebet Roberts/Redferns/Getty Images)
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“People will ask, 'Why does this even need to be talked about?' and personally, I agree with that. But for me to show up at an awards show with a man would be jaw-dropping to people. It wouldn’t be like, 'Oh, cool!'”
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We're Comin' Out
"At the end of this day," Nashville music critic ANN POWERS tweeted at end of the day Wednesday, "I feel the need to point out that a wealthy white Southern man using the N- word casually is hardly a historic occurrence while a country star at the top of his game coming out IS a historic occurrence." Which is to say thank you, T.J. OSBORNE, for quite literally being yourself and giving Nashville a reason for optimism in the middle of a week when another country star was ripping open an old, deep wound in Music City by simply, it appears, being himself.
T.J., the lead singing half of the brothers duo BROTHERS OBSORNE, came out as gay in a story in TIME MAGAZINE that, by the magazine's reckoning, makes him "the only openly gay artist signed to a major country label." That assertion got a thumbs-up from social media fact-checkers, who added that he appears to be the first mainstream country star to *ever* come out anywhere near the peak of his career. "You have just changed and saved a whole lot of lives," said CHELY WRIGHT, who was closeted when she was topping the country charts in the late '90s and came out several years later. There are plenty of openly gay voices in country, including A-list songwriters SHANE MCANALLY and BRANDY CLARK and elder statespeople like Wright and TY HERNDON, but having a legit current star come out will be a godsend for anyone trying to make it in Nashville who needs the assurance that they'll be welcomed. Representation matters.
Will the business, which is neither as conversative as its reputation nor as as liberal as its cousins in New York and Los Angeles, in fact welcome Osborne? The mood Wednesday was celebratory, and Osborne seemed cool, calm and collected, but that doesn't change the fact that he's stepping out on an untested ledge. He's stepping out and trying to lead the business forward. An act of cool, calm, collected courage. "I don’t think I’m going to get run off the stage in Chicago," he told Time's SAM LANSKY. "But in a rural town playing a county fair? I’m curious how this will go." His brother and bandmate, JOHN, pointed out that their songs generally aren't gender-specific: "If our songs were all about, 'Climb on up in my truck, girl,' that might really confuse some people." Dear country radio: You can, and hopefully will, climb up in that truck. The door's open. You just need to step on through.
Country radio, meanwhile, finished kicking MORGAN WALLEN out of its truck on Wednesday, less than a day after TMZ posted video of him shouting the N-word outside his house. The reaction was amazingly fast and all but unanimous: COUNTRY AIRCHECK reported that Wallen, who's had the #1 album in the country for the past month, received 311 total spins across 159 reporting radio stations between midnight and 6 a.m. Central Time Wednesday, but only 67 spins between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., and a paltry 32 spins in the five hours after that. IHEARTRADIO, CUMULUS and ENTERCOM all ordered their stations to drop Wallen from their playlists. (Think of all that newly available airtime for Brothers Osborne!) CMT pulled his videos, the ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC disqualified him from this year's ACM AWARDS and the COUNTRY MUSIC ASSOCIATION removed him from its website. His songs disappeared from SPOTIFY and APPLE MUSIC playlists (cue the questions).
Wallen's label, BIG LOUD, said it's suspending him "indefinitely" but didn't say what that means. Is it a prelude to dropping him or a way of scolding him while still collecting whatever sales and royalties may remain? So many questions remain, too. Is the fast industry response a sign of an absolute no-tolerance-for-racism policy? Or is it more a sign of no tolerance for one particular star whose offstage behavior has gotten him into deep trouble three times in less than a year? Is racism canceled or just Morgan Wallen? Will he get a third or fourth chance? Does he deserve one? Has a clear signal now been sent to everyone else who needs to hear it? Will the signal still be sounding a month from now? A year from now? Can everyone in Nashville (and Knoxville and Dallas and Phoenix and Chicago and and and) hear it? Every programmer? Every marketing and A&R exec? Every singer? Every agent? Every fan?
Plus Also Too
A really good guide, courtesy Rolling Stone, of how and where to donate to help music industry workers... Spotify's Q4 earnings: Subscriptions up, operating losses up, 2021 forecast meh, stock price down. And DANIEL EK wants to kinda sorta clear up that infamous advice he had for bands... Estimated total prices of luxury items mentioned in hip-hop songs... K-pop, the game.
Rest in Peace
DANNY RAY, who was JAMES BROWN's longtime emcee and "cape man"... JIM WEATHERLY, who wrote "MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO GEORGIA" and several other GLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS hits... A 28-year-old dove named DIVINITY.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Chicago Reader |
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| Music workers’ jobs disappeared, but their bills didn’t |
| by Micco Caporale |
| With federal aid to venues only now arriving, how are tour managers, stagehands, bookers, and their colleagues in the concert business making ends meet? |
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| quote:// "I don’t think I’m going to get run off the stage in Chicago. But in a rural town playing a county fair? I’m curious how this will go." |
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Time Magazine |
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| T.J. Osborne Is Ready to Tell His Story |
| by Sam Lansky |
| “I want to get to the height of my career being completely who I am,” he says. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| ‘In the music business, there is no such thing as an independent within a major’ |
| by Henry Semmence |
| Henry Semmence, founder and MD of UK-based Absolute Label Services, on what Sony’s acquisition of AWAL means for the wider independent sector. |
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Medium |
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| On Morgan Wallen, Reckless White Men, and America’s Imperiled Future |
| by Marcus K. Dowling |
| It’s finally time for country music to “stand in the way of a hit.” |
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| Marilyn Manson Told Us Who He Was |
| by Jude Ellison Sady Doyle |
| The rock star abused women for years--but we were so used to pop-culture misogyny that we didn’t notice. |
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Pollstar |
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| After The Livestream Gold Rush: Acquisitions, Startups, Consumer Adoption Usher In New Era |
| by Ryan Borba |
| As technology and quality improved across the board, there has long been talk of capitalizing on an untapped digital at-home audience. |
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Penny Fractions |
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| Will the United Kingdom Reshape the Record Industry? |
| by David Turner |
| A look at written responses to a U.K. parliamentary inquiry and the implications they could hold for recorded music. |
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NPR |
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| The Blind Spot In The Great American Protest Song |
| by Sam Kesler |
| Jennifer Lopez's performance of "This Land Is Your Land" at last month's presidential inauguration ceremony has reignited conversations about the erasure of Native Americans in the iconic folk tune. |
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| quote:// "I still don’t feel like I’ve mastered my craft." |
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Complex |
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| A Conversation With Lil Baby, the Best Rapper of 2020 |
| by Eric Skelton |
| Lil Baby reacts to being named 2020’s Best Rapper Alive, talks about new music plans for 2021, and reveals who he thinks is the best rapper of all time. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Danny Ray, onstage 'cape man' for soul great James Brown, dies at 85 |
| by Randall Roberts |
| Like a soul music superhero, James Brown needed his cape when exhaustion overtook him onstage. Enter Danny Ray, charged with reviving the stricken frontman. |
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The Independent |
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| Never mind the nepotism: the musical heirs stepping out from their parents’ shadows |
| by Alli Patton |
| Time was when celebrity children had a hard time being taken seriously, but a new wave are embracing their family legacies - and even working with their parents. Alli Patton speaks to the Kutis, Andrew Hagar and Lola Lennox about carrying the rock’n’roll mantle. |
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The New York Times |
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| In the Ozarks, the Pandemic Threatens a Fragile Musical Tradition |
| by Jennifer Moore |
| The older fiddlers and rhythm guitar players don’t rely on sheet music, so their weekly jam sessions - now on hiatus - are critical to passing their technique to the next generation. |
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The Bitter Southerner |
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| Earl King: Poet Laureate of New Orleans |
| by Geoffrey Himes |
| Blues guitarist and lyrical genius Earl King produced an underrecognized body of work that inspired musical greats. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Why Soundcharts, used by all three major record companies, is ‘not your typical music data aggregator’ |
| by Dave Roberts |
| Soundcharts CEO, David Weiszfeld on the music industry's future evolution - and his company's. |
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Timbah.On.Toast |
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| All My Homies Hate Skrillex: A story about what happened with dubstep |
| A retrospective on the pre-2010 dubstep scene in the UK, and why the heads ended up hating Skrillex. |
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Slate |
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| Don’t Let Queen Latifah’s Acting Career Overshadow Her Rap Legacy |
| by Clover Hope |
| Movies like "Set It Off" are iconic, but Queen Latifah's contributions to hip-hop are no less important. |
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VICE |
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| Young Black British Women Are Flourishing on UK Radio |
| by Tochi Imo |
| Thanks to new shows on Kiss and 1Xtra, the presence of Black women on air feels less sporadic and more an intra-diverse broadcasting space. |
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The New York Times |
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| Celeste, a Young Singer With an Old Soul, Makes Her Move |
| by Rob Tannenbaum |
| The 26-year-old British musician writes songs infused with experiences, feelings and coincidences. Her buzzy debut album arrived last week. |
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| rave:// John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock and scores of others recorded here. |
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JazzTimes |
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| Planning for the Future of Van Gelder Studio |
| by Jeff Tamarkin |
| A livestream performance series and a push for landmark status are top priorities at the vaunted recording facility founded by engineer Rudy Van Gelder. |
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The Daily Beast |
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| Hoobastank Is Huge on TikTok--and Loving Every Minute of It |
| by Marlow Stern |
| The early-aughts nu-metal group’s song “The Reason” has become the hottest thing on TikTok, garnering 145 million views and counting. And lead singer Doug Robb has no idea why. |
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Pitchfork |
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| What Daniel Johnston’s Drawings Mean Now |
| by Harry Tafoya |
| The cult singer-songwriter’s posthumous exhibition at Electric Lady Studios--the largest showing of his visual art to date--channels the same weird beauty as his homespun musical universe. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Rock Steady" |
| Aretha Franklin |
| Vintage 1971, featuring the rhythm section of Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie. |
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YouTube |
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Vintage 1971, featuring the rhythm section of Chuck Rainey and Bernard Purdie.
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Not really *the* story. But *a* story of one of the greats.
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| Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech |
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“REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” |
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| Jason Hirschhorn |
| CEO & Chief Curator |
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