| To me, there is no greater recording medium than analog tape. When we’re listening to these luminaries that created all this great music, let’s use the format that they did. |
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A Texas salute: Travis Scott at a Super Bowl Party in Houston, Feb. 5, 2017.
(Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
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“To me, there is no greater recording medium than analog tape. When we’re listening to these luminaries that created all this great music, let’s use the format that they did.”
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I Would Walk 500 Milli
Musicsplainer of the day: "Let me translate this for you," DAVID C. LOWERY tweeted in response to a MECHANICAL LICENSING COLLECTIVE announcement that it's received $424 million in unpaid "black box" royalty money in the past week from SPOTIFY, APPLE, AMAZON, YOUTUBE and 16 other DSPs. The payments were a requirement of the MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT, which protected the services from liability for past unpaid royalties as long as they turned over all the cash they've been sitting on for years because they couldn't match countless songs to their writers and publishers. Which is to say, they couldn't locate, or even identify, the creators of the very music they were peddling. Which becomes odder and odder the more you think about it. Anyway, the deadline was Monday. Songwriting and publishing groups hailed the announcement as a watershed step toward getting long overdue payments to their members, while also noting that it served as one more piece of proof of "just how broken the system was," as NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION president DAVID ISRAELITE put it. But it was Lowery who translated the day's news in the most simple and shocking terms. "Songwriters," he wrote, "have been shorted nearly 1/2 billion dollars by streaming services in last decade." That's the long and, literally, short of it, isn't it? When critics of the streaming economy make seemingly radical proposals like this, which you may or may not agree with but you should definitely read, consider this the context. Or, at least , one of the contexts.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the great unmatched, and about 4 dollars and 24 cents out of that $424 million will eventually make its way to me if all goes right.
The Content of Money
"The art of cinema," writes director (and de facto music supervisor) MARTIN SCORSESE in a HARPER'S essay about FEDERICO FELLINI, "is being systematically devalued, sidelined, demeaned, and reduced to its lowest common denominator, 'content.'" "Content," the noun, should never be used in place of "film" or "movie." It shouldn't even be used to describe a cat video. The appropriate term for one of those is "cat video." It likewise shouldn't ever be used as a substitute for music or song or album or any such word. The composers who Spotify and Apple can't locate write songs, which the artists whose metadata those companies possess turn into audio (and sometimes visual) art, and art is not content, and every time someone tries to insist it is, in an earnings report or a pitch deck or an email or in casual conversation, they are indeed demeaning the art on which their own livelihoods depend. And they're making clear they don't, when it comes right down to it, understand what it is. Bad things are sure to follow.
Etc Etc Etc
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN and BARCLAYS CENTER are reopening next week under New York state rules that will limit their capacity to 2,000 people, all of whom will have to show proof of negative Covid tests—even if they've been vaccinated. That's going to allow to basketball and hockey teams to play in front of fans, but no concerts are booked yet. It's hard to turn a profit on a concert in a 90 percent empty arena, and it's hard to route a tour when only a handful of cities will even consider letting you play... Then again: ROCK HALL OF FAME nominee TODD RUNDGREN apparently began thinking about doing a multi-city tour without actually traveling to any of the cities even before the pandemic happened. And now he's doing it: the shortest 25-city tour ever routed. By the way, don't read his current thoughts on the Hall, which you can Google, but I seriously don't recommend it... This RICK ROSS concert for NPR MUSIC's TINY DESK (HOME) series is kind of great. It's only the second time he's ever played with a live band, NPR informs... "I feel like we all should be uncomfortable," MAREN MORRIS told fellow country singer RISSI PALMER, who gathered Morris, CAM and journalist ANDREA WILLIAMS to chat diversity and representation on her APPLE MUSIC radio show COLOR ME COUNTRY over the weekend. "The nature of change," said the "MY CHURCH" singer, "is being uncomfortable"... The NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS subscription service has added an all-music channel, with vintage docs and new content from a number of indie labels, and the offerings are kind of trippy. But NFTVi is a terrible name for such a channel, and I don't say that just because of the battle scars I earned at MTVi, which was an actual thing, look it up... 78rpm records digitized.
Rest in Peace
Longtime New York Magazine classical critic PETER G. DAVIS.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| does fort worth ever cross your mind |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Merck Mercuriadis faces the future… and stares down his critics |
| by Tim Ingham |
| MBW asked the Hipgnosis CEO and founder to respond to criticisms from his harshest detractors. He said yes. |
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| rantnrave:// A radical proposal for a publicly funded music streaming service, worth a read even if you're skeptical |
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Real Life |
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| Socialized Streaming |
| by Liz Pelly |
| A case for universal music access. |
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DJ Mag |
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| How Patreon is helping electronic music survive during the pandemic |
| by Cherie Hu |
| Cherie Hu looks at how the paid membership platform Patreon is helping electronic artists and clubs sustain themselves, especially through the COVID-19 pandemic. |
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Attack Magazine |
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| So You’re Thinking About Attending A Plague Rave |
| by Ana Monroy Yglesias |
| Writer Ana Monroy Yglesias looks into Tulum, the dark side of dance music culture and why we need to wait until the pandemic is over to dance together again. |
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Complex |
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| The Story of a ‘Super Perfectionist’: How Frank Ocean Made ‘Nostalgia, ULTRA.’ |
| by Brenton Blanchet |
| Ten years after the release of ‘Nostalgia, ULTRA.,’ collaborators tell stories about the making of Frank Ocean’s rule-breaking mixtape. This is an oral history. |
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Vulture |
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| In Adrian Younge’s Ambitious New Project, James Baldwin Meets Marvin Gaye |
| by Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding |
| “I wanted to make a What’s Going On, but as if a black scholar hooked up with Marvin Gaye and [it was] produced by David Axelrod.” |
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| rave:// A good overview of what SoundCloud is and isn't doing re artist payments, social and more |
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Music x |
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| How SoundCloud should tackle fan-artist payments and reconquer lost ground from Bandcamp, Instagram & TikTok |
| by Bas Grasmayer |
| SoundCloud has lost ground to TikTok, Instagram, and Bandcamp. By employing community monetization strategies from gaming, it can claw its way back to the center of music culture. |
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No Depression |
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| The Long Haul: Musicians Carry a Heavy Load from Student Debt |
| by Rachel Baiman |
| This is the first of a three-part series exploring financial challenges that affect musicians and their careers. |
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Apple Music |
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| Striving for Diversity and Authentic Representation in Country Music |
| by Rissi Palmer, Cam, Maren Morris... |
| Color Me Country host Rissi Palmer connects with Andrea Williams, Maren Morris and Cam to have a meaningful conversation about representation in Country music. The group talks about what it truly means to be an ally, how these women are progressive in their daily lives, and how to diversify the Country music industry to support people of color. |
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The Daily Beast |
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| Yes, Now We Know Exactly What It Means to Miss New Orleans |
| by Larry Blumenfeld |
| An expanded edition of a 2005 post-Katrina benefit album speaks to our present moment of estrangement. |
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The Guardian |
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| Female UK jazz musicians face sexual harassment and discrimination, says report |
| by Tina Edwards |
| Trumpeter Yazz Ahmed and singer-songwriter Amahla weigh on the findings which include scepticism about women’s musical ability and pregnancy prejudice. |
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Broken Record |
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| Broken Record: Kenny Beats on the Regional Sounds of Hip Hop |
| by Rick Rubin and Kenny Beats |
| There’s a reason Kenny Beats is one of the great young producers in Hip Hop. Because he has a vast understanding of the regional sounds and histories of cities to pull from when making beats for an artist. |
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Pitchfork |
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| From Bad Boy to Merge Records, Dawn Richard Reflects on Her One-of-a-Kind Career |
| by Rawiya Kameir |
| The rule-breaking pop experimentalist talks about the differences between major and independent labels, and how she ended up signing with indie rock stalwart Merge for her new album. |
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The Trichordist |
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| The MLC Announces the Inception to Date Black Box Payments: $424 million |
| A potentially good day provided that money immediately begins flowing to songwriters. There’s a long way between here and there, but keeping pressure on will keep attention on that juicy target. |
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Radio Survivor |
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| Radio Is the World’s Most Accessible & Popular Analog Sound Medium |
| by Paul Riismandel |
| The recent news that the FCC approved all-digital AM broadcasting got me thinking about how radio is still a mostly analog sound medium, and arguably the most accessible and convenient one. |
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Fifteen Questions |
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| Fifteen Questions Interview with Jeff Mills |
| A common conversation. |
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The Guardian |
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| 'The drum needed a blood sacrifice': the rise of dark Nordic folk |
| by Dannii Levers |
| Heilung jam with Siberian shamans and play with human bones, while Wardruna record songs submerged in rivers and on burial mounds. Now this vibrant undergound music scene is finding a wider audience. |
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First Floor |
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| The Case for Mastering |
| by Shawn Reynaldo |
| An interview with mastering engineer Matt Colton about what he does and why it's important. |
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The Quietus |
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| Couple Goals: Toyah’s Lockdown |
| by Patrick Clarke |
| Toyah Willcox tells us about her and husband Robert Fripp's bonkers lockdown videos, why she sees herself as honouring Barbara Windsor, how they might influence King Crimson going forward, and how they've inspired a surge of interest in her kitchen cupboards. |
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PostGenre |
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| Exploring the Violin’s Versatility |
| by Rob Shepherd |
| The very idea that the violin should be primarily associated with any single genre is flawed. Such a mindset does a disservice to both those who express themselves through its strings as the instrument itself. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Welcome 2 Houston 2" |
| Slim Thug ft. GT Garza, Propain, Killa Kyleon, Delorean and Doughbeezy |
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YouTube |
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Les Blank's 1969 portrait of the great Texas blues singer.
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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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