| You see, the t'ing about it is, the melody has to sing the message of how you feel... You're not just singing about something that you heard about. |
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Bunny Wailer at the Academy in London, June 27, 1990.
(David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images)
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“You see, the t'ing about it is, the melody has to sing the message of how you feel... You're not just singing about something that you heard about.”
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Let Him Go
Before they became BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS, before they became what the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME knows only as BOB MARLEY (someone should fix that), they were simply, as if anything is ever really that simple, the WAILERS. A vocal harmony group. There is no point in the song "STIR IT UP" where Bob Marley sings the phrase "Stir It Up" alone. PETER TOSH's voice anchors each word, each chord, from the bottom, Marley rests comfortably in the middle and BUNNY WAILER (stage left in the linked video) floats on top, providing a crystalline outer layer for harmonies that echo across continents and across musical time. They were, it goes without saying, one of the more consequential vocal harmony groups of the 20th century. They harmonized in ways that went far beyond those chords. "Peter Tosh was the real militant one," Wailers biographer VIVIEN GOLDMAN told the New York Times. "Bob was the poetic revolutionary humanist. Bunny was regarded as the spiritual mystic." The mystic who made the band name his last name was the first to leave, conflicted about touring for religious reasons and, by most accounts, increasingly unhappy at the Wailers' transformation into "& the Wailers." He was the last to die, ending this part of his journey on Tuesday, at age 73, having been one of the very few musicians who can say they were there at the beginning and they changed music from sounding like this to sounding like that. Bunny and his fellow Wailers moved the music's very accent from here to there.
Of the three towering figures who kickstarted the reggae revolution from inside a single band, Bunny Wailer was the least celebrated, for understandable reasons. He wrote less and sang fewer leads than the others (though he did both of those things), and he chose to stay home in Jamaica for the first decade after he set out on his own, declining to tour even as he produced a series of now-classic solo albums starting with BLACKHEART MAN in 1976. But he was a towering figure indeed, a founding father, a natural mystic, a roots radical, with a plaintive, soulful vocal instrument that expressed more than most people could ever know. RIP.
User-royal Tea
Look out, here we go, sort of. After years of debates about the relative virtues of the dominant pro rata royalty system in streaming music—in which all subscription revenue goes into a single pot to be divvied up at the end of each month by DRAKE, BAD BUNNY and TAYLOR SWIFT—and a user-centric system that sends each user's portion of that revenue to the artists the user actually plays, SOUNDCLOUD has agreed to try the user-centric thing. This is, joking aside, a potentially watershed moment in streaming royalties, though there are caveats galore in the implementation of what SoundCloud is calling fan-powered royalties.
For starters, none of the major labels has agreed to it, so only indie artists will be paid that way. And only some indie artists, depending on their exact relationship with SoundCloud—about 100,000 artists for now, the company says. Everybody else will be paid the old pro rata way, which is as confusing and as complicated as it sounds. The company essentially will be divvying up each subscriber's monthly $4.99 or $9.99, plus money from any ad revenue the user is responsible for, into two separate pots to be distributed two different ways to two different sets of artists. SoundCloud says it can easily handle this.
Fans of user-centric payment systems say it will benefit middle-class artists at the expense of streaming's one-percenters, and this is the first real chance to find out if that's true. MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE's TIM INGHAM, who has the best explainer of the change, says the redistribution here will happen between different tiers of indie artists. And the dueling systems, he writes, may force SoundCloud to pay out a surplus above its normal royalty share some months.
The initiative is also a chance for SoundCloud to separate itself from the pack as an indie-artist-friendly economic proposition. Will DEEZER, which has been vocal about its desire to try something similar but doesn't have agreement from the labels, find a way to follow? Will the labels come around on their own? Will artists see what they're hoping to see in their royalty statements come this spring?
All About Soul
SOUL and BLIZZARD OF SOUL were the big winners at the SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS AND LYRICISTS AWARDS Tuesday, with "Soul" composers TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS and JON BATISTE getting the honors for Outstanding Original Score for a Studio Film two days after winning the Golden Globe for the same movie. "Blizzard of Souls" composer LOLITA RITMANIS won in the Independent Film category. Other winners included the song "HUSAVIK" by SAVAN KOTECHA, FAT MAX GSUS and RICKARD GÖRANSSON, from EUROVISION SONG CONTEST, and CARLOS RAFAEL RIVERA's score for the TV series THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT... The AVALANCHES' WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU won the AUSTRALIAN MUSIC PRIZE, beating out albums by TAME IMPALA, ZIGGY RAMO and others.
Copy, Right?
A helpful lesson in plagiarism from TV and film composer and session musician JON SPURNEY, who's now a two-day JEOPARDY! champion. Guest host MIKE RICHARDS asked Spurney Tuesday what he thought of the iconic "Jeopardy!" theme music. "I can't tell you how many times I've been asked to copy it, to make something that sounds like it," Spurney said. But you've never done that?, Richards asked. Never, Spurney said, "because that would be illegal." Dear TV, film and especially commercial producers and directors: I know that of course you would never ever do such a thing, but, hey, just in case.
Rest in Peace
Italian house DJ CLAUDIO COCCOLUTO... British jazz bandleader CHRIS BARBER, who contributed to the country's pre-BEATLES skiffle craze by playing bass on LONNIE DONEGAN's "ROCK ISLAND LINE"... TV producer and director ROGER ENGLANDER, who championed classical music in programming including the YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERTS he made with LEONARD BERNSTEIN.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| rave:// Not the definitive Bunny Wailer story. But the best Bunny Wailer story. An amazing read |
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GQ |
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| RETRO READ: The Last Wailer |
| by John Jeremiah Sullivan |
| Even the name is legend. Bunny Wailer. He grew up in the same house as Bob Marley, and together with Peter Tosh, they created not just The Wailers but a new template for sound. But only Bunny remains, and today he lives in his own private Zion. |
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Dada Strain |
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| Chart Mining: Rise of the Jamaican Virtual Reality Artist |
| by Jordan Chung |
| First World tech's push for a digital-music future is creating bizarre artist habits and territory-specific inequities in places traditionally rich in sound. |
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Okayplayer |
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| Are Old Rap MP3s Hip-Hop’s Hottest New Collectible? |
| by Adam Aziz |
| MP3s are bubbling thanks to the influx of streaming and the fact that a whole generation of classic hip-hop songs and mixtapes are not available on streaming services. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| SoundCloud revolutionizes streaming music payouts, launching new royalties system |
| by Tim Ingham |
| SoundCloud is about to settle this debate once and for all. |
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MusicAlly |
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| Martin Goldschmidt: ‘Why I have come round to the user-centric model’ (guest column) |
| by Music Ally Blog |
| The founder of Cooking Vinyl says he was swayed by a presentation by Deezer at an industry board meeting last year. |
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First Floor |
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| Unpacking Crypto Cooties with Jacques Greene |
| by Shawn Reynaldo |
| The Canadian producer reflects on his first NFT sale and the current crypto boom. |
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HipHopDX |
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| Rare Tupac Shakur & Biggie Photo Sat Undiscovered In Photographer T. Eric Monroe's Archives For 20 Years |
| by Kyle Eustice |
| While organizing his archives in 2012, photographer T. Eric Monroe stumbled upon an old photograph of Tupac Shakur - which in itself was a prized possession. Then he looked closer. |
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Complex |
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| ‘The People’s Champ’: What Bobby Shmurda Means to New York Rap |
| by Jessica McKinney |
| In 2014, Bobby Shmurda filled a crucial role in New York rap, and he helped ignite momentum that would inspire many Brooklyn rappers who came after. |
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The Washington Post |
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| How a mannequin head could revolutionize how orchestras and audiences come together |
| by Michael Andor Brodeur |
| I look up and behold the ornately ornamented ceiling of Detroit's Orchestra Hall, a place I've never actually been. I look down and my legs have vanished, replaced by a single black pole terminating into a tripod. I look all around and find every other seat in the hall empty, though I'm told that at least 10 of us are in attendance. |
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Variety |
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| ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of the Global Hit With Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Scooter Braun and More |
| by Leila Cobo |
| Apart from its nearly unprecedented success, the most remarkable thing about Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's 2017 global smash hit "Despacito" may be how quickly it came together. (Excerpted from "Decoding Despacito': An Oral History of Latin Music," by Leila Cobo.) |
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The Undefeated |
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| Men continually failed Billie Holiday when she was alive. They’re still doing it |
| by Soraya Nadia McDonald |
| Before the tragedies of Britney Spears or Whitney Houston, there was Billie Holiday. |
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The New York Times |
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| New Jazz That Agitates for Change |
| by Jon Caramanica, Giovanni Russonello and Marcus J. Moore |
| A conversation about strong recent debuts, and how canon and community can be in tension. |
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| rant:// All those expert committees, and yet... |
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Billboard |
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| Who Picks Grammy Nominees? General Voters Decide in Just 12 of 84 Categories |
| by Paul Grein |
| In 59 categories, nominations review committees have the final say. |
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Vulture |
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| Kaytranada’s Decade-Long Journey to Best New Artist |
| by Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan |
| The Canadian producer on his unexpected career, from his mom’s basement to the Grammys. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Thundercat and Flying Lotus, uncompromising pop outsiders with Grammy hopes |
| by August Brown |
| Longtime friends and collaborators Thundercat and Flying Lotus are each nominated for a Grammy Award for 'It Is What It Is,' an album marked by loss. |
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The Nelson George Mixtape |
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| A Brief History of R&B Gangsterism |
| by Nelson George |
| A short look at the long relationship between the underworld and music world in the years before hip hop. |
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Billboard |
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| After Selling Spinnin’ Records for $100M, Eelko van Kooten's New Focus Is Influencers |
| by Richard Smirke |
| "It doesn’t require magic to be on Spotify. The magic is in getting people to listen to you." |
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The Guardian |
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| 'It has been difficult': classical musicians on their Covid delivery jobs |
| by Kevin Rawlinson |
| Venue closures hit freelance performers hard. Here, three musicians tell us about the work they turned to in order to survive. |
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Variety |
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| How Riz Ahmed Learned to Play Drums Convincingly in ‘Sound of Metal’ |
| by Roy Trakin |
| While it took co-writer/director Darius Marder 12 years to bring his passion project, "Sound of Metal," to the screen, star Riz Ahmed learned to play drums believably in just over seven months. |
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Bandzoogle |
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| Could digital audio ever outperform analog? |
| by Erik Veach |
| Let's explore the requirements of a scenario in which digital sound could be equal to, and perhaps even surpass, analog sound. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Let Him Go" |
| Wailers |
| A 1966 ska classic, written by Bunny Wailer, with lead vocals by Bunny and Constantine "Vision" Walker. |
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YouTube |
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A 1966 ska classic, written by Bunny Wailer, with lead vocals by Bunny and Constantine "Vision" Walker.
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From his first American tour, more than a decade after he left the Wailers.
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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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