| I think we’re seeing the death of the artist... I think we're hitting a point in time where it’s going to be more and more difficult to have follow-up hits for an artist. There's so much music. There are so many songs. People listen to playlists and just because they fall in love with the song doesn’t mean [they fall in love with the artist]. |
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D'Angelo at his Verzuz show at the Apollo Theater on Feb. 27, 2021, which earned him an equity stake in Triller.
(Shahar Azran/Getty Images)
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“I think we’re seeing the death of the artist... I think we're hitting a point in time where it’s going to be more and more difficult to have follow-up hits for an artist. There's so much music. There are so many songs. People listen to playlists and just because they fall in love with the song doesn’t mean [they fall in love with the artist].”
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Verzuz Triller Verzuz
No one seems super concerned that SWIZZ BEATZ and TIMBALAND just sold their VERZUZ brand to a social media company that doesn't have a deal with the world's biggest record company, so I'll try not to be super concerned myself and just pass on the news, in case you missed it, that VERZUZ now belongs to the TRILLER NETWORK, parent company of TRILLER, which, by the way, doesn't have a deal with UMG, which already seemed weird and now seems a little weirder. "I’m sure Triller is aware and handling it," Swizz Beatz told Billboard's GAIL MITCHELL. OK then.
"Brand" is my best stab at describing Swizz Beatz and Timbaland's pandemic mega-success, which grew out of an idea for a one-on-one battle series the two artist/producers had been casually batting around for a couple years. When the pandemic hit, they just sort of decided to try it out, and before you could say INSTAGRAM LIVE they had a well-run but malleable platform on which BRANDY and MONICA could reunite in front of a live audience of millions and BOI-1DA and HIT-BOY could turn the last few years of pop into a platinum sound clash and D'ANGELO could show up at the APOLLO THEATER and just be D'Angelo.
It's a fantastic platform, it has a huge organic audience, it has A-list sponsors and it has seemingly every living pop artist—many of whom, not to harp on this or anything, have music on UMG—wanting a slot. I'm sure it will be worked out. Swizz Beatz and Timbaland aren't dumb. Neither, I assume, is Triller, though it said some strange things out loud when its rift with the record company became public. Silicon Valley needs an introductory course in music rights for founders and the people who would finance them. Someone start that business. UMG, one would imagine, has just gained a smidgen more leverage.
In addition to the brand, Triller is getting the two artist/entrepreneurs. They'll become Triller shareholders with management roles in the company's music strategy. And in a nice followup to SQUARE buying TIDAL from JAY-Z and absorbing him and his 15 A-list artist partners into its house, every artist who's participated in a Verzuz battle in the past year will become Triller shareholders. "Swizz, Timbaland and the other 43 artists who are all becoming shareholders and partners in Triller Verzuz from this day forward become our voice," Triller executive chairman BOBBY SARNEVESHT said in the acquisition announcement. Swizz told Billboard other potential partners were "cool with having one or two people from the culture but not 43. Me and Tim were coming with our family. Triller was the only company that accepted that."
So, while Swizz and Tim contemplate moving into comedy, expanding beyond the US and figuring where exactly their thing is going to live from now on (in the short run, it appears, Instagram and TWITTER will continue to be part of the play), is it D-NICE's turn now? Does someone want to buy his CLUB QUARANTINE and give equity shares to every artist whose record D-Nice has played on Instagram Live over the past year? Maybe Instagram itself? It has a deal with UMG. As does Triller's rival TIKTOK. Just saying.
Venues Grammys Etc Etc
Good news for songwriters and publishers: Despite a precipitous drop in revenue from venues, bars, restaurants and stores, ASCAP saw a 2.5 percent increase in domestic revenue in 2020 and a 9 percent jump in global revenue. The reason in both cases: a booming streaming market... One of those venues whose revenue evaporated in 2020 was Seattle's SHOWBOX, which was forced to lay off its staff of about 200 people in March. But with the help of donations and fundraisers ranging from a G. LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE livestream to "Friends of the Showbox" masks, the venue has provided groceries to 60 of those employees who signed up for help. "I just knew that food would stretch a lot farther than if I just gave everyone 50 bucks," assistant general manager SHANNON WELLES told the Seattle Times... The GRAMMY AWARDS will honor struggling venues Sunday by having owners and employees of the APOLLO, the TROUBADOUR, the HOTEL CAFÉ, the STATION INN and other iconic live music spots present many of the night's awards. For some of venues, Grammys producer BEN WINSTON told Rolling Stone, Sunday will be the one-year anniversary of their last show... Unless he's one of the show's promised surprises, which seems blindingly unlikely, the WEEKND won't be honored at the Grammys. But his home country of Canada has his back. The Weeknd was nominated Tuesday for six JUNO AWARDS, including artist of the year, album of the year and single of the year, which is six more noms than the Grammys had to offer... Artists who control their own rights can now use DISTROKID to distribute their music directly to SNAPCHAT, which the messaging app says is the first arrangement of its kind... I have no idea what to make of this congressional #FREEBRITNEY news.
Rest in Peace
Up-and-coming Houston rapper OBE NOIR, at least the sixth rapper murdered in the US in 2021. It's March... British actor TREVOR PEACOCK, who also wrote musicals and pop songs including "MRS. BROWN, YOU'VE GOT A LOVELY DAUGHTER."
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Complex |
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| What It’s Like to Run the Most Powerful Beyoncé Fan Account on the Internet |
| by Jessica McKinney |
| Beyoncé Legion is one of the most influential fan accounts on the internet. The founder takes Complex behind the scenes of its daily operations. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Country Music Is Changing, in Spite of Itself |
| by Natalie Weiner |
| The genre’s ongoing racial reckoning combined with a shift toward streaming listening could lead to a more inclusive future for both artists and fans. |
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Tidal |
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| Many Sounds, Many Ancestors: “Jazz” in South Africa |
| by Piotr Orlov |
| Is the astounding variety of improvised music flowing out of South Africa in recent years a new jazz thing - or something older, richer and more complex? |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| ‘The death of the artist’? Why Big Hit and BTS just raised the alarm on the record industry’s future |
| by Murray Stassen |
| Why Big Hit's recent investment is symptomatic of a wider, potentially worrying, trend for major record companies. |
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Guitar World |
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| How peak demand and Covid-19 caused an electric guitar shortage |
| by Simon Chandler |
| The guitar's surge in popularity over the pandemic is cause for celebration -- but it has left manufacturers and retailers struggling to keep up with demand. |
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Billboard |
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| Verzuz Founders Swizz Beatz & Timbaland Talk Triller Partnership: 'This Puts a Light Back on Creatives' |
| by Gail Mitchell |
| The ultimate payoff, says Swizz Beatz, is "hearing everybody being so floored about having shares in the company and feeling like they belong. That's the real currency. It's going to take the creative to save the creative." |
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| Unbelieveable: A Ranking of Every Biggie Smalls Track |
| by Abe Beame, Jeff Castilla, Patrick Johnson... |
| How do you rank “Big Poppa” above or below the Stay With Me Remix of “One More Chance”? It depends: do you prefer “Happy Birthday” or “Auld Lang Syne”? |
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GQ |
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| How Netflix’s New Biggie Smalls Documentary Tells the Origin Story of Christopher Wallace |
| by William E. Ketchum III |
| The creative team behind 'Biggie: I Got a Story To Tell' explain how they unearthed stories about Biggie that even his closest friends and family didn’t know, address criticism of the doc, and talk about getting live-texts from Jay-Z. |
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Stereogum |
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| The Antagonism And Optimism Of Israeli Pop Agitator Noga Erez |
| by Lucy Dean Stockton |
| The Tel Aviv singer and rapper on her exciting new album 'KIDS,' the Israel-Palestine conflict, and more. |
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The Guardian |
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| Obay Alsharani: the Syrian refugee keeping his mind free with ambient music |
| by Joe Muggs |
| The music producer escaped Assad’s Syria and ended up in a Swedish refugee centre, where the space and minimalism of ambient allowed him to express his alienation. |
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Reveal |
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| ‘How is this legal?’ |
| by Byard Duncan |
| Legions of fans say the secondary ticket market is rigged against them. |
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DJ Mag |
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| How independent radio has thrived in the pandemic |
| by Ed Gillett |
| During a year decimated by lockdowns and venue closures, our need for sonic connection has sparked the resurgence of independent radio across the UK. |
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The New York Times |
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| The Virus Cost Performers Their Work, Then Their Health Coverage |
| by Matt Stevens and Jeremy Fassler |
| As the entertainment industry collapsed during the pandemic, several major health plans made it harder to qualify for insurance. Thousands lost it. |
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Billboard |
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| How a Supah Mario ‘Throwaway’ Beat Survived a Leak & Led to Drake’s ‘What’s Next’ |
| by Michael Saponara |
| A Drake call to Mario quelled worries about the track being shelved. |
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Money 4 Nothing |
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| 'God is My Girlfriend': Christian Rock and Niche Genres with Andrew Mall |
| by Saxon Baird, Sam Backer and Andrew Mall |
| Christian music and especially Christian rock is a world of its own, a self-contained universe that mirrors the trends and styles of the mainstream. But how does it work? And what can it tell us about the interactions between audiences and industries that structure popular music? |
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Music x |
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| Four reflections on SoundCloud’s fan-powered royalties & the flaws of subscription models |
| by Bas Grasmayer |
| Recalculations of revenue distribution don’t tell the full story. |
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Bandcamp Daily |
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| Inside Portland, Maine’s Thriving Black Metal Scene |
| by Brad Sanders |
| A small but fervent community of musicians based in and around Portland has quietly built one of the strongest regional black metal scenes in the country. |
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The New York Times |
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| Taylor Swift and the Wisdom of Youth |
| by Lindsay Zoladz |
| “Folklore,” the album that earned five of Swift’s six Grammy nominations, is stocked with references to the specific, oft-denigrated insight of teenagers. |
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Pollstar |
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| From The Mailroom To The Top: Q’s With ICM’s Robert Gibbs, The First Black Head Of Music For A Major Agency |
| by Deborah Speer |
| Robert Gibbs isn’t one to blow his own horn, but becoming the first Black head of music for a major agency is no small breakthrough. It should have happened long ago, but somebody has to be first and few are better equipped and prepared for the role. |
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NewMusicBox |
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| Looking Out For Each Other with The Real Music Wages Database |
| by Gelsey Bell |
| Inspired by similar crowd-sourced spreadsheets for dancers, baristas, museum workers, and adjunct professors, we created the Real Music Wages Database to help freelance music workers navigate what can be a very confusing financial landscape and give us tools to negotiate wages for ourselves. |
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From the South African compilation "Indaba Is," out now on Brownswood.
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| Video of the day |
| "We Are Freestyle Love Supreme" |
| Hulu |
| "This was before 'Hamilton.' '[In the] Heights' doesn't happen if it isn't for this." Nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Film. |
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YouTube |
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"This was before 'Hamilton.' '[In the] Heights' doesn't happen if it isn't for this." Nominated for a Grammy for Best Music Film.
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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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