| I’m vaccinated, so I got 5G, and I’m ready. When you play a show, that’s the one place you can tangibly see how people are connecting to the music. I miss that. |
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I'm sorry Ms. Jackson, I'm not social distancing: The crowd at Outkast's Coachella set, Indio, Calif., April 11, 2014.
(Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic/Getty Images)
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“I’m vaccinated, so I got 5G, and I’m ready. When you play a show, that’s the one place you can tangibly see how people are connecting to the music. I miss that.”
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Ballot Boxing
There were surprisingly few music and music-biz names among the prominent signers of a two-page open letter in Wednesday's New York Times and Washington Post opposing "any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voters from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot." Among them: LIVE NATION, SONOS, SCOOTER BRAUN, DEMI LOVATO, QUEEN LATIFAH, KATY PERRY, PAULA ABDUL, LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, APPLE. "The record labels on democracy...CRICKETS!," wrote BOB LEFSETZ, who used his Lefsetz Letter to crown Live Nation CEO MICHAEL RAPINO "the most powerful man in the music business" as a result. Is he? And what now? It seems impractical and unlikely, for a number of reasons, that Live Nation would follow in the footsteps of MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL and WILL SMITH and try to steer its artists' tours—there are going to be a lot of them in the not-too-far-off future—clear of the state of Georgia. But it isn't hard to imagine that some individual Live Nation artists will make that decision for themselves. Who'll skip the state altogether in 2021 and 2022? Who'll come to Atlanta and Macon and preach from the stage? Who'll shut up and sing? Which artists and labels will make the connection between the pledges they made to fight racial injustice in the wake of Blackout Tuesday 10 months ago and the growing debate over access to ballot boxes on November Tuesdays to come?
Flesh + Blood
In the mix below, stories from Stereogum's TOM BREIHAN and the Ringer's SHEA SERRANO on the duality of DMX, the irreconcilable sides of a talented, tormented, tender, terrifying rapper and man who never tried to push either side away, who left any possible reconciliations to the rest of us. "DMX had not come up from the struggle," Breihan writes. "He *was* the struggle." "Maybe," Serrano offers, "he internalized all of the hurt he’d absorbed and arrived at the conclusion that his suffering was justified if it meant that he could help others thrive." Many, many more sides to consider in our still-growing MusicSET: "He Overcame, He Saw, He Struggled: DMX's Ruff Ryding Life." (Also, for what it's worth: It's quite possible, maybe even quite certain, that one of the most dominant hip-hop stars of the turn of the millennium was underrated.)
Humpty Dances Etc Etc Etc
A history of stage humping, from MADONNA and PRINCE to MEGAN THEE STALLION and BTS (thank you, Jezebel's TRACY CLARK-FLORY, this is amazing)... He spent 22 years learning how to play the KING CRIMSON song "FRACTURE," which involved re-learning how to sit, stand and breathe, and he was rewarded with this glowing review from King Crimson mastermind ROBERT FRIPP: "Pretty good job." ANTHONY GARONE's book, FAILURE TO FRACTURE, comes out in May... RAMMSTEIN fans in BALENCIAGA... Male rappers in dresses... JIM MORRISON and the DOORS at the CINERAMA DOME (RIP), watching 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY.
Rest in Peace
Promotion exec JONAS CASH, who founded ACTIVE INDUSTRY RESEARCH (AIR).
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Vulture |
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| Brockhampton Is Ready to Leave a Hell of a Legacy Behind |
| by Craig Jenkins |
| All boy bands come to an end, but there’s never been a boy band like Brockhampton. |
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Variety |
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| The Ins-and-Outs of Music Catalog Sales and the Behind-the-Scenes Players Advising Songwriters Who Cash Out |
| by Geoff Mayfield |
| "We should send a thank you note to the Bob Dylan folks," says Charles "Jeff" Biederman, partner at law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, which has a thriving music practice. |
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NPR Music |
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| I Grew Up Afraid. Lil Nas X's 'Montero' Is The Lesson I Needed |
| by Ashon Crawley |
| For all the fuss around the viral hit "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," its true message is a tender one: Hell hath no fury like what young queer people go through every day. |
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Cheddar |
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| Royal Exchange CEO Anthony Martini Wants To Get More Professionals In On The Music Gold Rush' |
| by Baker Machado and Anthony Martini |
| High profile music artists around the globe have weathered the effects of the pandemic by selling their catalogues for big bucks, but the vast majority of that money is not shared by 99% of the music industry. Royalty Exchange CEO Anthony Martini discusses his company's mission to try to change that. |
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Twenty Thousand Hertz |
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| Twenty Thousand Hertz: Minecraft |
| by Dmitri Vietze and Daniel Rosenfeld |
| Since its release in 2011, "Minecraft" has grown from a small, experimental indie game into the best-selling video game of all time. The game's haunting music and quirky sound effects are as iconic as its blocky visuals. In this episode, composer and sound designer Daniel Rosenfeld (aka C418) unpacks how he created the music and sounds for the game. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Ludwig Göransson Breaks Down His Movie Scores |
| by Ludwig Göransson |
| In this episode of Critical Breakthroughs, Ludwig Göransson takes us into his head, detailing his creative process and the challenges that inspire his film scores for "Black Panther," "Tenet," and more. |
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The Verge |
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| The Verge’s favorite music streaming services |
| by Barbara Krasnoff, Dieter Bohn, Cameron Faulkner... |
| Some listen to major outlets such as Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube Music, while others have discovered lesser-known but interesting venues. |
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Lefsetz Letter |
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| Live Nation Signs |
| by Bob Lefsetz |
| This cements Michael Rapino's stature as the most powerful man in the music business. |
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Cultured Magazine |
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| Towards an Everyday Feeling: The Anomaly That Is Phoebe Bridgers |
| by Cassandra Gillig |
| The success of the 2020 Phoebe Bridgers album, "Punisher," means a strange new spotlight on an artist fueled by quiet sensibilities. |
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The Guardian |
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| 'It has never been more pertinent' -- Margaret Atwood on the chilling genius of Laurie Anderson's 'Big Science' |
| by Margaret Atwood |
| The seminal album, with its extraordinary hit single "O Superman," was unlike anything the writer had ever heard. As "Big Science" returns, Atwood pays tribute to its prophetic dissection of 80s America. |
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Variety |
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| Hitmaker of the Month Omer Fedi Is the Secret Weapon Behind ‘Mood,’ ‘Without You’ and ‘Montero (Call Me By Your Name)’ |
| by Charlie Amter |
| Most songwriters spend their entire professional lives trying to achieve a run of hits as remarkable as what Omer Fedi and his friends have managed to do in the past six months. |
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Music x |
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| Thinking small: a meditation on scale vs success for artists |
| by Bas Grasmayer |
| Our success maps are lousy. They’re based on highly visible examples of success which leads to a biased map. It also models strategy after something that worked in the past, but may not work as well now. |
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NPR Music |
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| Demi Lovato: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert |
| by Lyndsey McKenna and Demi Lovato |
| Recorded on a sunny spring day in her Los Angeles backyard, Demi Lovato sings "Tell Me You Love Me" and two songs from "Dancing With The Devil...The Art Of Starting Over." |
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Country Queer |
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| Who’s Helping Who? The role of Allyship in Country Music |
| by James Barker |
| Appearing LGBTQ+ friendly can be used as a way to market an artist. |
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The Ringer |
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| Earl/DMX |
| by Shea Serrano |
| A few thoughts on the rapper’s titanic legacy, his real-life pain, and the gulf between the two. |
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Stereogum |
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| DMX Brought The Darkness And The Light |
| by Tom Breihan |
| DMX could be hard and vulnerable. He could be reverent and violent. To him, there was no contradiction in these tendencies. DMX presented himself as someone who had been through some of the darkest things the world could offer, and who was still going through these things. DMX had not come up from struggle. He *was* the struggle. |
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Billboard |
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| How Kelly Clarkson’s Wildly Popular ‘Kellyoke’ Covers Get Made |
| by Gil Kaufman |
| "Editing the song down to a minute and a half is the hardest part of the job. Taking an iconic song and chopping it down... I always feel like I'm butchering someone's art." |
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The Walrus |
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| This Pandemic Isn’t Over until Everybody Sings |
| by Mel Woods |
| When the world reopens, karaoke may be the saviour that unites us all. |
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| rave:// I grew up on this man, having inherited him from my own fadduh |
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Please Kill Me |
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| Allan Sherman: Weird Al’s Founding ‘Faddah’ |
| by Scott Schinder |
| Allan Sherman, a pudgy TV game show producer, dominated the pre-Beatles record charts with a string of hit singles and albums. With his post-Borscht Belt humor and pop-culture references, he was a Mad Magazine feature come to life, counting Harpo Marx, Jerry Lewis, Jack Benny and JFK among his fans. |
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| Video of the day |
| "Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé" |
| Parkwood Entertainment/Netflix |
| Beyoncé at Coachella, 2018. If not for Covid, Friday would have been the start of the second weekend of Coachella 2021. |
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YouTube |
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Beyoncé at Coachella, 2018. If not for Covid, Friday would have been the start of the second weekend of Coachella 2021.
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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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