| Back in the day people just got stoned and had dope conversations—that's how a lot of songwriting began and how a lot of great concepts came to be. |
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Sweet leaf: Rihanna, pictured in Berlin on Nov. 8, 2012, wishes you a happy 4/20.
(Target Presse Agentur Gmbh/Getty Images)
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“Back in the day people just got stoned and had dope conversations—that's how a lot of songwriting began and how a lot of great concepts came to be.”
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Pennyroyal Tea
The day after the Wall Street Journal leaked APPLE MUSIC's letter to artists, labels and publishers about streaming royalties that Apple almost certainly wanted to be leaked, I had a brief Twitter back and forth with GOMEZ's TOM GRAY, who's better known these days as the founder of the #BROKENRECORD campaign, and whom I don't actually know. Gray, who thinks the music economy is a disaster for artists and wants the British government to step in and regulate the industry, liked that Apple appeared to be picking a fight with SPOTIFY ("It shows that the agitation is getting to everyone"), but he simultaneously seemed to be picking his own fight with Apple, for using music as "a loss-leader." I wondered, via tweet, if Apple's boast that each stream in its service generated a penny's worth of royalties would be stronger if it could claim that it was paying out a larger percentage of its overall revenues than its competitors. That, as far as I can tell, is the clearest way a streaming service could differentiate itself as a royalty generator. Gray answered that Apple might in fact be paying a little more. It turned out he had a good source for Spotify's rates (!!!), but he couldn't say for absolute sure. Nor could I.
Which is a little weird.
For all the surface transparency of Spotify's LOUD & CLEAR campaign and Apple's open letter to its providers, both companies are cagey about the specifics. Which is perhaps why the reaction to Apple's letter has been a confusing jumble of stories ranging from "Apple pays double what Spotify pays!" to "Um, no, it doesn't!" The more helpful response, which the Wall Street Journal's ANNE STEELE tried within her initial story, and reporters like Variety's JEM ASWAD and Music Business Worldwide's TIM INGHAM have explored further since, is to ask *why* Apple can say it's paying a full penny per stream right now (for any outsiders reading this: A penny is a lot!). And where is that penny going. If Steele's and Ingham's numbers are correct, the answer to my question to Tom Gray is that Spotify's and Apple's standard royalty rates are almost identical. About two-thirds of every subscription dollar at both services, or roughly $6.67 for a typical subscriber, is returned to labels and publishers in royalties (with labels getting about four times as much, which is an entirely separate issue for another day). Nether has ever had a per-stream rate, which everyone seems to know and which everyone seemingly needs to be reminded of once per story. So if every Apple user plays 667 songs each month, each play will effectively produce about a penny in royalties. And if every Spotify user plays 6,670 songs, each play will be worth a tenth of a penny. But those aren't rates. Those are after-the-fact calculations. The actual royalty payments are identical. Which "rate" is better for the industry? Jem Aswad talked to an unnamed label executive who suggested, counterintuitively, the lower rate might be better because it means people are playing more music: "What we want to see is a lot of users streaming a lot of music."
Among the other questions you might ask: Is that Apple Music penny going only to artists? Or is it going a little bit to artists and a lot to labels? Or is it going a little bit to artists, a little bit less to songwriters, and a lot to labels and publishers? Is that penny the average across all of Apple's subscribers, or is the service only telling you the effective rate from those who are paying full price? Tim Ingham's piece, which offers some of the most clear-eyed explanations, asks and answers those questions and more.
And then there are the questions of how that penny is being divided among a sprawling and growing community of artists who range from pop superstars to garage hobbyists, and labels that run the gamut from multinational conglomerates to bedroom startups. Apple addresses the idea of user-centric royalties in its letter, saying it doesn't think they'd produce the equity that advocates hope for. BJÖRN ULVAEUS, the ABBA singer/songwriter who now runs the international composers society CISAC, has proposed a higher royalty rate for "lean forward" streams that users actually search for, and a lower rate for "lean back" streams they passively hear in playlists. Would *that* make for a penny better spent? Or at least a tenth of a penny better spent? Are there other ways to shake those pennies out?
MusicSET: "Apple (Music) Pay." And from a months back: "Whose Royalty Is It Anyway?"
Green New Wave
In advance of EARTH DAY, which is Thursday, BEGGARS GROUP and NINJA TUNE have jointly announced plans to become carbon negative (Ninja Tune by the end of this year, Beggars by the end of 2022 in the UK and 2024 in the US). The indie label groups' plans include production and shipping changes as well as office upgrades... AJR bassist ADAM MET is working on a doctorate in human rights law at England's University of Birmingham and he has some specific thoughts on making post-pandemic touring more sustainable. "We have an unprecedented opportunity to build a new industry architecture, a clean design," he writes in Pollstar, calling on fellow artists, agents, promoters, venues and fans.
Guitars Pinball Machines Etc Etc Etc
The second season of TYLER MAHAN COE's fantastic country podcast, COCAINE & RHINESTONES, which will be entirely about the late great GEORGE JONES, launches today. The podcast, Coe tells GQ, will be about Jones "the way MOBY DICK is about a whale." You've been warned, as have I. As I write, I'm 10 minutes into the first two-hour-plus episode and it's been entirely about pinball machines... INFLUENCE MEDIA, a copyright investment fund that will focus on women songwriters, has made its first acquisition: the publishing rights of ALI TAMPOSI, who's written hits for BEYONCÉ, CAMILO CABELLO, KELLY CLARKSON and others. The price wasn't disclosed... PROJECT BOOMBOX is a new FACEBOOK/Spotify partnership that the companies say will make it easy to listen to the latter's music and podcasts in the former's apps... BBC Radio 1 DJ ANNIE MAC is leaving this summer after 17 years.
Rest in Peace
PAUL OSCHER, a blues multi-instrumentalist who played harmonica in MUDDY WATERS' band in the 1960s and '70s... GENE SMITH, longtime Billboard ad exec who championed Latin music and the Latin market.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Complex |
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| The Story Behind Polo G's First No. 1 Hit 'Rapstar' |
| by Eric Skelton |
| At the beginning of his career, Polo G wrote out everything he wanted to accomplish on a vision board, and one of the first things he listed was a chart-topping hit on the Billboard Hot 100. “I’m big on manifesting everything," he says. "I’ve damn near manifested my whole life.” |
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The New Yorker |
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| Helping Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson Find Their Groove |
| by Nick Paumgarten |
| How Randall Poster and Josh Deutsch, childhood music-geek pals in Riverdale, curate the sounds for movies, ads, podcasts, and streamers like “One Night in Miami” and “The Queen’s Gambit.” |
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Cocaine & Rhinestones |
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| Starday Records: The Anti-Nashville Sound |
| by Tyler Mahan Coe |
| CR015/PH01: The story of a little independent record label in Texas becoming "a force" in the Nashville country music industry brings an outsider's perspective to the anatomy of a machine. Going from backwoods honky tonks and roadhouse jukeboxes to stretch limos and private planes takes a lot of crooked deals and shameless hustle. |
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REDEF |
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| REDEF MusicSET: Apple (Music) Pay |
| by Matty Karas |
| When is a penny per stream not a penny per stream? Music accounting has always been a little fuzzy, and a claim by Apple Music about its royalty rates seems to raise as many questions as it answers. |
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Vulture |
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| The Irreplaceable Black Rob, Bad Boy’s First Street Story |
| by Shamira Ibrahim |
| His ascendance is pivotal to documenting the rise of Bad Boy Records, both before and after Biggie. |
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Midia Research |
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| Rebalancing the Song Economy |
| by Mark Mulligan and Keith Jopling |
| In this report we provide an evidence-based view of how the songwriter fits into today’s music business culturally, creatively and commercially. We look at what works well, what does not, and why. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Why SoundCloud has the music business right where it wants it |
| by Tim Ingham |
| Michael Weissman, CEO of SoundCloud, answers MBW's questions on payout models, tipping, and where the music industry.' |
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Pollstar |
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| AJR’s Adam Met On A Future In Sustainable Touring |
| by Adam Met |
| In the midst of a global pandemic we have an unprecedented opportunity to build a new industry architecture, a clean design. Below, I outline a sustainable proposal for the touring industry, including the ways in which everyone can participate in technological, agricultural, and psychological solutions. |
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Holler |
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| RVSHVD Is Country's Next Big Thing |
| by Natalie Weiner |
| "Dirt Road " is truly not like anything you’ve ever heard - “a little country and a little street,” as RVSHVD puts it in the song, but without any of the appropriative tension of so many previous country/hip-hop marriages. In its place are richly layered plays on country’s aesthetic cliches, and a new take on one of the genre’s most tired topics: the appeal of dirt roads. |
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The Muse |
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| Tramp Stamps and the Problem With 'Industry Plants' |
| by Hazel Cills |
| For the past several days rising Nashville rock band Tramp Stamps has been getting viciously roasted online for being what’s known as an “industry plant.” The trio, who make pop-punk about hating men, caught the wrath of TikTok users who called bulls*** on the band’s Hot Topic aesthetic and sound. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Liz Phair’s Songs of Experience |
| by Amanda Petrusich |
| The singer-songwriter talks about getting older, reaching into the past for her new record, and her home town of Chicago. |
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Vulture |
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| Dancing on Your Own (With 99 Other People) |
| by Devon Ivie |
| A temporary club for our in-between moment. |
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VICE |
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| Is Music Haram? I Was Brought Up To Think So |
| by Qais Hussain |
| Growing up, music was forbidden in my Muslim household. I decided to embark on a journey of musical discovery this year to find out why. |
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Texas Monthly |
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| The Next Waltz Is an Analog Record Label for the Digital Age |
| by Kelly Dearmore |
| From Bruce Robison’s studio in Lockhart, the company has worked with some of the biggest stars in Texas country music. |
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The Guardian |
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| ‘Semi-literate’: writers in bitter row over Bob Dylan books |
| by Dalya Alberge |
| Howard Sounes and Clinton Heylin clash over their respective biographies of singer-songwriter. |
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NPR Music |
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| Rina Sawayama: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert |
| by Alex Ramos and Rina Sawayama |
| The Japanese British pop star performs three tracks from her 2020 debut album, SAWAYAMA. |
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The Independent |
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| London Grammar’s Hannah Reid: ‘Artists feel guilty talking about these things’ |
| by Alexandra Pollard |
| After a traumatic few years navigating the music industry, the frontwoman is speaking out and channeling the sexism and misogyny she’s faced into a cathartic new album. She’s finally found her voice, she tells Alexandra Pollard. |
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Eamilk |
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| 'Lead with love, always': Conversations about race and music |
| by Evan Crandell |
| "You’ll be a writer on a top 40 song, it wins Grammys, and you’ll get invited to and receive a plaque for the ‘Urban’ awards sector of your PRO... only to learn three years later that the same PRO hosts a Pop awards that you were never invited to because ‘pop’ is white-sounding/appealing and 'urban' is Black-sounding/appealing.” |
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The Ringer |
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| The Improbable Empire: Master P’s ‘Ice Cream Man’ and the Birth of a Southern Rap Dynasty |
| by Paul Thompson |
| How Master P laid the groundwork for the No Limit empire with his 1996 album. |
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VICE |
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| Fans Review ‘New’ Music By Their Favourite Dead Artists |
| by Jaishree Kumar |
| A new initiative has released AI-generated songs by artists from the notorious 27 Club. But can they do justice to the legends? |
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| Music of the day |
| "James Joint" |
| Rihanna |
| "I'd rather be smoking weed..." (And then other moods happen. I could write a book about this strange 70-second soul masterpiece.) |
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YouTube |
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"I'd rather be smoking weed..." (And then other moods happen. I could write a book about this strange 70-second soul masterpiece.)
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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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