| Tell you what: get a MIDI controller and you feel like you can play anything. |
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Georgia Anne Muldrow at the Fox Theater, Oakland, Calif., Nov. 23, 2019.
(Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)
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“Tell you what: get a MIDI controller and you feel like you can play anything.”
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Where Credit's Due
After years of complaints from songwriters, producers and engineers, the RECORDING ACADEMY has expanded the list of people eligible for an Album of the Year GRAMMY to anyone credited with any of those jobs on the winning album. Until now—and, in fact, until 2023, when the rules changes announced Wednesday go into effect—only those credited on at least a third of the album's playing time have been eligible, which means, for example, songwriters LUKE LAIRD, NATALIE HEMBY and SHANE MCANALLY don't have statuettes for KACEY MUSGRAVE's 2019 winner GOLDEN HOUR, even though each of them co-wrote two of the album's five singles. The new, more generous rule is a belated and welcome acknowledgment of the work that goes into almost any hit album from an Academy that itself has been complaining for years about the inadequate crediting of songwriters, producers and engineers on streaming music platforms. It's odd that it didn’t iron out this irony sooner, but better late than never. And all it's going to cost is the price of a handful of statuettes.
News of the new Grammy rule arrived, speaking of irony, on the same day as news of the death, from Covid, of one of the most unjustly uncredited pop musicians of all. JOHN DAVIS was one of the primary voices on MILLI VANILLI's album GIRL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE, for which the group won and then lost a Grammy for reasons that had everything to do with those missing credits. Everyone needs something to believe in and one of my beliefs is that the Academy took away MV's Best New Artist award not because of the deception—there was plenty of evidence that what we were seeing and what we were hearing were two different things long before MV was even nominated—but because the Academy was embarrassed once the rest of the world found out. The lip-syncing was fine. The optics of endorsing the lip-syncing, not so much. The industry quickly abandoned Milli Vanilli but Davis never did. He and fellow uncredited MV singer BRAD HOWELL formed THE REAL MILLI VANILLI and made an album with MV mastermind FRANK FARIAN; later, Davis collaborated with MV's FAB MORVAN in a project wonderfully called FACE MEETS VOICE. Someone should engrave a Grammy Best New Artist logo on his tombstone. RIP.
Etc Etc Etc
The US Small Business Administration says it has finally started sending notices of Shuttered Venue Operator Grant approvals to the venues hardest hit by the pandemic—but not the grant money itself. Some 13,000 venues have applied for $11 billion so far from a fund for which Congress set aside $15 last year. Applicants whose revenues declined at least 90 percent in 2020 will be the first to get notices of approved grants. Signing the grant agreement will unleash the actual funds, Billboard's TAYLOR MIMS reports... THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW, complete with the host's signature "Kellyoke" covers, will take over ELLEN's daytime slot on NBC when the latter show wraps for good in 2022... NICK LACHEY, who spent the season hidden inside a piglet costume, won season 5 of THE MASKED SINGER, out-masking black swan JOJO and chameleon WIZ KHALIFA in Wednesday's finale... ROBERT PLANT says he spent his lockdown cataloging his personal archives, including unfinished and unreleased music and a variety of curios, and he's instructed his kids to make it all available for free "when I kick the bucket"... Louisville alt-weekly LEO looks back on SLINT, ANTIETAM, FREAKWATER and other local legends in its 1991(ish) Music Issue.
Rest in Peace
KEVIN CLARK, the Chicago musician who played drummer Freddy "Spazzy McGee" Jones in the movie "School of Rock." It was his only acting job. He played drums in several Chicago bands... LOU ROBIN, a concert promoter who became JOHNNY CASH's longtime personal manager.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Stereogum |
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| A Brief History Of 21st Century Pop-Punk, From MySpace To Tumblr To TikTok |
| by Aliya Chaudhry |
| The #1 single in America is a pop-punk song. With "good 4 u," Olivia Rodrigo has become the latest in a string of artists to venture into the resurgent genre. |
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Complex |
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| Your Favorite Rap Song, But It's a Lo-Fi Remix |
| by Will Schube |
| We go inside the world of lofi rap remixes on YouTube, where producers are taking popular rap songs and turning them into relaxing, hypnotic remixes. |
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DJ Mag |
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| How club workers are feeling about the return of events |
| by Giulia Bottaro |
| As the UK looks toward the end of lockdown and the reopening of clubs and festivals, Giulia Bottaro speaks to nightlife workers from different parts of the industry, who paint a complex picture of their excitement and worry about the future, and particularly of their mental health. |
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| rave:// This resonates deeply for me |
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Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
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| How I Became the Honest Broker |
| by Ted Gioia |
| I rarely talk about my workaday life before I settled into music and writing. Those days are far too strange and confusing to convey without writing a whole book about them. And I’ll never write that book because a lot of it I’d rather forget. |
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The New York Times |
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| A Label Reissued a Dead Brazilian Artist’s Album. He Was Still Alive |
| by Marcus J. Moore |
| José Mauro’s first LP, originally released in 1970, became a cult classic. Far Out Recordings is now putting out its follow-up under very different circumstances. |
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Variety |
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| Grammys Expand Album of the Year Award Eligibility, Among Other Rule Updates |
| by Jem Aswad |
| The Recording Academy revises rules that have long been questioned. |
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Bloomberg |
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| NetEase’s Music App Files for $1 Billion Hong Kong IPO |
| by Zheping Huang and Julia Fioretti |
| Chinese gaming giant NetEase Inc.’s music streaming arm has filed for an initial public offering in Hong Kong as the Tencent Holdings Ltd. rival ratchets up competition in online content. |
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Mashable |
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| AI musicians are coming soon to your Spotify playlists |
| by Ray White |
| The technology is officially here to make fully digital musicians. The plus side? They're never late. The downside? Creepiness, obviously. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Georgia Anne Muldrow's Beats for Returning Outside |
| by Sheldon Pearce |
| Her new album, “Vweto III,” is filled with music that leads you out of confinement. |
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SPIN |
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| RETRO READ: Last Miles: Our 1991 Miles Davis Interview |
| by Jennifer Lee Pryor |
| In the last major interview before Miles Davis's death, Jennifer Lee plays both sides of the late trumpet player's complicated genius. |
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Reverb.com |
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| The History of Reverb (The Effect, Not Us) |
| How did the sound of space turn into so many sonic gadgets? |
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The Evening Standard |
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| Download Pilot: Festival to go ahead in 2021 without social distancing as part of government research |
| by Jochan Embley |
| 10,000 people will be allowed to “mosh, dance and hug” at the trial event. |
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The New York Times |
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| Are the Black Keys Still Underdogs? |
| by Hanif Abdurraqib |
| They have sold more records than a lot of pop stars who are much more famous than they will ever be, but they’re still another band from Akron, Ohio. |
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NPR |
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| For Philadelphia Band Low Cut Connie, Music Became A Pandemic Support Group |
| by Ailsa Chang, Noah Caldwell and Sarah Handel |
| Last year, cooped up at home, the band Low Cut Connie began to stream performances. Before long, they turned into a musical support group for fans coping with the pandemic. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| PPL CEO Peter Leathem on the impact of COVID, emergency measures and a positive future |
| by Peter Leathem |
| Collection society boss reflects on "one of the most challenging years in PPL's history." |
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The Guardian |
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| ‘It’s cooler to hang Lennon’s guitar than a Picasso’: pop culture wins out at auctions |
| by Priya Elan |
| Sales of items from celebrities such as Janet Jackson and K-poppers BTS are trending - and reframing what goes under the hammer. |
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NewMusicBox |
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| The Attraction of the Tortured Artist Myth |
| by Julia Adolphe |
| Julia Adolphe shares her thoughts on why the myth of the tortured artist has been attractive to society as well as to herself personally as she was struggling to come to terms with Anxiety Disorder. |
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JazzTimes |
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| Gary Bartz & Jazz Is Dead |
| by Shaun Brady |
| The collaboration of Gary Bartz and Jazz Is Dead shows how the music is remaining vital by reflecting and responding to changes in other genres--and in our world. |
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The Ringer |
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| ‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: The Eternal Bounce of ‘Back That Azz Up’ |
| by Rob Harvilla |
| On today’s show, we’re headed to New Orleans for Juvenile’s classic single and Cash Money Records’ big breakout |
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The Forty-Five |
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| Tina Bell invented grunge |
| by Leonie Cooper |
| Tina Bell and her band Bam Bam invented grunge and yet her story is often overlooked. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Yosel" |
| Georgia Anne Muldrow |
| From "Vweto III," out now on Mello Music. |
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YouTube |
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From "Vweto III," out now on Mello Music.
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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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