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Billboard |
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| Will Avatars Kill The Radio Stars? Inside Today’s Virtual Artist Record Labels |
| by Tatiana Cirisano |
| New "virtual artist record labels" are betting that the next generation of performers will be made, not born. |
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The Guardian |
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| ‘A talent scout can’t go to 100 shows a night’ – how big data is choosing the next pop stars |
| by Alex Rayner |
| Faced with so much new music, major labels are using algorithms to hunt down tomorrow’s hits. Is this great news for rising stars - or the recipe for a bland new future? |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| As country music faces a racial reckoning, a new question: Where are the Latino artists? |
| by Amanda Marie Martinez |
| Latino artists are a rarity in country music, while white artists wink at the culture with songs about señoritas or tequila shots in Juarez. |
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Vulture |
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| What Reckoning? |
| by Andrea Williams |
| Country music is exactly where it was a year ago, when the dam on the industry’s ocean of racism supposedly broke. Duh. |
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The New Yorker |
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| How Sun Ra Taught Us to Believe in the Impossible |
| by Hua Hsu |
| The visionary jazz artist sketched an “Astro-Black mythology” that aligned ancient Egyptian history with a future human exodus “beyond the stars.” |
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VICE |
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| Why You’re Listening to More Music Now That Life Is Returning to Normal |
| by Josh Terry |
| We asked a neurologist and an epidemiologist about how our social lives and mental health are tied to our listening habits. |
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| rant:// Both men appear to be using words, organized more or less into sentences |
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Variety |
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| Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey Talk -- Very Vaguely -- About Future Plans for Their Tidal Streaming Service |
| by Jem Aswad |
| Big on enthusiasm. Short on details. |
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Complex |
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| Remble Is Going Viral, But That's Besides the Point |
| by Eric Skelton |
| You might have seen the memes. “This guy is rapping in MLA format” or “If mumble rap is a thing, we are calling this clarity rap.” Remble sits for an interview. |
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Entertainment Weekly |
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| Willie Nelson's words of wisdom |
| by Marissa R. Moss |
| The icon, 88, who has written the new book 'Letters to America,' talks cannabis, equal rights, and new music. |
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The Root |
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| 'Wanna Battle You'll Be Baffled at the Stuff Stated': In Tribute to Gift of Gab, One of My Favorite Hip-Hop Lyricists Ever |
| by Panama Jackson |
| Have you ever started listening to something and knew that you were different after? |
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| the well-tempered synthesizer |
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Cocaine & Rhinestones |
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| All to Pieces: George Jones, Phase II |
| by Tyler Mahan Coe |
| CR020/PH06: In the early 1960s, George Jones had a huge hit record featuring such a phenomenal vocal performance it instantly turned him into a living legend. He didn't handle it well. |
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The New York Times |
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| Lydia Lunch’s Infinite Rebellion |
| by Jim Farber |
| “Good luck figuring me out,” the 62-year-old artist said. A new documentary called “The War Is Never Over” does its best. |
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Variety |
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| Sony Music Australia Employees Call Out ‘Toxic’ Culture, Consider Class-Action Lawsuit Amid Chief Denis Handlin’s Exit |
| by K.J. Yossman |
| Sony Music Australia staff have spoken out about the company's "nightmarish and toxic" culture following CEO Denis Handlin's abrupt exit last week, with some even exploring legal action. Until last week, Handlin was Sony Music's longest-serving employee, having been with the label for over 50 years. |
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| rant:// File this under "retweets and shares are not endorsements," but this is a discussion that needs to be aired out for both better and worse |
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Billboard |
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| Spotify’s ‘Discovery Mode’ Is Payola, Just Not the Bad Kind |
| by Christopher Buccafusco and Kristelia Garcia |
| Regulating Discovery Mode by effectively putting a "paid promotion" sticker on tracks could potentially close off one of the only low-cost access points available to indie artists on the service. |
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Pitchfork |
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| L’Rain Wants to Confuse You |
| by Jenn Pelly |
| A fixture of New York’s art and experimental music communities, Taja Cheek envisions a decidedly uncategorizable world of sound as L’Rain. |
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Mixmag |
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| Transferring energy into sound: Sons of Kemet make jazz a vessel for spiritual exploration |
| by Haseeb Iqbal |
| Haseeb Iqbal speaks to band leader Shabaka Hutchings about free expression, the transcendent headspace of performance and their poetic new album 'Black To The Future.' |
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Slate |
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| The Soundtrack of the George Floyd Protests |
| by Jason Johnson |
| Black Lives Matter inspired a new generation of protest anthems. |
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Stuff |
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| Four of world's top five earning stadiums in the last year were in NZ |
| by Geraden Cann |
| One stadium executive said the international ranking highlighted New Zealand's world-leading response to the Covid-19 pandemic. |
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Time Magazine |
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| 'This Film Was My Chance to Correct History': Questlove on 'Summer of Soul' and the Oscars |
| by Andrew R. Chow |
| The first-time film director talks about what he learned from Stevie Wonder's drum techniques and music directing the 2021 Oscars. |
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The Philadelphia Inquirer |
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| These Philly teens wanted in on the music business. Now, they have their own record label |
| by Kristen A. Graham |
| “I showed some people in the music business - ‘Look at what these kids are doing.’ It just felt so organic and right," said Andy Hurwitz, a music entrepreneur and philanthropist. |
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Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
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| Notes on My Pandemic Reading |
| by Ted Gioia |
| Faced with lockdown, I decided to turn it into a personal quest. |
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