| We were working on Janet’s 'Control.' John McClain was the A&R at A&M Records. He came up to Minneapolis, and we played what we had for Janet. We had 'Control,' 'Nasty,' 'When I Think of You,' 'Funny How Time Flies,' 'Pleasure Principle,' 'Let’s Wait Awhile.” All of those songs were done. We said, 'We’re good, right?' John, as all A&R people would do back in the day, said, 'I just need one more.' |
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Blondes prefer sheet music: Marilyn Monroe, circa 1950, with a tape player and the music to "I've Got You Under My Skin."
(Archive Photos/Getty Images)
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“We were working on Janet’s 'Control.' John McClain was the A&R at A&M Records. He came up to Minneapolis, and we played what we had for Janet. We had 'Control,' 'Nasty,' 'When I Think of You,' 'Funny How Time Flies,' 'Pleasure Principle,' 'Let’s Wait Awhile.” All of those songs were done. We said, 'We’re good, right?' John, as all A&R people would do back in the day, said, 'I just need one more.'”
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Driver's Seat
The bridge of the song "DEJA VU" by OLIVIA RODRIGO, who has emerged in the past half year as one of pop's great proponents of the very idea of bridges, owes a fairly obvious debt to the bridge of the song "CRUEL SUMMER," by another fan of pop bridges, TAYLOR SWIFT, of whom Rodrigo is an avid fan. This became the source of news stories on Friday, when it was revealed that Rodrigo had retroactively given co-songwriting credits to Swift and her co-writers JACK ANTONOFF and ST. VINCENT. But it had never been a secret. Promoting her single in a video interview with Rolling Stone the week it was released, Rodrigo said she was thinking of a specific vocal effect from the "Cruel Summer" bridge when she was writing her own bridge. "I wanted to do something like that," she said. She borrowed a bit more than that, and if she was feeling self-conscious about it, she probably wouldn't have written her bridge using the same two chords, the one and the four, in the same key as Swift's. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with this. This is how music works.
Music's first plagiarist was probably the first Neanderthal to make any music at all, tens if not hundreds of thousands of years ago, who almost certainly was aping sounds he or she heard in nature—animal songs, or sounds of the Earth itself, according to one of several theories floated in TED GIOIA's MUSIC: A SUBVERSIVE HISTORY, a book currently sitting on my nightstand. Music's second plagiarist was no doubt the second Neanderthal to make music, whose likely source is even more obvious. Art tends to be inspired by other art that came before, whether the artist is a Neanderthal, a classic-rock or jazz icon, or a 2020s pop star. Here's DAVE GROHL telling PHARRELL WILLIAMS how in rock's late Neanderthal era, tens of years ago, he stole bits "in every one of those songs" on NIRVANA's NEVERMIND from the drummers of the GAP BAND, CAMEO and CHIC. Not a soul, as far as I know, has suggested those drummers be given songwriting credits, retroactively, on one of the 1990s' biggest rock albums or has called Dave Grohl a plagiarist, even though he's literally trying to tell us that he is. The most common reaction to Grohl's admission was that it makes him and Nirvana even cooler than everyone already thought they were.
It would be nice—I might even say it would be equitable—if we could react to Olivia Rodrigo the same way. It would be nice if we could say that her homage to Taylor Swift, who looms as large in her day as the Gap Band, Cameo and Chic loomed in theirs, actually makes Rodrigo cooler. "Deja Vu" is about her ex-boyfriend stealing her moves and using them on his new girlfriend. "Everything," she tells him, "is all reused." She tells him that in the middle of the bridge, in the exact spot where she's stealing Swift's vocal move. She's *demonstrating* how everything is reused. It's a great bit of self-aware songwriting.
Earlier in the song, when she complains about her ex playing the same BILLY JOEL song for his new love that she played for him, Rodrigo refers to the moment "between the chorus and the verse." She doesn't come out say it, but that's the exact spot where, in many pop songs, the bridge goes. The bridge is the part of songwriting on which Rodrigo is making her reputation. And it's the part of this particular song where she nods to her fellow queen of pop bridges. This is songwriting with intention. This is good songwriting. I'm with the tweeter who wanted the world to know that "adding taylor swift to deja vu doesn't diminish olivia rodrigo as an uber-talented songwriter pass it on." I might suggest going one step further. It's a kind of proof of how good she is.
Etc Etc Etc
BARACK OBAMA's annual summer playlist includes one of the most infamous examples of rock plagiarism, GEORGE HARRISON's "MY SWEET LORD," along with newer tunes from the likes of BROTHER SUNDANCE, SZA and AROOJ AFTAB (!!!)... For the first time, people of color constitute a majority on the RECORDING ACADEMY board of trustees... Post-it notes: Posters scattered around New York and LA for POP SMOKE's second posthumous album, out this week, contain QR codes that link to otherwise unreleased music from the album... Sending love to MARK HOPPUS, who was nothing but a complete mensch in the very brief moment we overlapped as contract employees of FUSE.
Rest in Peace
BYRON BERLINE, bluegrass fiddle great and in-demand session player for rock and country stars... Drummer ANDY WILLIAMS of Christian rock band Casting Crowns... Philadelphia jazz saxophonist SAM REED.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| diamonds are a girl's best friend |
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The Washington Post |
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| Why vinyl makes a perfectly imperfect format for discovering classical music |
| by Michael Andor Brodeur |
| Sometimes the rough edges of a medium are what allows us to get a grip on it. |
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The Guardian |
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| Law firm flooded with complaints against Sony Music Australia from former employees |
| by Kelly Burke |
| An investigation into workplace culture at the global corporation’s Australian operations has sparked a tide of complaints |
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Billboard |
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| Inside Track: How the Music Business Is Preparing to Return to the Office |
| by Frank DiGiacomo |
| As cases of COVID-19 from the pandemic subside and vaccination rates rise the music business is looking at different ways to bring employees back to the office. |
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Variety |
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| Olivia Rodrigo Gives Taylor Swift Songwriting Credit on Second ‘Sour’ Song, ‘Deja Vu’ |
| by Jem Aswad |
| Olivia Rodrigo and her main collaborator, songwriter-producer Daniel Nigro, have given Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent a songwriting credit on "Deja Vu" - the second song from Rodrigo's blockbuster debut album "Sour" to receive such a non-collaborative credit. |
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NPR Music |
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| 'I'm Not Trying To Fit Within Any World': Vince Staples On Newfound Creative Freedom |
| by Jenny Gathright |
| On his new record, Staples is still drawing from the same well of emotion and life experience. But his vision and his voice are clearer than ever - a sign, he says, that he's found a sense of peace. |
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Vulture |
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| The Best of R&B History, As Told By Its Architects Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis |
| by Craig Jenkins |
| From Janet and Michael Jackson’s sibling rivalry, to Prince’s genius, to Bobby Brown rushing takes to head to the strip club, and so much more. |
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Dazed Digital |
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| Digital Euphoria: How club culture learned to thrive online |
| by Günseli Yalcinkaya |
| From digi-drugs to Neurodungeons, amid the chaos and claustrophobia of COVID, people found groundbreaking ways to party, raise hell, and find themselves online. |
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The New York Times |
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| Prominent Lawyer Makes Moves to Represent Britney Spears |
| by Michael S. Schmidt and Liz Day |
| Mathew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor, plans to attend a hearing on Wednesday and make the case that the singer should be permitted to hire him for her conservatorship battle. |
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VICE |
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| The Horror of an Unwanted Conservatorship, According to People Who Lived It |
| by Reina Sultan |
| “I tried to reach for my phone to call 911, but they tackled me, carried me to the car, and took me to a group home for people with disabilities.” |
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American Songwriter |
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| Oh, The Lure of the Songwriter Business |
| by Michael Kosser |
| When things are going good, then life is very good. Every songwriter oughta have at least one hit in his/her life. But oh! When it goes away, life gets hard. |
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| two little girls from little rock |
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Vulture |
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| Capture the Beauty of Sault’s New Album 'Nine' While You Can |
| by Justin Curto |
| The song “Bitter Streets” finds the mysterious U.K. collective at its best, making permanent beauty out of all things temporary. |
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American Songwriter |
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| After 50 Years, Texas Legends, The Flatlanders, Are Recording Some Of Their Treasured Standards |
| by Joe Vitagliano |
| Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore recount the story of making "Treasure Of Love" and reflect on their storied careers. |
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Fast Company |
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| For the music industry, cryptocurrency will be as disruptive as MTV |
| by Kurt Patat |
| A former MTV exec reflects on how crypto is shaking up the music industry in ways reminiscent of a certain game-changing video network born in 1981. |
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AmplifyYou |
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| A new, community-led funding model for music: DAOs |
| by Bas Grasmayer |
| Could decentralized autonomous organisations be the building blocks of a new music industry owned by the artists and their fans? |
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The Washington Post |
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| Jakob Dylan has always been part cowboy-troubadour, part rabbi |
| by Tim Greiving |
| "Maybe your heart's not in it no more," Jakob Dylan sings at the beginning of the new Wallflowers album. It's a provocative thought for the rock-and-roll warhorse as he puts out his ninth studio album of original songs. |
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Variety |
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| 98 Degrees Return to Pop Music After 8-Year Break With Fresh Perspective on ’90s Boy Band Struggles |
| by Leena Tailor |
| For Jeff Timmons, it barely took a second to recognize his bandmate Nick Lachey 's voice behind the piglet costume on "The Masked Singer." "I knew as soon as I heard it - then went right down to The Strip and bet!" laughs the Vegas resident. |
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Music Industry Blog |
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| Global music subscriber market shares Q1 2021 |
| by Mark Mulligan |
| The music industry's growing obsession with declining ARPU will continue to colour the outlook for the global streaming market in revenue terms, but the positive driver of this equation is the rapid growth of music subscribers. |
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Bandcamp Daily |
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| How Dismiss Yourself Became a Hub for Internet Weirdness |
| by Kieran Press-Reynolds |
| Starting life as a YouTube channel, Dismiss Yourself quickly became a map to internet music’s wilder corners. |
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VICE |
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| What Happened to MTV VJ Quddus? |
| by Ashley Spencer |
| The former ‘TRL’ host tells VICE why he walked away from the intoxicating pull of the spotlight, and the lessons he's learned since. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Bitter Streets" |
| Sault |
| From "Nine," out now on Forever Living Originals. |
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YouTube |
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From "Nine," out now on Forever Living Originals.
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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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