| [Lorde and I] talked a lot about how cool it was in the Laurel Canyon era, where people would secretly do background vocals on each other’s music—like Joni Mitchell with Carole King—rather than as a way to benefit the business side of things. Back then it was just like: 'I love your voice: will you lend your talent to my song?' |
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DJ Sama' Abdulhadi at the Exit Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia, July 9, 2021.
(Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images)
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“[Lorde and I] talked a lot about how cool it was in the Laurel Canyon era, where people would secretly do background vocals on each other’s music—like Joni Mitchell with Carole King—rather than as a way to benefit the business side of things. Back then it was just like: 'I love your voice: will you lend your talent to my song?'”
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Alternative Facts & Figures
The most popular song and album of the first half of 2021 in the US, per MRC DATA (fka NIELSEN SOUNDSCAN), are OLIVIA RODRIGO's "DRIVERS LICENSE" and MORGAN WALLEN's DANGEROUS—both by considerable margins. That's based on on-demand streams for the song and a combination of streaming and sales for the album.
If, on the other hand, you only care about actual sales of tangible things, BTS rules the singles roost with the year's two best-selling songs and TAYLOR SWIFT has the top-selling album (FOLKLORE) and three of the top six. And then there's MRC's radio data. It will come as no surprise that Wallen, who was almost universally banished from radio through the winter, is nowhere to be found among the half-year's top songs on broadcast radio, which were led by "GO CRAZY," by CHRIS BROWN (whom American radio stations have never seen fit to banish) and YOUNG THUG. But you won't find Swift or BTS there either, and Rodrigo barely squeezed her way into the top 10. The on-demand online audience and the lean-back offline audience seem to be living in two different, parallel pop worlds. They have the retro-leaning dance-pop of DUA LIPA and the WEEKND in common and otherwise face in two different directions.
But not quite as different as the directions currently being pursued by the America that's almost aggressively listening to Morgan Wallen, who's largely back on the radio by now, and the America that wants to keep him in the penalty box. What's holding those two Americas together—or, at least cozying up to both of them at the same time—is the music business, Rolling Stone's AMY X. WANG suggests in a provocative essay on "Morgan Wallen, the Winner No One Can Admit." Wallen, Wang writes, "is not a dysmorphic product of a toxic genre or niche fanbase growing like fungus in the armpit of some much healthier and more noble thing. He’s America. America loves him. Nobody wants to say it." And the music industry, she says, publicly vilified him while "privately... through the scrim of his newfound position to sympathizers as a political martyr and hot-take lightning rod... they cherished him." Your must-read of the day.
The Courtship of Britney Spears
There's quite a bit to be discussed in the BRITNEY SPEARS conservatorship hearing that continues in a Los Angeles courtroom at 1:30 pm PT today, though no one is entirely sure exactly which bits will be taken up. Spears wants a new lawyer—and the right to make that decision for herself. Her old lawyer, whom she's been paying handsomely for years even though she doesn't want, and never requested, his representation, wants out. Other members of the conservatorship team are at odds with each other. Spears has told the court she wants her freedom but she hasn't formally requested it yet, and that process may be a long, slow one. Radio stations in more than 50 markets will honor Spears today by rebranding as "FREE BRITNEY RADIO." MusicSET: "Framing, Failing and Freeing Britney Spears."
Etc Etc Etc
FX's FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS and HBO's THE BEE GEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART and TINA are among the five nominees for Documentary or Nonfiction Special at this year's EMMYs. The Bee Gees doc got six nominations in all. RAPHAEL SAADIQ, BRANFORD MARSALIS, ZOË KEATING, LUDWIG GÖRANSSON, MARCUS MUMFORD and BO BURNHAM are among the composers up for Emmys in various scoring and song categories—at the expense of BEYONCÉ, H.E.R. and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, who were all shut out, as Variety notes... AUSTIN CITY LIMITS is auctioning off the 20 panels that have served as its Austin skyline backdrop for the past 10 years. The backdrop, which replaced another ACL skyline that had been in use since 1982, "is realistic enough that many performers over the years have commented that they were surprised when they arrived at the venue and found that the show wasn't taped outside," the Austin American-Statesman reports. The show's host, Austin public TV station KLRU, is moving to new headquarters on the Austin Community College campus... The MR. MIYAGI school of pop production: Writer/producer BLAKE SLATKIN, whose credits include 24KGOLDN and IANN DIOR's "MOOD" and the KID LAROI's "WITHOUT YOU," tells Billboard his first break was getting an internship with BENNY BLANCO. "I'd be cleaning his closet, and I'd leave a spot a little dirty,” Slatkin says. "He'd be like, ‘How do you expect to be a good producer if you're not going to care about little things like that? You need to care about *every* little single thing'"... JAMES ERRINGTON's fantastic year-by-year recorded-music project, CENTURIES OF SOUND, continues with a three-hour mix of the music and sounds of 1937, with a special emphasis on DJANGO REINHARDT, STÉPHANE GRAPPELLI and other members of the QUINTETTE DU HOT CLUB DE FRANCE (but also ELLA FITZGERALD, DUKE ELLINGTON, BENNY GOODMAN, COUNT BASIE, the ANDREWS SISTERS, ROBERT JOHNSON, PATSY MONTANA and so many more).
Rest in Peace
MIC SHANE, founding editor of Chicago hip-hop magazine FLYPAPER and a tireless champion of the city's music.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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VICE |
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| How Hip-Hop Reached Peak Guitar |
| by Ashwin Rodrigues |
| The key feature of a popular hip-hop song in 2021-besides a Lil Baby verse-is guitars. What makes the sound so prevalent? |
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NBC News |
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| Inside hip-hop's complex relationship with health |
| by Char Adams |
| Today, more rappers are speaking openly about their medical conditions. It’s a shift that highlights hip-hop’s complicated history with medical health. |
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Rolling Stone |
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| Morgan Wallen, the Winner No One Can Admit |
| by Amy X. Wang |
| The walking succès de scandale, who has become the best-selling artist of the year while being shunned by every supposed authority in music, is a sour, familiar American lesson. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| With help from Fox News, Aaron Lewis tops country chart with song bemoaning statue removal |
| by Mikael Wood |
| On 'Am I the Only One,' the former Staind frontman calls out Bruce Springsteen and asks, 'Am I the only one willing to bleed / Or take a bullet for being free?' |
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Hollywood Reporter |
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| Britney Spears’ Conservatorship: Why Picking a New Lawyer Isn’t Simple |
| by Ashley Cullins |
| On Wednesday, the court is expected to hear arguments on a packed slate of issues, including what the process should be for allowing the pop star to choose her own lawyer. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Why Are Independent Artists and Labels Turning Away From Vinyl? |
| by Marc Hogan |
| Faced with interminable manufacturing delays, some of music’s DIY players are giving up on the beloved format. |
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Complex |
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| Albums Are Getting Too Long |
| by Jessica McKinney |
| In the streaming era, some artists are putting out increasingly long albums. The tactic is increasing sales, but hurting the listening experience. |
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The New York Times |
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| Before & After Funkadelic’s ‘Maggot Brain’ |
| by Christopher R. Weingarten and Aliza Aufrichtig |
| Funkadelic’s third album was a psychedelic blast of freewheeling protest music. As the LP turns 50, we look back at the music that fueled it - and that was inspired by it. |
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Billboard |
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| How Benny Blanco’s Former Intern Became An A-List Producer For The Kid LAROI, 24kGoldn & More |
| by Josh Glicksman |
| Over the past year, songwriter-producer Blake Slatkin has become a Hot 100 regular, thanks to 24kGoldn and iann dior’s “Mood” and The Kid LAROI’s “Without You.” |
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Cocaine & Rhinestones |
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| Pappy Daily, Gene Pitney and How George Jones Came to Be on Musicor |
| by Tyler Mahan Coe |
| CR021/PH07: This whole story began with a pinball machine and jukebox mogul in Texas jumping over to the independent record business of the 1950s. When he hitched his wagon to a Singing Marine who became the Greatest Country Singer Ever, it served Pappy Daily well through the following decade. Then, out of nowhere, the ride suddenly ended. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| My Sweet Lorde: Are Plagiarism Cases Getting… Gentler? |
| by Eamonn Forde |
| Eamonn Forde notes that more recent accusations of copycatting in music have ended cordially. |
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The Guardian |
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| Festivals warn: change self-isolation rules or our staff will just ignore them |
| by Miranda Bryant |
| ‘Untenable’ rules will force workers to delete NHS tracing app to avoid being pinged. |
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NPR |
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| The Hip-Hop Song That's Driving Cuba's Unprecedented Protests |
| by Bill Chappell |
| The song Patria y Vida, or homeland and life, is a spin on the communist regime's decades-old slogan in Cuba of "patria o muerte" - homeland or death. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Julius Eastman’s Florid Minimalism |
| by Alex Ross |
| The composer’s thunderous, propulsive “Femenine” is becoming a modern classic. |
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VICE |
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| Jensen McRae Turned Phoebe Bridgers Impressions into Real Hits |
| by Olivia Horn |
| Many up-and-comers bristle at comparisons; VICE spoke to McRae about how she dictated hers. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Over 66% of all music listening in the US is now of catalog records, rather than new releases |
| by Tim Ingham |
| New MRC Data report shows how catalog has increased its dominance over new music in 2021. |
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Vox |
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| Why America Embraced Whitney Houston, and How It Destroyed Her |
| by Constance Grady |
| Why America embraced Whitney Houston, and how it destroyed her. |
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Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
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| The Jazz Great Who Never Was |
| by Ted Gioia |
| At 15, Austin Peralta was recording with Ron Carter; at 22 he was dead--leaving behind almost no trace of his greatness. I look back on my dealings with this ill-fated artist. |
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The Guardian |
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| Clairo: ‘This industry drains young women until they’re not youthful any more’ |
| by Gemma Samways |
| The Gen Z musician talks business pressure, parenting and the new album, made with a little help from her dog - and Lorde. |
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Sound Expertise |
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| Sound Expertise: Our Pandemic Year |
| by Will Robin |
| Eighteen music scholars describe their experiences of the pandemic. |
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Chicago Reader |
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| Mic Shane helped boost Chicago hip-hop onto a global stage |
| by Leor Galil |
| He cofounded the city’s first hip-hop magazine in 1991 and worked tirelessly for decades to help the scene grow. |
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Clairo's second album, "Sling," is out Friday on Fader/Republic.
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Nominated for six Emmys including Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special.
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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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