| While streaming has brought significant profits to the recorded music industry, the talent behind it—performers, songwriters and composers—are losing out. Only a complete reset of streaming that enshrines in law their rights to a fair share of the earnings will do. |
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Nikki Lane, the First Lady of Outlaw Country, in Cedar Park Texas, July 9, 2021.
(Gary Miller/Getty Images)
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“While streaming has brought significant profits to the recorded music industry, the talent behind it—performers, songwriters and composers—are losing out. Only a complete reset of streaming that enshrines in law their rights to a fair share of the earnings will do.”
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Parliament Gets Funkadelic
This happened overnight in the UK (and late in the day for me in Brooklyn), so I'll have more to say in the coming days, but wow. The blockbuster 121-page report from the British Parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, summarizing a six-month inquiry into the UK's recorded and streaming music economy, concludes—I'm paraphrasing—that artists and songwriters are f***ed by labels and streaming companies alike. Basically, what artists and songwriters themselves have been tweeting and screaming about since the beginning of time, but now with the imprimatur of the British government, and with some concrete suggestions for how to make things better. Emphasis, for now, on "suggestions." This is one part of the government asking another part of the government to consider taking action—and doing some more investigating/inquiring. It's a reason for artists to cheer ("a massive vindication," TOM GRAY, the musician who founded the #BrokenRecord campaign, told the BBC) and for music companies to prepare (GEOFF TAYLOR, CEO of the UK label trade group BPI, trumpeted "this country's extraordinary global success in music" and warned of "unintended consequences for investment into new talent"). Which is to say, it's the beginning, six months later, of a long fight.
Lawyered Up
I'm not sure the free world has ever been collectively happier about a pop star getting permission to hire a new lawyer, but here we are. A seeming breakthrough in the BRITNEY SPEARS conservatorship battle, although—caution where caution is due—it may be some time before we know how much of a breakthrough. Or maybe not. The slow march of legal process may be getting just a little bit less slow. "#FreeBritney," says Britney herself, apparently for the first time.
Dot Dot Dot
New math: BTS + BIEBER = $3.2 billion... Musician/futurist HOLLY HERNDON has created her own deepfake: an AI version of herself that anyone can collaborate with... "We don't like customers because they can walk away. We like fans because we have a relationship." IRON MAIDEN's BRUCE DICKINSON, aka zero-carbon-emission aircraft investor and aircraft maintenance innovator, gives his TEDx Talk... Can vaccine passports actually work?... Which '90s teen movie had the best soundtrack?
Correction
I wrote in Wednesday's newsletter that CHRIS BROWN—who, along with YOUNG THUG, has the year's most played song on broadcast radio in the US—had never been banned from American radio. But he was. (And from several other places, too.) My apologies.
Rest in Peace
Cinderella guitarist JEFF LABAR.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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BBC |
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| MPs call for complete reset of music streaming to ensure fair pay for artists |
| by Mark Savage |
| The music industry is weighted against artists, with even successful pop stars seeing "pitiful returns" from streaming, a committee of MPs has said. They are calling for a "complete reset" of the market, with musicians given a "fair share" of the £736.5 million that UK record labels earn from streaming. |
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The New York Times |
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| Britney Spears Can Hire a New Lawyer of Her Choice, Judge Rules |
| by Joe Coscarelli, Liz Day and Lauren Herstik |
| The decision came as the singer continues to challenge whether her life should be governed by a conservatorship set up 13 years ago on her behalf. |
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NPR |
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| From Ted Cruz To Elizabeth Warren, There's A Bipartisan Push To #FreeBritney |
| by Barbara Sprunt |
| Congressional lawmakers of all political stripes have shared their support for the pop star, who continues a legal fight against her 13-year conservatorship. |
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Pitchfork |
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| Who Owns the Teen Girl Aesthetic? |
| by Quinn Moreland |
| Olivia Rodrigo and Brooklyn indie band Pom Pom Squad are both reimagining girlhood in slyly dark ways, in the lineage of those who came before them. |
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The Ringer |
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| Hoop There It Is: How a Band With One Album Became the Sound of ‘Space Jam’ |
| by Lior Phillips |
| A journey through Miami bass and outer space with the Quad City DJ’s. |
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Bloomberg |
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| Spotify’s Top Lawyer Has Spent Years Making Apple the Bad Guy |
| by Lucas Shaw |
| Horacio Gutierrez has done more than almost anyone to push the narrative of the iPhone maker as an abusive monopolist. |
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Digital Native |
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| Lil Nas X Is Gen Z's Defining Icon |
| by Rex Woodbury |
| How Lil Nas X uses the internet to change culture. |
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Hollywood Reporter |
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| Damon Dash Accuses Jay-Z of Illicitly Transferring Streaming Rights to Debut Album |
| by Eriq Gardner |
| The Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder files a new suit in New York over who has been licensing the music to Spotify, Apple and other streamers. |
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Entertainment Weekly |
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| Yola stands tall |
| by Jim Farber |
| Yola floored critics and audiences alike with her debut album, 2019's 'Walk Through Fire.' Now the 38-year-old singer is back for more. |
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Songs in the Key of Death |
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| Frankie And Johnny |
| by Courtney E. Smith |
| Frankie killed Albert one night in St. Louis, back in 1899. Songwriters took a few liberties, even changing some names (that’s where “Johnny” comes in). Then Hollywood took more liberties while building multiple films around the song. Unfortunately for Frankie, it was a ballad people kept singing for over a hundred years — a ballad that ultimately killed her. |
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Between Rock and a Hard Place |
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| Was 'Summer of Soul' Footage Really 'Locked in a Basement for 50 Years'? |
| by Greg Mitchell |
| A film archivist/director has challenged a widely-publicized claim about the excellent new Questlove documentary. |
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The New York Times |
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| 'Aline': The Crazy Celine Dion Movie at Cannes |
| by Kyle Buchanan |
| “Aline,” an unofficial biopic of the singer, boasts a singular casting choice that has all of Cannes buzzing. |
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NME |
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| Venues on how they’ll be keeping music fans COVID-safe when reopening |
| by Andrew Trendell |
| Music venues from across the UK have revealed what to expect when it comes to COVID safety rules when they reopen in the coming weeks. |
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NPR Music |
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| If You Build It, They Will Play |
| by Zack Harold |
| A carpenter brings music to his hometown with the ultimate DIY venue, West Virginia's Jerry Run Summer Theater. |
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The Ringer |
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| ‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: Madonna Strikes a Pose |
| by Rob Harvilla and Caryn Ganz |
| The history of ‘Vogue’ and Madonna’s decade, with an assist from The New York Times’ Caryn Ganz. |
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The Independent |
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| Giving a fiddle: The unlikely story of how bluegrass music swept Japan |
| by Alli Patton |
| It’s a sound deeply rooted in American culture, but bluegrass found a new fanbase during the Seventies, more than 7,000 miles away in Japan. Alli Patton speaks to the bands about how the banjo-fuelled genre transcended enemy lines and is still a thriving scene today. |
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Musonomics |
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| Brick by Brick: Jon Platt on Creating a Mighty Career and Culture |
| by Larry Miller |
| Jon Platt, head of the world's largest music publisher Sony Music Publishing chats with host Larry Miller in a fireside chat in front of a live virtual audience at NYU. Jon's pedigree of signing songwriters like Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Kanye, and Drake has afforded him a well-deserved place as a shrewd creative executive and a powerful advocate for music creators. |
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The Guardian |
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| The music industry’s white infrastructure is holding back Black female artists |
| by VV Brown |
| Black musicians’ careers are in the hands of people who package it through a white gaze, says musician VV Brown. |
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Billboard |
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| The Complicated Reality of Being a Britney Spears Fan During the Conservatorship |
| by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong |
| Britney Spears' public testimony is forcing her fandom to confront complicated issues in the face of her ongoing conservatorship. |
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| Music of the day |
| "Man Next Door" |
| U-Roy & Santigold |
| From "Solid Gold U-Roy," the pioneering Jamaica DJ/toaster's final album, out Friday on Trojan Jamaica/BMG. U-Roy, who had originally planned to release and tour behind the album in 2020, died in February. |
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YouTube |
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From "Solid Gold U-Roy," the pioneering Jamaica DJ/toaster's final album, out Friday on Trojan Jamaica/BMG. U-Roy, who had originally planned to release and tour behind the album in 2020, died in February.
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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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