| At a time when record sales no longer exist, the bio-pic takes the place of the 'greatest hits' album while also serving as its ad campaign. |
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Lil Uzi Vert at Rolling Loud Miami, July 25, 2021, Miami Gardens, Fla.
(Jason Koerner/Getty Images)
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“At a time when record sales no longer exist, the bio-pic takes the place of the 'greatest hits' album while also serving as its ad campaign.”
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Industry Giant
Two years ago, LIL NAS X was a wide-eyed teenager from Atlanta with a leftfield pop hit based on a beat he bought on the internet for $30 featuring an uncleared banjo sample that reminded him of a loner cowboy, which in turn reminded him of his own homebody, loner persona. He Googled cowboy words and phrases until he had enough to write a lyric that matched the image in his head. He uploaded his song to the internet and worked it hard, from pushing it on SOUNDCLOUD to arranging remixes to organizing an online campaign to get a certain pop-country one hit wonder on the track, which the powers that be in Nashville wanted no part of. The banjo sample, the cowboy words and the remixes were all insanely catchy, almost too catchy, in the way so many one hit wonders are. We don't always recognize one hit wonders when they're in the throes of that one hit—we, and they, tend to assume there'll be more catchy things where that one catchy thing came from—but "OLD TOWN ROAD" seemed particularly one-hittery to a lot of people, even as it trotted, and then galloped, its way to a record-breaking run on the US pop charts. It was easy to imagine its future as a novelty hit we'd forever remember by a pop-rapper we wouldn't. The relatively minor followup single with the inadvertent NIRVANA interpolation probably should have sealed it. But the man born MONTERO HILL never got the message and never stopped working, never stopped pressing his momentum, never let us forget his name, and two years and one pandemic later he may be on the way to his third #1 hit and his may be the exact pop career trajectory they should be teaching in both business school and music school. He's a model pop star, exploring his identity, his sexuality and the possibilities of pop music in songs bursting with joy and personal meaning. His videos are simultaneously trolling you, entertaining you and teaching you, and he seems to be getting louder and prouder every day in real life. Or at least in the online version of real life; for all we know, he's still a homebody but with a much more fun avatar than he used to have. Either way, he's going to ride his pop moment till he can't no more, and there's no longer any reason to believe the day when he can't will come anytime soon.
Etc Etc Etc
Are the clumsy if not misleading NFT auctions of rights held by DAMON DASH in JAY-Z's early work, and of an anonymous third party's share of A TRIBE CALLED QUEST's copyrights, actually proof that NFTs are good for both investors and artists? I've said my skeptical piece in this space. Here's another side: arguments by ROYALTY EXCHANGE's ANTHONY MARTINI (who has an obvious built-in bias) and Rolling Stone's SAMANTHA HISSONG (who does not) for the benefits of such tokens... UMG is the first major label to license TIKTOK competitor LOMOTIF... BRITNEY SPEARS' new lawyer formally petitions for her father to be removed from her conservatorship. The arrangement, MATHEW S. ROSENGART writes in his court filing, is a "Kafkaesque nightmare" for Spears.
Rest in Peace
Metal Church singer MIKE HOWE.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Billie Eilish on surviving teen fame and trauma, and how she finally stopped reading the comments |
| by Amy Kaufman |
| She won't name names, but Billie Eilish says she suffered real trauma on her way to stardom. 'It’s embarrassing,' she says. 'I don't want to tell anyone.' |
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NPR |
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| They Were Laughed At For Their #FreeBritney Activism. Not Anymore |
| by Andrew Limbong |
| The #FreeBritney movement has spent years trying to draw attention to Britney Spears' fight against her conservatorship. Now, it's beginning to have a serious impact on guardianship law. |
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Rolling Stone |
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| NFTs May Seem Like Frivolous Fads. They Should Be the Future of Music |
| by Samantha Hissong |
| The wild boom and bust of art NFTs made many onlookers wary of blockchain-based technology -- but new developments in gaming, ticketing, and music royalties reveal NFTs’ true power. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| ‘The misconception is that NFTs are like a get rich quick scheme. That’s not really how it works’ |
| by Jack Needham |
| Royalty Exchange CEO Anthony Martini on the future of NFTs and how the company's A Tribe Called Quest deal went down. |
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Salon |
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| The liberating pink power of Lil Nas X's trolling continues in new music video "Industry Baby" |
| by Melanie McFarland |
| The rapper's new video may be more straightforward than "Montero," but it's still layered with messages and meaning, |
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Genius |
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| Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow “Industry Baby” Official Lyrics & Meaning |
| by Lil Nas X, Jack Harlow, Justin Hogan... |
| Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow’s “Industry Baby” will appear on Lil Nas' upcoming album, "Montero." On the track, Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow rap about their success and being on top. |
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The Cut |
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| LFO Forever |
| by Sejla Rizvic |
| As the surviving member of the boy band, Brad Fischetti keeps their legacies alive. |
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Billboard |
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| 'It’s Been a Tough 16 Months For All of Us': Four Dance Scene Promoters on the Return of Live Events |
| by Katie Bain |
| With live shows once again happening throughout the U.S., the light at the end of the tunnel that dance promoters have been waiting for is finally shining. |
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The Daily Beast |
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| Forty Thousand Fans Cram Into Music Festival as England Takes Huge, but Very Fun, Gamble |
| by Tom Sykes |
| Tens of thousands of vaccinated sybarites Rickrolled in a rural field at a massive four-day party this weekend, as their country shrugged off its last COVID restrictions. |
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Pitchfork |
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| 9 Records That Capture the Spirit of Editions Mego, the Experimental Label Founded by the Late Peter Rehberg |
| by Philip Sherburne |
| Including pioneering works by Fennesz, Jim O’Rourke, Kevin Drumm, KMRU, and Rehberg himself. |
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The New Yorker |
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| The Exuberance of Ivo Dimchev |
| by Dimiter Kenarov |
| The queer performance artist has improbably become one of Bulgaria’s most famous singer-songwriters. |
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Austin 360 |
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| 'The songs we grew up on': A conversation with the Flatlanders about their new album |
| by Peter Blackstock |
| Flatlanders bandmates Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock discuss "Treasure of Love," their first new album together in more than a decade. |
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Complex |
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| When Numbers Lie: How to Spot Fake Data in Music and Why It Matters |
| by Brian Harrington |
| Fake streams and inflated social media stats are commonplace in today’s data-driven music industry. Here are some of the red flags to look out for. |
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Backseat Freestyle |
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| Kanye's Ugly Dark Twisted Reality |
| by Jayson Rodriguez |
| Once the scrutiny begins, the narrative rerun of the Old Kanye coming back starts to fade. Sorry, Mr. West is gone. |
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PostGenre |
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| Newport Jawn: A Conversation with Christian McBride (Part One) |
| by Rob Shepherd |
| In honor of the – albeit scaled-back – return of the landmark institution that is the Newport Jazz Festival, we sat down with Christian McBride to discuss his role as both its Artistic Director and a performer at the 2021 Festival. |
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It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine |
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| Cassette Culture: Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet Age |
| by Andreas Ravenwell |
| Jerry Kranitz has written a massive book on home cassette recording artists of the pre-internet age called ‘Cassette Culture: Homemade Music and the Creative Spirit in the Pre-Internet Age’. |
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The Guardian |
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| Bring it all back: why naff noughties pop is suddenly cool again |
| by Rachel Aroesti |
| Perhaps longing for a more carefree era, artists such as Lorde, Billie Eilish and Haim are fondly looking back to when S Club 7 and Shania Twain frolicked in low-rise denim. |
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Country Queer |
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| Allison Russell: The CQ Interview, Pt. 2 |
| by Dale Henry Geist |
| Russell discusses the redemptive power of art in her life, the role of sexual orientation in her art, and a sea change she sees in the culture. |
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JazzTimes |
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| 'The United States vs. Billie Holiday' vs. the Truth |
| by Lewis Porter |
| Contrary to what the film "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" claims, there was no U.S. government conspiracy to suppress the song “Strange Fruit." |
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The Verge |
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| The undeniable thrill of the Alicia Keys Tiny Desk concert |
| by Andrea Plascencia |
| "Fallin’" is a masterpiece, by the way. |
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From "The House Is Burning," due Friday on Top Dawg/Warner.
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Because if you haven't seen it yet, you should; and if you have, you should see it again. A perfect music documentary.
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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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