| I believe that when anybody is sad, they make better music. They make more emotional music, more honest music. Cathartic, therapeutic music. And I’ve definitely been a victim of wanting to be sad for that, because... making great music is a drug. It’s an addiction and you want to always have that. |
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Kamasi Washington at the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, R.I., July 30, 2021.
(Douglas Mason/Getty Images)
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“I believe that when anybody is sad, they make better music. They make more emotional music, more honest music. Cathartic, therapeutic music. And I’ve definitely been a victim of wanting to be sad for that, because... making great music is a drug. It’s an addiction and you want to always have that.”
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Shoot to Thrill
Shoutout every venue and every artist requiring proof of vaccination or negative Covid tests for anyone who wants a ticket. The list is growing by the hour and it seems an appropriate and fair response to a pandemic that's killed more than 4 million people worldwide and more than 600,000 in the US, and that's far from over. Artists desperately want to tour and they don't want their fans, or themselves to get sick; they also don't want to be responsible for perpetuating the virus' spread. So, yeah, ask fans to get a shot or a test or stay away. That's no more an act of discrimination than telling kids they can't ride Space Mountain if they aren't at least 44 inches tall, or telling grownups they can't walk into a bar if they aren't 21.
I want to amplify, again, this Los Angeles Times column that I originally shared in Monday's mix. KURT BARDELLA, a Democratic party activist who also writes a country music newsletter, argues that country artists are in a better position to persuade Americans in certain regions to get vaccinated than whoever's currently trying to persuade them. "The people who go to these concerts—the people who cheer loudest for lyrics about 'freedom,' 'liberty' and 'America'—don't want to be told what to do by politicians or government officials," he writes. "They need to hear this message from people they idolize and believe." That seems a somewhat narrow reading of a typical country audience, but you get the point. Bardella envisions showing public service announcements at country concerts, using arena parking lots as vaccination sites, even offering vaccinated fans free general admission tickets.
But why not go further and provide a stick along with those carrots? As much as artists want to tour after more than a year of lockdowns, there's a country full of stir-crazy fans who really, really want to see live shows. Tell them they can't without a vaccination (while making reasonable accommodations, like requiring testing, for those who truly can't get one). Tell them the vaccine is literally their ticket to see GARTH BROOKS or THOMAS RHETT or CARRIE UNDERWOOD. Have the artists themselves tell them that. And then make good on the word "literally": Give them good tickets to a couple concerts of their choice as a reward for getting their shots. Promoters may not be able to afford this but governments can. Governments could subsidize this in the background while artists and labels, who fans presumably trust, do the front-facing work.
And why stop at country? People in states like Florida and Texas, which have soaring case numbers, and Alabama and Arkansas, which have terrible vaccination numbers, also listen to hip-hop and Latin music and rock and soul, and they talk about freedom and liberty at those shows, too. Why can't a vaccine get you BAD BUNNY tickets? Why can't *not* being vaccinated keep you from seeing LIL UZI VERT?
And for the holdouts who remain? Offer a livestream of every show that has a proof-of-vaccination policy, so those who aren't inoculated can watch the show the way we've all learned to see concerts in the middle of a global pandemic. Give everyone a choice, but make the choice—and the consequences—clear.
Etc Etc Etc
Release an album. Release the deluxe version. Release version 3 and then, a few days later, the deluxe edition of version 3. Hit #1 in Billboard, finally, a year after you and your album started your journey... In the space of a few hours Monday, DABABY lost two more festival headline slots and then finally, belatedly, apologized for ugly words uttered onstage eight days earlier at ROLLING LOUD in Miami Gardens. Two thoughts. 1) Good. Now he needs to do the work. The work, not the words, is the real apology. It will take time. He can start thinking about headlining legit festivals again sometime after that, but not before and certainly not now. For GOVERNORS BALL and DAY N VEGAS, it's too late, and if his words of apology were sincere, he'll understand that. 2) Don't begin your apology with a complaint. It's bad form... One more good take on the founding of MTV, this time from the founders themselves, on BOB PITTMAN's (for he was one of them) MATH & MAGIC podcast... A bipartisan Congress's next target: music copyright infringement on TWITTER... The next mass extinction: concert ticket stubs.
Rest in Peace
Texas country singer/songwriter CHRIS WALL.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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GQ |
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| The Weeknd vs. Abel Tesfaye |
| by Mark Anthony Green |
| With an instantly recognizable voice and songs that have been streamed several billion times, he’s one of the most ubiquitous pop stars in the world. But where does Abel Tesfaye end and his dark, grimy public persona begin? Mark Anthony Green gets the artist to explain. |
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Music x |
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| What do you buy when you buy merch? |
| by Maarten Walraven-Freeling |
| Merchandise is important. It's important for fans who can express their fandom. It's important for artists and other rightsholders who use it as an extra revenue stream. But recently I've been wondering what you actually buy when you buy merch as a fan. And consequently, what that means for artists. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| 3 things we learned from Daniel Ek on Spotify’s Q2 investor call |
| by Murray Stassen |
| A wobble in active users, an ambitious plan for total creators on the platform… and a bullish attitude to ads. |
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The New York Times |
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| Billie Eilish’s Uneasy View From the Top |
| by Lindsay Zoladz |
| On her second album, “Happier Than Ever,” the 19-year-old pop phenomenon takes on new anxieties and adversaries -- and debates just how much of herself to reveal. |
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Vulture |
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| How Jack Antonoff Found That Magical Moment of Musical Clarity |
| by Charlie Harding and Nate Sloan |
| “One day you wake up and you’re like, Oh my God, we’re in this.” |
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Variety |
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| Twitter Is Turning a Blind Eye to Music Copyright Infringement, Group of U.S. Reps Says |
| by Todd Spangler |
| A bipartisan group of 22 members of the US House of Representatives sent a letter to Twitter chief Jack Dorsey on Monday, demanding the social network address "the ongoing problem of copyright infringement on Twitter and the platform's apparent refusal to address it." |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| 160,000 music fans pour into SoCal's Hard Summer festival in face of Delta variant surge |
| by August Brown |
| Hard Summer festival promoter Insomniac did not require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test to attend, contrary to county and state recommendations. |
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The New Yorker |
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| The Brash, Exuberant Sounds of Hyperpop |
| by Carrie Battan |
| The genre’s artists have resisted classification by honing a new kind of buoyant, absurdist pop. |
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Adam Neely |
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| The Great Myth of the Medieval Tritone Ban |
| by Adam Neely |
| Debunking the great myth! |
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Africa is a Country |
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| It’s never just about the music |
| by Liam Brickhill |
| Vinyl reissues are about engaging in a fight against forgetting much more than just music and transcendent of repressive daily conditions, which still exist in places like South Africa. |
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VAN Magazine |
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| How Asian Classical Musicians Experience Discrimination |
| by Jeffrey Arlo Brown |
| Formed under pressure. |
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The New York Times |
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| With #MeToo Case Against Kris Wu, China Hits Out at Celebrities |
| by Amy Qin and Elsie Chen |
| The detention of Kris Wu, a popular Canadian singer, has been hailed as a rare victory for the movement. But Beijing, wary of social activism, has cast it as a warning to celebrities. |
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VICE |
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| rum.gold Made a Perfect Hurt-So-Good R&B Album |
| by Kristin Corry |
| On 'Thicker Than Water,' the Washington, D.C. artist reveals the true meaning of the ancient proverb: Family is who you chose. |
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The Quietus |
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| The Greatness Beyond: How Chaos Rising Are Breaking Metal’s Boundaries |
| by Keith Kahn-Harris |
| Formed in 2019, the "international all-female metal collective" Chaos Rising have been slowly building up an impressive catalogue of unique collaborative works. The model it provides has the potential to overturn some of metal’s most enduring institutions |
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Billboard |
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| 1 Out of 5 Indie Venue Grant Applicants Were Denied -- But Most Don’t Know Why |
| by Taylor Mims |
| Frustrated business owners are searching for answers -- but the SBA has yet to provide them. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Clairo Recovers from Viral Fame |
| by Carrie Battan |
| The twenty-two-year-old singer slows down and reëvaluates life on her sophomore album, “Sling.” |
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Medium |
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| Let Us Now Praise Tammy Rock |
| by Tom Maxwell |
| In general, I’m referring to popular music created by women which achieved its greatest expression in the 1980s. Although there are a number of stylistic identifiers of Tammy Rock, what really binds it together is an unapologetic idea of equality: its protagonists are strongly feminine, but refuse to submit to traditional cultural concepts of gender-typing as disempowering. |
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WTF with Marc Maron |
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| WTF with Marc Maron: Episode 1248 -- Lindsey Buckingham |
| by Marc Maron and Lindsey Buckingham |
| Lindsey Buckingham wasn’t going to let anything - from the pandemic to major heart surgery - stand in the way of finishing his new self-titled solo album. But it was in part his work on the album and the planning of a live tour that led to Lindsey being ousted from Fleetwood Mac after nearly 45 years. |
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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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