| He was the anti-drummer. He wasn’t performative to let you know how hard he was f***ing working. He gave you the basic foundation. |
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Drummer, solo: Charlie Watts in New York, May 1978.
(Michael Putland/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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“He was the anti-drummer. He wasn’t performative to let you know how hard he was f***ing working. He gave you the basic foundation.”
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Heaven
The hi-hat accents in "EMOTIONAL RESCUE." I've been obsessing on them for the past 48 hours. An insanely catchy four-on-the-floor disco beat interrupted every other bar by a hi-hat half-opening on an off-beat between the three and the four. There's a simultaneous snare hit on the same off-beat—a rare example of CHARLIE WATTS hitting those two pieces of his kit at the same time. The sudden, combined shimmer of these two sounds, which form a kind of super-mega-half-open-hi-hat, is featured so prominently in the mix, almost comically loud, that you soon come to understand it's the lead instrument in the song. There's a slinky electric piano groove, some scratchy electric guitar and a lead open hi-hat. That, along with MICK JAGGER's falsetto and an eventual saxophone solo (it was the '80s), is pretty much "Emotional Rescue," one of the greatest moments of the Stones' last great era. The full groove is quintessential early '80s Watts, but the accents are not. They make you focus your eyes and ears on the normally attention-averse minimalist metronome merchant. They demand your attention. At a certain point, Watts starts to put an eighth note between the open hi-hat and snare, and then in the song's B part, where the singer is dreaming and/or crying, he decouples them completely and moves the hi-hat hits around the bar, which is about as close as one of the greatest of all rock drummers ever came to playing a solo, and there's nothing you can say and nothing you can do about it except scream in disco delight. And dance. And appreciate the majesty of the disco-era Rollling Stones, who are genuinely loved by one decent-sized faction of the Stones fan base and somewhat sneered at by another faction. I'm here today, I guess, to urge you to give in to it in Charlie Watts' memory. I'll spare you the essay on the skittering side-stick drumming on that track from the next album, my favorite Rolling Stones album, but there's that, too.
About a Boy
SPENCER ELDEN, the now 30-year-old cover model for NIRVANA's NEVERMIND who sued the band this week for what he says was child pornography, is being widely ridiculed on social media and it's making me sad. And not just because many of the jokes about other album cover models who should consider suing miss the point of the complaint. Elden is an easy target for a number of reasons—including that there's nothing pornographic about the album cover—but the dismissal of the idea that he might just now be processing the consequences of being nude on the cover of an album that's sold more than 30 million copies in those 30 years is dispiriting. Do you really want to make fun of someone else's childhood trauma? Do you really want to blindly dismiss it? It's possible to defend the integrity of Nirvana's artwork *and* feel empathy for the cover model. We can do both of these things. We can also, for what it's worth, ask whether $200 was a fair price for modeling for the cover of a big-budget major-label album in 1991. Elden's dad agreed to the transaction and took the money. But does that make it fair?
Good 4 Who?
For the second time in two months, OLIVIA RODRIGO has given after-the-fact songwriting credit to another artist for a song on her debut album. This time it's PARAMORE's HAYLEY WILLIAMS and JOSH FARRO being added to the credits for "GOOD 4 U," whose similarities to their "MISERY BUSINESS" has been well covered by internet people. This seems... fine? A modern way of dealing with an old reality of songwriting, which is that everybody is stealing/borrowing/homaging from somebody else, whether consciously or not (I might have made up a word in this sentence, I know). It's the nature of songwriting, and plenty of other artforms. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes inot. In the old days, sometimes everyone would notice, sometimes only a few people would notice, sometimes the borrower would acknowledge the borrowing and sometimes not so much. And life would go on. It's works differently now because social media, but also because artists, writers, managers, lawyers and even fans are more attuned to the long-term value of tangible credits than they used to be, and because judges and juries are a little more receptive to authorship arguments than they used to be. Songwriting hasn't changed, and Olivia Rodrigo has done nothing that thousands of other artists before her, maybe even Paramore's Hayley Williams and Josh Farro, have also done. But the landscape has changed.
Dot Dot Dot
Is SPOTIFY removing tracks—without notice—by indie artists who ask fans to boost their play counts, but not punishing bigger artists who do the same thing? Rolling Stone's JASON KEIL asks. No answer yet... JONI MITCHELL is MUSICARES' 2022 Person of the Year and will be feted with a tribute concert on Grammy Awards weekend in January, in Los Angeles. MusiCares is honoring her "for breaking down barriers for women in the music industry; for tenacity in creating and following her own voice and for her ability to bring comfort, joy and inspiration to countless listeners and artists alike"... The Bay Area music blog THE BAY BRIDGED will shut down in October after a 15-year run.
Rest in Peace
MICKI GRANT, a Broadway actress, composer and lyricist who won a Grammy and was nominated for three Tonys for 1971's DON'T BOTHER ME I CAN'T COPE, which she wrote and starred in; she also appeared in several TV soap operas... Country publicist NORMA MORRIS.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Pitchfork |
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| On the Road, Again |
| by Andy Cush |
| In an uncertain post-vaccine landscape, musicians and other touring professionals are feeling the elation-and anxiety-of getting back to work. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| Coi Leray keeps stirring up outrage. She wouldn't have it any other way |
| by Suzy Exposito |
| In short time, Coi Leray has made a name for herself in hip-hop with a string of white-hot singles and a pair of panned performances. Next up? Her debut album. |
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Vulture |
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| ‘Never Call Me Your Drummer Again’ |
| by Mike Edison |
| The full story of the time Charlie Watts punched Mick Jagger, excerpted from "Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters," by Mike Edison. |
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The New York Times |
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| Why the Baby on Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ Album Is Suing Now |
| by Maria Cramer |
| "It's not a case with easy answers," a law professor says. |
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Billboard |
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| R. Kelly's Publishing Catalog Is for Sale, But What's It Worth? |
| by Ed Christman |
| R. Kelly appears to be short on money. Will he sell his catalog? And what’s it worth, considering the allegations against him? |
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auderdy.com |
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| Philip Glass on Artificial Intelligence and Art |
| by Audrey |
| Composer Philip Glass and I discuss an exciting project in partnership with OpenAi, in which we trained a neural net on a corpus of Glass' work. He offers commentary on the music created by "his AI", as well as insights on composition and creating art. |
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The Ringer |
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| Ima Fix ‘Donda’: The Roller Coaster of Kanye West’s Never-ending Listening Party |
| by Charles Holmes |
| On Thursday (Aug. 26), Kanye will premiere a third version of his new album at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Will the album come soon after--and if so, will it have been worth all the theatrics, delays, and beta testing that preceded it? |
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Detroit Metro Times |
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| Remembering and releasing Aaliyah, 20 years later |
| by Imani Mixon |
| On the cover of her 2001 self-titled album, Aaliyah stands in a nearly see-through mesh halter top, her eyes heavy but focused under wispy lashes, her glossy lips parted, ready for song. Here she debuted a new, futuristic logo with her name stylized so that the A's look like upside-down V's instead. |
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NPR Music |
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| What Made Aaliyah So Special Is More Complicated Than It Seems |
| by Aisha Harris |
| At 14, she stood out for her cool and "mature" demeanor. But at the heart of that persona was a youth lost too soon. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Why Are (Some) Record Labels and Music Publishers Still Only Reporting Every 6 Months? |
| by Tom Allen |
| Curve Royalty Systems' Tom Allen says 'that's the way we've always done it' is no longer good enough. |
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Variety |
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| Pearl Jam’s Secret to 30 Years of Success? Follow the Grateful Dead Playbook |
| by Jonathan Cohen |
| That "you have to be there" spirit has elevated Pearl Jam's music far beyond its studio origins and into a place its band members admit they never could have expected it to go. |
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The Guardian |
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| How John Cage, the great disrupter, had the last laugh -- by writing beautiful music |
| by Andrew Male |
| Late in life, maverick composer Cage decided to stop finding ‘alternatives to harmony’. The results have been rediscovered by a new generation of musicians. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Warner Music has changed leaders in no less than 10 key international markets since its IPO. Why? |
| by Tim Ingham |
| Simon Robson explains Warner's strategy following slew of top-level changes worldwide. |
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British GQ |
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| How Jonny Trunk became a one-man, secret cultural conduit |
| by Martin Green |
| You might not have heard of Jonny Trunk, but music has felt his influence for years. |
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NPR Music |
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| Appreciating Charlie Watts, The Rolling Stones' Understated Drum Master |
| by Eric Deggans |
| Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who died on Tuesday, played with a deceptively simple style that took some fans time to appreciate. |
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The Daily Beast |
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| No-No Boy’s Moving Musical Ode to the Fall of Afghanistan |
| by Julian Saporiti |
| Julian Saporiti aka No-No Boy, the Vietnamese American artist and historian, writes about his new song inspired by the fall of Afghanistan-which you can listen to here. |
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The New York Times |
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| Aretha Franklin and the Futility of Trying to Portray Her Onscreen |
| by Salamishah Tillet |
| The new film “Respect” is one of three recent attempts to understand the artist. Only the one that focuses solely on her music comes close. |
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Complete Music Update |
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| Sirius wins in the final chapter of Flo & Eddie’s big battle for pre-1972 radio royalties |
| by Chris Cooke |
| American satellite broadcaster Sirius XM has won one last legal skirmish over the good old pre-1972 technicality of American copyright law, depriving a class of artists led by Flo & Eddie an extra $5 million pay out. |
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The Daily Beast |
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| DaBaby, Boosie and Hip Hop’s Love-Hate Relationship With Homoeroticism |
| by Tirhakah Love |
| The two rappers have come under fire for their homophobic comments. But hip-hop has long trafficked in homoerotic spectacle while policing or denigrating queerness. |
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Salon |
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| Britney Spears is a cautionary tale of pornification |
| by Bernadette Barton |
| Celebrating one's body and sexuality can be empowering - until our society's male gaze turns into condemnation |
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| Music of the day |
| "Open the Gates" |
| Irreversible Entanglement |
| "An offering for freedom." |
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YouTube |
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"An offering for freedom."
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Documentary short directed by Lauren Tabak and written by Barry Walters.
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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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