| Everything sounds good on piano and we’re all tapping into that energy. |
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Trombone Shorty and his band in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 18, 2021.
(Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)
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“Everything sounds good on piano and we’re all tapping into that energy.”
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Plagiarism Cadence
Hey can we talk about COLE PORTER and HANK WILLIAMS for a minute? Because I recently learned of the existence of this Cole Porter song from the 1943 Broadway musical SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS, which predated this Hank Williams song with the same title—and at least half of the same chorus—by about a decade, and which is a good lookin' example of how history's most revered songwriters were borrowing songs from each other, or just plain stealing, long before, say, OLIVIA RODRIGO was born. The Hank song, the one that came second, is one of his signature songs and is credited to him and him alone, as almost all Hank songs are. Nobody sued him and nobody asked for a co-writing credit and nobody on TIKTOK decided to investigate the rest of Hank's catalog to see who else he'd been stealing and interpolating from and nobody complained about how no one sits down and writes a song all by themselves anymore and nobody got all nostalgic about how much better it was back in the days of the CARTER FAMILY (when all a songwriter had to do, for what it's worth, was knock on doors in the countryside and ask if anyone knew of any old songs he could borrow and copyright for himself). Instead, they just heard Hank on a jukebox or the radio and thought to themselves, "Good 4 U." They left the complaining to their future grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The tools of songwriting might have changed—I'm pretty sure neither Cole Porter nor Hank Williams had access to a laptop or a sequencer—but the fundamentals have not. It's the economics and business protocols that have changed, and they've been changing especially fast lately. This is a good podcast in which songwriter CHARLIE HARDING zeroes in on the financial and legal considerations that have driven the recent run in plagiarism lawsuits and songwriting credit negotiations meant to preempt those lawsuits. "We have seen a shift," Harding tells the Verge's NILAY PATEL, "where the music industry has gone from being a physical goods business to an intellectual property business, and when a song starts to succeed, we see all kinds of public lawsuits and private settlements in order to recoup on your intellectual property." Composers weren't better way back when. They just weren't worrying so much about intellectual property. Which maybe they should have been. Anyway, I'm not trying to tell anyone that Olivia Rodrigo is as good a songwriter as Hank Williams, one of the most important musical figures of the 20th century. Nor am I trying to tell anyone that Cole Porter's "Hey, Good Lookin'" is better than Hank Williams' "Hey, Good Lookin'." It isn't. Hank's is way betterr—which is, in fact, one of the reasons we should continue to encourage songwriters of all stripes to see where they can take other songwriters' ideas, whether they're a 27-year-old country legend or an 18-year-old pop upstart. And stop confusing business decisions with creative ones.
Hello Hello Hello
A beautiful and sad longread from KURT COBAIN biographer and friend MICHAEL AZERRAD on why "befriending a rock star isn’t necessarily as cool as you’d think—particularly when," well, you know the rest. Friday is the 30th anniversary of the release of NIRVANA's NEVERMIND... Prosecutors began their closing arguments Wednesday in the racketeering case against R. KELLY in federal court in Brooklyn. The testimony has been explosive and often hard to read about. "For many years, what happened in the defendant’s world stayed in the defendant’s world," prosecutor ELIZABETH GEDDES told the jury. "But no longer." Kelly's lawyers, who didn't call on the singer to testify, are expected to question the very nature of the racketeering charge in their closing arguments today... BRANDI CARLILE, STURGILL SIMPSON, BLACK PUMAS, CHARLEY CROCKETT and the late JOHN PRINE were among the winners at the AMERICANA AWARDS Wednesday in Nashville. The awards are part of the AMERICANA MUSIC FESTIVAL, which, Rolling Stone's JOSEPH HUDAK warns, is bringing thousands of fans and more than 200 artists to the city while "Covid is raging in Tennessee." On the other side of that coin, Brooklyn singer/songwriter CASSANDRA JENKINS, who was scheduled to open a run of ST. VINCENT dates, tweeted Wednesday that that's no longer happening because St. Vincent's "crew is limiting the show to a single act to minimize Covid risks for all touring members." Jenkins added: "Any decision that allows artists to feel safe on the road right now is vital."
Rest in Peace
Influential film director MELVIN VAN PEEBLES, who leaves behind a significant musical legacy as well. He composed the scores to his own classic films and got a little-known Earth, Wind & Fire to record his score for his most celebrated work, 1971's "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" (the soundtrack was a significant early hit for EWF). Van Peebles also released several albums that ranged from spoken word to funk to blues to hip-hop and wrote and produced two Broadway musicals... JULZ SALE, lead singer of UK post-punk band Delta 5, a band that enjoyed a couple revivals long after its 1981 breakup, most recently when its debut single, "Mind Your Own Business," soundtracked a 2021 Apple ad... Nigerian highlife musician VOOMBASTIC UNCLE P.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The New Yorker |
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| My Time with Kurt Cobain |
| by Michael Azerrad |
| Befriending a rock star isn’t necessarily as cool as you’d think—particularly when tragedy happens. |
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Dazed Digital |
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| Amapiano: inside South Africa’s sound of freedom |
| by Nkgopoleng Moloi |
| The sound and streets of South Africa are changing. From Bo-Kaap to the Cape and the Limpopo River, beats are colliding, pianos are dipping, bass is breaking the ceiling. A new freedom is emerging, drawing on the country's long history of resistance. |
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Red Bull Music Academy |
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| RETRO READ: Red Bull Music Academy Lecture: Melvin van Peebles |
| by Torsten Schmidt |
| Melvin van Peebles is a true pioneer in an extraordinary array of fields–the first black movie director of the modern age, one of the first people to talk over music and, thus, a progenitor of hip-hop, and one time he managed to become the only black trader on the American Stock Exchange. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| How Netflix's new Britney Spears documentary hopes to get her story right |
| by Amy Kaufman |
| The director behind a secret Netflix project about Britney Spears talks about the pop star's conservatorship ahead of her film's Sept. 28 debut. |
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SF Weekly |
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| Artists Struggling to Get U.S. Visas |
| by Kira Leadholm |
| COVID-19 isn’t the only roadblock to going on tour. |
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The New York Times |
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| R. Kelly Trial Nears End, as Prosecutors Paint Portrait of a Predator |
| by Troy Closson |
| During the first day of closing arguments in Brooklyn, a prosecutor sought to knit together the government’s sprawling racketeering case. |
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The New Yorker |
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| The Radical yet Tuneful Music of Injury Reserve |
| by Sheldon Pearce |
| The new album “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” pays tribute to one of the trio’s members, Stepa J. Groggs. |
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Ludwig van Toronto |
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| Why Do People Cough At Concerts? |
| by Anya Wassenberg |
| And can they be stopped? |
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Penny Fractions |
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| The Record Industry Invests in the Metaverse (Part 2) |
| by David Turner |
| A dive into what the "metaverse" will actually look like for musicians and fans. |
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The Guardian |
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| Rick Astley on his Smiths covers gigs: ‘I’ll use a karaoke machine if I have to’ |
| by Rich Pelley |
| Ahead of his two Morrissey-channelling gigs with Blossoms, the singer talks Twitter, his London pub and how he once followed Andy Rourke around the Arndale centre. |
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VICE |
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| How Amy Winehouse’s Friends Are Reclaiming Her Legacy |
| by Emma Garland |
| "Beyond Black" authors Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay talk about the Amy that they knew and loved. |
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The New York Times |
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| Moor Mother’s Musical Galaxy Grows Even Bigger |
| by Marcus J. Moore |
| Camae Ayewa makes a blend of hip-hop, spoken-word poetry, punk and electro as Moor Mother. In Irreversible Entanglements, she records scalding free jazz. Both have new albums this fall. |
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5 Magazine |
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| Spotify, which pays little, wants to pay artists even less |
| by Terry Matthew |
| Spotify's last money-grab from artist royalties alarmed government investigators. Now they're grabbing even more. |
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The Ringer |
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| ‘60 Songs That Explain the ’90s’: Outkast and the Future Funk of 'Rosa Parks' |
| by Rob Harvilla |
| We explore the career of Atlanta’s favorite sons and their breakthrough. |
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NPR Music |
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| The Magnetic Fields' '100,000 Fireflies' Sounds The Way Being Lonely Feels |
| by Ryan H. Walsh |
| Susan Anway, the singer on The Magnetic Fields' early albums, died this month. For many, her legacy is the remarkable "100,000 Fireflies," a desolate love song that finds the comfort in emptiness. |
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Pollstar |
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| Moving Tours Around The Globe And Rising To The Challenge Of Supply Chain Shortages |
| by Deborah Speer |
| When discussing the current state of the entertainment transportation industry, the term "supply chain" comes up frequently. |
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Music Industry Blog |
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| UMG’s buoyant stock debut is a new chapter for the music business |
| by Mark Mulligan |
| If the UMG listing had happened as recently as two years ago, we probably would not be talking about such a stellar trading debut. The fact that we are doing so now is because the music market has moved on a lot since then – and I mean a lot. |
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Song Exploder |
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| Song Exploder: Lucy Dacus – 'Thumbs' |
| by Hrishikesh Hirway and Lucy Dacus |
| In June 2021, Lucy Dacus released her third album, "Home Video," which includes the song “Thumbs.” The first time I heard it, I knew I wanted to ask Lucy about how and why she made it. We spoke in person here in Los Angeles, and she told me the story of how “Thumbs” took months and months to get right. |
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| A Decade of Doom: Dome of Doom Records Celebrates 10 Years in the LA Beat Scene |
| by Kevin Crandall |
| Dome of Doom Records has been a central player in the LA beat scene for the past decade. Now the imprint celebrates with a thirty-track reflection. |
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The Walrus |
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| How the Polaris Prize Pictures the Music |
| by Meredith Holigroski |
| Each year, visual artists create custom posters for shortlisted albums. The results are often astonishing. |
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From "What the....You Mean I Can't Sing?!" (1974). RIP.
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| Video of the day |
| "Underplayed" |
| Stacey Lee |
| Stacey Lee's documentary on gender inequality in electronic music, featuring Tokimonsta, Alison Wonderland, Nervo, Rezz, Nightwave, Sherelle and Tygapaw. |
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YouTube |
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Stacey Lee's documentary on gender inequality in electronic music, featuring Tokimonsta, Alison Wonderland, Nervo, Rezz, Nightwave, Sherelle and Tygapaw.
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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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