| What’s being played on country radio has been played on country radio for the last 10 years—I can’t do that. I can’t do it spiritually. I can’t write songs that don’t mean something. |
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Mickey Guyton in Washington, D.C., May 6, 2021. "Remember Her Name" is out today on Capitol Nashville.
(Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
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“What’s being played on country radio has been played on country radio for the last 10 years—I can’t do that. I can’t do it spiritually. I can’t write songs that don’t mean something.”
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Rememberfulness
On Monday, TERENCE BLANCHARD's opera FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES, based on New York Times columnist CHARLES M. BLOW's memoir of the same title, will open a four-week run at the METROPOLITAN OPERA in New York. It will be the first piece by a Black composer to be performed at the Met. Ever. After 138 years and 300 works. After two world wars and nearly the entirety of the Jim Crow era. After at least three rejections of operas submitted by the great Black composer WILLIAM GRANT STILL ("an immature product of two dilettantes," a Met official said of the one Still wrote with poet LANGSTON HUGHES; "not worthy of consideration" went the Met's assessment of another). "It's a phenomenal honor and it's an overwhelming thing," Blanchard told the New York Times. "But at the same time it's bittersweet... I'm not the first qualified person to be here, that's for sure."
Compared to that nearly century-and-a-half wait in New York, country singer/songwriter MICKEY GUYTON has had it easy. Her debut album, REMEMBER HER NAME, arrives a mere 10 years after she signed to CAPITOL NASHVILLE, and only a few years after she started waking up at 4 in the morning to drive from Nashville to Atlanta to get her hair and makeup done for events later the same day back in Nashville, where she couldn’t find anyone who knew how to work with Black hair and Black skin. On Thursday, Nashville's the TENNESSEAN published a powerful series of articles about the state of race in country music, including essays by DARIUS RUCKER, who remembers "going into the radio stations and being told that they didn't think it was going to work because I was African American," and RISSI PALMER, who "smiled and brushed off microaggressions on a regular basis" before eventually realizing that no one in the city knew the name LINDA MARTELL—the first Black woman to play the GRAND OLE OPRY, half a century ago—and deciding she could do something about that. Forgetfulness can be a powerful weapon. Mickey Guyton fights back pointedly with her debut album, REMEMBER HER NAME, out today.
The album includes Guyton's majestic and angry 2020 Black Lives Matter anthem "BLACK LIKE ME" and her feminist protest song "WHAT ARE YOU GONNA TELL HER?," but also songs like "DIFFERENT" that take a lighter route, celebrating who she is with playground sass and bubblegum pop. "There’s so much on this record that is so positive, that is so inclusive," she told the New York Times' JON CARAMANICA. So many opportunities for the gatekeepers to open the gates and let her in, whether they've been waiting 10 years or 138 years. It's their move.
It's Friday
And that means there's also new music from 2018's Best New Artist, ALESSIA CARA, who gets introspective on her third album, IN THE MEANTIME, recorded during lockdown between Zoom writing sessions and making PowerPoint presentations and mood boards for her label. "And, like, I hold these board meetings, and I'm sure that they hate them," she tells Billboard. "They say that they don’t!"... And 2011's Best New Artist, ESPERANZA SPALDING, whose SONGWRIGHTS APOTHECARY LAB grew out of her musical therapy and songwriting workshops of the same name, which she began organizing and leading during the pandemic. "I wanted to see how a research-informed approach to writing could respond to questions that came out of being stuck in the pandemic," she tells Tidal Magazine. It might respond like this... English singer/songwriter NAO finds lockdown silver linings on the optimistic, R&B-flavored AND THEN LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL, which features collaborations with Lianne La Havas, serpentwithfeet and Adekunle Gold and a desire, as the total track suggests, to "float when there's no control"... YOUNGBOY NEVER BROKE AGAIN, who's been jailed in Louisiana since April while awaiting trial on firearms and drugs charges, follows up his 2020 #1 album, TOP, with SINCERELY, KENTRELL, apparently recorded with no features... The KONDI BAND's WE FAMOUS continues an ongoing collaboration between Sierra Leonean thumb piano player SORIE KONDI—he takes his last name from the particular thumb piano he plays—and Sierra Leonean-American DJ/producer CHIEF BOIMA... SWEET LAND is the album version of the opera of the same name by the innovative LA company the INDUSTRY, about American colonialism... And let's maybe put in a word for the rediscovered, via Third Man Records, oeuvre of the '80s Manchester indie-pop band MAGIC ROUNDABOUT. Recommended if you like: C86.
Plus new music from G-EAZY, POPPY, BOYS NOIZE, MAS AYA, ADA LEA, SUFJAN STEVENS & ANGELO DE AUGUSTINE, D SMOKE, JOEY PURP, NATIVE SOUL, NATALIE IMBRUGLIA, RINGO STARR, THEO CROKER (with guests Kassa Overall, Wyclef Jean and Ari Lennox), HENRY THREADGILL ZOOID, MIHO HAZAMA & THE DANISH RADIO BIG BAND, BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER, CHICK COREA AKOUSTIC BAND (his first posthumous release, a live album with John Patitucci and Dave Weckl), ARTURO O'FARRILL & THE AFRO LATIN JAZZ ENSEMBLE, DAVID SANFORD BIG BAND, the COOKERS, BILLY STRINGS, MAC MCCAUGHAN, MACIE STEWART (of Ohmme), PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING, A PALE HORSE NAMED DEATH, UNTO OTHERS, TREMONTI, BUMMER, WRAITH, VANGELIS, SOJA, SOLEMN BRIGHAM, LAKEYAH & DJ DRAMA, ANTHONY HAMILTON, ITZY, LYRA PRAMUK, PROC FISKAL, NATE MERCEREAU, HAYDEN PEDIGO, VAPORS OF MORPHINE, X AMBASSADORS, ONE STEP CLOSER, CALEB LANDRY JONES, the MUSLIMS, the QUEERS, the OPHELIAS, BADFLOWER, ANGELS & AIRWAVES, COLD WAR KIDS, THIRD EYE BLIND, ABSOLUTELY FREE and the CONNELLS.
Not to mention: JAPANESE BREAKFAST's soundtrack for the video game Sable... A box set celebrating gospel great PASTOR T.L. BARRETT... And the VELVET UNDERGROUND tribute I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR, featuring Michael Stipe, Matt Berninger, Sharon Van Etten, Courtney Barnett and more.
Rest in Peace
Session bassist BOB MOORE, part of Nashville's famed A-Team.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The Tennessean |
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| ‘We risked it all’: Country music’s Black voices are striving to be heard |
| by Dave Paulson |
| It’s no secret that for nearly a century, the country music market has been almost exclusively the domain of white performers - despite roots in Black musical traditions. |
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The Washington Post |
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| Terence Blanchard’s music is the sound of Spike Lee’s movies. Now it’s also making history at the Metropolitan Opera |
| by Michael Andor Brodeur |
| “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” is first production by Black composer to be staged by the Met. |
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The Seattle Times |
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| That magic moment 30 years ago when Nirvana and ‘Nevermind’ forever changed Seattle |
| by Charles R. Cross |
| Nirvana’s unlikely and unprecedented success changed Seattle’s very idea of itself. |
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Pitchfork |
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| The Rap Reissue Market Is Booming. Can It Last? |
| by Mosi Reeves |
| From diversity issues to know-it-all customers, we explore the problems facing rap reissue labels even in this moment of growth. |
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Complex |
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| The Fugees Reunion Show Was Worth the Wait |
| by Andre Gee |
| New seasons bring new moments-and sometimes they reintroduce us to some of our favorite experiences. On the first day of fall 2021, hundreds of lucky New Yorkers got to relive the timelessness of the Fugees. |
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Byta |
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| Digital Blues: The Day-to Day Challenges of Music Sharing -- Part II -- Sending |
| by Shawn Reynaldo |
| Music may begin in the studio, but getting that music out into the world can be a complicated process, especially once labels, mixing and mastering engineers, distributors, publicists, journalists, publishers and all the other links in the chain get involved. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Welcome to the new record business: Warner Music Group is now generating over $270m from TikTok, Peloton, Facebook and other ‘alternative’ platforms annually |
| by Tim Ingham |
| Steve Cooper reveals stunning stat -- and MBW crunches the numbers on what it could mean. |
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NPR |
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| How Japanese Breakfast Crafted The Sounds Of The New Game 'Sable' |
| by Vincent Acovino |
| Musician Michelle Zauner talks about the history and process behind her soundtrack for the new video game Sable - including inspiration from The Secret of Mana and indie legends Yo La Tengo. |
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Billboard |
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| Alessia Cara Contemplates the Big Questions |
| by Jason Lipshutz |
| Ahead of the release of "In The Meantime," Alessia Cara discussed the expectations placed upon modern pop stars, making PowerPoint presentations for her label, and more. |
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Nashville Scene |
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| AmericanaFest 2021: Piloting the AmericanaFest Ship Through Pandemic Waters |
| by Geoffrey Himes |
| Talking with Americana Music Association executive director Jed Hilly about temporary pivots and new directions. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| 'A magic world': An oral history of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' |
| by Randall Roberts and Mikael Wood |
| As 'Blood Sugar Sex Magik' turns 30, here's the inside story of the making of the classic album, as told by the band, producer Rick Rubin and more. |
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Tidal |
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| Rock ’n’ Roller: Ty Segall in Conversation |
| by David Fricke |
| The singer, songwriter and musician on his recent surprise album, ‘Harmonizer,’ softening his breakneck release schedule, and the stack of used LPs that changed his life. |
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Dada Drummer Almanach |
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| Do Androids Stream Electric Sleep? |
| by Damon Krukowski |
| There were two bits of music industry news last week that I’d like to connect, because I believe they point to widespread fraud. |
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The Guardian |
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| Mathematicians discover music really can be infectious -- like a virus |
| by Linda Geddes |
| New music download patterns appear to closely resemble epidemic curves for infectious disease, study finds. |
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Los Angeles Times |
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| How Lil Nas X made the most radical run of queer music videos in pop history |
| by August Brown |
| His musical talents aside, Lil Nas X's startling videos and Instagram imagery have put him at the vanguard of queer iconography in the TikTok era. |
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Vulture |
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| Lil Nas X Deserves a Better Industry |
| by Craig Jenkins |
| Buried under all the frustrating discourse is "Montero," a short, sweet album about learning to love yourself and demanding respect. |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| ‘100 die hard fans are just as powerful as somebody with 100 million followers on Instagram’ |
| by Jack Needham |
| Fave founder Jacquelle Amankonah Horton on the world of internet fandom and how her platform has attracted two of music’s biggest fan communities. |
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The Sydney Morning Herald |
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| The ghost of trip hop is back to haunt your turntable |
| by Cat Woods |
| The Sneaker Pimps, whose 1996 debut lodged itself in the ’90s electronic music zeitgeist, have returned to finish tracks abandoned decades ago. |
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Complex |
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| Meet Spottie WiFi, the CryptoPunk Rapper Who Made $192,000 in 60 Seconds |
| by Alexander Fruchter |
| Mig Mora thought his music career was over in 2012. This year, he released an NFT project that generated more money in 60 seconds than he’d ever made from a full year of releasing music. This is a story all about how. |
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The Guardian |
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| ‘We’re like Mork and Mindy!’ Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, music’s odd couple |
| by Marissa R. Moss |
| Fourteen years after their Grammy-winning debut, the roots duo have reunited - facing high expectations. They explain how they left their comfort zones with a ‘nuts but tasteful’ all-star band. |
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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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