| Am I mad that Olivia Rodrigo sold 76,000 vinyl copies of her album? Not at all! This is what I would have dreamed of when we started Third Man — that the biggest frontline artists are all pushing vinyl, and that young kids are into it. |
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Maxo Kream in Houston, Aug. 28, 2021. "Weight of the World" is out today on Big Persona/88 Classic/RCA.
(Gary Miller/Getty Images)
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“Am I mad that Olivia Rodrigo sold 76,000 vinyl copies of her album? Not at all! This is what I would have dreamed of when we started Third Man — that the biggest frontline artists are all pushing vinyl, and that young kids are into it.”
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It's Norman F***ing Friday
And that means LANA DEL REY's BLUE BANISTERS is here, just a little behind schedule, like so much in 2021. On her second album this year, Del Rey takes a break from her favored producer of recent years, Jack Antonoff, and surprises with a set of songs that Pitchfork's Sam Sodomsky says offers "a sense of playfulness, unguardedness, and freedom... stripped of the aesthetic borders she often places around her work"... Experimental pop artist HELADO NEGRO is "as hymnal as David Bowie's 'Blackstar' without the finality" on FAR IN, writes AD Amorosi in Flood Magazine. Filmmaker Wim Wenders provided inspiration for the album's themes and new age star Laraaji inadvertently provided the title... ELTON JOHN collaborates with Dua Lipa, Young Thug, Lil Nas X, Brandi Carlile, Stevie Wonder, Stevie Nicks and basically anyone who's ever made a record on his pandemic boredom album THE LOCKDOWN SESSIONS, which, in the Dua Lipa duet "Cold Heart," has already given him his first Billboard top 40 hit of the century... MAXO KREAM, who "might be the single greatest rap storyteller to come along in the past decade" (per Stereogum's Tom Breihan), continues mining his family for his stories on WEIGHT OF THE WORLD—including, tragically, his brother Money Madu, who was murdered in 2020... JARVIS COCKER's CHANSONS D'ENNUI is an album of French pop covers released as a companion piece to Wes Anderson's film "The French Dispatch."
Plus new music from MY MORNING JACKET, BKTHERULA, JPEGMAFIA, WALE, BIG ZUU, SELF ESTEEM, DURAN DURAN, LADY A (the Nashville one, not the Seattle one), PARQUET COURTS, ANGEL DU$T (Baltimore hardcore feat. members of Turnstile and Trapped Under Ice), KING BRITT & TYSHAWN SOREY, GROUPER, DUA SALEH, MAJID JORDAN, MRLEY, NORMAN BLAKE (the folk guitarist guy, not the Teenage Fanclub guy), EVERY TIME I DIE, 1914, WORM, CRADLE OF FILTH, COGNOS, STARSET, POUYA, LONELY GUEST, ROSS FROM FRIENDS, HERBERT (aka Matthew Herbert), HAND HABITS (aka guitarist Meg Duffy), DEERHOOF, BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT, CIRCUIT DES YEUX, HONNE, TENILLE ARTS, ZACHARY WILLIAMS (of the Lone Bellow), DILLON CARMICHAEL, TONSTARTSSBANDHT, LA LUZ, STRANGE RANGER, CLINIC, WET, BIFFY CLYRO, BLACK MARBLE, MILDRED MAUDE, AARON & THE LORD (Aaron Perino of the Sheila Devine), SPIRIT WAS, GUIDED BY VOICES... And the KAWHI LEONARD-curated hip-hop comp CULTURE JAM VOL. 1.
Etc Etc Etc
BTS is switching US distributors, according to reports in Billboard and Variety. SONY, which ran its BTS relationship through COLUMBIA and the ORCHARD, is out and UNIVERSAL is in, specifically UMG divisions GEFFEN and INGROOVES. According to Billboard's COLIN STUTZ, Columbia boss RON PERRY had a close relationship with the K-pop group—he has a songwriting credit on the 2021 single "BUTTER"—but hasn't met with BANG SI-HYUK, chairman of BTS backer HYBE (formerly BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT), since the BTS/Sony deal was signed... In theaters today is LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER, director JESSE LAUTER's account of JOE COCKER's infamous 1970 MAD DOGS & ENGLISHMEN tour and the TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND's attempt to recreate it with many of the same players 45 years later. "A joyful noise," writes the New York Times' GLENN KENNY... In Las Vegas and in the metaverse today is the ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL, which organizers say will be the first festival streamed in ROBLOX, where each of the fest's stages have been re-created. Performers include the CHAINSMOKERS, ALISON WONDERLAND, MARTIN GARRIX, TIËSTO and DEADMAU5... The COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD has posted SPOTIFY's, AMAZON's and PANDORA's proposals for songwriter and publisher royalties for the years 2023–27, and they're lower than what the CRB already approved for 2018–22 (but which have been under appear for several years). GARRETT LEVIN of the DIGITAL MEDIA ASSOCIATION, which represents all of those services, explains... The revelations of PEOPLE MAD AT OPERA.
Rest in Peace
BERNARD HAITINK, longtime conductor of Amsterdam's ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA.
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| Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Complex |
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| Inside the New Life of Music Publicists in an Era of Social Media Backlash |
| by Andre Gee |
| A notable amount of the commentary surrounding DaBaby’s homophobic comments at Rolling Loud Miami centered on publicists. DaBaby’s initial refusal to apologize had many people tweeting and sharing memes about how stressed his publicists must have been in those chaotic moments. |
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The Guardian |
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| Countdown to ecstasy: how music is being used in healing psychedelic trips |
| by Michelle Lhooq |
| Jon Hopkins timed his upcoming album to the length of a ketamine high, while apps are using AI music to tailor drug experiences. Welcome to a techno-chemical new frontier. |
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The New York Times |
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| Vinyl Is Selling So Well That It’s Getting Hard to Sell Vinyl |
| by Ben Sisario |
| Left for dead in the 1980s, vinyl records are now the music industry’s most popular and highest-grossing physical format. Getting them manufactured, however, is increasingly a challenge. |
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Billboard |
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| With ‘Essence,’ Wizkid Wants to Chart a Global Course for African Artists |
| by Heran Mamo |
| With Hot 100 top 10 hit (and potential Big Four contender) “Essence,” Wizkid has a global audience listening and is bringing African artists along for the rise. |
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Slate |
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| Twitter’s Funniest, Weirdest Ex–Rock Star Explains Himself |
| by Luke Winkie |
| Eve 6 was never the biggest band. But now, it’s one of the best Twitter follows. |
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The Seattle Times |
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| Can KEXP help the Kraken make arena music cool? |
| by Michael Rietmulder |
| The Seattle hockey team has tapped the taste-making Seattle radio station to consult on its game-day music programming. |
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Lawyer Drummer |
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| Every Musician Should Understand SoundExchange |
| by Kurt Dahl |
| In today's music business, every musician and producer needs to understand and collect all the various streams of revenue that they are entitled to from their songs. |
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| 'We Get More and More Inside the Stage': An Interview With Robert Glasper |
| by Lara Gamble |
| Ahead of Robert Glasper’s Blue Note residency, Lara Gamble catches up with him on early inspirations and iconic collaborations. |
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GQ |
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| Italian Rap Star Ghali Is Forcing a Reckoning on Racism |
| by Luke Leitch |
| The Milanese musician talks blackface, big hits, and breaking down doors in the insular Italian rap game. |
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France 24 |
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| UK's last cassette shop reels in nostalgic music lovers |
| Tucked away in a corner of the top floor of an indoor market in Manchester is the last shop in Britain dedicated to selling cassettes. |
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Vogue |
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| 73* Questions With Adele |
| by Adele |
| If you're hoping to hear Adele belt out some "Hello" lyrics and put them through the *Alvin and the Chipmunks* simulator on her phone, well...you're in luck. Watch as Adele tours her Los Angeles home and answers 73* rapid-fire questions. |
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Billboard |
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| Cognitive Dissonance: Squaring Booming Industry Revenues & Valuing Songwriters |
| by Garrett Levin |
| Digital Media Association head Garrett Levin asks that we look beyond the rhetoric of songwriters versus streaming services. |
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The Guardian |
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| Elton John: ‘I can still explode at any moment. I just have terrible feelings about myself’ |
| by Ben Beaumont-Thomas |
| Despite a dodgy hip, the superstar remains youthful thanks to pop star friends like Dua Lipa - but is still struggling with anger and childhood trauma. He explains how fatherhood is making him a better man. |
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The New York Times |
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| Questlove Looks at 50 Years of Modern Music — and Modern History |
| by Lauretta Charlton |
| In “Music Is History,” the Roots’ frontman tells a story of America that begins in 1971, the year he was born. |
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TechCrunch |
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| Apple’s new music subscription plan is likely an audacious attempt at improving Siri |
| by Manish Singh |
| I can’t imagine any other compelling reason why the Apple Music Voice plan exists. |
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Afropop Worldwide |
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| The Enigma of Baba Sora |
| by Banning Eyre |
| Foutanga Babani Sissoko, known also as Baba Sora, was one of the most generous patrons of Malian musicians, particularly griots, in modern times. His gifts of cash, gold, cars and houses are legendary, and the amount of music he inspired was voluminous. But the source of all those riches turned out to be dubious, to say the least. |
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Okayplayer |
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| How Maxo Kream Turned Personal Tragedy into the ‘Weight of the World’ |
| by Anthony Malone |
| We spoke with Maxo Kream about the making of "Weight of the World," paying tribute to his brother, his relationship with Tyler, the Creator, as well as the importance of vulnerability in his music. |
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Song Exploder |
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| Song Exploder: Willow – 'Transparent Soul' |
| by Hrishikesh Hirway and Willow Smith |
| Willow Smith is a singer and songwriter from Los Angeles. She’s also a member of one of the most famous families in the world. I talked to her about how her upbringing and her musical evolution from her early pop star days influenced the way she made “Transparent Soul” was co-written with Tyler Cole, and features Travis Barker on drums. |
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CAFE |
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| The Activist Rock Star (with Steven Van Zandt) |
| by Preet Bharara and Stevie Van Zandt |
| Preet Bharara interviews Steven Van Zandt, an actor and musician known as the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and as Silvio on "The Sopranos." |
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From "Far In," out today on 4AD.
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Playing in New York starting today, Los Angeles next week and select cities in between.
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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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