| The day before yesterday, I received a note from musicians in Kyiv asking me to send them sheet music so they could continue practicing. You go crazy from all of the explosions otherwise. They don't want to evacuate, but they told me: 'We have to keep practicing and making music so that we can remain human.' |
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| Ethiopian-Ukrainian hip-hop trio Fo Sho in Kyiv, Feb. 15, 2020. |
| (Pavlo Bagmut/Future Publishing/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
It's Friday
Maybe the poppiest Friday of 2022, with a sprinkle of irony here, a dash of subversion there and hooks here, there and everywhere (and possibly one 97-year-old piano-playing superhero for which pop means Claude Debussy; we'll see)... ROSALÍA, the globalist Spanish pop star who's somehow managed to never have a US top 40 hit, is here to remind us that "I contradict myself, I transform, I'm everything." That's the New York Times' English translation of a chant from "Saoko," the brash, minimalist lead track on Rosalía's third album, MOTOMAMI, which the Times says she set out to make with "no guitars (dominant as they were in her earlier music), 'super aggressive' drums, and lots of keys but minimal vocal harmonies." Reviewing the album for the New Yorker, Carrie Battan notes, "So much of pop's globalism is about smoothing the stylistic edges of genres and eras to make them more palatable, but Rosalía is invested in exposing the seams." Also: "Chicken Teriyaki"... GAYLE captures the edge of being seventeen on her debut EP, A STUDY OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE VOLUME ONE, which features her F-bomb-dropping single "abcdefu" and, why not, its F-bomb-dropping followup. "Life is f***ing weird," the 17-year-old pop-punk sensation told Rolling Stone. It's "so hard, but it’s so lovely at the same time. And that’s really confusing. Especially when you’re growing up." And that's not to mention the awful boyfriends with their Craigslist couches. Fun fact: The Texas-via-Nashville teen had been working through her confusion as a fledgling songwriter for several years before she said "f*** it" and hit pop gold with "abcdefu." There may be a lesson in there for future fledgling songwriters... CHARLI XCX's fifth album, CRASH, is already the matter of some debate as to whether her attempt at making a proper dance-pop album after years of sideways glances at the genre is her sidewaysiest glance of all or a commercial car crash. "Unabashed pop glitter—with a wink," Rolling Stone's Julyssa Lopez writes. "Feels less like a smart concept than a shrug," counters the Guardian's Alexis Petridis. This RINA SAWAYAMA collaboration is basically a three-minute-long hook that skates gloriously over the difference... Ninety-seven-year-old RUTH SLENCZYNSKA is the last living piano student of Sergei Rachmaninoff—he taught her that piano playing is meaningless unless it has color—and her MY LIFE IN MUSIC features pieces by him, her old friend Samuel Barber and others. It reunites her with Decca Records, for which she last recorded during the Kennedy presidency. He's one of the five presidents she's played for.
Plus new music from CHEVY WOODS, SEPTEMBERSRICH, LORD JAH-MONTE OGBON (out Saturday), STRAY KIDS, SONIC YOUTH (mostly instrumental rarities), SON HOUSE (unreleased 1964 recordings), DELIA MESHLIR, WEEZER ("SZNZ: Spring" EP due Sunday, the spring equinox), PLURALONE (aka Josh Klinghoffer), JOEL ROSS, MARQUIS HILL, BRAD MEHLDAU, EUBANKS EVANS EXPERIENCE (guitarist Kevin Eubanks & pianist Orrin Evans), DANILO PÉREZ FEAT. THE GLOBAL MESSENGERS, MIDLAKE, RAY WYLIE HUBBARD, HAILEY WHITTERS, CYPRESS HILL, ARRDEE, MARMAR OSO, AEVITERNE, DARK FUNERAL, SLAEGT, HINAKO OMORI, ROBERT HAIGH, BOGDAN RACZYNSKI, DANIELIA COTTON, MATTIEL, YUMI ZOUMA, PLOSIVS (members of Pinback, Drive Like Jehu, Against Me!), HOT WATER MUSIC, FEEDER, PUNKO, OSO OSO, MICKY DOLENZ (sings more Michael Nesmith songs), the DUKE ROBILLARD BAND, COLIN HAY, STABBING WESTWARD, BLUE STATES, PINCH POINTS, the GREAT KAT, GARETH DUNLOP, CODY BELEW, RANDALL KING, and the AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC ENSEMBLE's premiere recording of the late composer JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON's 2015 DRONE MASS.
Hall of Many Colors
The ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME is keeping DOLLY PARTON on its 2022 ballot, which had already been mailed to the Hall's 1,200 voters when Parton announced Monday she'd rather not be considered. In a statement released Thursday, the Hall noted rock's "deep roots in Rhythm & Blues and Country music" and said it sees itself as "not defined by any one genre, rather a sound that moves youth culture."
"I still didn’t feel right about it," Parton said on FOX & FRIENDS. "It kind of would be like putting AC/DC in the Country Music Hall of Fame."
"Her humility," said the Hall, whose first class of inductees in 1986 included Country Hall of Famers JIMMIE RODGERS, RAY CHARLES and the EVERLY BROTHERS, "is another reason Dolly is a beloved icon by millions of fans around the world."
It seems likely her humility has also killed any chance of the 1,200 voters actually electing her to the Hall, but we'll see soon enough.
In other hall of fame news, JOHNNIE TAYLOR, LUCILLE BOGAN, LITTLE WILLIE JOHN, OTIS BLACKWELL and MARY KATHERINE ALDIN will be inducted into the BLUES HALL OF FAME in May. Two of the five inductees, connected to each other by this R&B classic (consider that link a spoiler for this sentence) are also in the Rock Hall.
Rest in Peace
Rapper KEVIN "THE LAST SOULMAN" JONES, of Detroit hip-hop pioneers A.W.O.L.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The New York Times |
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| Rosalía Reserves the Right to Transform |
| By Joe Coscarelli |
| The Spanish pop singer, known for her reinvention of flamenco, has smashed together new sounds from the Latin world and beyond on her latest album, “Motomami,” out on Friday. |
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KEXP |
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| Creating Music and Community at a Liquor Store Day Job |
| By Emily Fox and James Bookert |
| James Bookert used to tour with a well-known bluegrass punk band, Whiskey Shivers. After burnout and a battle with seizures, Bookert is making new music and community at his day job at a local liquor store. |
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NPR Music |
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| Records That Changed Our Lives, Grown Woman Edition: Santigold and 'Muthaland' : All Songs Considered |
| By Ann Powers, Christina Lee and Dawnie Walton |
| Writer, editor and novelist Dawnie Walton first heard Santigold's self-titled album in her 30s, and it remained a companion of hers through pivotal moments in her career and personal life. For writer and podcaster Christina Lee, bbymutha's "Muthaland" has served as a crucial reminder that growth takes time, and self-assurance is more important than status. |
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The New York Times |
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| Where Jazz Lives Now |
| By Giovanni Russonello |
| The jazz club, with its dim lighting and closely packed tables, looms large in our collective imagination. But today, the music is thriving in a host of different spaces. |
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Do the M@th |
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| New Cecil and the Old Crew in ’70s NYC: A Remembrance |
| By Richard Scheinin |
| Go ahead. Jump in. The Cecil Taylor Unit of the early 1970s was a weather system - blizzards of notes, torrential, flooding your senses with its accumulating velocity. To see Taylor at that moment, was to be overwhelmed, lifted, stunned — this was stunning music, literally. |
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Bandcamp Daily |
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| The Ballad of Cherokee Rose |
| By Brad Sanders |
| Don Giovanni gives two albums by the Indigenous singer/songwriter the audience they always deserved. |
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Tidal |
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| Rita Marley: Nana, Queen, Empress |
| By Reshma B |
| Both during her historic marriage to Bob and after his 1981 passing, the reggae matriarch has preached the one-love philosophy while nurturing and protecting the Marley legacy. Now 75, she deserves her flowers more than ever. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Black Sqr” |
| Fo Sho |
| Sisters Betty, Miriyam and Siona Endale grew up in Kharkiv and discovered pop music from Michael Jackson, Spice Girls and Eminem records. Their parents immigrated from Ethiopia in the 1980s. |
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| Music | Media |
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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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