There is definitely a young girl audience, mostly coming from TikTok, with very little experience of even attending shows. They tell me, ‘This is one of my first shows,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s amazing. I hope you go to so many more.’
Open in browser
Friday July 22, 2022
REDEF
Lili Trifilio of Beach Bunny at Coachella, April 16, 2022.
(Frazer Harrison//Getty Images)
quote of the day
There is definitely a young girl audience, mostly coming from TikTok, with very little experience of even attending shows. They tell me, ‘This is one of my first shows,’ and I’m like, ‘That’s amazing. I hope you go to so many more.’
- Lili Trifilio, of Beach Bunny, whose second album, "Emotional Creature," is out today on Mom + Pop
rantnrave://
It’s Friday

And “somebody’s gonna figure me out,” Lili Trifilio sings on the first song on the second album by her band, BEACH BUNNY, with a clarity and confidence that suggests she knows that you know that if the immediate object of her affection doesn’t figure her out, somebody else is going to, probably before the next chorus comes around. EMOTIONAL CREATURES is another album of effortlessly catchy guitar-pop choruses framed by nearly as catchy verses about the ups and downs of romance articulated with the kind of emo immediacy that wins you multiple viral TIKTOK hits along with celebrity indie-rock fans like, in this exact case, Bob Odenkirk. He’s headed for a Cinnabon in Omaha, Neb., in a matter of weeks, as any “Better Call Saul” fan knows. Beach Bunny seems poised for something bigger...

Celebrated SoundCloud rapper RICO NASTY’s “tough-as-nails exterior gives way to a sweeter, softer core” on LAS RUINAS, Stereogum’s James Rettig says. It is, for her, “a more low-key, less aggressive project”... FLO MILLI doubles down on her own tough, sassy, wise-cracking exterior on her second (or first, depending who’s counting) album, YOU STILL HERE, HO?, which got a surprise Wednesday release, and which suggests her interior and exterior are in sync. The beats are deliciously minimalist, as if reluctant to get in her way... “The internet’s gone wild watching movie stars on trial / While they’re overturning Roe v. Wade,” BILLIE EILISH sings on “TV,” one of two songs anchored by acoustic guitars on her GUITAR SONGS single, released with no advance notice Thursday. “The melody of each line seems to tumble,” Laura Snapes writes in the Guardian, “each one a crumbling empire delivered in her tremulous, feather-light voice”...

Pianist CHUCHO VALDÉS and alto sax/clarinetist PAQUITO D’RIVERA, principals in the great Cuban jazz band Irakere, reunite on record for the first time in more than 40 years on I MISSED YOU TOO!... COLDER STREAMS is the 11th album by Toronto roots rockers the SADIES, who, in the words of founding singer/guitarist Dallas Good, “certainly don’t claim to have re-invented the wheel. We just are. And have been for a very long time.” It’s their final album with Good, who died in February. “While the haunting echo of Dallas Good’s voice will stick with you,” Maeri Ferguson writes in No Depression, “'Colder Streams' is more than a startlingly beautiful legacy for Good. It is the work of a band at their most accomplished, most driven.”

Also today: New music from Odesza, Joey Bada$$, Jack White, Ty Segall, Shordie Shordie, 26AR, Icewear Vezzo, Mozzy, Nina Nastasia, Tanya Tagaq (remixes), DaniLeigh, Aquakultre, Cuco, Carlos Niño & Friends, Sasha Berliner, Sture Ericson/Pat Thomas/Raymond Strid, Nicolle Galyon (hit country songwriter’s first album), John Moreland, Ben Harper, Julien Baker (b-sides EP, released Thursday), RZA/Bobby Digital (soundtrack to RZA’s graphic novel “Bobby Digital and the Pit of Snakes,” also out today), Eli Fross, Asian Doll, Nwando Ebizie, Karl Sanders (of Nile), Imperial Triumphant, Oceans of Slumber, Witchery, Palisades, Nebula, Sonagi, ZZ Top (live, with the late Dusty Hill), Sam Prekop & John McEntire, Thor Harris, Rafael Anton Irisarri, Dawes, She & Him (Brian Wilson covers album), Bananarama, Gilbert O’Sullivan, quinn, Sean Nicholas Savage, the Kooks, Oh Wonder, Spacemoth, Rusty Santos, Color Green, Pool Kids, the Heavy Heavy and Traams.

Hit Me With Your Best

I’d happily pay $9.99 a month for a subscription music service that was nothing more than this one playlist. The single best thing in the streaming music universe and I don’t think anything else comes close... In Baltimore, JONATHON HEYWARD becomes “the only Black American conductor leading a major U.S. symphony orchestra and just the second in history”... PAT BENATAR isn’t singing “HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT” on her current tour (which hits New Buffalo, Mich., tonight), out of respect to victims of recent mass shootings. The song title “is tongue-in-cheek,” she tells USA Today, “but you have to draw the line. I can’t say those words out loud with a smile on my face, I just can’t. I’m not going to go on stage and soapbox—I go to my legislators—but that’s my small contribution to protesting”... GLADYS KNIGHT, U2, TANIA LEÓN and AMY GRANT will be this year’s KENNEDY CENTER honorees (along with some actor dude from Kentucky who probably doesn’t even play an instrument)... KAROL G, whose nine awards included Album of the Year and Best Girl Power Collab (with BECKY G) and GRUPO FIRME were the big winners at Univision's PREMIOS JUVENTUD Thursday night in San Juan.

Rest in Peace

Blues singer and actress SHONKA DUKUREH, who played Big Mama Thornton in Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis."

- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
in return
Stereogum
Beach Bunny’s Big Breakthrough
By Nina Corcoran
The Chicago pop-rockers and surprise TikTok darlings take us deep inside the making of their new album, the vulnerable and infectious "Emotional Creature."
Pitchfork
Four Tet on His 155-Hour Spotify Playlist, the Coolest Thing on Streaming
By Andy Cush
Following the zigzagging path of his curatorial mind, the producer has compiled one of the most kinetic and personal playlists online-with 1,847 tracks and counting.
VAN Magazine
The Price of Luck: How Classism Kills Musical Creativity
By Aidan Clare Ramsay
People don't win this game by being good at it, they win by being able to foot the bill. 
Music Business Worldwide
Bertelsmann could invest as much as $1bn in 2022 to help BMG buy catalog rights (if it wins the race for Pink Floyd)
By Tim Ingham
If you thought that rising interest rates and financial stability had put paid to the boom in music rights acquisitions, think again; with two significant deals in less than a week -- first Simple Minds and now Jean-Michel Jarre -- BMG says otherwise.
The Ringer
Issa Rae’s ‘Rap Sh!t’ Is the Show We Thought ‘Atlanta’ Would Be
By Alison Herman
Following on the success of ‘Insecure’, the HBO Max comedy explores the grit and grind of achieving fame, rather than the effects of it.
Robb Report
At LA’s Hottest Supper Club, A-List Musicians Perform While You Eat Caviar and Pasta
By Andy Wang
Verse has serious talent on the mics--and a budding one in the kitchen too.
The New York Times
Amanda Shires Isn’t Letting Nashville, or Her Marriage, Off the Hook
By Lindsay Zoladz
The singer, songwriter and fiddler found comfort with an unexpected collaborator and plumbed new depths on her latest album, “Take It Like a Man.”
MusicRadar
Fender CEO Andy Mooney on the company's big plans to shake up home recording and why it's been successful reaching a new generation of guitar players
By Rob Laing
"My belief was that we can take the talent and the brand equity of PreSonus and create the equivalent of Fender Play for recording, i.e, a product that’s globally accessible and very intuitive to use."
MusicWatch
'Talking ‘Bout My Generation': the New Era of Vinyl Record Buyers
By Russ Crupnick
A generation born during the vinyl drought of the ‘90’s and aughts is helping to drive a renaissance we’ll call “Vinyl 2.0”.  And it begs the question, how is this generation different from those who bought during “Vinyl 1.0”?
Tidal
Jeff Buckley: The Lost Interview
By Tony Gervino
In this previously unpublished conversation from 1994, captured just days before the release of ‘Grace,’ the mythic singer-songwriter pushes through self-doubt, professes his undying love for the Smiths and New York City, and interprets a dream wherein he critiqued a serial killer’s photography. 
a moment apart
Billboard
30 Years Later, Ghostface Killah Remains Staten Island’s Most Beloved Son
By Shaheem Reid
"They always say Staten Island is the 'forgotten borough,'" says the RZA. "Thanks to one [of] its favorite sons, Ghostface, it can't be forgotten."
ELLE UK
Songs In The Key Of Lizzo
By Kenya Hunt
Three Grammys, a critically acclaimed TV show and a revolutionary new shapewear line into her career, Lizzo’s album is her biggest mission yet. She tells Kenya Hunt about the loves, the lows and the many lessons that got her here.
Music Business Worldwide
On SoundCloud’s new deal with Warner Music (or why the debate over Fan-Powered Royalties is more complicated than ‘fairness’).
By Tim Ingham
What happens when just under half of Warner Music Group’s artist base begins to earn less money from an important streaming service?
Mixmag
Why we started the Black Artist Database
By Kay Ferdinand
B.A.D., as is by now well documented, started out as Black Bandcamp. The goal then remains one of our goals today: to get more Black people paid off Black music.
Okayplayer
The Need For Black Sign Language Interpreters In Hip-Hop
By Jewel Wicker
Black sign language interpreters are fighting for visibility in hip-hop both on and offline.
USA TODAY
Pat Benatar refuses to sing 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot' after gun violence: 'You have to draw the line'
By Melissa Ruggieri
After 40-plus years, Pat Benatar is still standing with a defiant smile. She talks about gun violence, women in rock and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Pitchfork
Trans Women DJs Are Taking Over the Club
By Delilah Friedler
Artists including Jasmine Infiniti, Honey Dijon, Juliana Huxtable, and Eris Drew are lighting up dancefloors and seeing their collective influence reflected back.
The Guardian
‘There are still battles to be had, but it’s incredible’: the female DJs finally getting their dues
By Jumi Akinfenwa
They’ve been overlooked, underpaid and told they couldn’t mix. Now, however, female DJs are heading for the history books. We talk to them about a lifetime on the decks - and finding a home in gay clubs.
Detroit Metro Times
Sada Baby’s wild ride
By Kahn Santori Davison
The Detroit rapper talks his beginnings, becoming a Blood, avoiding a RICO, and lobster Alfredo.
Chicago Reader
Living with Muddy
By Deitra Farr
You may have heard that Muddy Waters’s Chicago home is becoming a blues museum. Now you can hear from two women in his family who lived there.
what we're into
Music of the day
“Entropy”
Beach Bunny
From "Emotional Creature."
Video of the day
“Rap Sh!t”
HBO Max
Music | Media
SUBSCRIBE
Suggest a link
“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?’”
Jason Hirschhorn
CEO & Chief Curator
HOME | ABOUT | SETS | PRESS
Redef Group Inc.
LA - NY - Everywhere
Copyright ©2021
UNSUBSCRIBE or MANAGE MY SUBSCRIPTION