| If you’re a classical musician, you’ll say groove is a rhythm that repeats itself, but that is completely untrue—the perspective changes each time you do it. |
|
 |
 |
| Rosalía at Radio City Music Hall, New York, Sept. 18, 2022. |
| (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) |
|
|
| quote of the day |
|
“If you’re a classical musician, you’ll say groove is a rhythm that repeats itself, but that is completely untrue—the perspective changes each time you do it.”
|
|
- Abel Selaocoe, South African cellist
|
|
|
| rantnrave:// |
Musical Chairs
Caption contest: What are new YOUTUBE hire LYOR COHEN and veteran YouTube business chief ROBERT KYNCL laughing about in the photo atop this 2017 Billboard analysis of what, at the time, was a startling hire of a music biz lifer by one of the music industry’s biggest big-tech pests? Was Kyncl showing Cohen around his new digs? Was he asking Cohen about his old ones?
Some years earlier, Cohen had left his job running recorded music for WARNER MUSIC GROUP, at least partly, if we can believe the reporting, because he didn’t get along with the company’s new CEO, an industry outsider named STEVE COOPER. Now he would be the music business’s unlikely emissary behind enemy lines. And he’d be working for the man who, as no one could have known, would eventually replace Cooper at WMG, the one walking in through the other’s out door, and walking in not as an industry pest but as “one of its most valued partners.”
Funny what $6 billion can do for a frosty relationship.
Wednesday’s not-unexpected announcement that Kyncl will become WMG’s CEO early next year (after a transitional month in which he and Cooper will share the role) was met with high hopes and generally positive vibes. The YouTube strategist, according to the thinking, is the right guy to deal with the music biz’s new high-tech antagonists at companies like TIKTOK and to light the way for one of music’s big three through a Web3 world. Warner’s two bigger rivals, UMG and SONY, are still run by music men, as others have noted. Warner appears to have a different taste in résumés.
Kyncl arrives with headwinds in the form of an extended period of growth for both the company and the business. Can he turn the TikToks and FORTNITEs and METAs of the world into high earners for the music biz, like his old company? (Or you might ask, if you're so inclined, can he help WMG finally see things *their* way?) Can he persuade SPOTIFY and other music streamers to raise their prices the way his old employer, NETFLIX, hasn't been afraid to do? Does he believe, like Cooper, that they should? Can he figure out a way to get a little bit more of that money to his artists and songwriters? Is he a LIZZO guy, a FLEETWOOD MAC guy, or both? Will they see him as theirs?
Rest in Peace
Zimbabwean percussionist LANCELOT MAPFUMO, a long-running member of his brother Thomas’s pioneering chimurenga band, the Blacks Unlimited... Montreal rapper YOUNG A STUNNIN, who was shot to death in his home city Tuesday night. He was at least the 32nd musician murdered worldwide in 2022.
|
| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
RIAA |
|
| Mid-Year 2002 RIAA Revenue Statistics [PDF] |
| By Joshua P. Friedlander and Matthew Bass |
| U.S. recorded music revenues in the first half of 2022 rose 9% to $7.7 billion at estimated retail value, building on the strong growth experienced the prior year. The number of paid subscriptions grew to a record high of 90 million, with revenues up 10% to $5.0 billion and comprising almost two-thirds of the first half total. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| i won't be coming to dinner |
|
|
 |
|
Trapital |
|
| The Music Industry’s Oversaturation Problem |
| By Dan Runcie and Tatiana Cirisano |
| It's never been easier for artists to release music and find an audience in any corner of the world. Likewise, it's never been more difficult for artists to break through the noise. The Internet and streaming services have created a double-edged sword for rising artists. To discuss this, Tatiano Cirisano joined me on the show. |
|
|
 |
|
Black Music and Black Muses |
|
| Like it is, Like it Was |
| By Harmony Holiday |
| On a song by James Brown and when my father was James Brown and Home. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
No Such Thing As Was |
|
| 737 comin' out of the sky |
| By Joe Bonomo |
| There's a moment in the new Netflix documentary "Travelin' Band: Credence Clearwater Revival" at the Royal Albert Hall when drummer Doug Clifford's on a balcony in Paris, knocked out that he's spending his 25th birthday in the City of Lights, gushing about having visited the Louvre and Lois XIV's "playground" like a wide-eyed tourist. Which he was. |
|
|
|
 |
|
Chicago Reader |
|
| Boogie-woogie 2, pandemic 0 |
| By Steve Krakow |
| Pianist Erwin Helfer has survived more than a virus to carry forward the legacy of the progenitors of blues and jazz. |
|
|
| what we're into |
|
| Music | Media |
|
|
|
|
|
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?’” |
|
|
|
|
|
