| There’s always been incredible and talented trans artists, and they have been paid dust. [Sophie's] influence can be heard on practically every popular song these days. But in her lifetime, she didn’t get what she deserved to get. Amanda Lear in the ’70s and ’80s, who was an absolute disco queen, she got paid dust... That same story just keeps repeating over and over for trans girls who have been making exceptional music and have been pushed under the rug... I hope I can help break the cycle. |
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| Little Simz performs at the Mercury Prize ceremony at the Eventim Apollo, London, Oct. 18, 2022. |
| (JMEnternational/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“There’s always been incredible and talented trans artists, and they have been paid dust. [Sophie's] influence can be heard on practically every popular song these days. But in her lifetime, she didn’t get what she deserved to get. Amanda Lear in the ’70s and ’80s, who was an absolute disco queen, she got paid dust... That same story just keeps repeating over and over for trans girls who have been making exceptional music and have been pushed under the rug... I hope I can help break the cycle.”
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- Kim Petras
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| rantnrave:// |
Beyond the Stale
I’m not in any position to challenge the feelings of hip-hop insiders like SPOTIFY’s CARL CHERY or POWER 106’s LETTY PENICHE that hip-hop in 2022 might be stale. “My concern is that the magic is gone,” Chery tells Billboard in a story that wonders why hip-hop’s US market share appears to be dropping a tad in 2022, even though it’s still the most popular genre based on streaming and sales figures. He and others say the genre’s superstars aren’t producing hits like they did a few years ago and not enough newcomers are coming up to fill the rap gap. You can find similar complaints elsewhere and I’m not, I repeat, in any position to doubt them, and I’m all for challenging artists, producers and their support systems to think harder about what they do. You should read on. I do, however, wonder about the industry numbers themselves, which, in this case, come from LUMINATE research that treats genre as a zero-sum entity in which any given song can be R&B/hip-hop or pop or rock or country or Latin or jazz (or any other such label) but can’t be more than one of them. A BAD BUNNY track can’t be Latin *and* hip-hop *and* pop even if it has very clear elements of all three (and more). This is, and always has been, a weird way of categorizing popular music, useful as it may be for marketing, sales, programming and other such purposes. Hip-hop very much remains the dominant force in Western popular music, if not all of Western popular culture, and not just because DRAKE and FUTURE and NBA YOUNGBOY exist. Hip-hop’s ideas and building blocks have long been absorbed in one way or another by nearly every other genre of popular music. Jazz musicians use hip-hop beats and production ideas. Country singers employ its cadences. Pop and hip-hop are often quite literally the exact same thing. And on and on through K-pop and rock and metal and more. How does the industry officially measure that? And what does the industry see in this chart, courtesy of HITS DAILY DOUBLE, of the 100 most streamed artists in 2022, which isn’t separated by genre, it just it what is, from Drake and Youngboy at the top to MIGOS and (OK, probably not hip-hop) GEORGE STRAIT at the bottom? You may or not like any given artist on it. But you'll see a pattern. “I’m always worried about where [hip-hop is] heading,” Chery tells Billboard in the end. “But music is cyclical. I don’t think we’ll ever live in a world where hip-hop isn’t the most influential type of music and culture... Hip-hop will always be in this position where it just helps shape [culture] and makes everything move.” I’m not sure I believe that, exactly; 50 years from now, the world could look and sound very different. Maybe hip-hop will be what rock is now, whatever that might mean to you. But for the foreseeable, actionable future, we still in the hiphopverse, and maybe some of its residents could stand to make better records, but that’s a question of taste, not mindshare or market share.
Etc Etc Etc
Inflation at GLASTONBURY... JANN WENNER vs. a certain lawyer in the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME class of 2022 (the only story you’ll read this week that uses the accusation “ex-post facto hogwash”)... LITTLE SIMZ wins the MERCURY PRIZE for her acclaimed 2021 album, SOMETIMES I MIGHT BE INTROVERT. The Mercury ceremony, honoring the year’s best British or Irish album, was rescheduled from Sept. 8, the day QUEEN ELIZABETH died, to Tuesday night. Albums by HARRY STYLES, WET LEG and KOJEY RADICAL were among the other notable finalists.... A DAILY SHOW history of reggaeton... Can relaxing cat music really tame your manic cat?
Rest in Peace
Pompadoured rockabilly revivalist ROBERT GORDON, who flirted with rock stardom in the late 1970s with a pair of albums made with early rocker Link Wray and the original versions of Bruce Springsteen’s “Fire” and Marshall Crenshaw’s “Someday, Someway.” “If the Pointer Sisters hadn’t come along with their version of ‘Fire,’” he said of the pop hit they released just months after his, “we could’ve had something there.” Wider fame never came for Gordon, but a handful of film roles and another 20-plus albums did... Popular Haitian singer/songwriter/producer MIKABEN, who suffered an apparent heart attack onstage in Paris Saturday night. He was “one of the most influential and inspirational young artists of our generation,” Wyclef Jean said... ANDY MCKAIE, a onetime music critic and publicist who oversaw reissues at MCA Records for nearly 30 years.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Money 4 Nothing |
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| The Music Catalog Acquisition Cool Down |
| By Saxon Baird and Sam Backer |
| In the past few months, the insane flood of money that has been flowing into the purchase of music rights has begun to slow down. But…is all lost for these companies? We dig into the ways in which, profitable business model be damned, the sheer weight of capital in this sector may have already begun to bend the industry in its direction. |
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Pollstar |
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| The Live Scribe: VNC x ACL x Austin -- Live Music Glory |
| By Andy Gensler |
| Does the capital of the Lone Star State really live up to its moniker "The Live Music Capital of the World?" If four-and-a-half days in Austin, which coincided with the fifth annual VenuesNow Conference, the 21st annual Austin City Limits festival and the usual run of wondrous local repertoire, is any indication, then heck yeah! |
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DownBeat |
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| Charles Lloyd: Surrendering to the Higher Power |
| By Phillip Lutz |
| Flying on an early summer night in a season of tricky air travel, Charles Lloyd’s plane from Ottawa, Canada, touched down in New Jersey dangerously close to showtime. Catching a car from Newark Airport, he reached Sony Hall in Midtown Manhattan with only minutes to gather his bandmates backstage for their pre-performance prayer. |
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1A |
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| How Atlanta became America's 'Rap Capital' |
| By Arfie Ghedi, Joe Coscarelli and Jonathan Abrams |
| Atlanta's music scene is defined by rap -- from OutKast to Lil Baby and Migos. A new book tells the story of how we got here. |
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The Seattle Times |
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| Is West Seattle the rock ’n’ roll capital of Seattle? |
| By Michael Rietmulder |
| It feels like a missed marketing opportunity. There's no mention on the "Welcome to West Seattle" sign greeting drivers sloping up the end of the newly reopened West Seattle Bridge. |
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kill yr idols |
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| The Masked Critic |
| By George Grella |
| Back on the classical music scene, does anyone know that there's a viral pandemic going on? |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Unholy” |
| Sam Smith & Kim Petras |
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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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