| I didn't want to be like any other guitarist. I didn't go out of my way to be different. I just had an ear for what was wrong. So if I did something that was wrong, i.e. made a mistake or did something that wasn't in key, I was open-minded enough to listen to it again. |
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| Sudan Archives at the Metropol in Berlin, Nov, 13, 2022. |
| (Frank Hoensch/Redferns/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“I didn't want to be like any other guitarist. I didn't go out of my way to be different. I just had an ear for what was wrong. So if I did something that was wrong, i.e. made a mistake or did something that wasn't in key, I was open-minded enough to listen to it again.”
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- Keith Levene, 1957 – 2022
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| rantnrave:// |
Non Fungible Permission
Every music format raises new questions—or the same old questions—about how, and how much, to compensate the artists, songwriters and other creators responsible for the music within. Sometimes these questions get worked out before the format actually goes to market.
LOL, J/K, no they don’t. Take, for example, NFTs. One of the promises of selling (or leasing, or whatever you want to call it) music via digital tokens was that the rights associated with the music would be transparent, and any financial transactions, including royalty payments, would be instantaneous and fair. Which sounds good on paper (or on silicon chips, or whatever they may be), but NFTs come in potentially infinite forms, as does the music they might contain and the rights associated with it.
What’s the proper compensation, instantaneous or otherwise, for a songwriter who holds a 30 percent publishing interest in one song on an album that's the centerpiece of a series of tokens that include digital access to the album but also vinyl copies and custom artwork and various “experiences” such as a new, custom song—and that bring in $11.7 million at auction? Does $25,000 seem like enough? What if the song was a single and is a featured piece of the NFT series? What advance permissions are needed? Those are the questions raised by ANGELA ANNE FLORES in a lawsuit against electronic artist 3LAU.
Under the name LUNA AURA, Flores co-wrote and sang “WALK AWAY,” one of the singles on 3LAU’s 2018 album, ULTRAVIOLET, and she apparently has some financial rights in the sound recording as well as her publishing piece. She contends JUSTIN BLAU, who performs as 3LAU, didn’t tell her he was turning the album into an NFT three years later, and offered her a flat payment of $25,000 only after he made the eight-figure sales. She’s suing, per Rolling Stone, for unjust enrichment and breach of contract.
Blau’s manager, ANDREW GOLDSTONE, told Rolling Stone and other sites Flores’ suit has “no merit” and expressed frustration that she filed it “without any prior notice.” The basic details are sketchy and it’s hard to say how much merit there is. (Also, some math: $11.7 million is the retail price for selling a little over a million copies of a digital album. How much does the writer of 30 percent of one song get in royalties for a million-selling album? At the current mechanical royalty rate of 9.1 cents per song sold in the US, $25k isn't that far off, for whatever that's worth.)
But a couple additional things Goldstone said caught my attention.
“There are no set standards,” he said, “for how to approach an NFT project like this, which involved much more than just the music.” But why are there no standards? And if there aren’t, why are people—especially artists themselves—producing and selling them? By now, artists should have a pretty good idea what it’s like when a new format or product or service shows up and opens its doors before working out how much everyone is owed. It inevitably leads to messy negotiations about contracts written and signed before the format existed. It often leads to lawsuits. It rarely goes well for creators.
Goldstone also said, “Justin’s team tried for months to reach a deal with Flores in good faith, but she stopped responding and instead chose to file a lawsuit.” He doesn’t say whether they tried before or after selling the NFT, but it doesn’t really matter. If you need an artist’s permission to use their work and you’re having trouble getting it, do you just go ahead and use it anyway? Did Blau’s team think they needed permission or were they negotiating just as a courtesy? Are there set standards for that? If there aren’t set standards for that, why are we going to market? Why aren’t we creating the standards first?
I don’t know how this suit will play out, but I do know the questions it raises that can, and should, be answered outside a courtroom. It’s a little too late to be working them out today. But better today than, say, tomorrow.
Music (Grammy's Version)
The GRAMMY nominations announcement will be livestreamed here starting at 9 am PT today. Here are some thoughts, questions and predictions from Rolling Stone and Billboard. For fun, do a Ctrl-F on the former, longer story for the words "ADELE" and "SWIFT" and see how many hits you get. Taylor Swift's "Midnights," for what it's worth, isn't eligible—it came out too late—but her rerecorded RED (TAYLOR'S VERSION) and "ALL TOO WELL (10 MINUTE VERSION)" are. The former would be a somewhat controversial, but not necessarily wrong, option for Album of the Year. The latter would be a completely noncontroversial choice for Record of the Year.
Road Kill
Billboard on the live-music economic boom that bypassed indie artists in 2022, and another big year to come that’s expected to bypass a lot of new and emerging artists. “It’s pretty bad out there,” WASSERMAN AGENCY head of A&R TOM WINDISH tells the magazine... Seattle’s the Stranger goes deep with a package of stories about the struggling music scene in one iconic city, where times are tough for both artists and venues, and considers solutions involving patronage and mentorship.
Etc Etc Etc
JUNGKOOK, of BTS, and ROBBIE WILLIAMS are the only two musicians known to be performing at soccer’s WORLD CUP, which begins Sunday in Qatar under a cloud of controversy. Denying rumors she’d be there, too, DUA LIPA said she’d be happy to perform in Qatar “when it has fulfilled all the human rights pledges it made when it won the right to host the World Cup.” ROD STEWART told London’s Sunday Times he turned down a £1million offer because, “It’s not right to go”... JONI chats with ELTON... SNOOP DOGG, PATTI SMITH, REM, SADE and ANN & NANCY WILSON among the nominees for the SONGWRITERS HALL OF FAME class of 2023... Sending love to ROBERTA FLACK... Karaoke in the time of Covid... “Get up, stand up—on your beautiful new custom bath mat.”
Rest in Peace
Two free-spirited, influential musicians who opened doors few rock musicians before them had dared to open. Guitarist KEITH LEVENE co-founded the Clash but left early on (musical differences, a power struggle, drugs, or he just thought they were lame, depending who you ask), and went on to help form the literally post-punk band Public Image Ltd. He brought a love of prog-rock, jazz, reggae and experimental sonics to an ahead-of-its-time band that tested and twisted the very idea of what a rock band could or should, be, and had a long-lasting influence on generations of rock and rock-adjacent guitarists, not all of whom necessarily knew who he was... Saxophonist/flutist NIK TURNER was responsible for a lot of the space (and jazz, and intraband difficulties) in pioneering British space-rock band Hawkwind. A founding member of the band, he was kicked out in the mid-1970s for being a little too spacey and free with his playing; he returned briefly in the early ‘80s. His other bands included Sphynx—whose 1978 debut album was built around recordings of Turner playing flute inside the Great Pyramid of Giza—Inner City Unit and Space Ritual.
Also RIP: Rapper BRIAN “META MO” HINES of ‘90s Chicago rap staple Rubberoom... KIKO LOIACONO, a tour manager for British artists including Tim Burgess, the Growlers and Shame.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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NPR Music |
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| When the creek does rise, can music survive? |
| By Stephanie Wolf |
| How does a scene survive when disaster strikes its venues, music schools, rare instruments and priceless archives all at once? The musicians of flood-ravaged eastern Kentucky have a few answers. |
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Vulture |
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| ‘It’s the Damn Song’ |
| By Justin Curto |
| Three songwriters on the importance of the Grammys’ new songwriter-specific category. |
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British GQ |
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| The reawakening of Stormzy |
| By Gary Younge |
| Three years after that album and that Glastonbury performance, Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr.—the man you know as Stormzy—is back, and a changed man. |
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Soundtracking With Edith Bowman |
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| Ryan Coogler On The Music Of Wakanda Forever |
| By Edith Bowman and Ryan Coogler |
| Ryan Coogler, director of the new Black Panther film, "Wakanda Forever," discusses Chadwick Boseman's legacy and the tonal influence his death has had on narrative, as well as the excellent soundtrack and Ludwig Goransson's score. |
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Slate |
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| How the Backstreet Boys Taught Me to Code |
| By Torie Bosch |
| I had to start my own site, where I would publish both my own and other people’s fan fiction. To do that, I needed skills. I needed to learn HTML. |
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Tedium |
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| The Death of the Key Change |
| By Chris Dalla Riva |
| One of the key changes—pun intended—to the pop charts in the last 60 years is the demise of key changes. What happened? |
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Narratively |
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| Punk Rock Freaks in the Heart of Hollywood |
| By Shawna Kenney |
| It was the era when video killed the radio star, when glitz and glamor and bubblegum pop dominated the airwaves. Meanwhile, a handful of musicians and misfits were subverting the pop culture narrative forever. |
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| what we're into |
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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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