| I could sit at my computer at home and you wouldn’t know that there wasn’t a 100-piece orchestra there. You couldn’t do that 10 years ago. |
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| Mask on: Future on his One Big Party Tour, Houston, Jan. 7, 2023. |
| (Prince Williams/WireImage/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“I could sit at my computer at home and you wouldn’t know that there wasn’t a 100-piece orchestra there. You couldn’t do that 10 years ago.”
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- David James Rosen, movie trailer composer
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| rantnrave:// |
Sustain
Time for your periodic reminder that when the industry tells us people are listening to more and more old music and, therefore, less and less new music, what they actually mean is people in 2022 were listening to WEEKND songs from 2019, GLASS ANIMALS songs from 2020 and DUA LIPA & ELTON JOHN songs from 2021. I have things in my refrigerator that are older than all of those songs. I don’t call it “catalog” food. I call it lunch. The anecdotes and soft features that get everybody’s attention are about KATE BUSH on “STRANGER THINGS” and FLEETWOOD MAC on TIKTOK, which are honest-to-god hits and legit stories, but the songs driving the music industry’s bottom line are “BLINDING LIGHTS,” “HEAT WAVES” and “COLD HEART.”
This week’s public service journalism award goes to Bloomberg’s LUCAS SHAW for surfacing the phrase “shallow catalog,” which refers to music old enough to be considered catalog by the chartkeepers at LUMINATE but new enough to still be a first-run pop hit. Luminate calls any song released more than 18 months ago catalog. But pop promotion cycles can run a lot longer than that. “What’s getting lost in the lack of details,” WARNER MUSIC GROUP catalog chief KEVIN GORE tells Shaw, “is how more recent catalog is feeding that trend.” It’s not that pop fans are listening to more golden oldies than they used to. It’s that they’re listening to current pop hits longer.
There are other factors feeding recent trends, including the simple fact that people who stream WHITNEY HOUSTON and TUPAC music on SPOTIFY are being counted for chart purposes in a way they couldn’t have been, and weren’t, when they were continuing to listen to that same music on CDs and iPods long after they bought it. Same listening patterns; different data. Where once we charted a song’s attack, now we chart its decay.
Trailing Indicators
One place where old music does keep rearing its more-than-18-month-old head is movie trailers. Two things that fascinate me from ERIC DUCKER’s New York Times feature on the trailerization of older songs by artists from GUNS N’ ROSES to KENDRICK LAMAR to TAYLOR SWIFT, which generally involves a trailer composer/musician remixing, reimagining or “overlaying” the original recording: It can take years to produce a single two- or three-minute trailer. And the composer/musicians often have no access to any of the film footage they’re scoring because, as one trailer-house exec told Ducker, “We’re literally dealing with billions of dollars in unreleased assets. There’s no way we can send that to a composer.” They apparently can, however, show it to the music supervisor and various other people at the trailer house. It’s only the musician who can’t be trusted. You will be shocked, shocked to learn that the musicians also tend to be uncredited.
Still E.T.C. E.T.C. E.T.C.
You can make a TIKTOK video using DR. DRE’s “STILL D.R.E.” and you can cover it on YOUTUBE but you can not, as Billboard legal correspondent BILL DONAHUE notes, use it to soundtrack your political campaign ad on TWITTER or anywhere else without permission from the good doctor. Dre’s lawyer, HOWARD E. KING, FedExes a note to MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE to explain this part of U.S. copyright law... Is APPLE MUSIC SING—Apple’s bottomless virtual karaoke machine—too good to be true? Slate investigates with the help of cocktails and a dodgy AirPlay connection... Serious suggestion for the next VERZUZ: CELINE DION v. ROLLING STONE... Question for the guitar ethicist: I’m a young luthier, still struggling, living in a $500 apartment. I’ve spent six months building a beautiful electric archtop guitar. PRINCE wants it. Do I just, like, give it to him?... STOMP stomps its last stomp in New York (but continues to tour North America and Europe)... Wonderful description of pop songwriting from short story writer GEORGE SAUNDERS, who is not, in his own estimation, particularly good at it: "In my songs, the first verse is, 'I love you so much. You’re so beautiful.' The second verse is, uh, the same, basically. Or it’s the obvious next logical development... With good songwriters, A and B have such a weird relationship, and that’s what makes the brilliance. You are soundly in 'A,' expecting certain things, and then 'B' comes along and is neither too neat nor too out of relation with 'A.'"
Rest in Peace
GORDY HARMON, founding member of R&B group the Whispers... New York club DJ DINO CALVAO... STAN HITCHCOCK, longtime country music TV host and early CMT executive.
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| - Matty Karas, curator |
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Creem |
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| Compliance Rock o’ Clock |
| By Sam McPheeters |
| A look at the recent trend of billionaire CEOs arrogant enough to think they can purchase rock-star status. |
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The Arts Fuse |
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| The 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll: A Profusion of Geniuses |
| By Tom Hull |
| This is the 17th annual edition of the Francis Davis Jazz Poll, finally named for its founder and guiding light. The Poll collates top-ten lists from 151 jazz critics and journalists, and as such provides a wealth of insight into and data about this past year in jazz. |
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Pollstar |
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| Live’s Glass Ceiling: Where Were The Women Artists On 2022’s Year-End Charts? |
| By Sarah Pittman |
| With the "Great Return" of live entertainment in full swing in 2022, the past year was filled with tours that boasted record-setting average grosses, ticket sales and ticket prices. While the top 100 tours on Pollstar's Worldwide chart brought in a massive $6.28 billion - representing an incredible 13.2% increase over the record-setting $5.5 billion in 2019 - women artists were sorely underrepresented. |
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Complex |
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| Grime’s Blog Era: An Oral History |
| By Joseph JP Patterson |
| In the early-to-mid 2000s, a group of aspiring music writers got their first break from blogging about grime and its vibrant scene. 15-plus years later, we caught up with the music industry vets to get the full picture. |
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Cabbages |
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| The New Face Of The Stem Player Is Ghostface |
| By Gary Suarez |
| After publicly severing ties with Ye amid his antisemitic outbursts and ongoing public image crisis, one might have assumed we'd heard the last from the Stem Player. Yet Kano, the company behind the curious little sound toy that once siloed "Donda 2," has apparently turned to a new collaborator. |
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Complete Music Update |
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| Setlist: Top five artist gripes in 2023 |
| By Andy Malt and Chris Cooke |
| Andy Malt and Chris Cooke look at the five key complaints that musicians have about the music industry as we go into the new year, including streaming royalties, venue merch commissions, and the difficulties getting music playlisted. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Nothing Left To Lose” |
| Everything but the Girl |
| From "Fuse," EBTG's first album in 24 years, out in April on Buzzin' Fly/Virgin. |
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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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