| I have nightmares about [playing Coachella], and it’s a dream come true. |
|
 |
 |
| Bad Bunny at the last pre-Covid Coachella, April 14, 2019. He returns in a headline slot tonight. |
| (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images) |
|
|
| quote of the day |
|
| rantnrave:// |
Mood Indio
Is the festival that begins today in the Southern California desert the first truly post-Covid COACHELLA and the beginning of the first truly post-Covid festival season? It certainly feels different this year. The virus is still in the air and people will continue to get sick and it may take years to recover from the economic toll of three years of disruption in the live music business, but it feels like this is the first spring where we can listen to the music and think about that path ahead, rocky as it may be, without the weight of the entire industry being caught in a pause button. The tape is rolling again. It feels like... spring.
It's also the first Coachella to be headlined entirely by nonwhite artists: BAD BUNNY, the first Spanish-language musician to get a headlining spot; BLACKPINK, the first K-pop act; and FRANK OCEAN, back in Indio for the first time since 2012 (and making his first festival appearance anywhere since 2017). Behind those big-font artists, there are Latin artists on the rise, lots of hip-hop, the dance acts announced for the Sahara Tent and the ones *not* announced in the Do LaB, “the festival’s coolest and biggest open secret.” And the return of JAI PAUL.
And lots more. Here's the full weekend schedule. YOUTUBE will livestream everything from six stages here. FORTNITE won’t have that but will launch something called Coachella Island today.
It will be warm.
It’s Friday
And here's a paragraph of new-release catnip for fans of real people making real music with real instruments on real magnetic tape... GLORIOUS GAME is a collaborative album by BLACK THOUGHT, of the Roots, and EL MICHELS AFFAIR, led by producer/multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels, whose legacy stretches from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings (and other Daptone Records projects) to the Black Keys to Norah Jones. They got together and did this: Michels, according to Black Thought, “would record a full-on original composition with live instrumentation, sample a small section of it, and play more live instrumentation over that section.” And then Black Thought would tell a story over that. “I made a conscious decision,” the rapper told the Fader. “It’s gonna be all narrative, and it’s all gonna come from a personal place.” The results are this and that... METALLICA’s 11th studio album, 72 SEASONS, was born out of long-distance collaborations among the quartet to keep busy during the pandemi. It opens with the seven-minute title track, in which James Hetfield sings of starting out with “no chance before this life began,” and ends with the 11 minutes of “Inamorata,” which Consequence’s Katherine Turman describes as “a love song to misery.” In between, she writes, are “powerful glimmers of hope.” Guitars, bass, drums, hope and misery... (And lest you think Metallica is the only early ’80s thrash band that got its start on Megaforce Records that has a new album out today, let it be known it is not)... DINNER PARTY is the supergroup of jazz youngish lions Robert Glasper, Kamasi Washington and Terrace Martin, and they’ve regrouped for their second album, ENIGMATIC SOCIETY, as well as a performance Saturday afternoon in Coachella’s Gobi Tent. This is an unmistakable groove.
Also today: New music from NLE Choppa, Young Bleu, Skilla Baby & Tee Grizzley, Natural Information Society, Feist, Angel Olsen, Caitlyn Smith, Kara Jackson (debut album from singer/songwriter who was the US National Youth Poet Laureate in 2019-20), the late Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Shygirl (deluxe version of 2022’s “Nymph,” called “Nymph_o”), MC Yallah, Petite Noir, Kid Koala (whose “Creatures of the Late Afternoon” comes with a board game), Jesus Piece, Initiate, Poison Ruïn, Deathgrave, Temples, Trouble in the Streets, Jason Bieler & the Baron Von Bielski Orchestra, Patrick Wolf (British singer/songwriter’s first album in a decade), Ozmotic & Fennesz, Patten, Proc Fiskal, Wayne Escoffery, GoGo Penguin, JaRon Marshall & the collective, Mathew V, Temple Jazz Sextet, Dave Okumu & the 7 Generations, defprez, Pi’erre Bourne, Elijah Kessler, Natalie Merchant, John Vanderslice, Robert Earl Keen, Bodywash, Terry, Fenne Lily, Xylouris White, the Tallest Man on Earth, Shannon Lay, Acantha Lang, Frost Children, Eloise, the Wood Brothers ,Chris Duarte, Brian Dunne, Fruit Bats, Mike Viola, William Prince, Grandbrothers, Jonathan Bree, Pynch, Waterparks and—eat your heart out, Conrad Birdie—Ann-Margret.
Etc Etc Etc
HARDY and LAINEY WILSON are the top nominees for the ACM AWARDS, to be handed out May 11 in Frisco, Texas... ED SHEERAN scored a viral moment for his new single, “EYES CLOSED,” by singing it with New York busker MIKE YUNG Monday afternoon in a Brooklyn subway station. The moment was staged, but apparently Yung wasn’t in on it... MARTIN SCORSESE’s DAVID JOHANSEN documentary, PERSONALITY CRISIS: ONE NIGHT ONLY, based around a 70th birthday concert at New York’s CAFÉ CARLYLE, premieres today on Showtime... JILL FURMANOVSKY's photos of rock legends... CHRIS BETHELL's photos of punk bands and their punk vans.
|
| - Matty Karas, curator |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Music Ally |
|
| The first step to artist-centric streaming? Start listening to artists |
| By David Martin |
| The biggest rights holder of them all, Universal Music Group, appears to have set course towards a new kind of “artist-centric” approach. But the most immediate quirk of UMG’s “artist-centric” vision is the lack of discussion with artists – or with their representative bodies. Or, for that matter, with the rest of the industry. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Trapital |
|
| The Business Behind Coachella |
| By Dan Runcie and Tatiana Cirisano |
| Unlike other trends and even other festivals, Coachella developed a brand that can sell itself. Dan Runcie and Tatiana Cirisano discuss untapped opportunities for Coachella, how the rise of concert ticket prices impacts the festival, and the increasing homogeneity of festival lineups. |
|
|
 |
|
The FADER |
|
| Black Thought plays the long game |
| By Timmhotep Aku |
| Black Thought talks to Timmhotep Aku about "Glorious Game," his new album with El Michels Affair, on this week’s episode of The FADER Interview. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Complex |
|
| Lil Pump in 2023 |
| By Eric Skelton |
| What happens half a decade after a controversial teenage rapper goes viral and makes millions? We spent two days in Miami with Lil Pump to find out. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Rave New World |
|
| Who Is ‘Raving’ For? |
| By Michelle Lhooq |
| Real freak hours with rave theorist McKenzie Wark. |
|
|
|
|
|
| what we're into |
 |
| Music of the day |
| “I'm Still Somehow” |
| El Michels Affair & Black Thought |
| "Vibin' on psilocybin / Phil Collins or Phyllis Hyman." From "Glorious Game," out today on Big Crown Records. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 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?’” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
