| I really enjoy writing lyrics that seem like one thing on the surface, but are really about something else. My song 'Hindsight' sounds like a breakup song, but it’s actually about being sad that Bernie Sanders didn’t win the US Democratic nomination for president. |
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| Pool's out: Madison McFerrin at the Skybar, West Hollywood, Calif., April 5, 2023. |
| (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“I really enjoy writing lyrics that seem like one thing on the surface, but are really about something else. My song 'Hindsight' sounds like a breakup song, but it’s actually about being sad that Bernie Sanders didn’t win the US Democratic nomination for president.”
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- Madison McFerrin, whose debut album, "I Hope You Can Forgive Me," is out Friday
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| rantnrave:// |
Wet Hot American Roof
Earnings call quote-of-the-week comes from WARNER CEO ROBERT KYNCL, who argued Tuesday that a stream of an ED SHEERAN song should be worth more in royalties than "a stream of rain falling on the roof.” Not because ionian mediental narrative chord progressions on guitar are intrinsically worth more than the percussive sound of water on asphalt—an argument that would open an ambient can of worms—but because Sheeran is a more popular artist, with a better brand, than the presumably generic wet roof balladeer and therefore provides more value to any streaming service where his music appears. This seems to be the year where the music industry has decided there has to be a better way for tech companies to pay its stars and it’s time to finally make it happen. Some of the ideas are more novel than others.
On a call where his company was reporting a second straight quarter of meh results (with music publishing a bright spot), Kyncl compared Sheeran to LEBRON JAMES, who “earns more money than some of his teammates—[and] not because he plays more hours per day.” Which is obviously true. But superstars like LeBron don’t necessarily get paid more per point (or per run or goal); rather, they can negotiate a fatter weekly paycheck than everybody else because they produce more points. Pop superstars like Sheeran automatically get more money by scoring a lot of streaming points, no negotiations needed. Do they really need an accelerant, too, that would get them more pennies per play?
Like his peers at UMG and elsewhere, Kyncl also has had lots to say about AI musicmakers, and he wouldn’t be the first label boss to suggest, not unreasonably (but also can-of-wormsily), that human musicians deserve a higher royalty than robot musicians. But that wasn’t where he was going on this particular day. Rather, with the sports superstar analogy, he was suggesting music’s A-list deserves higher streaming royalties than music’s B- and C-lists. Which seems weird. *Everyone* making music deserves more money, no argument there. But are Sheeran and his pop-star peers the ones who need it the most right now? Or is it the artists one or two levels of stardom down who are struggling to pay for health insurance, or for gas to get to the next gig, with the slivers of pennies they’re getting from streaming services? Should it be artist v. artist, or all artists v. the tech platforms? What’s the better look? Which one’s going to get the more equitable result? Which one’s going to affect more artists at any given label? Can LeBron and the LAKERS finish the WARRIORS? Questions for a rainy day on a leaky roof.
Etc Etc Etc
PRESIDENT BIDEN has nominated former RIAA lawyer DEBORAH ROBINSON to be his lead adviser on intellectual property strategy. The nomination got thumbs-ups from the music community, with the NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS’ ASSOCIATION’s DAVID ISRAELITE noting Robinson’s “senior positions specifically in the field of music and copyright enforcement.” She most recently led music and TV intellectual property enforcement for PARAMOUNT... GOOGLE’s MUSICLM, which turns text prompts into AI-generated music, is now open to the general public—and I can report that while the prompt “rain falling on the roof” produced some unsatisfyingly shapeless piano noodling, the AI didn’t do a terrible job with “solo cello music for the soundtrack of a sad indie film” or “chaotic noise rock blues.” The general sound quality could use an upgrade though... Country’s ACM AWARDS will be livestreamed from Frisco, Texas, at 7 pm ET today on Prime Video. HARDY and LAINEY WILSON are the top nominees and DOLLY PARTON and GARTH BROOKS will host, using a script supposedly completed before TV and film writers went on strike last week... The second and last EUROVISION semifinal streams on PEACOCK PREMIUM at 3 pm ET.
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| - Matty Karas, curator |
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The Daily Beast |
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| Requiem for MTV News |
| By Kurt Loder |
| MTV News is now officially gone. The outlet’s most legendary host, Kurt Loder, reflects on what was once “a freshly hatched, 24/7 fun factory” where “everything seemed possible.” |
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Music Business Worldwide |
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| Who owns Spotify today? |
| By Daniel Tencer |
| Spotify’s shares are dominated by large institutional investors like T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley, along with the company’s two co-founders. |
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The Blog Era |
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| The Blog Era Ep. 5: Revenge of the Nerds |
| By Eric Rosenthal, Jeff Rosenthal and ItsTheReal |
| Blogs evolved from a gathering place for people looking to waste time into a prime platform for content creators: from early podcasts to sketch comedy to low-budget/high quality music videos. And thanks to those very same blogs, artists figured out just how far the internet reached. |
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Twenty Thousand Hertz |
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| Twenty Thousand Hertz: Songbugs |
| By Dallas Taylor, Natasha Mhatre and Nancy Mioreli |
| Why do bugs make the sounds they do? And how do they make them? In this episode, we explore the un-bee-lievable world of insect sounds, including crickets who craft tools to make themselves louder, and moths who can jam the natural sonar of bats. You’ll never hear these buzzes the same way again. |
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DownBeat |
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| Wayne Shorter: The Final Interview |
| By Michael Jackson |
| The following is one of the maestro’s last interviews, a phone conversation that began as a discussion of crucial Shorter collaborator and pianist Danilo Pérez for the May 2022 DownBeat cover. Despite the discomforts of dialysis, Shorter was utterly lucid — contemplating intimate details of his incandescent career — and fearless. |
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The Signal |
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| The Down Home Music Man |
| By David Katznelson |
| Chris Strachwitz was a Renaissance man, dedicating his many talents to the creation and preservation of music while honoring the music makers. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “God Herself” |
| Madison McFerrin |
| From "I Hope You Can Forgive Me," out Friday on MadMcFerrin Music. |
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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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