All of the sudden that song is streaming more than ‘Skinny Love’ and you’re just like, ‘What?’ | | | | Sweet music videos are made of this: Eurythmics Dave Stewart and Annie Stewart shooting the "Sweet Dreams" video, Jan. 6, 1983.
(Steve Rapport/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “All of the sudden that song is streaming more than ‘Skinny Love’ and you’re just like, ‘What?’”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Here's an idea no one thought of before: a TV channel that shows nothing but music videos 24 hours a day. Like, really, nothing but music. No commercials. No hosts. No REAL WORLD. No REMOTE CONTROL. That, at least, is what APPLE MUSIC TV looked like on Monday, when it arrived, unannounced, 39 years and two months after MTV showed up on a cable channel you probably didn't have and about 30 years after people started complaining that MTV doesn't show videos anymore (full disclosure: I, like everyone else who ever worked there, fielded some of those complaints). Apple Music TV promises to stay that way at least until Thursday, when the wall-to-wall video format, broken up only by occasional short interview clips with artists whose videos you're about to see, will make room for two BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN specials promoting the album he'll release at midnight that night, while special #2 is still showing. There's no word yet on when Apple will add its own version of TABITHA SOREN, but my money's on 2021. How could you not? In the meantime, Apple Music TV, which is a mouthful of a name and which lives inside the Apple MUSIC and TV apps, has a strangely new feel for an old idea. Like MTV but unlike YOUTUBE and other streaming video hubs, it's a lean-back experience. There's nothing to do but watch the videos play, one after the other; as TECHCRUNCH's SARAH PEREZ notes, there are hardly any social or interactive tools, and the ones that are there seem purposefully hard to find. It's refreshingly counterintuitive in that sense. It's also relentlessly current and pop. The first day's programming was a repeated loop of Apple's Music's all-time most popular songs, which started and ended with DRAKE. Going forward, notwithstanding the Boss, a typical hour of programming will look something like "DUA LIPA, TAYLOR SWIFT, TATE MCRAE, ZAYN, J BALVIN, PINK SWEAT$, BLACKPINK, VICTORIA MONET, BIG SEAN," according to Apple editorial and content head RACHEL NEWMAN. Tuesday night, I ran into a slightly older bloc, meaning ED SHEERAN, PHARRELL, BEYONCÉ and KATY PERRY. Classic rock. Newman says content from other Apple properties including Apple TV Plus (who names these things?) will be worked in, but apparently Apple Music TV won't create its own content. Whether that means there could be an UNPLUGGED or 120 MINUTES in the channel's future is unclear. For now, watching blocs of professionally made 3- and 4-minute videos can be mesmerizing in short bursts, and a reminder that some pop stars are still doing creatively oddball video work (have you ever just sat back and watched "OLD TOWN ROAD"?). Some lyric videos are in rotation, too, which is weird; the illusion that you're watching television disappears under their weightlessness. It seems unlikely that, 39 years from now, anyone will ponder, or re-watch, Apple's day one playlist the way people do MTV's first day. Since videos were relatively rare and only certain kinds of bands were making them, MTV's early programming came with a built-in aesthetic, one the channel developed to great effect in its early, new-wave years. Apple has no such novelty on its side, and is showing you what people are already listening to at its own, and other, music services. But can it create a different kind of freshness and charm by reverse-engineering such a service into old-school TV? Can the charm last? Is there a business model in it?... A warning, of sorts, to TIKTOK: Figure out how to properly pay royalties on user-generated content, or "we might have a similar situation like we do with SOUNDCLOUD, in which the major labels enforce serious licensing restrictions, causing them to figure out how to monetize quickly. And ultimately losing what made it special at the beginning." That's the message from MATT BRINKWORTH, head of digital at the OMNIAN GROUP and a fan of the platform... If you're the guy who signed SKID ROW and STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, chances are you have a lawyer on speed dial who can help you free a man wrongfully convicted on a cocaine charge. LAVA RECORDS CEO JASON FLOM on how he started his side gig of righting legal wrongs... UMG is planning to go public in 2022... TOM LEHRER, the 1950s and '60s multi-hyphenate satirist who's now 92 years old, has posted all his lyrics on his website and declared them public domain, to be "downloaded and used in any manner whatsoever, without requiring any further permission from me or any payment to me or to anyone else." He says his music is coming soon to the same website, which for some reason he's planning to shut down on Dec. 31, 2024, "so if you want to download anything, don’t wait too long"... RIP SPENCER DAVIS, the bandleader but not singer of the group of the same name, OUTFIELD singer TONY LEWIS, British DJ TIM "DJ CHUCKS" COLE of the CORRESPONDENTS and British rock journeyman CHARLIE AINLEY. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | The Washington Post | | The nation took drastic efforts to wipe out the virus, and bands and fans are among those reaping the benefits. | | | |  | GQ | | No genre venerates the past like metal, and the guitarist is just the latest original legend to pass away. | | | |  | Water & Music | | In March, amidst the overwhelming gloom and doom of the pandemic's early days, Matt Brinkworth, Head of Digital at Omnian Music Group, noticed a curious spike in the streaming numbers for Mac DeMarco’s 2012 song “Freaking Out the Neighborhood.” | | | |  | Billboard | | A growing number of young artists are using the platform to assemble a fan base. | | | |  | NPR | | Though he's guided the careers of pop artists including Lorde, Katy Perry and Skid Row, the Lava Records founder is better known lately for his side gig -- bringing aid to the wrongfully convicted. | | | |  | VICE | | The pop star seems have hit her most confident stride to date as the world’s best rock 'n’ roll cover band. | | | |  | Variety | | Since lockdown began in March, songwriters have needed to adapt to a digital-first world. In-person sessions largely became a distant memory, replaced by more screen-time for artists who would normally be in the studio for hours. Zoom became a way of life, leaving some songwriters yearning for the days when kicking back in the studio until 3 a.m. | | | |  | She Shreds | | Get to know the names and stories that are often left out of history books, but who pioneered the path for music as we know it today. | | | |  | The New Yorker | | The musician’s iconic big suit, in Talking Heads’ 1984 concert movie, was a way of setting the band apart. In his new show turned film, the outfits are a way of bringing performers together. | | | |  | The Atlantic | | Celebrities are focused less on candidates than on democracy itself this year, and using their own past apathy as a tool. | | | |  | DownBeat | | Before the pandemic brought live music to a halt in March, Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen was riding high. “There’s a lot of history in those walls, and the period up to COVID-19 was really record-setting,” Jazzhus Montmartre CEO Jonas Dyrved told DownBeat via Zoom in September. | | | |  | First Floor | | a.k.a. Resident Advisor and Boiler Room got some big government grants. | | | |  | The New York Times | | “Gimme Some Lovin’” and “I’m a Man” made the Spencer Davis Group, based in Britain, famous worldwide and launched the career of its lead singer, Steve Winwood. | | | |  | MTV News | | You know 'Mood.' Now meet the architect behind the No. 1 track's genre-blending sound. | | | |  | Forbes | | HIFI's Royalties Dashboard, now widely available, aggregates royalties data from labels, distribution services, performing rights organizations, music publishers and other sources. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Tuned Global says the world of branded music apps, serving niche audiences, could be a key growth driver for the industry in the years ahead. | | | |  | Stereogum | | Online, attention is the most valuable currency of all. So Internet Money, the production and promotional collective with the #1 song on Spotify's domestic chart right now, is aptly named. A remix of "Lemonade," from the crew's debut album "B4 The Storm," sits atop the streaming platform's US rankings and is #2 globally. | | | |  | Metal Hammer | | Kerry King, Tom Araya, Dave Lombardo, Rick Rubin and more look back on the making of one of the greatest albums in metal history. | | | |  | Beats & Bytes | | Award-winning music journalist Cherie Hu discusses the TikTok ban, Kanye West's tweetstorm, and future music business headlines. | | | |  | Texas Monthly | | In his new teaching role at the University of Houston, the straight-talking music mogul promises students a primer on success and celebrity. | | | |  | Slate | | Steinman’s frontman and muse was Meat Loaf--he then reinvented Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, Barry Manilow and Celine Dion as fire-and-brimstone anthem singers. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2020, The REDEF Group | | |
