Postponing our show was the right thing to do. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show. | | | | SZA at the Grammy Awards, New York, Jan. 28, 2018. "Once you’ve been nominated and lost," she says, "you’re very much free."
(Christopher Polk/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | “Postponing our show was the right thing to do. Nothing is more important than the health and safety of those in our music community and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly on producing the show.”
| | | | | | rantnrave:// The biggest question about the GRAMMY AWARDS at this point, even more than where they'll happen, what they'll look like and who'll show up, is if pushing them back six weeks is enough. There's hardly any question that postponing a ceremony originally scheduled for less than a month from now, as the RECORDING ACADEMY announced Tuesday, was the right thing to do. Los Angeles is in the middle of a full-blown Covid-19 crisis and health officials are warning it's going to get worse. Residents have been told not to gather with anyone they don't live with and to wear masks at work, and Hollywood unions are asking studios to stop all production for several weeks. Last week's ROSE BOWL game was moved to Texas. The Academy had offered little information on what it was planning to do at the Grammys telecast originally scheduled for Jan. 31 except that it was going to take place somewhere in Los Angeles in front of a small live audience, which seemed like a bad plan from the beginning and worse with each passing day. It doesn't sound like it would be a great plan for March 14 either. But the Academy now has a little over two months to plan a 100 percent remote show, if it chooses, with no audience, no one in the same room as anyone else, and no one traveling to or from LA. Which is what music has looked like for most of the year, from D-NICE's CLUB QUARANTINE to VERZUZ to POST MALONE to TRAVIS SCOTT to TAYLOR SWIFT at the ACM AWARDS to YO LA TENGO on Hanukkah. The Grammys could embrace, reflect and celebrate the very formats that have been providing a lifeline for performers, fans and the industry. The Academy could also declare every nominee a winner just for surviving the past year and not bother handing out trophies. Not everyone even wants one. It could skip the ceremony altogether and just have D-Nice do a daylong DJ mix on INSTAGRAM (and CBS if the network wants it; I'd watch) of every nominated song and album. Or it could skip even a gesture like that. "Music's Biggest Night," as Grammy calls itself, is basically the High Holidays of the music calendar. The High Holidays are the three days on the Jewish calendar when everyone goes to temple, including Jews who do little to acknowledge their religion the rest of the year. My father taught me the High Holidays were important but not nearly as important as any random Sabbath, when devout Jews show up to express their faith without all the trappings and all the glitz. Music's Sabbaths are Wednesday night club gigs, Friday night livestreams and Saturday night DJ sets. As long as those keep happening, whenever they *can* happen, a single annual TV show will always be nice but never necessary. I have no interest in spoiling such a night for anyone who's worked and waited for it; if it happens, in any form, I'll watch. But if it doesn't happen, I'll survive, as will all of my favorite artists. And you could do the biggest, craziest Grammys ever a year from now... One more little hitch about March 14: The SAG AWARDS have long been scheduled for the same night, on TBS and TNT. "We are extremely disappointed," SAG-AFTRA said in response to the Academy's new date... And one last reminder: It isn’t known where CHARLEY PRIDE was exposed to the virus that killed him, and it likely will never be known. But the fact that the 86-year-old country pioneer died of Covid a month after performing at the CMA AWARDS in front of a small audience should give serious pause to any awards show pondering any kind of similar ceremony... To save space and time, I'll be sharing the names from now on of artists who have *not* sold their publishing to HIPGNOSIS. Today's non-seller: YOUNG THUG... Democrat JON OSSOFF, who was locked in a tight race in Georgia with Republican DAVID PERDUE early this morning for the final open seat in the US Senate, has an IMAGINE DRAGONS connection... RIP GENE RUMSEY.
| | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | | | |  | VICE | | From punk and disco, through the ecstasy and acid house years, up to gangster door staff, people pulling guns and the club's eventual closure. | | | |  | UK Music | | The music industry will have a key role to play in the post-pandemic economic and cultural recovery, and therefore it is in the national interest for the sector to be supported and helped back to normal. To that end, UK Music puts forward a clear plan for recovery: what we need to do to get the live music sector back up on its feet again in 2021. | | | |  | The Guardian | | MPs told state-backed insurance could allow festivals to plan summer events with confidence. | | | |  | Variety | | "This blatantly racist decision is a travesty," writes veteran attorney Dina LaPolt. | | | |  | Cosmopolitan | | The music phenom is finally back with a new album--and a plan to change the world. | | | |  | The New York Times | | The delay comes less than four weeks before the ceremony was to be held, on Jan. 31. The event will now be held on March 14. | | | |  | Playboy | | The coronavirus pandemic hit the music industry hard in 2020, but amid the hustle to stay afloat there's a glimmer of opportunity for media-savvy artists. | | | |  | 5 Magazine | | Nobody is coming to save our scene, especially not the ticket brokers who launched the hashtag. | | | | | Variety | | Forced to perform from home or in rooms not intended for live music during lockdown, many artists went back to basics and out came the trusty six-string. | | | |  | SPIN | | Vinyl, CD, MP3 or tape? The best sound quality lies in the ear of the beholder | | | | | | | don't it make my brown eyes blue | | | VICE | | "Last Resort" by Papa Roach was a surprise hit given the song's raw and vivid portrayal of mental health and suicide. And although lead singer Jacoby Shaddix wrote “Last Resort” about his friends struggle, the song took on new personal relevance for Jacoby years later when he was battling his own demons. | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | Any honest reckoning of our business must examine what happens to the 69 cents of every dollar that digital music services pay to record companies, music publishers, and PROs. | | | |  | Los Angeles Magazine | | As virus cases and casualties spike throughout the region, furtive dance clubs have continued to operate and thrive with little law enforcement intervention. | | | |  | LinkedIn | | It goes without saying that the music business started the year in a very different spot than it finished. | | | |  | Stereogum | | Pop music is whatever the people say it is. This has always been true to a point — pop is short for “popular,” after all, and consumer behavior has always factored heavily into the Billboard charts — but as we enter into 2021, pop feels more populist than ever. | | | |  | MetalSucks | | Some unorganized thoughts on the death of Children of Bodom's Alexi Laiho pieced together by grieving MetalSucks co-founder Vince Neilstein. | | | |  | The New Yorker | | Dumile was forty-nine, but he didn’t really seem to have a fixed age. He was an artist who took experiences that might have turned someone else cynical and cold and channelled them into a persona that retained a kind of wondrous spark. | | | |  | Platform & Stream | | The highly anticipated License Availability Date set by the landmark Music Modernization Act of 2018 – when digital audio services can begin operating under a new blanket mechanical license covering every musical work available on their U.S. services – has arrived, ushering in a new era in mechanical licensing led by The Mechanical Licensing Collective. | | | |  | Vulture | | The July 12 shooting has prompted a range of responses, including radio silence from hip-hop’s biggest players, distasteful jokes about Megan in the wake of the shooting, and support for her from others in the music industry. | | | |  | Village Voice | | “These people act like we drink a gallon of blood and hang upside down from crucifixes before we go onstage,” Rob Halford says. “We’re performers, have been for two decades. We do the show and we wear the costumes our audience expect us to.” | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2021, The REDEF Group | | |
