| Being a viral sensation on YouTube prepared me for the way that the music business exists in 2022. |
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| Your turn. Kiana Lede at the Lights Up Music Festival, Concord, Calif., Sept. 19, 2021. |
| (Steve Jennings/WireImage/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
Florida Man v. Florida Fest
In Australia, three festivals have canceled or postponed dates in the past 24 hours. Just one of those cancellations, of the pop-and-food fest GRAPEVINE GATHERING, will cost 1,400 jobs and $5.2 million, the Guardian reports. In Seattle, almost every show coming up has been scrapped and "ticket sales have stopped" for shows further on down the road, says the owner of NEUMOS. Tour managers for those artists who's been able to stay on the road, meanwhile, are trying to figure out new Covid rules on the fly every time they cross a state line. "There are going to be tours and artists who are going to face a lot of moral and social dilemmas in just trying to do the right thing by everyone," OLD DOMINION tour manager TOMMY GARRIS tells Rolling Stone.
It's really, really hard out there, still. The live music business could use every bit of help it can get.
And here comes FLORIDA MAN, right on schedule, intent on using his political clout to pull funding for a singer-songwriter festival not because it's requiring attendees to show proof of vaccination—a so-called "vaccine passport," which Florida has outlawed—but because it's *allowing* them to show such proof if they don't want to get tested for Covid, as attendees are otherwise required to do.
It isn't enough, says Florida Man, to ensure that people in the state aren't required to be vaccinated to attend large public events like the 30A SONGWRITERS FESTIVAL, which will bring EMMYLOU HARRIS, JENNY LEWIS and others to South Walton in the Florida Panhandle this weekend. They must no longer be permitted to show they've been vaccinated even if they want to.
This is madness. Anti-business madness. Anti-consumer madness. Anti-choice madness. Anti-public health madness. Anti-music madness.
Everyone understands this, right?
Just checking.
Shout him down, songwriters. Play louder. Play harder. Wear your boosters on your sleeves.
Broken Record
Did KATY PERRY's 2013 single "DARK HORSE" plagiarize Christian rapper FLAME's 2008 song "JOYFUL NOISE"? Yes, said a federal jury that in 2019 awarded a $2.8 million judgment to Flame. No, said a federal judge in 2020, throwing out the jury ruling on the grounds that the elements the two songs share are too common and mundane to deserve copyright protection. OK let's try to sort this out for the last time, says a three-judge panel now hearing Flame's appeal of that reversal. Based on their questions in a hearing Tuesday, the judges might be inclined to agree with label execs and others who've been saying "enough is enough" after the recent run of plagiarism suits. JUDGE RICHARD CLIFTON said he had to listen to the two songs several times just to "figure out exactly what the purported similarities were," after which "I began to wonder: How exactly does that become something protectable?" Which, if I'm not mistaken, is legalese for "seriously?!?" Not quite the standard that musicologists may be looking for, but one that a lot of music fans, and even music execs, may find strangely refreshing.
Etc Etc Etc
Oops: Music Business Worldwide, recalculating its analysis of MRC's 2021 music consumption report after MRC corrected a key number in that report, says 82.1% of all music consumed in the second half of 2021 wasn't in fact catalog music. It was actually 73.1%. Still a big number, just a different number. Catalog music, as defined by MRC, is any music that was at least 18 months old at the moment it was consumed, which means, for example anything from the WEEKND's AFTER HOURS album that you might be thinking of streaming today, but not BTS' "DYNAMITE," which doesn't officially become catalog until a month from now... Two suspects are being held in the November murder of YOUNG DOLPH in Memphis. JUSTIN JOHNSON, who announced on INSTAGRAM last week that he was innocent and planned to turn himself in, and then didn't, was arrested Tuesday by U.S. marshals in Indiana. The second suspect, CORNELIUS SMITH, was indicted Tuesday on a first-degree murder charge... It's possible the most impressive part of playing bits of the drum parts for every RUSH song ever recorded in a single 24-minute take is setting up the drum kit required to complete the task. Kudos BRANDON TOEWS, and we continue to salute you, NEIL PEART, who died two years ago last week... POPE CRATE DIGGER I (h/t DAWN EDEN GOLDSTEIN).
Rest in Peace
BURKE SHELLEY, lead singer and bassist of Welsh proto metal band Budgie... American mezzo-soprano MARIE EWING... Folk singer/songwriter BILL STAINES... French live music promoter GÉRARD DROUOT... Guitarist MARC LEE DÉ HUGAR of Sydney, Australia, glam-rock band Candy Harlots.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Complex |
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| Battle Rap Is Thriving on Twitter Spaces |
| By Andre Gee |
| Imagine your favorite rappers ditching the labels, linking up and putting together teams to create mixtapes. Imagine the intrigue of Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole recruiting artists to their teams, trying to win a year-end grand prize. And imagine them all talking through the process on a daily basis in front of the whole world. |
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The New York Times |
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| How Big Can a TikTok Duet Get? |
| By Jon Caramanica |
| The singer-songwriter Sadie Jean performed a lovelorn track and left room for a response. Lil Yachty took the bait. But their duet isn’t the track available for streaming. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Otomo” |
| Bonobo ft. O'Flynn |
| From "Fragments," out Friday on Ninja Tune. |
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| Video of the day |
| “Rhyme & Reason” |
| Peter Spirer |
| "Anyone can find archival footage of a Bronx block party in the Seventies," Rolling Stone recently wrote of Peter Spirer's 1997 hip-hop doc. "It takes skill, though, to tie the genre back to its jazz and gospel roots without sounding didactic." |
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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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