| The manifesto for me, before the war, was 'Imagine' by John Lennon. And it’s still in my heart. It’s still in my gut. But something changes when you see that there is somebody who is willing to kill your children, your women, who is willing to destroy all you’ve created in your life, destroy your cities, everything... The artistic person becomes the warrior, and you can’t help being the warrior now. |
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| A Ukraine military orchestra performs at the Jazz on the Dnipro Festival in Dnipro, July 16, 2021. |
| (Mykola Miakshykov/Future Publishing/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“The manifesto for me, before the war, was 'Imagine' by John Lennon. And it’s still in my heart. It’s still in my gut. But something changes when you see that there is somebody who is willing to kill your children, your women, who is willing to destroy all you’ve created in your life, destroy your cities, everything... The artistic person becomes the warrior, and you can’t help being the warrior now.”
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- Slava Vakarchuk, lead singer of rock band Okean Elzy and, now, Ukrainian army lieutenant
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| rantnrave:// |
A Milli (x 1,000)
According to SPOTIFY's updated version of its LOUD & CLEAR website, which charts its own success in supporting the music ecosystem, more than 1,000 artists generated at least $1 million in royalties from the service in 2021. Which doesn't necessarily mean they actually made $1 million. It means $1 million was sent out into that ecosystem of labels, publishers, distributors, artists and songwriters. Someone should break *that* down in a Louder & Clearer website. More on this exercise in the mix below, and in upcoming newsletters, but for now I'm mostly wondering which of the thousand or so artists releasing notable albums today will generate a milli for themselves or someone else this year.
It's one of those Fridays. (Is there an awards show eligibility deadline I don't know about?)
Reggaeton icon DADDY YANKEE says LEGENDADDY will be his last album and he's retiring from the road, too, after a summer/fall tour that goes on sale today. He's bowing out—if in fact he means it, which pop stars hardly ever do when they say they're quitting—with what Rolling Stone's Gary Suarez says is a "fundamentally contemporary" album whose biggest strength may be its "tacit rejection of nostalgia." Yankee is 45—just a year older than Chris Stapleton and only a few months older than Kanye West—which is insanely young to be quitting music, but which also gives him plenty of time to start fresh with something else (movies, say), so power to him if that's where he's headed. Also, the price of, um, gasolina is at an all-time high, so maybe there'll never a better to time to cash out... KOFFEE is half Daddy Yankee's age and she's already being hailed as the future of reggae. Her debut album, GIFTED, opens with a Bob Marley sample, "but before he can utter his opening line, about marauding pirates, Koffee cuts in," Carrie Battan writes in the New Yorker. "From that point on, the Marley sample fades into an echoey interpolation, a spectre of history." Koffee won the Grammy for Best Reggae Album for her debut EP two years ago, making her the youngest artist and first woman to do so, not to mention the first artist who didn't actually have an album. Now she does, and "I don't want to just sing and dance two-time and forget about it soon after," she says. "I want to change consciousness"...
“I know it kills certain bands in [the pop-punk] community that I got the success that I got," says MACHINE GUN KELLY, who named his new album MAINSTREAM SELLOUT and who opens the title song by letting you know, "I heard the feedback / I'm a poser," which is to say, he's rubber, you're glue, everything you're thinking, he's thought of it, too. He even thought of calling a song "Sid and Nancy." There's nothing you can say, trust me, just give in... Elsewhere in rock, DREAM WIDOW is the fictional band in DAVE GROHL's horror/comedy film "Studio 666" and it now has a self-titled mini-album recorded mostly by Grohl on his own, and it is, according to no less an authority than MetalSucks.com, "a killer metal record... effortlessly blending doom and grunge, death metal and punk, old-school thrash and grimy garage rock. This is a love letter, and it was written by a f*** hasher"...
MAREN MORRIS, whose career has offered plenty of proof that it's possible to cross over from country to pop and then cross right back, opens HUMBLE QUEST with a song that charts her rise to stardom and then spends much of the rest of the album making it clear her heart remains very much in the country. "I think I got enough of my fill," she told the New York Times' Joe Coscarelli in January. "Humble Quest" is a deeply personal album, too. It was made during the pandemic, after Morris gave birth to her first child and shortly after the death of her friend busbee, who produced her previous her previous two albums. Her producer this time is pop/rock A-lister Greg Kurstin, who, perhaps ironically, helped her strip down and expose her roots. "That was definitely my first dobro in a session," Kurstin told the Times... On its third album, IBIBIO SOUND MACHINE, which is based in London and includes musicians from Ghana, Brazil and Trinidad, generates "a series of starbursts connecting William Onyeabor to Gloria Estefan to Loose Joints to Grace Jones to a beat that picked up before recorded history begins, somewhere in West Africa, and never stopped," which sounds like this and/or this and which, if you ask me, is better than generating $1 million for all manner of stakeholders.
Plus new music from DENZEL CURRY (with Robert Glasper, Thundercat, 6Lack, Rico Nasty, T-Pain, etc.), LATTO, REMA, ALDOUS HARDING, KILO KISH, NIGO, BUDDY, CAMP COPE, JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS (acoustic), MICHAEL BUBLÉ, FANA HUES, SOUL GLO, PROPER, EMMA RUTH RUNDLE, P.E., GUERRILLA TOSS, LARRY MCCRAY, CHRISTINA WHEELER, KAVINSKY, LEON VYNEHALL (Fabric presents...), ANNA WALL, MAX COOPER, SHELLEY PARKER, INTERSTELLAR FUNK, SUBJECTIVE (Goldie & James Davidson), JANA RUSH, JAY WORTHY & LARRY JUNE, THA GOD FAHIM, JUANITA EUKA, GABRIEL KAHANE, ENSEMBLE DAL NIENTE, DESTROYER, BARRIE, EMILY JANE WHITE, GINLA, JENSEN MCRAE, REBA MCENTIRE, COWBOY JUNKIES, KRISTIAN BUSH (of Sugarland), CANNONS, ANIMALS AS LEADERS, KILLING JOKE, F***ED UP (rarities), ABSENT IN BODY, CARCARA, PLACEBO, IGNITE, EX-VÖID (ex-members of Joanna Gruesome), BRIAN CHASE & ANTHONY COLEMAN, LARRY GOLDINGS/PETER BERNSTEIN/BILL STEWART, NORMAN BROWN, MATISYAHU, SEA GIRLS, YOUNG PRISMS, LOOP, the ASTEROID NO. 4, ANAND WILDER (ex-Yeasayer), WALTER MARTIN (ex-Walkmen), ISIK KURAL, SUSANNA and ED SCHRADER'S MUSIC BEAT.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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The Next Web |
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| Snoop’s NFTs showcase benefits for musicians -- and risks for fans |
| By Thomas Macaulay |
| When Snoop Dogg announced his acquisition of Death Row Records last month, fans were thrilled that the legendary rap label was being resurrected. We were less thrilled when, weeks later, most of the Death Row catalog disappeared from streaming platforms. |
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Attack Magazine |
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| Is Dance Music About To Change Its Tune? |
| By Bertie Coyle |
| Artists and manufacturers are working to explode the piano roll as we know it. There are more than 12 notes out there - but where are they? |
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Tidal |
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| Aretha Franklin: Precious Memories |
| By Tasha Cobbs Leonard and Shaun Brady |
| Gospel star Tasha Cobbs Leonard on the Queen of Soul’s inner strength, abiding faith and groundbreaking versatility. |
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Passion of the Weiss |
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| The Oral History of The LAWN |
| By Chris Mitchell |
| How the Justus League created an online community that impacted the real world. |
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Complex |
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| Please Allow Latto to Reintroduce Herself |
| By Jessica McKinney |
| Dropping her first album since changing her name, Latto is aiming high, with a massive single and a little help from some of the rap’s biggest stars. |
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The New Yorker |
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| Listening to Russian Music in Putin's Shadow |
| By Alex Ross |
| At a concert in Los Angeles, works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich show the limits of nationalism and the ambiguous power of the individual musical voice. |
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VAN Magazine |
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| A Vigil to a Life |
| By Elizaveta Miller |
| When Russia invaded Ukraine, harpsichordist Elizaveta Miller left her Moscow home behind. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Сидить Млада за столичком” |
| Mlada |
| Found this gorgeous piece, from circa 2005, on the comp "Ukrainian Roots in Jazz" (h/t Marc Myers). I know nothing about it except the featured players, besides Mlada on vocals, include Денис Дудко on bass and Дмитро Марченко on vibes. |
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| Video of the day |
| “Dear Homeland” |
| Claudia Escobar/KQED Arts |
| Director Claudia Escobar's documentary about Mexican singer/songwriter Diana Gameros, who lived for years as an undocumented immigrant in Michigan and San Francisco and became an advocate for Dreamers. The story is told largely through her 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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