| The best feeling in the world is the euphoria around the first idea of writing a great song. That feeling has now turned into 'Oh wait, let's stand back for a minute.' You find yourself in the moment, second-guessing yourself. |
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| Might as well jump: Billie Eilish at the Forum, Inglewood, Calif., April 8, 2022. |
| (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“The best feeling in the world is the euphoria around the first idea of writing a great song. That feeling has now turned into 'Oh wait, let's stand back for a minute.' You find yourself in the moment, second-guessing yourself.”
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- Ed Sheeran, on pop-music plagiarism lawsuits
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| rantnrave:// |
Fake Book
If you're one of those people, and there are a lot of you, who think the pandemic of fake artists on SPOTIFY and other subscription services is no big deal, if you think they're just another group of artists making money from the system instead of more famous names and therefore good for them, I beg you to read this essay from TED GIOIA, riffing on an anonymous music bizzer's account in MUSIC BIZ WORLDWIDE, which I also beg you to read. Because there are two big problems when this particular brand of fake artist invades our algorithms: It doesn't appear to be artists making that money—record companies and tech companies are collecting those dollars *instead* of artists—and it's a terrible experience for millions of music fans who subscription services are feeding mediocre music to. It’s the system abdicating its responsibility to help music fans discover good music.
The experience Gioia outlines was easy for me to duplicate. Go to Spotify, type the word "jazz" in the search box and behold the results. My top result is the same as his: an official Spotify playlist called "Jazz in the Background," whose title is disturbingly on-the-nose. It's music that the service is telling me isn't meant to be listened to, much of it by artists who are obscure by design. If you were a record store clerk named DANIEL EK and a customer told you nothing more than that they were interested in jazz, is this the music you'd point them to? The top three artists who show up under my jazz search include JAZZ FRUITS MUSIC, which doesn't appear to be an actual artist but a collection of low-budget library music released by a label, STRANGE FRUITS, which Music Biz Worldwide's source says specializes in pseudonymous artists making low or no royalties. One of the top three albums is a two-song, five-minute release by HARA NODA, an artist best known among jazz aficionados for appearing on that Jazz in the Background playlist. And so on. The official playlist feeds the algorithm which in turn amplifies the playlist and the fake artists on it.
If the whistleblowing is correct, much of this music is made by artists whose output is work-for-hire, meaning they're not getting the royalties that normally come with streaming plays. Those royalties may be fractions of fractions of pennies per play, but in the aggregate—Jazz in the Background has 210 songs and 650,000 followers—that can be a lot of money diverted away from the standard artist royalty pie. Depending on the particulars of any given fake/anonymous artist, the beneficiaries are the labels who control the music or the subscription service itself. All three majors, apparently, and lots of indies do this. And a lot of the anonymous creators, strangely, appear to be from Spotify's home country, Sweden.
Even if the whistleblowing is wrong, jazz fans and/or music fans who are curious about jazz are getting decidedly questionable recommendations from a service they're paying to be their music guide. I listen to a lot of jazz, both new and old, on Spotify. I have no doubt Ted Gioia listens to far more. Why is Spotify, which prides itself on personalization, on knowing its users' listening preferences, pointing us to this stuff when there's so much great jazz, both new and old, out there? We're living in a jazz golden age. It's hard enough for the musicians responsible for it to find a fanbase and make a living without a giant music tech company standing purposefully in the way.
You Listenin' to Me?
A legit promoter is doing this at a legit venue in Brooklyn this summer because why?
Rest in Peace
CHRIS BAILEY, lead singer of pioneering Australian punk-rockers the Saints. "Rock music in the seventies was changed by three bands," Bob Geldof once said. "The Sex Pistols, the Ramones and the Saints." "We all felt brushed by the Saints’ wings," said Robert Forster of fellow Brisbane natives the Go-Betweens... British jazz singer TINA MAY.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Trapital |
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| Audiomack CMO Dave Ponte’s Plan to Grow the Pie for Artists |
| By Dan Runcie and Dave Ponte |
| Audiomack says is wants to increase the “size of the pie” for the entire music industry — not merely find additional ways to ”slice the pie.” Co-founder Dave Ponte and I spoke at length about artist monetization — and how Web 3.0 possibly fits into the equation. |
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Hypebeast |
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| The Last Thing Syd Wants To Be Is Bitter |
| By Sophie Caraan |
| Although her first solo album in five years was delayed by heartbreak, she now finds herself content and focused on the things that truly matter to her. |
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female:pressure |
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| An Open Letter about MOMEM |
| By Electric Indigo |
| With great irritation we have taken note of the events for the opening of MOMEM – Museum of Modern Electronic Music in Frankfurt. The opening of MOMEM is exclusively in the hands of cis men (Sven Väth, Sami Hugo, Sven Louis and Noe Fazi as DJs, Tobias Rehberger as curator), MOMEM’s team of directors is also 100% male. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Who Do Men Say I Am?” |
| Pastor Champion |
| Possibly my favorite song from possibly my favorite album (so far) of 2022, "I Just Want to Be a Good Man," out now on Luaka Bop. Pastor Champion, a traveling preacher, gospel singer and carpenter, died just months before this, his very belated first album, was released. |
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| Music | Media |
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Suggest a link  |
| “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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