| I was riding down the street in my car and I heard the first song that I ever recorded for the first time on the radio. And I couldn’t believe I was hearing myself on the radio... I remember the time of day it was, I remember exactly where I was... That was the highlight of my life, even above getting the Grammy. |
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| The meaning of la-la: Wilbert Hart, William "Poogie" Hart and Randy Cain of the Delfonics in Harlem, Oct. 15, 1968. |
| (Don Paulsen/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“I was riding down the street in my car and I heard the first song that I ever recorded for the first time on the radio. And I couldn’t believe I was hearing myself on the radio... I remember the time of day it was, I remember exactly where I was... That was the highlight of my life, even above getting the Grammy.”
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- William "Poogie" Hart, Delfonics singer/songwriter, 1945 – 2022
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| rantnrave:// |
Deflation
TIKTOK music head OLE OBERMANN never quite said A) his service doesn’t pay royalties based on video plays because B) it considers itself a “promotional platform” rather than C) a “streaming” service, as it appeared he’d said by the time a statement he made to Music Business Worldwide a couple weeks ago made its way to music Twitter this weekend. Obermann did in fact say B and C, and A was already understood. The connectors “because” and “rather than” were added, by implication, as the statement made its way to a second MBW story and then to Twitter, where TikTok became one of the targets du jour for artists wondering, as they often do, where the money from billions and billions of streams is going.
In TikTok’s case, the biggest chunk goes to labels as a blanket fee that isn’t connected to individual streams. MBW contrasted this to YOUTUBE, which pays out a revenue share based on plays of monetized videos, and calculated that TikTok is paying out a far lower percentage of its revenues to music creators. (This is, it should be noted, about artist/label royalties. Songwriter/publisher royalties are different deals and a different discussion.) If TikTok were defending this discrepancy with the argument that it’s providing musicians with free exposure, which it kinda sorta seems it is, it would be making itself that much easier of a target for artists’ anger. But if you parse what Obermann actually said, it’s that TikTok’s contracts with record companies don’t call for per-play royalties *and* TikTok provides exposure, which reads differently if you try to replace “and” with “because.” Questions arise either way, though. No company should be pushing the exposure argument in 2022, or ever again.
And maybe I’m just splitting hairs. The TikTok exec also told MBW, “From the outset we wanted to pay rightsholders,” which is a strange thing to say, as if paying rightsholders is a thing a company can choose to do or not do. Not a lot of companies actually want to pay rightsholders. All of them, however, have to. Which leads to the followup question that’s been bugging me for the past few days: If a blanket music fee brings in significantly less money than a revenue share based on video plays, why did labels—which have decades of experience of cutting deals with tech and media startups—agree to it? How many negotiations must a label walk down before... oh, you know the rest.
Followup question #2: This is a good overview, by lawyer KARL FOWLKES, on the growing availability of decentralized alternatives for artists who don’t want traditional record contracts, and who instead want different partners for marketing, distribution, accounting, etc. What do future deals with future TikToks look like when record companies as we used to know them no longer exist? Who will the tech company have to negotiate with then?
Etc Etc Etc
TAYLOR SWIFT’s re-recorded RED (TAYLOR’S VERSION) is eligible for next year’s GRAMMYS as “a new recording,” the RECORDING ACADEMY tells Billboard. Good call, for multiple reasons. The Academy never ruled either way on its predecessor, FEARLESS (TAYLOR’S VERSION), because Swift didn’t submit it for consideration... STEVEN SPIELBERG has directed his first music video. Apologies to anyone else who had any hopes of winning next year’s Grammy for Best Music Video... JAPANESE BREAKFAST has canceled a September show at the MAIN STREET ARMORY in Rochester, N.Y., to protest the booking of the far-right ReAwaken America tour at the same venue in August... American soprano ANGEL BLUE has pulled out of her debut at Italy’s ARENA DI VERONA to protest its production of VERDI’s AIDA in which ANNA NETREBKO and other singers are performing in blackface... A major EDDIE VAN HALEN tribute concert fell through, son WOLFGANG tells my friend BRIAN HIATT at Rolling Stone, because “there are some people that make it very difficult to do anything when it comes to Van Halen.” Asked if he’s referring to “a certain singer with three initials,” Wolfgang says, “Do your research on the history of Van Halen, and come to your conclusions”... Synth supply chain issues.
Rest in Peace
WILLIAM “POOGIE” HART, lead singer and songwriter of the Delfonics, the Philly soul group he fronted for more than 50 years. He was the falsetto voice of the classic Philadelphia sound and the romantic, punctuation-loving heart behind songs such as “La-La-Means I Love You,” “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)” and “Ready or Not Here I Come (Can’t Hide From Love),” all of which he co-wrote with producer Thom Bell... Happy Mondays bassist PAUL RYDER, who once described his style as an attempt to replicate the synthesized bass of Chicago house music “but using a real instrument”... CLIFF JOHNSON, lead singer of Chicago power-pop groups Off Broadway and Pezband... Puerto Rican salsa singer HÉCTOR TRICOCHE... Early Rolling Stone writer and rock biographer DAVID DALTON... Polish surrealist painter MARIUSZ LEWANDOWSKI, who designed album covers for metal bands including Bell Witch, Mizmor and Abigail Williams... ‘60s and ‘70s British songwriter ALAN BLAIKLEY.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Money 4 Nothing |
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| K-Pop Histories Beyond BTS (Featuring The Idolcast) |
| By Saxon Baird and Sam Backer |
| While groups like BTS and BLACKPINK received mountains of breathless hype from the western media, this coverage has consistently failed to explain what K-Pop really is—or how it works. |
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Trapital |
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| The Future of the Artist Deal |
| By Karl Fowlkes |
| In 2022, artists are no longer choosing the best record label. They are now choosing the best record label, distributor, or platform to partner with. There’s an opportunity to approach deals in a modern way that adds value for both artists and the companies they partner with. |
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GQ |
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| Lloyd Banks, Rap's Master Technician |
| By Paul Thompson |
| The G-Unit punchline king discusses his new album, his origins with 50 Cent and Tony Yayo, and the secret inspiration he took from Layzie Bone. |
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The New Yorker |
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| The Songs That Made Church a Home |
| By Vinson Cunningham |
| “Lead Me, Guide Me” was the first hymnal commissioned for African American Catholics. But it was also something passed down, like faith itself. |
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Loud And Quiet |
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| Pavement: distance skews everything |
| By Dominic Haley |
| After more than a decade away, one of alternative rock’s most cherished cult bands are back. We speak to Pavement before and after their headline set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, discussing time, TikTok and horse racing with a group who seem more comfortable than ever. |
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interdependence.fm |
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| Experiments in revaluing music with David Greenstein (Sound.xyz) |
| By Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst and David Greenstein |
| We sit down with Sound.xyz founder David Greenstein to discuss the many different experiments and approaches happening to revalue music within the Ethereum ecosystem, touching on Spotify, TikTok and the traditional music industry in contrast. |
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| what we're into |
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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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