| I don't have any deadlines, because at the end of the day, when my s*** comes out, it comes out. |
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| In Ctrl: SZA at the Global Citizen Festival, Accra, Ghana, Sept. 24, 2022. |
| (Jemal Countess/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
A Hundred Milli
APPLE MUSIC says there are now 100 million songs in its catalog, which is a lot of songs, and my first, admittedly snarky, reaction was, “OK, but which ones?” Do you have FRANK OCEAN’s “LOVECRIMES” or “STRAWBERRY SWING”? Do you have the studio version of the CURE’s “KILLING AN ARAB”? Do you have MATT LAJOIE’s STAR MAPS album?
My second reaction was to do some quick back-of-the-napkin math. (OK, maybe I used a calculator.) Starting with the somewhat wild guess that the average song across all genres and decades clocks in around three and a half minutes, I worked out that 100 million songs adds up to 350 million minutes of music, and it would take you 666 years of nonstop listening to hear to all of it. I swear I didn’t play around with the song lengths before I landed on a nice round number like 666. I got that on my first try.
Make of the numerology what you will while you ponder if it’s possible that more music is worse than less music—that there might simply be too much. Ponder the mark of the beast while you ask yourself if you can identify with MEG LETHEM, who was trying to pick a soundtrack one morning for the bakery where she works. “She opened SPOTIFY, then flicked and flicked, endlessly searching for something to play,” LIZ PELLY reported in the Guardian. “Nothing was perfect for the moment. She looked some more, through playlist after playlist. An uncomfortably familiar loop, it made her realise: she hated how music was being used in her life.” And that’s Spotify, which claims a mere 80 million songs. Would 20 million more have made her search any easier, or that much harder? Is it possible there’s such an abundance of streaming music that overwhelmed music fans, “faced with everything at once,” are intentionally avoiding almost all of it, as another piece in the Guardian’s recent “Discovery Channels” series suggested?
There are, of course, counterarguments. Maybe 100 million of them. “We’ve gone from 1,000 songs in your pocket to 100,000x that on Apple Music,” the service’s global head of editorial, RACHEL NEWMAN, wrote Monday. “You can explore genres you never knew existed and find your new favorite artist in places you would never expect.” Me, I’ve listened to countless songs, albums and artists I never dreamed of hearing in the pre-streaming age. Classic albums I read about but could never afford, or find. New songs from countries and genres that were once all but unknown to me. Endless roots and branches. In his Streaming Machinery blog, G.C STEIN wonders if the problem others have identified isn’t about overabundance but underorganization, for which the streaming services and the labels who license music to them can share the blame. (Maybe the services and labels could redirect some of the time and money they’ve spent building the former to do some work on the latter.)
Anyway, also on Monday, I read ARIA HUGHES’ feature on SZA for Complex, in which SZA, who grew up in the age of NAPSTER and was already in college when Spotify launched, talks about how she developed her expansive taste in music. “Her music diet growing up was jazz her father favored,” Hughes writes. “But thanks to her older sister, a mixtape she received at a bar mitzvah, and an iPod she found at a gymnastics camp, she was introduced to a wide swath of sounds ranging from BJÖRK to WU-TANG to LFO to LIL JON.” The internet no doubt played a part in that journey, but I’m going with her sister, whoever made the mixtape and whoever programmed that iPod as the most important sources. Trusted guides. Random hands to hold. Maps and almanacs. 100,000x what a hundred million songs are worth, if you ask me. Or, as a social mediaite might put it, a hundred million songs is great but have you ever found one or two friends to tell you which ones to actually play?
Appropriations
What would the late DAVID MANCUSO, the DJ behind the LOFT, have thought of LOUIS VUITTON co-opting his name and spirit for its “Fall in Love” men’s collection? A searing critique, with great historical and cultural context, by TIM LAWRENCE (h/t DADA STRAIN)... What would PRINCE have thought of his own estate denying director KATHRYN FERGUSON permission to use SINEAD O’CONNOR’s version of “NOTHING COMPARES 2 U” in the new doc NOTHING COMPARES? Billboard’s MELINDA NEWMAN doesn’t answer that exact question but provides the background, including O’Connor’s allegation in her 2021 memoir that Prince abused her and the estate’s ungenerous assertion that “His version is the best” and she, therefore, doesn’t deserve the sync. The director, for her part, tells Billboard the estate was within its rights and she’s “very happy with that section of the film,” which is now focused on her, not him.
Rest in Peace
MARYBETH PETERS, who headed the US Copyright Office from 1994 to 2010, when the internet was erupting like a volcano. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed on her watch. “She was very strong about saying that the rights don’t change—the technology does,” remembered RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier... Yemeni oud player AHMED ALSHAIBA, known for his oud covers of Western pop hits... KYLE MAITE, guitarist for Ohio pop-punk band Hit the Lights... New Zealand drum and bass DJ producer JAY BULLETPROOF... Icelandic rock singer/songwriter PRINS PÓLÓ.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Tim Lawrence |
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| David Mancuso and Louis Vuitton: Can they “Fall in Love”? |
| By Tim Lawrence |
| The world’s most profitable luxury corporation had a good, long think and concluded it would be entirely reasonable to align itself with a person who paid almost no attention to his appearance, spent the very minimum on clothes, placed no value on material possessions (other than stereo equipment and vinyl!) and ran a house party that placed anti-commercialism and egalitarianism at the centre of its ethos. |
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Complex |
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| SZA: Her Next Act |
| By Aria Hughes |
| As SZA gears up for the release of her highly anticipated sophomore album, she's putting herself first—whether you like it or not. |
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Business Insider |
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| Why Oboes Are So Expensive |
| By Enxhi Dylgjeri |
| A specialized woodwind with a wistful yet powerful tone, the oboe is one of the most expensive instruments you can buy. But why? |
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Catapult |
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| On Fatherhood, Masculinity, and Steely Dan |
| By Matt Mitchell |
| But of course, all of this isn’t about ‘Gaucho’ or masculinity, really. It’s about trauma, about breaking a cycle you didn’t consent to entering. |
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The World of Dust-to-Digital |
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| Presenting Beauty to the World: Remembering Joe Bussard |
| By Lance Ledbetter |
| The first conversation lasted more than two hours. I think maybe I got in ten sentences. Immediately, I could tell that Joe went beyond the role of what I thought a collector would serve and was acting more as a proselytizer for the music he loved and was driven to preserve. |
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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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