| I was perfectly fine with 'Be Here Now.' Because I had bought it. You had to like it. That was a thing back then. It’s like you buy this album and are stuck with it, so you will find redeeming qualities. |
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| Charlie Puth in Indianapolis, June 17, 2022. His self-titled third album is out today on Atlantic. |
| (Michael Hickey/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
It’s Friday
And these are some of the ways to make music for release on an autumn Friday in 2022.
The jigsaw puzzle method: “Most of the time, it wasn’t in chronological order,” pop experimentalist WILLOW says of working with producer CHRIS GREATTI on her fifth album, COPING MECHANISM. “He’d play parts, and I’d say ‘That sounds like a pre-chorus’ or ‘That sounds like a bridge or a breakdown.’ We would piece the guitar parts together like a puzzle. And then after they were all in their spots, I’d start thinking, ‘Okay, what do I want this song to be about? What does this make me feel?’” Also, she had been listening to metal bands Crowbar and Lamb of God. The resulting sub-30-minute (!!!) album, Maura Johnston writes in her Rolling Stone review, “shows not only that the wild oscillations of her voice correspond to the turbulent emotions she sings about but also that her voice can hold its own amidst thundering drums and squalling riffs.”
The West Hollywood appropriation method: “LOSER,” a song on CHARLIE PUTH’s self-titled third album, was the result of him driving past two WeHo gay clubs while listening to an early version of a track he wasn’t particularly thrilled with. “And everybody was out dancing to something that's not being played on the radio,” he tells GQ’s Ira Madison III. “I think LGBTQ+ culture is so ahead of its time, culturally, sonically, musically, everything-ly... I literally heard a different song in my head. I rearranged the whole thing, I drove back to the studio, I was so inspired." There’s a sense out there, as Madison himself notes, that Puth may be a little over-eager to connect himself to the LGBTQ+ community. I’ll leave that discussion to others while noting that, in purely musical terms, there’s (usually) nothing wrong with grabbing inspiration—or actual beats and sounds—from the radio or TikTok or outside your car window on Santa Monica Boulevard. It's one of the oldest tricks in pop.
The drag-someone-out-of-their-comfort-zone method: Producer/programmer DANGER MOUSE, who reunites with the Shins’ JAMES MERCER for their first BROKEN BELLS album in eight years, INTO THE BLUE, says the key to the project is to produce it like a hip-hop record even if that's not exactly what it is. “You make the music and then you have [a vocalist] react to it,” Danger Mouse says. “A lot of rock musicians, when they do songs, that’s not the way they do stuff. When they’re making music, they’re doing melodies and new stuff. They’re all kind of constructing at the same time. I found that when you have someone react to a piece of music that they haven’t heard, you can get some real magic. They haven’t had time to get numb to it or for it to sink in or to start editing themselves.”
The AirDrop method: OK, this song isn’t actually on Detroit YouTuber-turned-pop-punker-turned-hyperpop-punker CHLOE MORIONDO’s third album, SUCKERPUNCH. But one of her collaborators is OSCAR SCHELLER, with whom she completed a bonus tune “that he just accidentally AirDropped to me in an Uber.” Eventually, artificial intelligence songwriting programs will collaborate the same way but it won’t be by accident and it won’t be as interesting. “It’s a great, fun depression song,” Moriondo reports. She, Pitchfork says, is part of a new generation of children of Paramore—along with the aforementioned Willow. There are far worse paths pop/rock could have taken in the past couple decades.
Also today: MAXIDENT is STRAY KIDS’ 10th EP in four years (to go along with two full-lengths). “If we settle,” Han, one of the K-pop group’s eight members, told Billboard recently, “we know we can’t go forward. That’s why we were and are like this. We try to look ahead and not stay still.” EP #9, “Oddinary,” released earlier this year, made Stray Kids one of only four Korean acts to hit #1 on the Billboard 200... Canadian indie rockers ALVVAYS turn up both the guitars and the production on BLUE REV, and crack a Belinda Carlisle Easter egg along the way... QUAVO & TAKEOFF lose their Migos bandmate Offset but gain collaborators including Young Thug, YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Summer Walker on (‘90s kids will like this title) ONLY BUILT FOR INFINITY LINKS... OZUNA's fifth album, OZUTOCHI, says Rolling Stone, is "a love letter to the transformational beauty of reggaetón," with the occasional '80s sax lick... G HERBO’s SURVIVOR’S REMORSE: A SIDE is the first half of a double album, the second half of which is scheduled to come out Monday... British electronic producer LORAINE JAMES reinterprets/reimagines the work of the late avant garde composer/pianist JULIUS EASTMAN on BUILDING SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL FOR ME.
Plus albums from YoungBoy Never Broke Again (surprise!), Flohio, Daphni (aka Caribou’s Dan Snaith), Gayle, Jean Dawson, Open Mike Eagle, Sorry, Oh Wonder, Joyce Wrice, Star Feminine Band, Lamb of God, Goatwhore, Queensrÿche, Gillian Carter, Counterparts, the Cult, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Gilla Band (formerly Girl Band), Sun Ra Arkestra, Anat Cohen, Dave Douglas, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, John Escreet, Mark Guiliana, Bobby Watson, Seulgi (of Red Velvet), Action Bronson, Toosii, DJ Muggs & Crimeapple, Nnamdï, TSHA, Joe P, Isabella LoveStory, Courtney Marie Andrews, Bonny Light Horseman, Will Sheff (of Okkervil River), Appalachian Road Show, Town Mountain, Courtney Patton, Caleb Caudle, Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Keiji Haino & Sumac, Shabason & Krgovich, Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka, Macula Dog, Thus Love, the Orielles, Bush, Ruth Radelet (ex-Chromatics), Peel Dream Magazine, A.A. Williams, Dayglow, Dungen, Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka, Lori Goldston, Jessica Moss, Indigo Sparke and Johanna Warren.
Rest in Peace
Country singer JODY MILLER, best known for “Queen of the House,” her 1965 answer song to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road”... VIC KEARY, founder of UK audio company Thermionic Culture... Seattle superfan ERICH HERRMANN... Accordion-wielding comedian JUDY TENUTA.
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| - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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Vulture |
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| The Live-Music Industry Is Broken |
| By Larry Fitzmaurice |
| Supply-chain issues, mental health crises, positive COVID tests. As artists continue to struggle, is any of this even worth it? |
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GQ |
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| How Charlie Puth Got His Groove Back |
| By Ira Madison III |
| His latest album’s his most vulnerable and honest one yet-thanks to his fans, some horny TikToks, gay clubs, and Elton John. |
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theGrio |
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| Why are so many rappers dying? |
| By Touré |
| A number of deaths in the hip-hop community are a byproduct of problems that all of us in the Black community face. |
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The FADER |
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| Willow is on the dark side now |
| By Gyasi Williams-Kirtley and Willow Smith |
| Nearing her 22nd birthday and the release of her 5th studio album, Willow Smith announces her villain era. |
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Afropop Worldwide |
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| Reissued -- African Vinyl In The 21st Century |
| By Morgan Greenstreet, Alejandro Van Zandt-Escobar and Nenim Iwebuke |
| The golden age of vinyl records is long past in Africa, but the market for rare and reissued African vinyl outside the continent has been growing steadily since the early 2000s. DJs and collectors have turned an obsession with rare records and forgotten gems from Cape Town to Tangiers into an international reissue and compilation industry. |
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VICE |
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| Flohio: Rap’s New Powerhouse |
| By Tara Joshi |
| The south Londoner is only just getting started. We spoke about love, grief and her debut album, "Out of Heart". |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Enfield, Always” |
| Loraine James |
| From "Building Something Beautiful for Me," out today on Phantom Limb. |
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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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