| Tremendous strides must be made to achieve significantly more gender representation in the recording industry. |
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| Imogen Heap in her home studio in London, March 26, 2008. |
| (Gavin Roberts/Future Music Magazine/Getty Images) |
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| quote of the day |
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“Tremendous strides must be made to achieve significantly more gender representation in the recording industry.”
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- Fix the Mix, "Lost in the Mix"
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| rantnrave:// |
Hear Me Roar (or Not)
Totally not breaking news: Adding to dreary statistics the ANNENBERG INCLUSION INITIATIVE has been reporting for several years, a new report released Tuesday by a coalition called FIX THE MIX reveals that the people making the world’s most popular records continue to not hire women to engineer and produce them. There are numbers upon numbers and percentages upon percentages in the extensive report whose lead authors are mastering engineer EMILY LAZAR (founder of the nonprofit WE ARE MOVING THE NEEDLE, which was created to try to fix this problem) and JAXSTA CEO BETH APPLETON, but maybe the most stark, simple and human one is this: Of 240 producers and engineers credited in the most popular songs across various genres on SPOTIFY, APPLE, AMAZON, YOUTUBE and TIKTOK in 2022, exactly 16 were women and non-binary people. Sixteen. People. That's pretty much a rounding error. It’s as if no one’s even trying. Except that people have been trying, some of them quite loudly, for several years, which suggests it’s more like the rest of the industry is actively resisting. It’s “not actually a complex problem if you want to solve it,” Lazar says. Which leads to one simple question for anyone in a position to be part of the solution: Do you, in fact, want to solve it?
The numbers are particularly bleak in metal (a genre in which, the report says, the top 50 streaming songs of 2022 had “0.0%” women and non-binary people credited in technical roles), hip-hop and Christian/gospel. The best genres for non-male producers and engineers were electronic (17.6%) and folk/Americana (16.4%). Kudos, you wielders of synthesizers and acoustic guitars. But as BEVERLY KEEL, a dean at Middle Tennessee State University and co-founder of the country-music women’s equity org CHANGE THE CONVERSATION, was quoted in Billboard as saying, “In any other industry, these low percentages of the genres that have the best gender representation would be an embarrassment, so I hope these ‘high achievers’ are not resting on their laurels.”
The report includes plenty of recommendations—many of which will look familiar to anyone who’s spent any time in a human resources department in any industry—including actively recruiting women for apprenticeship jobs behind the boards, diligently and accurately crediting the women who are already there for the songs they work on, and creating a database of available talent (because, as the authors ask, “Why would organizations search for whom they’ve learned to believe does not exist?”). And it calls on the three major labels to spend some of the $300 million they’ve pledged in recent years to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on getting women into control rooms.
Etc Etc Etc
CourtREDEF part 1: Artists vs. label... Part 2: Artist vs. artist... Part 3: Bandmates vs. each other... “Imagine a NETFLIX, but all metal”: It’s called THUNDERFLIX, and it costs—double bass drum roll, please--$6.66 a month... Does this sound familiar to anyone? From what the Atlantic describes as “The Pornography Paradox”: “Though PORNHUB alone gets more visits a month than either Netflix or TikTok, according to one online guide for budding porn entrepreneurs, a video garnering 1 million views will net its producer roughly $500.” Revenues come from ads and go mostly to site owners instead of performers, who are kept busy “creating new content... to supplement the content they’re barely being paid for.”
Rest in Peace
JULIÁN FIGUEROA, musician/actor son of the late great Mexican balladeer Joan Sebastian.
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| - Matty Karas, curator |
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The Independent |
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| Inside the rise of #MusicAd influencers on TikTok |
| By Lydia Spencer-Elliott |
| From ‘Heat Waves’ by Glass Animals to Lola Young’s ‘Don’t Hate Me’, songs and soundbites routinely go viral on TikTok. Some more organically than others. Lydia Spencer-Elliott explores the booming business of #MusicAd influencers paid to make songs go viral. |
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Fix the Mix |
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| Lost in the Mix Annual Report Excerpts [PDF] |
| By Emily Lazar, Beth Appleton, Meghan Smith... |
| An analysis of credited technical professionals in the music industry highlighting women and non-binary producers and engineers across DSP playlists, genres, awards, record certifications & distributors.. |
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Switched On Pop |
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| Switched On Pop: This Generation's Caroline Polachek |
| By Nate Sloan, Charlie Harding and Caroline Polachek |
| From her work in the indie band Chairlift to years of behind-the-scenes songwriting, Caroline Polachek has worked hard over years to build a stellar music career -- culminating in the pop opus "Desire," already one of the best rated albums of 2023. We look at Polachek’s career thus far, and talk to her about the intricacies of her latest. |
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The New Yorker |
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| The Doleful Minimalism of Max Richter |
| By Alex Ross |
| The composer is everywhere on film and television soundtracks, promising that we will dissolve in mist before the apocalypse arrives. |
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Complex |
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| The Oral History of Freaknik |
| By Angel Elliott |
| Ahead of Hulu’s ‘Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told’ documentary, here’s the story of ATL’s wildest street party, as told by those who lived it. |
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Complex |
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| Hip-Hop Media Pioneers |
| By Aria Hughes, Jordan Rose, Lei Takanashi... |
| Whether it’s radio turned TV personality Wendy Williams, or Stress magazine founder like Alan Ket, these pioneers shaped how we tell stories about hip-hop. |
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Broken Record |
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| Broken Record: George Clinton |
| By Rick Rubin and George Clinton |
| Rick Rubin talks to George Clinton about the origins of his original vocal group, The Parliaments. George also reminisces about the time he dared James Brown to do the splits 18 times in a row while on a music industry panel with Madonna and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. |
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| what we're into |
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| Music of the day |
| “Jerusalem” |
| Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru |
| "Elegiac, but... suffused with a sense of survival: we are broken, we are wounded, we carry on," the New Yorker's Amanda Petrusich writes of this early '70s piano masterpiece by the late Egyptian nun. The more things change, the more they don't. It's the title track of a posthumous album out Friday on Mississippi Records. |
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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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