I've never booked an act I haven't seen live and I never will. It's the Recording Academy but it should be called the Performance Awards, because that's what [the telecast] is. | | | | They've got the beat but they've never been nominated for the Rock Hall of Fame. The Go-Go's circa 1981.
(Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I've never booked an act I haven't seen live and I never will. It's the Recording Academy but it should be called the Performance Awards, because that's what [the telecast] is.”
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| | rantnrave:// Today the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME announces its class of 2020, the first class in memory, probably ever, in which not a single one of the nominees (there are 16 this year) is a shoo-in and not a single one absolutely, positively needs to be in an institution that calls itself the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame—unless you want to count, say, JUDAS PRIEST or MOTÖRHEAD or WHITNEY HOUSTON, all of whom do need to be in there if you ask me but none of whom does if you use this particular institution's history and its collection of plaques as a guide. The heavy metal wing at the Hall is barely big enough to fit a battle jacket and a chair. The women's wing isn't a whole lot bigger. There's nothing specifically wrong with any of the nominees—induct them all and I won't complain—but I'm not sure the absence of the DOOBIE BROTHERS, their impressive classic-rock résumé notwithstanding, nullifies the Hall's mission. Induct them, cool. Don't induct them, that's cool, too. The problem with the 16 nominees as a group is that, given a completely open slate this year, given the chance to nominate literally anyone, in any relevant style, from any eligible era, the Hall's nominating committee put forth a conservative slate of artists who might fill in minor cracks in the walls, rather than a bold slate that could fill in the giant holes in the middle of the floor. Why not nominate 16 women? Or 16 black artists and groups? Or 16 prog-rock or synth-pop or metal bands? CRAIG WERNER, a writer and professor who used to be on that nominating committee, told NPR this week that the committee has generally done a good job but the wider group of about 1,000 voters that has the final say "makes dumb decisions on a regular basis... It marginalizes women. It marginalizes artists whose core audience is in the African-American community. And it almost entirely ignores Latin." In a year in which 11 of the 16 nominees are white men or bands led by white men, and in which only three of the 16 have core African-American audiences, and which almost entirely ignores Latin, that seems like an especially strange argument. What would it have been like to nominate a slate of artists that made it impossible for voters to do all that marginalizing even if they wanted to? Who would have been left out who couldn't wait another year or two for their chance? No one, if you ask me. It isn't too late. What would it be like to do that next year, and the year after that? Five really good artists will be announced as Hall of Famers today. The only question will be, are they the five the Hall needs? My 2020 ballot: PAT BENATAR, Whitney Houston, KRAFTWERK, Motörhead, NOTORIOUS B.I.G. Apologies to Judas Priest and RUFUS... In other hall of fame news, the GRAMMY HALL OF FAME has inducted songs by JONI MITCHELL, SKIP JAMES, PUBLIC ENEMY, EURYTHMICS, MARY LOU WILLIAMS and more, and JANN ARDEN is headed to the CANADIAN MUSIC HALL OF FAME... BILLIE EILISH is a fantastic choice to write (with her brother/collaborator FINNEAS O'CONNELL) and sing the next JAMES BOND theme... On-air DJs and music directors from radio stations in Austin, Oklahoma City, Syracuse, Huntsville and elsewhere are losing their jobs as a result of a company-wide restructuring at IHEARTMEDIA. "A bloodbath," said one... British reissue label RPM is closing its doors after 29 years and more than 600 titles. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| In the wake of a scandal, the indie band must prove that it has atoned. | | |
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| The 2020 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will be announced Jan. 15. Systemic issues - in the industry and the nominating process - have maintained a severe imbalance. | | |
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| a.k.a. The difficulty of evaluating electronic music outside of the club environment. | | |
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| The world’s greatest film soundtrack composer, Hans Zimmer, measures up to a new challenge: making BMW’s next-generation electric cars sound seriously good. | | |
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| Fifteen experts filed a brief claiming the jury in the case ignored court instructions and found wrongly in the plaintiffs' favor. | | |
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| When X100PRE dropped, the trap star’s debut album helped give a generation of Latinx listeners a sense of place. | | |
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| The results of the year-end poll of 140 jazz critics offered surprise after surprise, including what's likely the youngest group of musicians, and more women than ever, in the top 10. | | |
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| The label founders walk us through their six-year history in seven songs. | | |
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| Big changes came to college radio in the 2010s, with dramatic losses and exciting new opportunities, leading to perhaps more college radio than ever before thanks to the variety of forms that college radio now takes. Despite the challenges, college radio is as resilient as ever and students’ desire to work in audio is strong as we begin the next decade. | | |
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| 2019 was a banner year for therapy tweets. | | |
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| The rapper’s breakthrough single was the biggest song in 2019 by a huge margin. But in New York City and Los Angeles, Top 40 radio didn’t get the message. | | |
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| You may have heard the term “timbre” being used in musical conversations. It could have popped up in a method book, magazine or even in a YouTube video. It’s possible it left you scratching your head wondering what it is. That's because there’s a term that commonly gets used in its place these days, which is “tone.” | | |
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| You know the feeling. You’re cruising down the highway listening to a playlist curated specifically for you by a major music service you pay for each month. You’re jamming out to, say, “Hot Freaks,” from lo-fi Dayton, Ohio-based indie rock veterans Guided By Voices. When the song ends, you are now hearing something from comparatively rookie indie rock band Parquet Courts. | | |
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| Roddy Ricch earned the No. 1 song and album on Billboard by staying focused on the music. His A&R, Dallas Martin, speaks with Complex about this achievement. | | |
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| In Vancouver with indie rock’s most lovable curmudgeon. | | |
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| Show's exec producer, along with Jesse Collins, Raj Kapoor, Chantel Sausedo & David Wild, sits down for Grammy Museum panel discussion ahead of 62nd annual awards. | | |
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| In a rare move, the iconoclastic Houston artist took his only solo album on the road-fifty years after its release. | | |
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| They say there’s a boom in newsletters at the moment. In music circles, I’d argue that there’s a boom in music biz-related newsletters. Alongside Cherie Hu, David Turner has become a key commentator on streaming services and their massive impact on the music industry. | | |
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| Almost inhumanly prolific, the songwriter produced a new kind of American lyric-and language. | | |
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| Gibson speaks with producer Bob Rock and learns about his early years in Canada, the love of guitar and his musical journey that has spanned over 40 years. | | |
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