ugh bout 2 step up on 2 ur face.. women are making AMAZING music right now wtf is this dude talking about ????? | | | | Stepping Up: Alice Go of Dream Wife in Benicàssim, Spain, July 13, 2017.
(Gaelle Beri/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “ugh bout 2 step up on 2 ur face.. women are making AMAZING music right now wtf is this dude talking about ?????”
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| | rantnrave:// I'm writing this 24 hours after RECORDING ACADEMY president NEIL PORTNOW, asked about the paucity of female nominees and winners at the GRAMMY AWARDS, said women need "to step up because I think they would be welcome." So women did step up, almost immediately. For example, CHARLI XCX tweeted, "ugh bout 2 step up on 2 ur face.. women are making AMAZING music right now wtf is this dude talking about ?????" PINK offered: "Women in music don't need to 'step up'—women have been stepping since the beginning of time... Women OWNED music this year." And VANESSA CARLTON: "It's time for him to step down." By the close of business Monday, #StepDown was starting to trend on TWITTER and Portnow and the Recording Academy had retreated into a silence so deafening you needed earplugs. On a day that screamed for apology, clarification, a plea for forgiveness, a pink slip, something, anything, he and the Academy said nothing in public. Maybe they were huddling, trying to figure out how to welcome all those women they had invited to step up. Maybe they were composing a mea culpa. Maybe they had fled to MAUI, I don't know. But silence is not going to work. Not this year. Silence is over. The stories that dominated the next-day news cycle—and there were about a million, from Twitter to STEREOGUM to ROLLING STONE and back to Twitter—were about the losers, not the winners. The hip-hop artists who were nominated with much fanfare and passed over by voters with no fanfare at all. The 2017-defining pop hits that might as well not have existed. The women who barely showed up on the awards podium all night. The Album of the Year-nominated woman who wasn't offered a solo performance slot. (Reminder: Show producer KEN EHRLICH explained, "These shows are a matter of choices. We have a box and it gets full... There’s no way we can really deal with everybody." And so, while LORDE looked on from her seat at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, the show gifted viewers with two extended STING-and-SHAGGY performances, one and a half U2 performances, a BROADWAY salute that was seemingly longer than the TONY AWARDS, and an unusual amount of attention to Best Comedy Album. And Lorde remained seated. #StepDown ye maker of choices, ye custodian of boxes.) The inevitable questions: Why do women bother showing up at the Grammys? Why do rappers? And then, in a strange PITCHFORK interview, INTERSCOPE executive KAREN RAIT, one of the women behind the Grammys' #METOO white-rose symbol, said, "I'm not sure music has the same issues Hollywood does... On the label side, I don't think there is abuse, at all." Allegations of sexual abuse have been rampant in the past year in the music business. The emotional highlight of the Grammy broadcast was a song about sexual abuse. And on Monday, REPUBLIC RECORDS president CHARLIE WALK became one of the most prominent music figures accused of sexual harassment—by a former employee of his at SONY MUSIC, who went on the record with her allegation of "relentless" harassment. (Walk told ET ONLINE, "This is the first time I have ever heard of this or any other allegation—and it is false.") TRISTAN COOPERSMITH, who is now a psychotherapist, stepped up Monday. Your turn, Neil Portnow. Step up or step down. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| Popular music reaction channels are racking up millions of views, forcing the rest of the industry to pay attention. | | |
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 | GQ |
| Frank Sinatra. Michael Jackson. Ray Charles. Malcolm X. Elon Musk. Truman Capote. Buzz Aldrin. Prince. Tupac. Even Leni Riefenstahl. Quincy Jones has run with them all. Chris Heath stays up late with the 84-year-old music legend who has a tale to go with every famous name. | | |
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 | Slate |
| It's early, but after last night's 60 th annual Grammy Awards, I already have a prediction for next year's ceremony: It's going to be tough to get major stars in hip-hop, and maybe some from R&B, to agree to perform. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| I told myself that maybe just maybe this would be the year the Grammys got it right. And then… | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| It’s a miracle of the age, but Spotify’s suspect "playlists," shaky finances and low pay are bad for music fans and creators alike. | | |
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 | Life Lab Hermosa Beach |
| You promised me the world in my career. You told me I would be one of the top 30 music executives under 30. It's what I wanted. Cloaked in power, you knew how to get me right where you wanted me. Under your control. Playing your sick games. | | |
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 | Broadly |
| From the 1997 "Selena" biopic starring Jennifer Lopez to the documentary "Conversations with Intellectuals About Selena," cinema has solidified the Tejana pop star as an eternal icon. | | |
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 | NPR |
| Judd Apatow is one of the directors of a new documentary airing on HBO that follows the recording of a Grammy-nominated album from the North Carolina band. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| Sometimes giving the audience what they want is enough. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| If Haley doesn't want to hear about politics at the Grammys, she might as well turn her television off for the next four years. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
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 | The Future of What |
| We recorded a conversation with the many women who hold positions in Pearl Jam's road crew, like sound engineer and production manager. They discussed life on the road and shared their advice for young women looking for jobs in the industry. We also talk to Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready about the band's activism and McCready's work outside the group. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| The president’s tweet directed at the rapper shows that he still doesn’t grasp the actual issues black Americans are struggling with. | | |
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| GQ |
| Despite her "bad social anxiety" (her words), Julia Michaels is destined to be a pop star. Good thing she's got friends in all the right places. | | |
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 | Hypebot |
| The Music Modernization Act is poised to reshape music copyright and compensation for a generation. But what exactly is the MMA, and how will it impact songwriters and publishers? | | |
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 | The Fader |
| Takeoff and Offset take a frustrating backseat to Quavo on Migos's lengthy "Culture II" album. | | |
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| Mixmag |
| The public side of Daniel Avery is on full display at Concrete in Paris at around 6pm. Yes, that’s not a typo; his last gig of the December weekend is due before "Antiques Roadshow" airs, a fact which initially had us stumped. But then, we’d never been to Concrete before. | | |
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 | Hypebeast |
| We spoke to five producers to gain insight. | | |
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| The Atlantic |
| The alt-rock band--which just released its newest album, "I Like Fun"--has endured for 36 years by appealing across generations and musical tastes. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| By sticking by its old heroes - and familiar sounds - the awards show risks alienating tomorrow’s stars. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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