Whenever I do something major [in film scoring], I have ‘featuring Zoë Keating’ in the song title. The former information architect in me finds that very alarming datawise, because you’re mixing different kinds of data in the title. But unfortunately, the way that music metadata works, that is the only way that you can often be searched. | | | | Thundercat at the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, R.I., Aug. 2, 2019.
(Eva Hambach/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Whenever I do something major [in film scoring], I have ‘featuring Zoë Keating’ in the song title. The former information architect in me finds that very alarming datawise, because you’re mixing different kinds of data in the title. But unfortunately, the way that music metadata works, that is the only way that you can often be searched.”
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| | rantnrave:// Who would've guessed the guy who wrote the lyrics to "FIGHT THE POWER" and the guy who starred in "FLAVOR OF LOVE" don't see to eye on everything? Politics, for example. But the former's apparent firing of the latter on Sunday had little to do, at the end of the day, with BERNIE SANDERS, for whom the former played a rally with a group you'd never heard of called PUBLIC ENEMY RADIO after tweeting the least persuasive political endorsement ever ("I dig aspects of Bern... can relate to half the issues"). Rather, the former's apparent firing of the latter, whose lawyer sent a cease-and-desist letter the day before about that endorsement (and weirdly addressed it to Sanders instead of to the bandmate whose power his client was fighting), was the culmination of years of issues having to do with money, power dynamics, civic engagement, all the usual band stuff. But once upon a time, their yin/yang, protester/jester dynamic made for one of the all-time great hip-hop teams, and if you don't understand how important the court jester hypeman was in driving home the revolutionary frontman's message, or how much musicality he brought to the PUBLIC ENEMY table, go back and listen to IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS... or FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET again and ask yourself if you'd ever have believed the hype without the man who told you not to. The former dude tweeted some mildly mean stuff about the latter dude Sunday, but he also wrote, "Obviously I understand his craziness after all this damn time. Duh you don’t know him from a box of cigars or me either," and, "I would not have a PublicEnemy without a Flavor Odette." The headlines say he also fired him but I don't believe that hype either, not forever... (Oh also: FLAVOR FLAV's awesome handwritten sig on the bottom of his lawyer's letter. Does it say "Public Enemy #1" or, with a self-aware wink, "Public Enemy 2"? It kinda looks like both, doesn't it?)... You're supposed to sing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" twice while washing your hands these days (anytime actually, but especially these days). Today, March 2, feel free to soap up and sing for LOU REED, JON BON JOVI, METHOD MAN, KAREN CARPENTER or newly minted 30-year-old LUKE COMBS, with an extra shoutout, if you'd like, to the federal judge who put "Happy Birthday to You" into the public domain five years ago, sparing you from having to wonder whether you're required to pay a public performance fee for songs sung to yourself in the bathroom. The legal team that won the case against "Happy Birthday" also freed "WE SHALL OVERCOME" from private ownership, but its winning streak came to an ironic end Friday when a federal judge in New York refused to let "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND," of all songs, slip into the public domain. A sign painted on WOODY GUTHRIE's classic protest song will continue to say "Private Property." I'm sympathetic to Guthrie's publishing estate, run by his daughter NORA, who says she wants to protect her dad's song and its message from "DONALD TRUMP... the KU KLUX KLAN... all the evil forces out there" who'd be free to co-opt it if it entered the public domain. I'm not so sympathetic to the plaintiffs in this particular case, who asked for permission to record the song with an alternate melody, got that permission for a grand total of 45 dollars and 50 cents, and sued anyway. But do you get to have a forever copyright just because your song has a political message and would sound weird in an NRA commercial, and just because the wrong plaintiffs sued you? Where's the line between my political sympathies and my conflicted copyright sympathies (songwriters deserve protection; other songwriters deserve the right to beg, borrow and transform)? What happens when a worse plaintiff with a better legal argument comes calling?... RIP LYNN EVANS MAND, MICHAEL THEANNE and TRUDY MELVIN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Bad Bunny may be the ultimate 21st-century global superstar: a bilingual singer, rapper and style icon with progressive social views who releases songs whenever he wants. | | |
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| Last week, a bill was passed to make go-go the official sound of D.C.. But does that actually help advance the genre’s place in the city? | | |
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| Listening to streamed tunes through a smart speaker squeezes the ecstasy out of the experience. There are ways to get it back. | | |
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| Earlier this month, one of the world’s two lacquer manufacturers Apollo/Transco was destroyed in a fire. With the industry yet to count the cost of the loss, we take a more technical look at the role lacquers play and weigh up the alternatives available. | | |
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| Legendary MCs Ivy Queen, Don Chezina, La Sista and more talk reggaeton’s black heritage, from bomba to its present day sound. | | |
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| The chart-topping LA singer has put out her most versatile and emotionally raw album yet. She talks about feeling used in relationships, the pain of miscarriage and facing death. | | |
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| The three rappers have released a trio of new albums in the past weeks | | |
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| A number of so-called “BTS-themed stocks” have recently experienced fluctuations: They rose when the K-pop king released a new album, and slumped when the band’s April concert in Seoul was cancelled this week due to coronavirus concerns. | | |
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| Laura Mam is Cambodian American, and her mother, Thida Buth, is a Khmer Rouge survivor. They're fostering the pop music movement in Cambodia that was wiped out almost 40 years ago. | | |
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| Everything you need to know about audio compression and what it means for your music and streaming quality. | | |
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| Excerpted from "How to Build a Sustainable Music Career and Collect All Revenue Streams," by Emily White. | | |
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| Musicians used to start out playing pubs - now the likes of Lewis Capaldi are booking arenas before their debut album. Is this sudden success damaging long-term careers? | | |
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| Online communities have garnered artists and fans closer together, breaking boundaries between fans and artists. How big of a problem is this? | | |
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| Analytics company Chartmetric examined breakout artists from the second half of 2019. | | |
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| The 20-year-old rapper was poised to carry the scene's sound to the world. | | |
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| When Chuck D performed for thousands of Bernie Sanders supporters at L.A.'s Convention Center, he joined artists from Neil Young to the Strokes in working to elect Sanders president. | | |
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| Shane McAnally opens up on what it’s like to be gay and work in country music and how coming out made his songwriting more authentic. McAnally, who is married and a father, also speaks on the recent Tennessee legislation that could severely restrict rights for LGBTQ people. | | |
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| Industry audio streaming revenues grew 33.8% in Japan last year, shows MBW analysis. | | |
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| Meet the Memphis rapper reviving the subgenre that dominated the radio in the mid-2000s. | | |
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| Lebanese singer-songwriter Juliana Yazbeck argues it’s time for Arab musicians to stop accepting themselves as niche, and to start taking control by building up their own industry. | | |
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| | | | | | | Voice: Flavor Flav. Lyrics: Chuck D. |
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