If you come across oprtunities to work with good people, pick up cash and keep your integrity I say Do It. | | | | Chuck and Keef during the filming of "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll" in 1986.
(Terry O'Neill/Iconic Images/Getty Images) | | | | | | “If you come across oprtunities to work with good people, pick up cash and keep your integrity I say Do It.”
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| | rantnrave:// One of the first things I realized when I started working in streaming music a decade ago is that everything is—or should be—a playlist. The thing we call an "album" (or "record" or "CD" or whatever your go-to term is) is a playlist featuring (usually) new songs by (usually) a single artist, sequenced by (usually) the artist. A "single" is the same thing with fewer songs and maybe some remixes. A "feature story" in that setting is a playlist put together by writer or curator and fleshed out with lots of text and maybe some pictures, too. A "radio station" is a playlist featuring songs by (usually) lots of artists, played in random order by either a programmer or an algorithm instead of by the user. Etc. I don't feel vindicated by DRAKE's decision to call his (generally great) new project, MORE LIFE, a "playlist" so much as I'm kind of "well, duh." And I'm genuinely loving the active discussion about what it means that, at a time when many of us no longer understand the difference between a mixtape and an album, Drake appears to be reframing and redefining the former (or perhaps both?) as something that is fundamentally no different than RAP CAVIAR or SONGS TO SING IN THE SHOWER. JON CARAMANICA says the word playlist "suggests an aesthetic shift from the album ... to a collection of moods, impressions, influences and references," and allows the artist to relax a little bit. PAUL THOMPSON suggests this is Drake adapting to the world as it is today, self-consciously playing with sonic ideas while freeing himself from the "narrative baggage that comes with the fight to craft a Great Album." Or is he, on the other hand, just playing with semantics while inventing something that's already been invented four or five times over? Or have we all given in to APPLE's marketing? Either way, if this is what it takes for the world's reigning pop king to loosen up and widen his palette even further in the service of a consistently catchy, sonically expansive and somewhat rambling pop album, then more playlists please. Of every type... Also, on the subject of redefining, he released the thing on a Saturday. No one but no one does that... The price of a two-week exclusive on a CHANCE THE RAPPER, um, mixtape for your subscription service: $500,000... ESQUIRE'S CHARLES P. PIERCE on the similarities between CHUCK BERRY and JIMMY BRESLIN... Let's watch PRINCE shred "JOHNNY B. GOODE" at his SUPER BOWL presser... Was SHERMAN HEMSLEY the world's biggest GONG fan?... Pieces of BERGHAIM and FABRIC for sale... CALVIN HARRIS' process. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Notes on the later years of a troubled legend. | | |
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| Paul Williams, the 17-year-old founder of Crawdaddy!, believed that rock 'n' roll could reach the aesthetic, political, and social equal of any other art form. | | |
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| It’s easy to position the playlist tag for "More Life" as a cynical way of skirting expectations. But there's something more interesting happening here. | | |
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| Kanye's and Cudi’s mental-health struggles are met with empathy. Azealia’s are ignored. She doesn’t get a free pass, but can we at least stop calling her crazy? | | |
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| Both had a unique way of seeing and hearing the world. | | |
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| I recently took part in the True Music Forum in Madrid, an event organized by Boiler Room. I was on a panel that explored whether DIY is now coming of age with a host of high profile artists, most of them urban artists, bypassing or twisting the traditional label model and still achieving stand-out success. | | |
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| Few have heard about “Baby” Esther, the black cabaret performer who served as an inspiration for Betty Boop. | | |
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| A question about rap's most consistent and most consistently perplexing artist. | | |
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| "There are some things that bombs and fighting just can’t kill," writes Joseph Eid, a Beirut-based photographer. | | |
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| What the Russian and U.S. presidents have in common and how to defeat “all those other assholes just like them.” | | |
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| Bono and The Edge explain why, 30 years later, the biggest-selling album of their career feels disquietingly resonant. | | |
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| With his globe-hopping release, the icon is ready for the confining boundaries of "rap artists" to explode. | | |
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| Highlights and lowlights from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. | | |
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| Featuring a cameo from Prince’s heroine Joni Mitchell and one very annoyed flight attendant. | | |
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| How I figured out a way to love his music in spite of his often-unsavory story. | | |
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| And albums like ‘Hot Thoughts’ are why. | | |
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| For couples, families or friends who share a significant song, the effects of music can be powerful and persistent, lasting well into old age, even piercing through dementia. | | |
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| The internet collective is making a real life impact. | | |
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| Musician Aimee Mann discusses the pain and pleasure of writing sad songs, ways to jump start your process, and what you can learn from parody. | | |
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| Now in the final stages of the disease, the country music legend still has his "essence" and Kim Campbell shares her personal caregiving experiences to help others. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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