My songs are not complex, but you can write about tomatoes and put a good melody behind it and people would dig it. It’s all about that melody and the phrasing. | | | | Leon Bridges in Okeechobee, Fla., on March 4, 2018. His second album, "Good Thing," is out today on Columbia.
(Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “My songs are not complex, but you can write about tomatoes and put a good melody behind it and people would dig it. It’s all about that melody and the phrasing.”
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| | rantnrave:// It's FRIDAY and that means it may have been Friday somewhere else in the world yesterday. Because time zones. Which is the one thing the music biz forgot to synchronize three years ago when it (more or less) synchronized new music releases to always happen on Friday, worldwide. Which means while your fans in Melbourne and Tokyo are ringing up plays of your new album in SPOTIFY or APPLE MUSIC, your fans in London and Miami may have no other option than YOUTUBE. Which, not surprisingly, happens. Digital distributor DISTROKID two weeks ago announced a program called Synchronized Global Release, which does exactly what you think it does. If you want your new track or album released at 6 am Friday in New York, DistroKid will make sure Spotify releases it at 11 am in the UK, noon in Germany, etc. Global harmony. Kudos to CHERIE HU, who was among the first writers to pick up on the brilliance of this "why didn't anyone else think of this?" idea... (Oh, and it really is Friday everywhere now. Today's notable releases are at the end of this rant)... BILLBOARD and VARIETY both reached out to music lawyers to ask how difficult it would be for RCA/SONY to drop R. KELLY in the middle of what may be the industry's most notorious extant contract. One possibility raised by multiple lawyers is that the label, which has said nothing publicly in response to a growing chorus of voices asking it to cut ties with Kelly, may be choosing to stay quiet while letting the contract lapse by not exercising the label's next available option. Call that the passive option. But is passivity and silence the correct response to this man in 2018? Or in any year? Should we be asking more of a business? After laying out the potential contractual issues and legal risks (none of these lawyers are familiar with the specifics of his deal), LESLIE FRANK, a partner at KING, HOLMES, PATERNO & SORIANO, offers another possible response: "Terminate and see what happens." Which means taking on some risk. Which is a thing that courageous people do. Courageous corporations can, too... Earnings reports: PANDORA beats expectations. LIVE NATION, too... Things KANYE says, explained... Rock on TV: HBO airs the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME induction ceremony Saturday night. NETFLIX has added JEWEL'S CATCH ONE, a documentary on the pioneering black gay disco of the same name in Los Angeles... It's FRIDAY (remember?) and that means new music from RAE SREMMURD (triple album!), LEON BRIDGES, ICEAGE, DJ KOZE, JON HOPKINS, ROYCE DA 5'9", DESIIGNER, BRIAN ENO, REYKON, GLITCH MOB, the TEMPTATIONS, BELLY, BLOCBOY JB, STYLES P, FRANK TURNER, MIDDLE KIDS, PARKER MILLSAP, VENETIAN SNARES & DANIEL LANOIS, NEKROKRAFT, PARKWAY DRIVE, LAKE STREET DRIVE, PREME, JOEY ALEXANDER, ARTHUR ALEXANDER (shoutout to Arthur's lefty guitar collection), RITA COOLIDGE, BLACK MOTH SUPER RAINBOW, MAT KEARNEY, ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER, DAMIEN JURADO, DANIEL BLUMBERG and SHAKEY GRAVES. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Outline |
| Dad rock usually means music for straight, white, American dads, even though there are so many other kinds. Let’s change that. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| This year's Techstars Music founders describe their distinct visions for the music industry and share key takeaways from their experiences in the accelerator and from interactions with industry mentors. “We have to change the definition of what makes a ‘music company,’” says Bob Moczydlowsky, managing director of Techstars Music. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| A trick of YouTube’s algorithms has led to the blossoming of hundreds of unlicensed, independent radio stations on the site, reminiscent of an age of underground broadcasts in the previous century. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Why the Swedish popmasters’ surprising reunion is safe from the pitfalls of revivalism. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| We caught up with the Danish post-punk band to discuss the newly swollen sound of their upcoming album, and their love of playing live. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Attorney Leslie Frank says it’s possible that RCA could be quietly allowing Kelly's contract to lapse. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The R&B singer's decades-long career has run parallel to accusations of sexual relationships with teenage girls - and it's time we #MuteRKelly for good. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Beverly Lee recalls a ten-second dance party the group staged during a live performance in 1964. | | |
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 | BBC |
| Nearly half of the UK's classical musicians don't earn enough to live on, says the Musicians' Union. | | |
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 | MetalSucks |
| Sucks that your favorite guitarist is a Nazi, but if you’re surprised that a genre about moral inversion is full of bigots, you’re an idiot. | | |
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| Billboard |
| A lack of sellouts for tours led by Swift and Jay-Z highlights a growing competition between artists and scalpers. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| The former James Brown drummer was central to some of the singer's most influential recordings. Decades later, the musician's drums have been sampled all throughout hip-hop history. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| When a US blighted by racial unrest found itself needing to win a global propaganda war, a team of musical ambassadors was assembled. The result was anything but straightforward. | | |
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 | GQ |
| On his new album, the Texas singer embraces a contemporary sound in search of a more diverse (read: less white) audience. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| The band’s Experience + Innocence tour skips over its greatest hits in favor of songs that dramatize the struggle between hope and dread. | | |
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| Pitchfork |
| Every disheartening Kanye development in the last few weeks is a devotional performed at the altar of genius. | | |
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 | Saving Country Music |
| We've known for years that per capita, Europe is a better support center for independent country and roots music compared to the United States. But something is brewing in Sweden specifically that is helping to give rise to one of the strongest, most vibrant enclaves for country music outside of North America. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| A movement is bubbling up throughout the country. | | |
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 | Village Voice |
| The afterlife of a pioneering composer who changed New York, then disappeared. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| In one of his final interviews, the late Fall frontman talks to Irmin Schmidt about the greatest gig that never was. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Beyondless," out today on Matador. |
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