I kind of see pop music or albums as a Trojan Horse that I can pack all sorts of different ideas and concepts and things into that can jump out once it’s in people's homes. | | | | You've got me on my knees: The 1975's Matty Healy at the O2 Arena, London, Jan. 19, 2019.
(Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I kind of see pop music or albums as a Trojan Horse that I can pack all sorts of different ideas and concepts and things into that can jump out once it’s in people's homes.”
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| | rantnrave:// My preferred album to sleep to—the only one I've ever tried specifically for that purpose—is composer MAX RICHTER's eight-hour somnambulant opus SLEEP, whose 31 pieces are spread across eight CDs and chopped up into 204 tracks on streaming services. In the latter format it plays continuously, as if it were a single eight-hour track, while you ideally work your way through your sleep cycles and while Richter and his label, DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON, get credit for 204 streaming plays (assuming you make it all the way through). It's a beautiful piece, composed in consultation with a neuroscientist and orchestrated in successive waves meant to score a dreamy night. It works during the day, too, as an unusually detailed ambient epic (which is, for obvious reasons, the only way I've heard most of it). It also works, thanks to those 204 digital tracks, as an accounting masterstroke, turning your nightly rest into the equivalent of 17 full album plays. Respect. Classical composer solves SPOTIFY. And then there's this, in which SONY MUSIC appears to have found a shortcut to the same 200-plus streaming plays while cutting out the composer, the orchestrator and the artist—unless you want to be believe there's an actual person named SLEEPY JOHN who makes sound-effect library albums called THUNDERSTORMS FOR SLEEP and THUNDERSTORM & RAIN (SLEEP & MINDFULNESS) and that Sony signed him. Which maybe you should believe, I don't know anything anymore. These super-long albums, packaged by Sony's playlist brand, FILTR, into even longer playlists with SEO titles, are, I have to admit, incredibly soothing. I'm sure I could fall asleep to them. There's some evil genius at work here. But I'm voting no with my streaming wallet... Here's one of many reasons why musicians might want to consider unionizing. And here's why they're generally not doing so, even though there are two unions standing by waiting for them to join. More historical context here... After 40 years, MORNING EDITION changes it tune... WOODSTOCK 50 producers accuse old investors of "improperly" taking a hell of a lot of money from their bank account, and reportedly need to come up with a hell of a lot more from new investors by Friday... A few decades ahead of their time, the RAMONES were a microcosm of the current American political bubble, with right-wing guitarist at stage right and left-wing singer to his immediate left. Both wore their views on their leather sleeves and neither liked the other all that much. "When I came into the band," bassist and self-professed centrist CJ RAMONE remembers, "I had to walk the line with JOHNNY and JOEY because they would each get upset at me if I talked to the other one too much or if I sided with one over the other on a particular political view." But he swears there was always respect and never any animosity, which would be a good lesson for the America of 2019 if there weren't at least some evidence that it isn't quite true... RIP BETH CARVALHO. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | sleeping with the television on |
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| How "Book Your Own F***in' Life" helped countless punk bands tour in the pre-internet era. | | |
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| A wave of workers-first rhetoric is sweeping through pop. Can SAG-AFTRA and the AFM capitalize on it? | | |
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| The music that defines an icon. | | |
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| New Orleans has a fairly spotty track record when it comes to preserving cultural landmarks, but Buddy Bolden's blighted former residence may avoid being lost to time, as he nearly was. | | |
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| It’s well documented that a popular tactic to generate more streams and therefore more revenue in the streaming age is for artists to release albums with as many tracks on as possible. | | |
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| Holly Herndon talks artificial intelligence, artistic necrophilia, & her bold new 'PROTO.' | | |
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| "An insidious rise in name-calling towards digital services and an apparently wilful dismissal of their contribution is on the rise." | | |
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| The George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement was taken back after presenters learned McLean pleaded guilt to domestic violence charges. | | |
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| A fun and heady documentary fills in the backstory of how MTV changed the world by turning music video into the new pulse of youth culture. | | |
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| Except for a minuscule sliver of humanity, " Other Music " -- a film about a late, legendary, left-of-center New York record store and the community around it -- is not a date-night movie. | | |
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| The music label submits a bid to dismiss a class action and stave off mass termination from older recording artists. | | |
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| Poet and author Hanif Abdurraqib's letter to Cat Power about how her album "The Greatest" worked its way into his life. | | |
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| "The Sound of My Voice" pays tribute to Ronstadt’s powerful pipes and broad stylistic range while also showing the sexism she faced. | | |
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| The majors are releasing some 1,000 studio-quality albums per month -- fueling a 29 percent surge in the past year. | | |
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| Alicen Schneider, who heads up the creative music division and West Coast music operations for NBCUniversal Television, talks sync. | | |
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| About to drop a debut album unlike anything before it, Steve Lacy is the voice of a generation. Here, he finds a moment's peace in the Santa Monica Mountains to discuss a remarkable potential realised before turning 21. | | |
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| An estimated 1 million wannabe stars of K-pop, from South Korea, Japan and beyond, are hoping to get a taste of fame by competing in auditions for talent agencies, which take on a select few as trainees. | | |
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| Paste Magazine Editor In Chief Josh Jackson joins Michael Brandvold and Jay Gilbert on the Music Business Weekly podcast, who discusses Paste's recent acquisition of Noisetrade. What are Paste's plans? Will they integrate Noisetrade into Paste and Daytrotter? | | |
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| The best soundsystem in France is in a private home near the Belgian border, where DJ and audiophile Sébastien Deswarte has recreated the sonic landscape of the most famous clubs in New York -- the Loft and the Paradise Garage. | | |
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| The Beatles all tried to find Nirvana here on their trip to India, as did Mia Farrow and other celebrities. But the ashram turned out a bust, and for decades has been left alone. | | |
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| | | | | Orange County hardcore. From "Failed Entertainment," out now on Run for Cover. |
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