As 'God Bless America' celebrates its 100th birthday this summer, anyone who sings it should remember that it began as—and at root will always be—a love song to this country from an immigrant grateful to have been given a chance at a new life. | | | | Stardust and stripes: Willie Nelson at his annual 4th of July Picnic, Austin, Texas, July 4, 2017.
(Gary Miller/Getty Images) | | | | | | “As 'God Bless America' celebrates its 100th birthday this summer, anyone who sings it should remember that it began as—and at root will always be—a love song to this country from an immigrant grateful to have been given a chance at a new life.”
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| | rantnrave:// The dictionary sent me to the dictionary Monday. That's when MERRIAM-WEBSTER, everyone's favorite TWITTER dictionary, informed me that it's "watching" the word "B side." "Watching" is a lexicographical backhanded compliment, a dictionary's way of telling us a word has not yet earned its place in the official record of the language, but it one day might. Flabbergasted—flip side is in the dictionary but B side is not?—I went running to RANDOM HOUSE, the only hardcover dictionary I keep at my desk, and discovered it isn't there either. Seriously, language sheriffs? What are we supposed to call that thing on the other side of PRINCE's "LET'S GO CRAZY" single? Or this thing attached to the back of Prince's "PARTYMAN"? Or, for heaven's sake, this all-time best not-the-featured track by an artist from Minneapolis who isn't Prince? For that matter, what are we supposed to call the featured track, since it turns out A side isn't in the dictionary either? An ironic aside (as opposed to an ironic A side): "In spite of the letter A's propensity for serving as a qualitative affix (A-list, A game)," Merriam-Webster reports, A side "has not taken on the same breadth of meaning and use as flip side and B side have." In other words, A side, despite being the more popular side, isn't even on the watch list. Meanwhile, a fellow named DRAKE who comes from a country where SPOTIFY can't even send you a tiny check for your hundreds of millions of weekly streams—it sends a tiny cheque instead—has released a double album split into an A side and a B side even though A) those apparently aren't words and B) the album exists as digital files and CDs, neither of which has sides in the first place. What could he be thinking, unless he knows something not even Merriam-Webster knows?... ROLLING STONE has redesigned both its online (nice except, um, there's still no search box) and print (haven't seen it yet) versions and has switched to monthly publication for print purposes... BEST BUY has switched to barely selling CDs... Another company says it may have to move production overseas because of the tariff wars: MOOG... I'm a little late on this but it's important that you know: "ELECTRIC BOOGIE," aka "THE ELECTRIC SLIDE," either is or isn't about a vibrator... DOMO ARIGATO... RIP New Orleans piano great HENRY BUTLER, BAY CITY ROLLERS co-founder ALAN LONGMUIR, SODA STEREO keyboardist DANIEL SAIS and longtime NME writer ROY CARR... There will be no MusicREDEF Wednesday and Thursay because of Independence Day in the US. Our firecrackers will be back in your inbox Friday morning. Have a good one. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Starring the Supremes, TLC, the Ronettes, Destiny's Child, and more. | | |
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| Halfway through a year filled with new work from some of the most popular artists alive, the best-selling album is the soundtrack to a movie musical with Hugh Jackman that never led the box office. | | |
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| 11 of Drake’s collaborators explain how his new double album came to be. | | |
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| Whether or not "Ye" was forward-thinking, the musicians behind the Yeethoven project want to bring two very different genres together. | | |
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| The legendary producer behind classic albums by Nirvana and the Pixies won his first World Series of Poker bracelet. | | |
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| Irving Berlin, whose patriotism was fueled by coming to the United States as a refugee when he was a child, wrote the song in the summer of 1918. | | |
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| No matter what song we sing, let it ring with a determination to forever move forward. | | |
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| Ben Gross, Chief Strategy Officer from Genius.com, joins Michael Brandvold and Jay Gilbert on the Music Biz Weekly podcast. | | |
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| Welcome to a world where Juggalo makeup is your best shot at avoiding involuntary surveillance. | | |
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| On the surface, it might seem obvious and inevitable for an African-rooted artist to take on Talking Heads’ landmark, even if it took 38 years. But Angélique Kidjo has never, ever in her career done anything obvious. | | |
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| The genius of P-Funk’s founder lies in his ability to motivate and collaborate. | | |
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| The energy the singer brings to his collaborations is the same he carries into his own work: studied, versatile, contagious. | | |
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| Like Apple giving everyone a U2 album no one asked for, Spotify strongly suggesting its users engage with Drake undermines listeners’ sense of ownership. | | |
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| Tame romanticism and lukewarm pop have replaced the bombastic songs of the early 00s - but are they also reinforcing stereotypes? | | |
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| Melissa Schuman, formerly of the pop group Dream, accused the Backstreet Boys’ Nick Carter of rape-an allegation that’s gone virtually unmentioned during the boy band’s press tour. | | |
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| "This panel, we're just going to show our gay," Lai Frances proclaimed to the packed crowd at KCon's panel on LGBT fandom in Korean pop music. The K-Pop fans in attendance roared with approval. Frances, a freelance journalist and self-proclaimed girl group enthusiast, served as panelist alongside a music video producer at Universal Asia who goes by the moniker PD, and YouTuber Eddi. | | |
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| A place where queer and evangelical narratives collide. | | |
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| As the buzz around him continues to build, more and more fans in the United States are learning the name Shabaka Hutchings. | | |
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| How Diane Warren, Steven Tyler, Francis Lawrence, and--yes--Barbra Streisand conspired to turn an ‘Armageddon’ power ballad into a highlight of ’90s soundtracks. | | |
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