[This is] the sort of music we need right now: honest and brave, specific and personal, potent without being pedantic or condescending. | | | | | Bishop Hezekiah Walker | | | | |  | “[This is] the sort of music we need right now: honest and brave, specific and personal, potent without being pedantic or condescending.”
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| | rantnrave:// The '90s are hot, says BILLBOARD, citing BLINK-182, TEMPLE OF THE DOG, POKÉMON and 98 DEGREES (the boy band, not the current temperature). The '90s are also angry. The most rocking protest voices at the RNC came from former members of RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, CYPRESS HILL and PUBLIC ENEMY, which was not unexpected (as PROPHETS OF RAGE, they vow to "Make AMERICA rage again"), and from THIRD EYE BLIND, which was unexpected in numerous ways, including the fact that you may not have known they still exist. But they do, and frontman STEPHAN JENKINS had this to say after their convention-disrupting performance: "I came up in punk rock clubs. I am not a wilting lily. I am not a song and dance man." Welcome back, '90s... Back in the present day, JON TANNERS reflects on the burden of being an artist in dark, desperate times. Writing about performers including SCHOOLBOY Q and BOOGIE, TANNERS says, "If ever there is a time for our artists to be present, it is now. Be present in clarity or confusion, in anger, in mourning, in celebration of what beauty life does hold or in despair that human beings continue to treat each other so terribly"... And then there's this: MICHELLE SHOCKED protesting her own concert... Before last night, this was probably the most famous film and TV use of the ROLLING STONES' "YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT." A funeral scene after a suicide. Draw your own conclusions... (Last two lines of the last verse, by the way: "She was practiced at the art of deception/I could tell by her blood-stained hands." Have a glass of cherry red soda and draw some more conclusions.)... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from GUCCI MANE, REVOCATION, HEZEKIAH WALKER, ELYSIA CRAMPTON, THE AMAZING, LIL DURK, SANGO & DAVE B, MSTRKRFT, STEPHEN RAGGA MARLEY, HONNE, CROWN THE EMPIRE, WE THE GHOST and LOOK PARK... REDEF is looking for music, fashion and sports curators. CVs to jobs@redefgroup.com. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of our painters, sculptors, poets, musicians...as far as I'm concerned it's their choice. But I choose to reflect the times and the situations in which I find myself. | | |
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 | Thump |
| Three DJs set out to create the world's best webstore for dance music. Then the EDM boom happened. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| As one executive puts it, Strang was handed "a total bag of s***” when he took over Warner Bros. in 2012. It’s been an uphill battle ever since. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| The Republican Party is about as “rock and roll” as a bar of soap. So I was surprised that the GOP chose as its logo for the week what looks like an updated version of the famous Woodstock poster, with the dove replaced by a weirdly tiny elephant, and the hand of the dirty hippie removed and kept as far away from the Quicken Loans Arena as possible. | | |
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 | Nautilus |
| We use music to make sense of the squawks, creaks, and roars around us. | | |
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 | Co.Design |
| Gotta Groove Records produces technicolor LPs that look as beautiful as they sound. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The soulful singer-songwriter and her choreographer, Ryan Heffington, are working hard to raise the standards of pop-music movement. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| Every time Drake's bubble seems ready to burst, it just gets bigger instead. From the jump, many vociferous haters mocked Aubrey Graham's sensitive suburban solipsism, cracked jokes about the alleged absurdity of a Jewish Canadian rap star, and guffawed at his former life as a teen soap opera actor. | | |
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 | Broadly |
| Exclusive police figures obtained by Broadly show a 136 percent increase in rapes reported in London's bars, clubs, and pubs. We investigate the sexual violence plaguing nightlife in the UK capital. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Outside the Agora Theater, two miles from the political pantomime and cable news sideshow of Cleveland's East 4th Street, around 200 people are scrummaging towards a dimly-lit lobby, sweating. A thick-necked man in an "ALL TAXES ARE STEALING" T-shirt chuckles as he turns down a copy of the Socialist Worker from the old woman peddling them on the street. | | |
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 | EW |
| Ten years after Timberlake and Timbaland brought dance music back to Top 40, the key players look back. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Out in the North Atlantic, this tiny archipelago has a thriving music scene of everything from primary coloured-pop to thrash metal – despite having one record label and just a handful of venues. | | |
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| Billboard |
| Plus: Temple of the Dog is re-forming and "Pokemon Go" is everything. What year is it again? | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Forget emotion, we’ve got the numbers | | |
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 | Hazlitt |
| Let’s face facts: singing songs about really liking the Replacements isn’t paying our rent with the commies anymore. | | |
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| Vulture |
| "Game of Thrones" loves to play with music -- especially when it comes to rap, rock, and metal bands. But this season, it was a classical music-inspired piano piece that got everyone's attention, because, not the least of which, it set the stage for a massive explosion in King's Landing. | | |
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| The Ringer |
| The Atlanta MC is the finest purveyor of trap horrorcore. | | |
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 | The Recoup |
| We sit down with filmmaker Peter Sillen to discuss "I Am Secretly An Important Man," his captivating and important documentary on controversial artist Steven Jesse Bernstein. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Cloud-Rap King Mike Volpe, better known as Clams Casino, is emerging from behind the scenes with help from old friends like Lil B and A$AP Rocky. | | |
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 | NPR |
| On June 29, 64 years after the day she was born in London to Jewish parents who had fled Nazi Germany, Vivien Goldman was back in her hometown, on stage at Rough Trade East records store for her very first concert performance - a debut a long time coming. | | |
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 | from "Azusa the Next Generation 2 - Better," out today on eOne Music |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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