Every protest song should be measured... by its empathy, its imagination and its utility. It has to be compassionate enough to get inside your head, visionary enough to help you dream up what’s possible, powerful enough to shake the public airspace. It can’t just turn the tides inside your mind. It has to get your body out onto the street. Songs don’t change the world. Listeners do. | | | | Elliot Galvin and Laura Hurd of the British jazz group Dinosaur in São Paulo, Brazil, Sept. 1, 2019.
(Getty Images) | | | | | | “Every protest song should be measured... by its empathy, its imagination and its utility. It has to be compassionate enough to get inside your head, visionary enough to help you dream up what’s possible, powerful enough to shake the public airspace. It can’t just turn the tides inside your mind. It has to get your body out onto the street. Songs don’t change the world. Listeners do.”
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| | rantnrave:// Could a California law intended to protect UBER and LYFT drivers and other independent contractors end up hurting the state's musicians, by legally classifying them as employers? Yes, say the RIAA's MITCH GLAZIER, A2IM's RICHARD JAMES BURGESS and the MUSIC ARTISTS COALITION's SUSAN GENCO and JORDAN BROMLEY; they're asking legislators to exempt artists from AB5, which is expected to be voted into law by next week. Their fear: "The young girl in her basement recording on Garageband who invites a friend over to play bass. She is an employer [under the legislation].The rapper who hires a mixer to punch up the levels on the production. He is an employer." Several professions have already been exempted, including doctors, lawyers, real-estate agents, hairdressers and freelancer journalists. It would be weird to *not* add artists to the list. At least until someone creates an Uber-for-session-musicians, at which point you might need to have an employee/employer conversation about the players and whoever's running the app. But not the artists who are merely using it. (And no need to write to let me know about the seven companies that I assume have actually tried that, or the two or three that are probably up and running right now. I'll Google them as soon as I need them)... I kind of hate listicles, but I've made an exemption in my heart for the obsessive sub-genre of ranked lists of everything an artist has ever done. In other words, be a completest and I will make space for you. VULTURE's STEVEN J. HOROWITZ tackles MISSY ELLIOTT, from "AIN'T THAT FUNNY" all the way up to "WORK IT." And here's our ever-expanding MusicSET: "Everything They Ever Did, Ranked"... While I'm not sure I agree with his basic premise—that the music of the IPOD era is being forgotten because we didn't collect it on any kind of permanent format like cassettes or mix CDs—DAVE HOLMES' ode to the "deleted years" of STARSAILOR, the KAISER CHIEFS, CORINNE BAILEY RAE and their 128kbps peers makes for an entertaining trip down lost-memory lane. I'm endlessly fascinated by arguments about how the formats on which we encounter music affect how we process and remember it. They often ring true. But where we are in our lives probably matters more, and just because the ex-MTV-presenter can't figure out how to access the contents of his beloved iPod anymore (have you checked your ITUNES?) doesn't mean that other CHINGY, CLICK FIVE and MAROON 5 fans haven't found a way to carry their iPod, TRL and RADIO DISNEY memories forward into the streaming era. I'm not sure the 7-inch 45s of the '60s or the '70s or the YOUTUBE playlists of the '10s are any more or less ephemeral than the contents of any Gen-X'er's iPod, but I am sure the people who want and need to remember what's on them will in fact remember. Our favorite songs are much too important not to remember. The more they mean to us, the less likely we'll ever let them go, no matter where we found them, heard them or archived them... BARACK OBAMA chart bump... Legal docket: Federal prosecutors in LA have charged 28-year-old CAMERON JAMES PETTIT with allegedly supplying fentanyl to MAC MILLER, who died of an overdose last year. And a federal judge in Chicago has set April 27 as a tentative date for R. KELLY's sexual abuse trial... Who owns the rights to the design of PRINCE's guitar?... RIP LASHAWN DANIELS, JIM SWINDEL and PETER LINDBERGH. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| In Music Ally's latest analysis report, we take a look at the three major labels' strategies around music/tech startups and investment. The full report is for Music Ally subscribers only, but you can An extract from it follows, written by journalist Joe Sparrow , focusing on music/tech startups talking about their experiences working with labels. | | |
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| From 2003 to 2012, music was disposable and nothing survived. | | |
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| These are wild and anxious times for our wild and anxious planet. So why do the most visible protest songs of the Trump-era feel so inert? From the of numb thud of "This Is America" to the woke winks on the new Taylor Swift album, contemporary protest pop feels increasingly prominent, deeply unimaginative and embarrassingly insufficient. | | |
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| The 32-year-old singer made a name on uncannily intimate work, but her latest album is thrillingly ornate. Here’s where the strings come in. | | |
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| Ken Burns' documentary series on the history of country music ends in the '90s, but its questions about race and authenticity echo today's "Old Town Road" debates. | | |
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| The singer-rapper-flautist-#empowerment icon has hit no. 1 on "Billboard" with "Truth Hurts"--possibly thanks to a boost from Netflix’s ‘Someone Great,’ or not. | | |
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| Is it a streaming giant? Ad-tech broker? Social network? A new book pulls the curtain behind the mysterious company. | | |
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| Over a decade, the Los Angeles-based singer has built a career -- one that peaks on her new album -- and a musical identity on the idea that greatness doesn't have to be emotionally tidy. | | |
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| A conductor's role is about communication with performers and their audience. They do so using eye contact, dress, and of course, the fabled waving of the arms. | | |
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| You shouldn't have to resort to funny accents and made-up family members to get your smart home working properly, but sometimes you do. | | |
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| The music used in a scene can result in something bigger than the sum of its parts, or it can be a cheap shortcut to viewers' heartstrings. So before dropping the needle on that period-set comedy, give our list of music-cue dos and don'ts a spin. | | |
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| About one in four Americans who attended a festival in the last calendar year are currently paying off some sort of festival-related debt, from tickets to accommodations to travel. Among millennial Americans, the number goes up to one in three. | | |
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| Contract negotiations are underway for the future of Bumbershoot. | | |
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| Dylan Brady and Laura Les of 100 gecs are breaking down pop music constructs and building them back up in their own warped vision. | | |
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| Producer and engineer Malcolm Cecil taught Stevie Wonder how to use the TONTO -- the instrument that would change his career artistically. | | |
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| Critics, scholars and fans are often caught up in the idea of an ideal black sound, using vocal tone to measure racial identity. What becomes of the black female singer who defies this categorization? | | |
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| TrueView ads is a legal way for labels to buy views. "It is a tool," one source says, "but you can abuse it if you have a lot of money." | | |
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| Welcome to the record industry of 2019, where an album’s commercial performance is no longer a matter of indisputable fact, but instead rendered subjective, awash with elements of conjecture and manipulation. | | |
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| Mike Watt, San Pedro’s venerable gift to punk rock, takes us around town to eat at Busy Bee, talk about the 'econo' way of living, music and more. | | |
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| Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers spent a lifetime learning from the late Donnie Fritts. These are his memories. | | |
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| | | | | | | RIP songwriter LaShawn Daniels. |
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| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
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