The music business, like the Catholic Church, moves its abusers around from label to label. The only way this will ever change is if the heads of Vivendi, Sony and Warner Music Group all start vetting the men running their companies. | | | | Rockstar Post Malone at Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas, Oct. 5, 2017.
(Gabe Ginsberg/Getty Images) | | | | | | “The music business, like the Catholic Church, moves its abusers around from label to label. The only way this will ever change is if the heads of Vivendi, Sony and Warner Music Group all start vetting the men running their companies.”
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| | rantnrave:// Should 42 million YOUTUBE plays of a video that loops the hook of a song for three and a half minutes count toward the song's placement on the BILLBOARD singles chart? That's the totally fair question being asked after POST MALONE and 21 SAVAGE's "ROCKSTAR" became the fifth (!!!) rap song to top the HOT 100 in 2017. Streaming numbers pushed the song over the top, and a big chunk of those streaming numbers came from the only version available on YouTube, a repeating loop of the chorus posted a month ago by REPUBLIC RECORDS. It's an ad for the song, not the song itself. A long ad, but still an ad. Imagine posting nothing but the ANNIE vocal sample from JAY-Z's "HARD KNOCK LIFE" (highest chart position: #15) and crediting it as a full play every time someone clicks on it. But then again, so what? What constitutes a full play anyway? Thirty seconds? Sixty seconds? The whole song? Just the phrase "grrra-ta-ta-ta"? Is there any way to fully, accurately quantify a song's popularity when no one's walking into a store, or even navigating to a store, and buying the thing? Was there ever a way? Were the pop charts ever scientifically accurate? Have they ever been more than an educated guess based as much on aspiration, marketing and perception as on reality? I believe in science and I believe in statistical modeling, don't get me wrong. But I also believe statistical modeling, especially in a field such as this, is only as accurate as the statistical modeler, who tends to come with his or her own perceptions as to which streams, which downloads and which purchases matter most. If the Billboard chart experts have deemed this particular loop to be equivalent to this particular song—and let's be honest, "Rockstar is pretty much all hook anyway—who's to say that isn't a fair way measure the magic that we call pop?... Related discussion point: Would radio be better if it just played the hooks of pop songs and dispensed with intros, verses and everything else?... This offends my notion of music programming (pay the labels and publishers but serve the listeners, first and always), but I get it... Perhaps inspired by this adorable BOB DYLAN performance, LA BLOGOTHÈQUE launches a series in which an artist performs for a single listener. BON IVER goes first. I love this... MR. ROBOT, under pressure... There's no reason to be surprised that IVANKA TRUMP, who was 9 when NEVERMIND came out, liked NIRVANA, or that she now refers to that as her "punk phase." I would file all of that under normal human behavior. And she wouldn't be the first Nirvana fan to have, let's say, a slightly different outlook on life and culture than KURT and his band had. That, unfortunately, is normal, too. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | rest in peace to bon scott |
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| Who created that gorgeous 20th-century creature, the rock star? Consider the gay image makers of the day, from Brian Epstein to Jann Wenner. | | |
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| Mainstream fashion in country music these days is self-consciously uncool. Today’s country stars sing about the simple joys of wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and not giving a damn what people think about that. | | |
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| The music business, like the Catholic Church, moves its abusers around from label to label. The only way this will ever change is if the heads of Vivendi, Sony and Warner Music Group all start vetting the men running their companies. | | |
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| Women have posted the phrase on social media to raise awareness of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. Here is a list of songs in which artists said "me too." | | |
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| Black men have varied experiences and perspectives, but our insecurities no longer need to be buried. | | |
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| Make no mistake about it, the reason a song like this came about is because of the continued criticism coming at artists like Luke Bryan that question their legitimacy as country performers. This means the spirited dissent being logged by literally millions of country fans at this point is being heard, and making an impact. | | |
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| "Get You" is a milestone for the unsigned R&B artist, and owes some of its success to Apple's curation efforts that pushed it to the top of the playlists. | | |
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| ll four members of Chicano Batman sit down for 60 minutes to tell me about where they come from. We talk about not talking about the name of their band, discovering music and activism, Los Angeles, and much more. | | |
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| We talked to Bumblefoot and Gilby Clarke about their latest projects and their thoughts on the humongous GNR reunion. | | |
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| | | light a fire like i'm morrison |
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| Two of America’s best writers in any genre discuss the creative process and what America means in the Trump era. | | |
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| The long-running sci-fi show's changing relationship with its songs over the years showcases its greater evolution. | | |
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| A staggering 71 percent of musicians surveyed believed they had suffered from panic attacks and/or high levels of anxiety, while 69 percent reported they had suffered from depression. How can we move from data to action? | | |
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| At Toronto’s Venus Fest, women and nonbinary artists reigned. Lido Pimienta, Weaves's Jasmyn Burke, and organizer Aerin Fogel explain. | | |
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| I have always stood for the national anthem--not because I believe in America and want to honor my country. I did it because ... well ... being black in America comes with the knowledge that there are certain things you must do just so you won’t piss off white people. | | |
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| The Panama native, now based in Miami, has songs featured on over 160 albums, including many big hits in the Latin world. But "Despacito" has been "like a fever," she says. | | |
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| The musical legend continues to grapple with an identity that promoted freedom in rock music. | | |
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| With her release, "Laila's Wisdom," Rapsody puts herself in the running for best rap album of the year. | | |
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| A new composition by Ryoji Ikeda created a wash of sound -- car stereos blaring variations on the note A -- as part of the Red Bull Music Academy festival. | | |
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| Maria Alyokhina and Dmitry Enteo couldn’t seem more different: she a committed feminist activist, he the leader of a far right activist movement. She reveals how they got together. | | |
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