I'd rather people hear our music than not. | | | | | Fifth Harmony's Camila Cabello, Normani Kordei and Ally Brooke Hernandez in 2013. (Justin Higuchi/Flickr) | | | | | | “I'd rather people hear our music than not.”
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| | rantnrave:// The entities that we traditionally call boy bands and girl groups don't tend to have long shelf lives, so the news that FIFTH HARMONY has lost one of its fifths is no huge surprise, even if the she-said they-said logistics of the split are a little messy. But "7/27" is a really good, underappreciated pop album, and in a world where female group dynamics are less common than male group dynamics, it would have been nice to see where 5H might have gone from here. (Which is not to say 5H minus 1 doesn't have a future, just that group dynamics are group dynamics, and removing one piece can have all sorts of unseen consequences.) BILLBOARD's JASON LIPSHUTZ makes the case that a typical pop group will "find its footing on its third album, after abiding by the tween-friendly boundaries on its debut and experiencing growing pains on its follow-up," and pours one out for a third album that may or may not ever be... Also, while I understand the alliterative appeal of boy bands and girl groups, why do boys get to have "bands," which suggests instruments and the people who play them, while girls are relegated to "groups," which implies a more social, less musical, arrangement? Who decided that?... The ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME, which worships both boys and bands, will announce its 2017 inductees this morning. My nonexistent ballot: DEPECHE MODE, CHIC, KRAFTWERK, ELO, TUPAC. If the museum would like to acknowledge the stunning level of loss in 2016 by inducting nobody, I'd be OK with that, too... Speaking of CHIC... How ELVIS PRESLEY, one of the hall's 16 original inductees, is viewed through the lens of 2017: as the singer of some of the " most desired tracks for film and TV trailers, soundtracks, and commercials"... RIP DJ JINX PAUL. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| This is the year of the "pop-drop," the post-chorus musical interlude that blends techniques from electronic dance music to hip-hop, and it's taken the chorus' place in pop music. | | |
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| Soulful and sensual albums by Solange, Noname, Chance the Rapper and Jamila Woods were necessary antidotes to a politically brutal year. | | |
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| For women, the symphony is not so different from the boardroom. | | |
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| 2017 is going to be a big year for streaming. Spotify will likely IPO, paid subscribers will pass the 100 million mark in Q1, playlists will boom. 2017 will build upon an upbeat 2016 in which the major labels saw streaming drive total revenue growth. This stirred the interest of big financial institutions, companies that had previously avoided the music industry like the plague. | | |
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| The first time I heard "Be Yourself," I couldn't help but laugh because of the haunting sentiment that an older maternal figure was commanding me to not drink and do drugs on a Frank Ocean album. Flashbacks to my mom hammering in these same values occurred. "Many college students have gone to college and gotten hooked on drugs, marijuana, and alcohol," the voice warns us. | | |
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| On Saturday night, Richard D. James graced Houston, Texas with his first US live performance in eight years. Jonathan Patrick gets rain-soaked in the rave to see if the electronic hero's return to the stage lives up to the hype. | | |
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| It's not just that Camila Cabello left Fifth Harmony. It's that she left as they were on the cusp of something even greater. | | |
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| A feel good circle jerk promulgated by those out of touch with economic realities. And tech ones too. | | |
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| Damien Chazelle’s tribute to jazz music is a Trojan horse white-savior film in tap shoes. | | |
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| America’s War on Marching Bands continues apace. The Rice MOB angered Baylor fans with a Title IX-themed show. The Stanford Band was suspended for the semester, which they maintain is about the school prioritizing its image over student life. | | |
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| We join the band on the brink of disaster in Bali and find the legacy of Dougy's fractured childhood still cuts deep. | | |
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| Bands who were already uncomfortable with “emo” were branded with an even more derogatory term in 2016: “hippies.” Modern Baseball grew their hair long; Evan Weiss workshopped Into It. Over It.’s Standards in a Vermont cabin. Nearly every band of import advocated for self-care, positivity and radical community. | | |
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| The DC-based duo embraces an anything-goes approach to two-heads-are-better-than-one mixing. | | |
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| Michael Giacchino has made a career out of scoring films with major followings, including the 'Star Wars' standalone, 'Spider-Man:Homecoming,' 'War of the Planet of the Apes,' and Pixar's 'The Incredibles 2.' | | |
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| Radio isn’t dead. People still listen to AM and FM channels more often than they use individual streaming services, although radio remains most popular with older audiences. | | |
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| Check out our "Behind The Boards" clip for the street anthem, "Time Ticking", by Juelz Santana & Dave East featuring Bobby Shmurda & Rowdy Rebel. Produced by Jahlil Beats, this newly-released track will serve as a bonus track on Dave East's Kairi Chanel CD, which is now available in stores. | | |
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| From the vintage synth fetishism of the "Stranger Things" score to the reboot of Roland’s TB-303, music production in 2016 seemed obsessed with the past. But as Scott Wilson argues, actual innovation in music tech is better than it’s been for a long time. | | |
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| It was the first time I felt bad for pretending. | | |
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| A look at the role of prayer in his public persona. | | |
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| NPR Music remembers musicians -- singers, songwriters, instrumentalists -- and other visionaries we lost in 2016. Explore and celebrate their musical legacies. | | |
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| | | | | Fifth Harmony ft. Missy Elliott |
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| © Copyright 2016, The REDEF Group |
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