I thought that if I worked really hard at this, then eventually I'd get to the point where I can just spend all my time making music. But I've found that the more I do this, the less time I get to spend on music. Around 10% of my time—less than that—I'm actually making music or playing music. Most of my time it's press and travel and admin stuff: answering emails and just being a business person, putting out fires. It's just being a working adult. | | | | Lady Soul. Atlantic Records studio, New York, Jan. 9, 1969.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "I thought that if I worked really hard at this, then eventually I'd get to the point where I can just spend all my time making music. But I've found that the more I do this, the less time I get to spend on music. Around 10% of my time—less than that—I'm actually making music or playing music. Most of my time it's press and travel and admin stuff: answering emails and just being a business person, putting out fires. It's just being a working adult."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// I listened to nothing but ARETHA FRANKLIN on Monday. This nearly bottomless collection of gold bars, on shuffle. If you're allowed to bring ginormous RHINO box sets to a desert island, this is as perfect a desert island disc as there ever was. Chances are good you'd be rescued before you were finished listening. Chances are equally good you'd tell your rescuers to go away because you're busy, and because you're probably living in a better version of America than they are. Anyway, I shuffled with the heaviest of hearts. The gospel songs hit me the hardest on this day. Listening to Aretha's thoughts and prayers at a time when we're all supposed to be sending our own thoughts and prayers to her. Still receiving strength from a woman who now needs ours. One small measure of the continuing resonance of the Queen of Soul. But also: The defiant soul songs. The life-affirming love songs. The independent-woman shouts. The canon-wrecking rock and roll covers. Everything. She's up there with LOUIS and DUKE and HANK and BILLIE and MILES and ELVIS and JAMES and BOB and a handful of other first names as a paragon of 20th century American musical literature. Her voice contains them all. Struggle and freedom. Loss and redemption. Shouts and whispers. Beauty and sadness. The South and the North. Virtually every one who has opened their mouth in the past 50 years—and literally every singer—owes something to her. In some cases, everything... Aretha and her fellow Detroiter MADONNA cross virtual paths, in a way, in this 1986 INTERVIEW MAGAZINE piece on the former. I'll be on a short vacation when Madonna turns 60 on Thursday, so I'd like to take a moment to celebrate my favorite song by one of my all-time favorite singers, specifically my eight favorite musical syllables, possibly by anybody. "It would be. It would be so nice." Eight notes that first appear well over a minute into "HOLIDAY" and offer a gospel-like lift to a track that, until that moment, has been effervescent and elastic but also strangely static, dancing in place, waiting for a chorus to release it. The message of "Holiday" is simple—a plea for a single day off—but also transcendent. She wants that day off for the entire world. A vision of ecstasy. Just one day out of this thing called life. It would be. It would be so nice. What more could you possible want out of a pop song? Happy birthday MVLC... Seattle's SHOWBOX gets a reprieve... AMYGDALAPALOOZA (h/t JASON ROTH for both the story and the coinage)... Why yes, we do... Your weekly reminder that R. KELLY still has a record deal with RCA and can still get prestige bookings in New York City... MusicREDEF will be in the curatorial hands of MARCUS K. DOWLING for the next few days. Happy reading, and have a great week. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | The New Yorker | | The ascent and influence of the greatest singer in the history of postwar popular music. | | | |  | SPIN | | The Warner/Uproxx acquisition comes at a moment when small media operations are increasingly being swallowed up by larger companies. | | | |  | Huck Magazine | | When a 20-year-old decided to put on a series of gigs in the desert, bands like Sonic Youth, Minutemen and the Meat Puppets signed up. The rest is history. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | At 76, Otis Williams is the only remaining member from the legendary Motown group's golden-era lineup. What keeps him out on the road year after year? | | | |  | Highsnobiety | | The elusiveness of staying power in hip-hop is a well-documented phenomenon in not only the cautionary tales of innumerable artists that had once seemed to hold the gold-plated keys to the kingdom in their palm, but within the realm of rappers that are aware of the inherent dangers of buying into your own hype and promptly "falling off." | | | |  | Billboard | | For the last two decades, technology executives and investors have predicted the demise of the record label with a consistency that borders on the cliché. | | | |  | JazzTimes | | The John Coltrane Quartet recorded an album's worth of material in March 1963 that wasn't released until this summer. Why did it take so long to come out? | | | |  | The Week | | Researchers are busting out of basement labs and stuffy hotel ballrooms and infiltrating the playgrounds where today's creative minds gather. | | | |  | Please Kill Me | | Heavy Metal LGBT Artists, including members of Judas Priest, King's X, Otep and Life of Agony, are Confronting the enemies in your mind. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | On her fourth album, "Queen," one of the most exciting rappers alive sounds bored with herself. | | | |  | Refinery29 | | Madonna's career has been built through moments - shocking, unforgettable moments that prove no one has ever done celebrity quite like her. | | | |  | Noisey | | Musicians no longer seem to be ashamed of appearing to take care of their own health, and that's a good thing. | | | | | The New Yorker | | YG belongs to a new generation of California rappers whose antennae are tuned to the past as well as the present. | | | |  | Medium | | An analysis of Latin and Spanish music data. | | | |  | The New York Times | | In "Playing Changes," Nate Chinen argues that we're living in a brilliant new phase of jazz, and offers an annotated guide to his favorite performers. | | | |  | The Next Web | | Have you ever heard of a musical artist named Drake? Of course you have. Because he's everywhere. Hate spammy ICOs and crappy cryptocurrencies? So do we. These days, it's hard to miss Aubrey Graham, the rapper and singer from Canada (eh). He recently released Scorpion, and the internet went nuts, as it always does for Aubrey. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | KCON 2018 was as fizzy and upbeat as ever. But some deep concerns about mental health and appropriation came up as well. | | | |  | PopMatters | | We should take seriously indie rock trends driven by nostalgia-- the revival of white rock forms, the whitewashing of disco and yacht rock, and the rise of normcore--as what they are: conservative gestures flying under the radar in a climate of poptimist reappraisal. | | | |  | Consequence of Sound | | Afra has since been removed from his position at Day For Night. | | | |  | Getintothis | | Continuing in our 'In Defence Of' articles, Getintothis' Joe Giess takes to the stand, not to defend a band or a concept, but an instrument. The humble Cowbell. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | Aretha Franklin with James Cleveland and the Southern California Community Choir | | | | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group | | |
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