jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 09/17/2018 - Vanishing Content?, Auto-Tune Revolution, Fake Spotify Plays, Lily Allen, Eminem...

My advice to this generation would be to get a big external hard drive and with every single session, everything you record, immediately go to the engineer and say, 'Dump that into my hard drive.' When you're creating history you don't know it in the moment.
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Rhiannon Giddens and Ric Robertson at Central Park SummerStage, New York, June 16, 2018.
(Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images)
Monday - September 17, 2018 Mon - 09/17/18
rantnrave:// Many years ago, when media territories where physical things with airports and borders as opposed to virtual things with eSigned agreements and understandings, I found myself at a record store in London, face to face with a cassette copy of the SPECIAL AKA's IN THE STUDIO, which hadn't been released in the US, and which therefore was awesome. Also, it included the timely single "FREE NELSON MANDELA," which was equally difficult to find in the US. Using British money, conveniently if expensively converted from American money, I bought it and brought it home. Customs didn't take it from me. The band's American record company didn't take it from me. It didn't disappear from my bedroom under cover of night. I inserted it in my American cassette player and it played, many many times. End of story. Cut to 2018. This is a story about movies but it could just as well be about music. Guy who moved from Australia to Canada notices three movies he bought from ITUNES Down Under have suddenly disappeared from his library. APPLE says yeah no sorry not available anymore. Guy says I didn't rent them, I bought them. Apple says movie studio's fault not our fault nothing we can do here are a couple rental credits. Guy's head explodes. Guy tweets. Story goes viral. The story, it turns out, is more complicated than it initially seemed. Several days later, the details remain murky. (Apple, whose initial reply to its customer laid the blame on "the content provider" and refused to offer a refund, did itself no favors. Later it told CNET, "Any movies you've already downloaded can be enjoyed at any time and will not be deleted unless you've chosen to do so. If you change your country setting, some movies may not be available to re-download from the movie store if the version you purchased isn't also available in the new country." That reads like paragraph #75 of a terms & conditions file, not paragraph #1 of a consumer explanation. So pardon me for still not understanding what happened.) The one thing that's clear is this is a story about territories. About how things that originate there might not work here. Even if you buy them. I get why different regions have different rights, awkward as they are. What I don't get is why regions don't allow each other's customers' music and movies to travel with them. If a Canadian label wants to stop me from buying the "wrong" version of a song while I'm in Canada, OK, sure. But preventing me from *playing* the wrong version that I bought somewhere else? No, thank you. It's mine, not yours... Also in danger of disappearing: classic mixtapes from the early 21st century. The best of them were popular, important, influential and never 100 percent legal, or even 70 percent legal. We would be worse off without them. And there's apparently no room for them on the services where most people are getting their music these days. Not because the services don't want them and not because labels and publishers don't recognize their value. Rather, writes LUKE WINKIE, "one of the most important and influential periods of hip-hop history has been accidentally excluded from streaming services, simply because the math and legalese is too hard to decipher." As if it isn't worth the effort. But culture is always an effort, and it's always worth that effort. Always... You knew it was wrong. You did it anyway. Then you apologized. #Privilege... Key vote expected today in US SENATE on MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT... RIP BIG JAY MCNEELY.
- Matty Karas, curator
jazz is the teacher
Longreads
The Dead End on My Record Shelf
by Christopher C. King
I believed that there was no music existing in the world with an unbroken connection to its original context. I was wrong. (Excerpted from "Lament from Epirus: An Odyssey into Europe's Oldest Surviving Folk Music," by Christopher C. King.)
Vinyl Me, Please
How Streaming Is Erasing The History Of Mixtape Rap Producers Like DJ Drama
by Luke Winkie
It is strange to hear DJ Drama talk about erasure, especially considering how long he ruled the world. There are precious few people who knew what it was like to be in the room during Lil Wayne's legendary mid-'00s opus years, and fewer still who had the privilege of personally offering up the beats for his consumption.
Pitchfork
How Auto-Tune Revolutionized the Sound of Popular Music
by Simon Reynolds
An in-depth history of the most important pop innovation of the last 20 years, from Cher's "Believe" to Kanye West to Migos.
The Guardian
Lily Allen: 'I was pretty brazen with all my behaviour. I just didn't care'
by Sophie Heawood
Fame, family, failure, being stalked, getting low, getting high: nothing is off limits in the musician's new memoir. She explains why.
BuzzFeed News
Fans Are Spoofing Spotify With 'Fake Plays,' And That's A Problem For Music Charts
by Blake Montgomery
The spoofing could erode the veracity of widely respected "Billboard" chart metrics, especially since the fan campaigns appear to be getting more sophisticated.
Japan Times
Namie Amuro: Celebrating J-pop's first queen
by Patrick St. Michel
For millions of Japanese music fans in the 1990s, Namie Amuro wasn't just the Heisei Era's defining pop star, she was someone they grew up with. This relationship is clear in the year-long documentary series, "Finally," which has been streaming on Hulu since the 40-year-old star announced plans last year to retire from the entertainment industry on Sept. 16, 2018.
Billboard
Eminem Admitted He Went 'Too Far' With Homophobic Slur -- Here's What He Should Do Next
by Patrick Crowley
It would be inspiring to see Eminem actually do something with his power. Here are some suggestions.
UPROXX
How Musicians Are Dealing With Their Past Problematic Lyrics
by Philip Cosores
In the age of streaming, is the answer turning their back on songs or doing something to change them?
The Guardian
'The first cut I saw, I puked': the story of MIA's turbulent new documentary
by Steve Rose
From footage of a fragmented immigrant upbringing to arguing with Elastica and upstaging Madonna, director Steve Loveridge and MIA discuss 2018's most illuminating pop doc.
The New York Times
Where Are All the American Orchestra Conductors?
by George Gelles
Music directors from abroad have had an avenue for advancement unavailable to most homegrown aspirants. One result: a tradition of foreign-born maestros leading U.S. orchestras.
funk is the preacher
Tablet Magazine
The Gospel of Saint Paul
by Liel Leibovitz
The most meaningful conversion I have ever experienced wasn't going from left to right or abandoning bacon and going kosher. It was switching from Lennon to McCartney.
Variety
Why Live Nation's Chairman of the Board Should Resign
by Dina LaPolt
When an executive holds dual and competing roles as the Chairman of the Board of both Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. and SiriusXM Holdings, Inc. that presents a giant conflict of interest. Greg Maffei is showing on which side his allegiance lies, writes attorney and Music Modernization Act advocate Dina LaPolt.
BuzzFeed News
Troye Sivan's New Era (And Bottoming Anthem) Are What Pop Needs
by Pier Dominguez
Exploring sex, gender, and desire in his new album, Bloom, Sivan has staged an unprecedented kind of queer coming-of-age as a pop star.
Pitchfork
How Jóhann Jóhannsson's Final Film Score Was Made
by Daniel Dylan Wray
According to his collaborators on "Mandy," the Nic Cage revenge nightmare out this week.
Vice
How Hans Zimmer Makes Movie Scores You Remember
by Karen Han
We sat down to talk to the prolific composer about how he made the 21st century's most memorable scores, from Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy to his work with Steve McQueen.
Salon
Rock band Shinedown removes the stigma around mental health and addiction in "Attention Attention"
by Rachel Leah
Brent Smith and Eric Bass discuss their new single "Get Up" with Salon and what it is like to write from experience
The New York Times
Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald Sang It. She Says Her Father Wrote It.
by James Barron
"Blue Moon" is credited to Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. A documentary filmmaker tried to get to the bottom of a family story that it was really written by her father.
Rolling Stone
Noname Is One of the Best Rappers Alive
by Brendan Klinkenberg
On new album 'Room 25,' the Chicago rapper crafted a worthy successor to her cult-classic debut 'Telefone' by getting darker, denser and more personal.
CBS Sunday Morning
Carrie Underwood on getting beyond three miscarriages, to joy
by Tracy Smith
The "Cry Pretty" singer says, after a year of despair, her personal agony led to a remarkable moment after she "told God how I felt."
Dazed Digital
How techno became the sound of protest in Georgia
by Barclay Bram
The story of Tbilisi's Bassiani nightclub reveals the complex relationship between the country's police, drug laws, music scene, and LGTBQ+ youth.
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"REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'"
@JasonHirschhorn


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