When Woody Guthrie was writing songs about fascists, did he think twice about it? When Joni Mitchell is writing about the destruction of the natural world for profiteering etcetera, did she stop and think, 'This is too preachy'?... Did they overthink this or did they just stand up and sing about what they felt was important to sing about? | | | | Chet Baker in New York circa 1975.
(Waring Abbott/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "When Woody Guthrie was writing songs about fascists, did he think twice about it? When Joni Mitchell is writing about the destruction of the natural world for profiteering etcetera, did she stop and think, 'This is too preachy'?... Did they overthink this or did they just stand up and sing about what they felt was important to sing about?"
| | | | | | rantnrave:// The raw numbers for the #1 album in the US this week: 83 million streams, 823 downloads (that's 177 short of a thousand, in case you're searching for missing digits), zero physical copies. Are you astonished at how quickly the downloads market for pop music has evaporated, or are you wondering what's taking so long, as in, who exactly are those 823 people and how much longer will they hold out? Enjoy the royalties on those 823 units while you still can, A BOOGIE WIT DA HOODIE... Also continuing to disappear: R. KELLY collaborations. Add CHANCE THE RAPPER and CELINE DION to the list of artists who have removed, or are in the process of removing, their Kelly collabs from the internet. Wait, Celine Dion did a duet with R. Kelly? Yes, in 1998. It was nominated for a GRAMMY and—this sort of ties in to the last item—it was the first #1 single after BILLBOARD opened the HOT 100 to songs that were getting radio airplay but hadn't been released as singles. It was the first #1 of the album-tracks era. The first chart-topper after it became possible to top the chart without selling a single copy. Could anyone at Billboard have foreseen that 20 years later there'd not only be nothing to sell anymore, but hardly anywhere to sell it even if you wanted to?... So now let's go back to those 823 people in the first item. Because here's the other thing: If you were a fan of Dion/Kelly's "I'M YOUR ANGEL" and you still wanted to hear it for any reason—I'm not judging—and you didn't buy the album or download the track when you had the chance, it would now be as if the track had never existed. For an R. Kelly song, maybe you think, "good." But what about the next one that disappears for a different reason? A royalty dispute. A legal claim. An artist reconsidering her own work, or simply hating the mix. And what if there had never been a physical album or downloadable file in the first place? Poof. Someone's favorite song gone, maybe forever, like a BIG MAC in the WHITE HOUSE dining room. Maybe that's what those 823 people were thinking. Maybe there's a reason someone still wants to own an A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie album, or any album... HULU jumps in front of NETFLIX in the FYRE FESTIVAL documentary line... Alleged inflation of streaming numbers at TIDAL now a police matter in NORWAY... TOTO may bless the rains down in Africa, but does Toto bless this down in Africa?... Yo GRAND OLE OPRY, ELIZABETH COOK is the Platonic ideal of an Opry artist and you should induct her... RIP DAVE LAING. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | Pitchfork | | The rise and resurgence of the Japanese streetwear brand A Bathing Ape 25 years later. | | | |  | The New Yorker | | As Beijing chips away at the territory's freedoms, the Cantopop singer has become its emblematic figure-embattled, emboldened, and unbeholden. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Inside one of the most dramatic moments of the Lifetime series - a mother reunited with her daughter, who she hadn't seen in years. | | | |  | Toronto Star | | This is a man who has demonstrated a pattern of abusive behaviour toward women and a pattern of violent behaviour in general for a decade, been dragged into court and rehab facilities and prison again and again because of those behaviours, and yet continues to get a free ride from the music industry. | | | |  | Billboard | | Like a lot of music publicists, Nathan Walker keeps a spreadsheet of the media outlets he pitches to. Recently, while updating it, he came to a startling realization: "I'd say over a third of the outlets that were there in 2014 have now folded." | | | |  | Afropunk | | Missy Elliott is being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and she didn't have to compromise her use of AAVE, sexuality or irreverence in music to get there. | | | | | Pitchfork | | The 15-second video platform is a treasure trove of dance and lip sync videos, many of which highlight the hottest new hip-hop. | | | |  | The Bitter Southerner | | After years of writing country hits, including the Grammy-winning "Independence Day" for Martina McBride, Gretchen Peters is done with all the tools designed to hide her age. We gain more from revealing, she argues, than concealing. | | | |  | The New York Times | | Openly gay performing arts leaders are still rare. So it was a breath of fresh air to chat about coming out and Celine Dion with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and his partner. | | | |  | Clash Magazine | | The web revolution did not go according to plan. | | | | | Billboard | | CAA partner and music division head Rob Light on the agency's magic touch. | | | |  | Garage Magazine | | Performers from Britney Spears to Lady Gaga to (maybe) Drake have brought the position back to life. | | | |  | Vice | | We met up with some of the biggest names in Asian hip-hop to find out why they got into the genre. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | Vivendi continues to look for a buyer for a portion of Universal Music. Though the process has been running officially since May 2018, the transaction (or transactions) may not close until 2020. | | | |  | Longreads | | How cultural appropriation and erasure turned an African American spiritual into a white campfire sing-along. | | | |  | CNN | | Mirroring Childish Gambino's hit "This is America", Dubai-based rapper IN-Z opens up about his own music video, which explores the state of Iraq. | | | |  | The Guardian | | Seventeen years after her angsty pop punk made her a global star, Avril Lavigne's back with a sixth album. And having survived illness and divorce, she's in no mood to compromise. | | | |  | Medium | | What's continues to blow my mind is how many musicians (and fans) still don't seem to understand or care what's going on and what the real financial impact is. So let's look at the major elements of the business model. | | | |  | Paper | | It's a warm evening in October and I'm sitting in a dark press box in an indoor sports stadium in Shizuoka, a relatively calm coastal city located about an hour and a half bullet train ride south of central Tokyo. | | | | | Afropunk | | Where all lives are remembered by biographical facts, the greatest existences leave behind evidence that make more sense as feelings than verifiable footnotes. Their spirits don't just float on — they guide. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | For LA, which is getting seven years' worth of rain this week, and for the first female rapper in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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