It's not even an album. It's an EP. | | | | H.E.R. plays "Hard Place" at the Grammy Awards, Los Angeles, Feb. 10, 2019.
(Emma McIntyre/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "It's not even an album. It's an EP."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Let us, like the great ALICIA KEYS, try to keep it positive. At least for the first couple hundred words. This was the year the GRAMMYS had to step up, and in a lot of ways they did. Shoutout to the awarding of the biggest prize at the 61st Grammy Awards to KACEY MUSGRAVES, and to a near sweep of the country and roots categories by two women, Musgraves and BRANDI CARLILE. (Please take note, country radio. Y'all are welcome to step up, too.) Shoutout to CARDI B becoming the first solo woman to win the Grammy for Best Rap Album and CHILDISH GAMBINO becoming the first rapper, period, to win the Song of the Year Grammy, a category that not even his biggest supporters thought he would or should win. It was a strange night. Childish Gambino's incendiary (and very good) "THIS IS AMERICA" also won Record of the Year, which was almost as improbable, and I await the think pieces on that. The RECORDING ACADEMY clearly wanted to say "we see you, women" and "we hear you, hip-hop," and it all but said exactly that, and it was good. America (or at least my TWITTER feed) says thank you. Carlile and H.E.R. set the STAPLES CENTER stage on fire with what seemed like career-making performances, and JANELLE MONÁE, CAMILA CABELLO (with J BALVIN, RICKY MARTIN and ARTURO SANDOVAL) and DOLLY PARTON (with a variety of guests trying to keep up with her), among others, kept that torch lit. Men onstage seemed few and far between. EMILY LAZAR became the first woman to win a Grammy for mastering. Apologies if this paragraph sounds like a list, but it's an important list, one that should be written in stone, remembered and repeated. And expanded on. A few times when women and rappers went off-script, the Grammy telecast, which was a bit of a mess as it was, suddenly became hard of hearing. Over the course of a nearly four-hour show, eight artists made acceptance speeches and the telecast rudely cut off four of them, including the two big end-of-night winners. The first victim was DRAKE, who showed up, surprisingly, to accept the award for Best Rap Song and was in the middle of a thoughtful and gracious speech about how award shows don't matter when the show inexplicably cut to commercial. Drake was the biggest star to step onto the Staples stage all night. He was allotted 75 seconds before he was gonged. Later, Best New Artist DUA LIPA made the show's only explicit reference to women stepping up and was rewarded with the night's second gong. She was immediately followed—you can't make this stuff up—by a five-and-a-half-minute segment honoring RECORDING ACADEMY president NEIL PORTNOW, the man who suggested a year ago that women need to "step up" after his own organization all but erased them from its own show. He could have stepped up himself by giving some of that time back. Or by saying "I'm sorry." Alicia Keys deserves an EMMY for holding a somewhat incoherent telecast together while proving an awards-show host can be all about love and positivity and playing JUICE WRLD and SCOTT JOPLIN songs on two pianos while not telling a single joke or making a single snarky remark and not come across as corny. Please bring her back. Maybe give her the OSCARS gig, too. And please rescue 21 SAVAGE, who was nominated for two Grammys but was absent for well-reported reasons. His collaborator POST MALONE wore a 21 Savage t-shirt while performing their nominated song without him, but covered it up with a jacket. Childish Gambino's co-producer LUDWIG GORANSSON finally uttered his name in the broadcast's fourth hour. He's one of yours, Recording Academy. Keep him in your heart, and in your telecasts... XXXTENTACION was pointedly left out of the Grammys' In Memoriam segment, as were PETE SHELLEY, VINNIE PAUL, REGGIE LUCAS, RANDY WESTON, JOSEPH JARMAN, CLYDIE KING, GLENN BRANCA and several others who deserved better. RIP to all of them... RIP also CADET, JIM DUNLOP SR. and RON HUTCHINSON... And hearts and hugs to LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | | | | | there's always been a rainbow | |  | Rolling Stone | | Up to half of Universal Music Group is for sale - and all indications are it's going to bank an astronomical sum of money. This could spell amazing news for the other two big labels. | | | |  | VICE | | Royal Mountain Records' pledge to extend benefits to its artists is a big deal. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | Kacey Musgraves won the big one. Lady Gaga won a few. But before we review the scorecard from the 61st annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, let's check the attendance sheet — because this was a ceremony defined by the no-shows and the Recording Academy should be embarrassed about that. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Despite its continued prominence and growing influence, hip-hop and R&B continues to be a sore spot for fans of those genres when it comes to the Grammys — and Sunday was no different, albeit for far different reasons. | | | |  | Today Show | | Why, in 2019, are women still having to fight so hard just to be heard on the radio? | | | |  | The Guardian | | As more young listeners switch off, broadcasters are having to ring the changes. | | | |  | New York Post | | Kids are exerting influence over what their parents stream. And it isn't just "Baby Shark." | | | |  | Trapital | | Vegas residencies are more popular than ever, but the city's changing demographic will force artists to be strategic before they go all in. | | | |  | The Daily Beast | | Three nominees tell us what they think of the Grammys' new Women in the Mix initiative, which aims to increase the number of female engineers and producers. | | | | | Rolling Stone | | After personal turmoil, the pop star went to New York with trusted collaborators to make what may be her best, and most surprising, album to date. | | | |  | Variety | | Though broadcasting the documentary is in keeping with HBO's general strategy of provocative and challenging art, it's also a decision arrived at with a level of gumption unusual for as risk-averse a cultural moment as ours. | | | |  | Longreads | | "The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude," wrote George Orwell in 1946, and it still stands. | | | |  | Medium | | Here are my picks for influential people who aren't on Billboard's Power 100 list. | | | |  | Billboard | | As the service misses payments to artists, the company has come under fire -- and the future of music crowdfunding is in jeopardy. | | | |  | The New Yorker | | Though best known as Donny's wife, Eulaulah was a formidable singer in her own right. | | | |  | The Great Song Adventure | | The Great Song Adventure is happy and proud to present this, the first of a remarkable five-part series of episodes with Carole King. Conducted in her daughter Louise's home right before Thanksgiving, 2018, Carole opened up about all aspects of her life and work, including much on working with her husband and Louise's dad Gerry Goffin. | | | |  | Columbia Journalism Review | | By now we all know the story: the 2017 Fyre Festival was pitched as a once-in-a-lifetime "immersive music festival experience" on a private island in the Bahamas previously owned by Pablo Escobar. | | | | | The Washington Post | | The man behind Merle Hazard and "(Gimme some of that) Ol' Atonal Music." | | | |  | Complex | | Pusha-T dives deep on his third studio album 'DAYTONA', discusses his next album, and weighs in on being crowned Complex's Best Rapper Alive of 2018. | | | |  | The Tennessean | | 'Country music is my genre,' the 87-year-old actor proclaimed in an interview with the Tennessean. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | The first rap record to be named either Record of the Year or Song of the Year at the Grammys. It won both. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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