There was never a disconnection, for me, of blackness with rock music. I look at a band like Unlocking the Truth, or TV on the Radio, or Gary Clark Jr., or I look at what happens at the Afropunk Festival every year in Brooklyn – I mean, it's evolutionary. We're all part of an ongoing conversation about what blackness is, and what it ain't. | | | | Living Colour's Vernon Reid (left) and Corey Glover circa 1991.
(Mick Hutson/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "There was never a disconnection, for me, of blackness with rock music. I look at a band like Unlocking the Truth, or TV on the Radio, or Gary Clark Jr., or I look at what happens at the Afropunk Festival every year in Brooklyn – I mean, it's evolutionary. We're all part of an ongoing conversation about what blackness is, and what it ain't."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// Confirmation of the apparent death of TALK TALK frontman MARK HOLLIS was hard to come by on Monday, and one assumes that's exactly how Hollis would have wanted it. There were tweets from video director TIM POPE and a cousin-in-law, an INSTAGRAM from Talk Talk bassist PAUL WEBB, who noted he hadn't seen Hollis "in many years," a bunch of sites noting there had been "reports," and a bunch of sites saying nothing at all. This for the singer, multi-instrumentalist and chief instigator of an accomplished, well-liked and damn good synth-pop band that changed course midway through its brief career toward the experimental, impressionist sides of edges of...rock? post-rock? ambient? jazz? prefer not to say?...and signed off with a pair of nearly unclassifiable masterpieces that made the band a little less popular and a lot more beloved, if that's possible, which Talk Talk proved it is. After SPIRIT OF EDEN (1998) and LAUGHING STOCK (1991), which would influence generations of experimentally inclined rock bands, the band quietly dissolved and scattered. Over the ensuing quarter-century, Hollis released one solo album, more or less retired from public life (for the sake of his family, he said) and occasionally resurfaced to contribute to other people's projects, including U.N.K.L.E.'s 1998 album PSYENCE FICTION, for which he asked not to be credited, and the American TV series BOSS, which used an unreleased Hollis composition as score music during its second season in 2012. From rewriting pop grammar to underscoring KELSEY GRAMMER in only two decades, if you will. Hollis, who told Q MAGAZINE during the Talk Talk days that "you should never listen to music as background music. Ever," left behind acolytes everywhere, a family shielded from the public eye, and, it seems, no one for the media to contact to confirm his apparent death at age 64. RIP... SPOTIFY may or may not launch in the mega-market of India as early as today, pending—or possibly not pending—the result of a hostile negotiation with WARNER MUSIC GROUP, with which it does not yet have a deal. The agreement Spotify most wants and needs is with WMG's WARNER/CHAPPELL publishing arm, whose catalog, as MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE points out, is spread across all three major labels. Warner wants more money. Spotify, which has locked down all the other major deals it needs, wants to launch and launch soon, and has filed for a statutory license, something more commonly used by broadcasters, not streamers. The company says WMG is reneging on a "previously agreed upon publishing license... leaving us no choice but to file for a statutory license." Another legitimate choice, of course, would be to not launch. To that end, Warner/Chappell is seeking a legal injunction against the launch. MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE's TIM INGHAM tries to make sense of an intramural music quarrel between two companies which, he suggests, badly need each other and know it... ELTON JOHN performs with his own personal RAMI MALEK, TARON EGERTON, at Elton's OSCARS party... ARIANA GRANDE wants you to bring see-through bags to her shows... R. KELLY makes bail... RIP Ibiza hotelier TONY PIKE and ROSS LOWELL, who invented gaffer tape... RIP also the SIDEWALK CAFÉ, a long-running New York joint whose divey back room served as ground zero for the Anti-Folk movement, and, on a personal note, was a longtime home away from home for my own band, the TROUBLE DOLLS. Thank you Sidewalk and thank you LACH. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | Bello Collective | | In sidestepping media middlemen, artists are creating their own DIY music-media economy. | | | |  | The New York Times | | No one believed me when I testified against him in 2008. Now I feel vindicated. | | | |  | digg | | As streaming services, and the notion of subscribing to a catalog of music rather than owning, takes over, we've lost a crucial relic from the heyday of the media player. | | | |  | The Daily Beast | | At the height of their commercial success, Mark Hollis and Talk Talk swore off commercial pressures and made two of the most transcendent albums ever. We're all better for it. | | | |  | The Guardian | | "No," says Mark Hollis stubbornly, he will not look directly into the camera as this, apparently, is compromise tantamount to soul-selling. "No," he says, he doesn't see why he should have to explain his music to anyone. It speaks, he reasons, for itself. "No," he explains, he will not read this article. (Originally published in Q Magazine in October 1988.) | | | |  | Music Business Worldwide | | The story behind the story of today: Warner suing Spotify, and Spotify calling the major "abusive." | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | With both volumes of 1962's 'Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music' being reissued, we look at the records' cultural impact. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | On film's big night, it wasn't the magic of Hollywood that salvaged this year's Academy Awards. It was the power of music and pop culture. At times during the three-hour-plus show, the hostless Oscars felt more like the Grammys. | | | |  | Pitchfork | | In a year when "Green Book" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" took top honors, it was Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper who stole the show. | | | |  | NME | | So the Stepford Winehouse tour is postponed? That's probably for the best, reckons columnist Mark Beaumont. | | | |  | Hypebot | | But "getting signed" is not as simple as it sounds, and leaves out a lot of details about how the business actually works. Without a solid understanding of this, artists can get themselves into trouble. | | | |  | The Ringer | | Why the singer-songwriter's new album, 'Crushing,' is one of the year's breakthrough records. | | | |  | Afropunk | | While New Orleans Congo Square is acknowledged as the heart and birthplace of American music, the city's unique Creole musical community was the engine for what became America's civil rights movement. | | | | | The New York Times | | Lessons from the Jim Crow-era travel guide for African-American elites. | | | |  | Innovating Music | | Seth Schachner returned to discuss the changes afoot in music and tech deal-making. Enjoy this continuing conversation of how deals are being made between artists and new technologies, and how artists and managers can think about connecting with new technologies in their marketing. | | | |  | Saving Country Music | | Country Music Hall of Famer, Bluegrass Hall of Famer, performer, executive, songwriter, and general country music advocate Mac Wiseman has passed away. He was 93-years-old, and was one of the last living links to country music's golden era. He died on Sunday, February 24th. | | | |  | The Creative Independent | | Musician Suzanne Vega on songwriting, composting your unused ideas, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. | | | |  | Mixmag | | Consumerism vs community is at the heart of a clubland chasm. | | | |  | GQ | | Staples dishes on Raf Simons, Jussie Smollett, and everything in between in the second part of "GQ's" exclusive tour diary. | | | |  | i-D Magazine | | The documentary reveals the shocking stories about a master manipulator and musical genius. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | "We are the children of concrete and steel." Also, we play guitar solos. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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