I hope music journalism as a whole figures out a way to be financially viable while centering on music that is not by celebrities. | | | | Jaap van Zweden conducts the New York Philharmonic at David Geffen Hall, New York, Oct. 3, 2019.
(Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "I hope music journalism as a whole figures out a way to be financially viable while centering on music that is not by celebrities."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// A friend encouraged me to read this deep-dive by the NEW YORKER's JIA TOLENTINO into the dizzying matrix of human attention, artificial intelligence and government and business interests that constitute the universe of TIKTOK, which I had missed back in September. It's an alarming, BLACK MIRROR-esque look into an algorithm-driven culture that even the app's most enthusiastic users probably don't understand; it's also a sympathetic explainer of what those users are doing on there, and why. Somewhere in the middle, during a digression into TikTok's influence on songwriting (which I'll be coming back to soon, when I get around to writing about NETFLIX's fantastic RHYTHM + FLOW, because there's a connection), Tolentino casually refers to "the three companies that control roughly eighty per cent of music globally." It's a statistic you're surely aware of even if you didn't know the exact numbers. And yet it's a genuine shock, for me anyway, to see it randomly spelled out in a story that isn't about the music business, per se. Which is to say, when you see it out of its usual context, you might find yourself suddenly remembering how mind-boggling it is that so few corporations control so much of our music. Even in this age of abundance. Especially in this age of abundance. The more music there is, the fewer homes it has. Do people ever stop and think about this? Do you? Here's analyst MARK MULLIGAN phrasing it, very much in context, as "three major rights holder groups [that] control the majority of rights and thus can control the rate at which innovation happens." And what Mulligan suggests they're not doing, at least in the realm of streaming, is innovating. You can argue whether he's right about that, and whether more streaming options is what we need right now, and whether more tech startups should flout those rights holders' rules. You can argue whether that extraordinary concentration of copyright wealth matters, at the end of the day, to the artists, composers and producers creating all that copyrightable art. But is there any argument to be made that it serves the art? Is there an argument to be made, besides the plain fact that that's just how it is—then less, in this case, is more? Or is less simply less?.... More evidence that TikTok, despite its denials, is taking cues from its Chinese parent company for moderating and censoring content. Former employees tell the WASHINGTON POST that moderators in China flagged videos for reasons ranging from sexual suggestiveness (including some dance moves) to political expression. The app has been criticized for allegedly censoring references to the Hong Kong protests. In some cases, the ex-employees say, videos weren't deleted but were removed from the feeds through which most users would see them—a method that "prevented the videos' creators from even knowing the video had been deemed unacceptable." The U.S. senator overseeing a hearing Tuesday on the tech industry's ties to China deemed it unacceptable that TikTok declined to show up... Newsletters subscribe to other newsletters, and this one has eagerly signed up for TODD BURNS' MUSIC JOURNALISM INSIDER, which launched Monday with the goal of being "a sort of trade publication for music journalism." In his introductory note to edition #001, Burns, whose editing résumé includes STYLUS MAGAZINE, which he founded, RESIDENT ADVISOR and the RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY, swears that the current state of music journalism is "as good as [it's] ever been. Maybe even better." He may get some letters about that. It will be fun watching him make his case. There's a curated roundup of music writing, podcasts and TV/film/video, a Q&A with WALL STREET JOURNAL critic MARK RICHARDSON, and a jobs board. A most worthy subscription (free for now), and not just for journalists... There's a new GEORGE MICHAEL song... RIP MARYA COLUMBIA, an accomplished violinist who performed every Monday morning for nine months for 9/11 rescue workers, inhaling toxins that may or may not have contributed to the lung cancer that killed her, and up-and-coming New Mexico rapper WAKE SELF. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | On An Overgrown Path | | For years classical music has been engaged in an obsessive search for a new audience. Yet it has singularly failed to recognise that new means fundamentally different. | | | |  | Music Industry Blog | | Needed: insurgents with disruptive innovation. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | The tensions inside TikTok's Beijing-based parent company highlight a growing challenge for the American Internet as Chinese tech giants race to expand and compete more directly with social-media firms in the West. | | | |  | VICE | | Omni makes music more interesting, more arresting, and more flat-out fun to listen to than any other rock band around right now-and their new album, 'Networker,' is them at their best. | | | |  | Complex | | DJ Premier sits for an interview with Complex and explains how he used raps from the late Guru to create a new chapter of Gang Starr's legacy. | | | |  | Music Journalism Insider | | Mark Richardson is a name that most folks in the music journalism world will know. He worked at Pitchfork for 20 (!) years, ascending to the throne as Editor-In-Chief in 2011. He left Pitchfork last year, and has since gotten a regular gig at "The Wall Street Journal" as the rock and pop critic. | | | |  | Okayplayer | | A subgenre of electronic dance music that emerged in New York City in the 1980s, freestyle music has resurfaced in rap thanks to SOB X RBE and S***tyBoyz. | | | |  | Music Managers Forum | | An exploration into the changing role and value of the music manager. | | | |  | NPR | | Intended only for home use, the Mellotron became a sonic tool for The Beatles, The Moody Blues and David Bowie. Now it's inspiring a new generation of musicians. | | | |  | Medium | | Breaking down Sammy Andrews' excellent Twitter thread of music business career advice. | | | |  | The Bitter Southerner | | Carl Perkins played rock-and-roll when Elvis was still a high-school punk. Our writer is the man who proved it. | | | |  | Variety | | Longtime music manager Jeff Jampol is known as one of the top estate representatives in the world. He's made a career out of monitoring -- and monetizing -- the brands and assets of such legends as Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and the Ramones, among many others. But Jampol is just as well-regarded by his peers for being the go-to person for those struggling with addiction. | | | | | NPR | | Volume Control author David Owen says our ears largely evolved in a far quieter time than the one we currently live in. He warns that the ambient noises that surround us pose a threat to our hearing. | | | |  | XXL | | The mixtape has taken on many forms over the years. What started out as a way for DJs to showcase their mixes, and later a way for DJs and bootleggers amateur DJs to make money on the side by selling cassettes and CDs of the day's hottest songs, has become a huge part of the music industry. | | | |  | Stereogum | | These are the songs that have stayed with us through the last 10 years and will stick with us long after the decade is over. | | | |  | Billboard | | Much of the Nashville music community -- and particularly Nashville's songwriters -- spent midday at City Winery, sorting through an appropriately complex mix of joy and sorrow during a celebration of life for songwriter-producer Michael Ryan, aka busbee, whose legacy is filled with contradictions. | | | |  | MusicAlly | | It's a debatable opinion but one that warrants consideration in the Indian music industry in 2019: is Bollywood slowly but surely losing its dominance? | | | |  | Switched On Pop | | Back in the fall of 2017, our producer Megan Lubin went for a stroll near her house, popped in earbuds, and heard a song that's stuck with her ever since: "Si Tú Supieras Compañero" ("If you only knew, my friend"), by the Spanish pop star Rosalía. | | | |  | DJBooth | | From MF DOOM to Kendrick Lamar, we break down the art of the concept album in hip-hop. | | | | | VICE | | Over the past 10 years, our collective cultural melting pot has boiled over, giving us exciting young artists who resist fitting into any box at all. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | | | | From the Atlanta rock band's third album, "Networker," out now on Sub Pop. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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