Most producers [say], 'You know how many records I've sold.' When, truth be told, we've not sold anything. We've only made music and people chose to stream it and share it and buy it, whatever. We're not responsible for our success. There's millions of people who are responsible. | | | | The Black Madonna at Scala, London, Nov. 5, 2019.
(Burak Cingi/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | |  | "Most producers [say], 'You know how many records I've sold.' When, truth be told, we've not sold anything. We've only made music and people chose to stream it and share it and buy it, whatever. We're not responsible for our success. There's millions of people who are responsible."
| | | | | | rantnrave:// One of my favorite genres that possibly no one else recognizes as a genre is what you might call biopop: any song about a real person, whose title is that person's name—no other words allowed—and which mentions that person by name at least once in the lyric. My genre has strict rules. This is the platonic ideal of the form, and here's a SPOTIFY playlist if you care to hear more. Songs named for a real person that aren't really about that person, like KANYE WEST's early hashtag rap track "BARRY BONDS," don't qualify. Neither do songs with extra words, or even extra letters, in the title, like CHANEL WEST COAST's amusingly catchy "SHARON STONED," which is disqualified for that "D" and also for not being sufficiently biographical. One does, however, have to admire Chanel's commitment to her subject. She says the full name "Sharon Stone" (or "Stoned"; feel free to decide for yourself) 33 times and the first name "Sharon" an additional 99 times in the course of three minutes. Those stats come from a lawsuit filed this week by SHARON STONE, the actress, who does not in fact admire the rapper's commitment to her name and likeness. The actress believes the lyric to be gratuitously repetitive, and she especially hates the video, which is more about her than the song is. She's suing for unauthorized use of her name and likeness and for causing "confusion in the minds of the consuming public as to the source, sponsorship, endorsement, or association of Sharon Stone with defendants, and with their products," yada yada yada. I'm not qualified to evaluate the legal argument, but from both a pop music and pop culture perspective, I would respond with one word: Seriously? For an expert witness I might summon FOREST WHITAKER, who starred with Stone in 1992s "DIARY OF A HITMAN," and who discovered, a quarter century later, that he was the title of a MIGOS song. His daughter alerted him. "It's really pretty brilliant," he told MSNBC's ARI MELBER on Tuesday. "The way they took all of these different films and things I've done and put them together in this amazing song." That, objectively, is the proper way to respond to randomly hearing your name in a pop song. Which happens, um, a lot. But then again, his full name is uttered a mere 10 times in the song, along with 11 recitations of just "Forest" and seven of "Whitaker." It's like the guys in Migos weren't even trying... A group of ITHACA COLLEGE students have developed an app, LOCALIFY, that generates personalized SPOTIFY playlists that spotlight local music based on a user's location and taste... DEEZER has created an open-source AI tool that allows anyone to break down songs into isolated vocal and instrument stems. It's called SPLEETER and apparently requires a bit of expertise to use, but a lot less expertise than it used to take to do that... A man named LARRY SCHOTZ came up with this digital technology in the mid-'80s and probably belongs in the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME in front of at least a few names on this year's ballot. Seriously, where's the Hall's scientific and technical wing?... RIP KENDRA MALIA and GERRY TEEKENS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator | | | |  | The Baffler | | Sofar Sounds is a data-driven simulacrum: a performance of what it might be like to be at a house show, intimate in a way meant only for Instagram. | | | |  | The Washington Post | | Hip-hop lyrics abound with "black Trumps." One of those words is more important than the other. | | | |  | Okayplayer | | The "First Day Out" song -- the track a rapper drops immediately after coming home from prison -- has become a hip-hop staple. | | | |  | VICE | | The cassette deck is fading in popularity in cars, but its former ubiquity in prior decades led headphone-jack adapters to become a fact of life for people who wanted to plug in a phone or iPod. How were they able to do their thing? | | | |  | Mixmag | | The hardcore aesthetic is inspiring, informing and liberating a diverse generation of artists, yet the scene itself is still massively male-dominated. | | | |  | The Nation | | Things that can only be found in the darkness on the edge of town. | | | |  | The Verge | | Perfect for making karaoke backing tracks and mashups. | | | |  | Trapital | | U.S. rappers make more and more money internationally, which forces rap's superstars to make strategic decisions to maximize the opportunity. | | | |  | Rolling Stone | | Over the course of 365 days, the group put out 'Overkill' and 'Bomber,' two albums that inspired everybody from Metallica to Mudhoney to play over the top. | | | |  | L.A. Taco | | I am after questions that move us beyond "yes/no," "love it or leave it," "with us or against us" kind of fandoms. Where is the middle ground? What else can it look like to be a fan in Moz Angeles in a time of migrant detention camps, tear gas, and border walls? | | | |  | ELLE | | After winning an Oscar, multiple Grammys, and launching a hit beauty line, the singer tells Oprah she's done with freaking people out. | | | |  | The Conversation | | "Jesus is King" has polarised discussion. But this genuinely contemporary album will challenge the traditional concept of African American gospel while influencing it shape for years to come. | | | |  | NPR | | George Michael is one of the latest musicians to have music released posthumously. A lot goes into how that music gets released, who profits and what players make it happen. | | | |  | Los Angeles Times | | Actor-director Edward Norton called on jazz great Wynton Marsalis to work on "Motherless Brooklyn." Then he brought in Thom Yorke and Daniel Pemberton to top it off. | | | |  | Detroit Metro Times | | click to enlarge Detroit has long been a pitstop or adopted home for many jazz musicians. For drummer, vocalist, composer, and poet Doug Hammond, it has been both. Born in Tampa, Florida, Hammond first moved here in 1965. He was one of the founding members of the Detroit Creative Musicians Association, serving as vice president and coordinator. | | | | | Mixmag | | A reformed vinyl addict tells his story. | | | |  | Geeks & Beats | | Lyrics are the most popular and most widely searched music content on the Internet. When listeners bought physical albums, finding lyrics wasn't a problem; they were usually printed on the inside of the CD, cassette or record insert. But since the dawn of the digital download, the lyric has been left behind. One Canadian company is looking to change that. | | | |  | Stereogum | | "From doing records from sampling, I started learning the science about what happened to soul music," the Alchemist told me 13 years ago. One evening, at New York's Baseline Studios, I sat in a backroom full of ancient, dusty records, and I listened to the Alchemist and Just Blaze talk about disco. | | | |  | Conversations with Tyler | | With music, forget about high brow versus low brow. The real distinction is between the innovative and the formulaic. | | | |  | Billboard | | In these dark times, when politics has run rampant and the sins of the current administration have become so numerous even seasoned reporters are befuddled, it takes a comedian, like the multi-talented singer and satirist Randy Rainbow, to shine a light on our reality, get us to laugh, and keep us all sane. | | | | |  | | YouTube | | | | | | | | Sudan Archives ft. D-Eight | | | | From "Athena," out now on Stones Throw. | | | | | | | | © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group | | |
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