jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 08/21/2020 - Back to the iPod Future, Managing Music Execs, 'WAP,' Tyler the Creator, Matmos...

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Loading music [on an iPod] is a whole process, and so, when faced with an active choice, I found myself listening to full albums front to back. Unlike my phone, I didn't feel the need to bounce from song to podcast to YouTube video to NBA highlights on Twitter.
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Nubya Garcia at the End of the Road festival, Salisbury, England, Aug. 31, 2019.
(Burak Cingi/Redferns/Getty Images)
Friday - August 21, 2020 Fri - 08/21/20
rantnrave:// Pod casting: This week I learned there's an underground market for refurbished and customized IPODs with super-sized hard drives, prolonged battery life and, apparently coming soon, Bluetooth compatibility. In case you want to party like its 2004. Or slow down the speed of your music consumption (that's the most tempting feature for me; "it felt refreshing," GQ's JACK MOORE writes of his experiment in separating his music from his phone, "to focus on one thing at a time again—to have a sense of containment"). Or stop contributing to the streaming music economy and its much-debated economics. Buying digital albums from ITUNES, assuming that's how you'd acquire new music for your iPod, is generally more friendly to artists' wallets than streaming their songs repeatedly, although the burgeoning market of record-company alternatives—let's call them non-record-company record companies, or NRCRCs—is trying its best to change that math. AWAL tells MUSIC ALLY it now has "hundreds" of artists (how many hundreds, it won't say) pulling in more than $100k a year from streaming, and "dozens" making more than $1m annually, which sounds like a lot until you realize AWAL has 40,000 artist and writer clients, and then, actually, it still sounds like a lot. Would those numbers go up if AWAL sent souped-up iPods to all of its clients' fans and told them to do all their listening that way? Asking for a musician friend... Your favorite non-indie indie artist, TAYLOR SWIFT, sent autographed copies of her FOLKLORE CD to indie stores around the US this week and requested they sell them at standard retail prices and only to local customers, and I wish the government could be that efficient at propping up the music retail economy... In Toronto, the municipal government is doing its part by offering a total of $1.7 million in property tax relief to live music venues... Singing (or playing your wind or brass instrument) a little quieter can help prevent the spread of Covid-19, according to a not-yet-peer-reviewed UK study. If you must sing loud, though, it would be helpful if you could at least call out fascists while doing so... Breaking a monthlong silence on who shot her in both feet in a car in Los Angeles, MEGAN THEE STALLION on Thursday said it was TORY LANEZ. The LA district attorney's office is investigating, and Lanez hadn't responded publicly as of Thursday night... Damn this was a good "STAR-SPANGLED BANNER"... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from NUBYA GARCIA, SECRET MACHINES, MALUMA (surprise!), BULLY, BRIGHT EYES, NAS, MULATTO, VIC MENSA, LECRAE, TIM MCGRAW, the KILLERS, TROYE SIVAN, ERASURE, MATMOS, VEX RUFFIN, JOHN BEASLEY, INCANTATION, AGES, L.A. WITCH, the FRONT BOTTOMS, SNEAKS, NO JOY, SUSO SAIZ & SUZANNE KRAFT, J. ZUNZ, BLACKBEAR, DUCKWRTH, AWICH, ITZY, REY PILA, TEXICANA MAMAS, TUCKER BEATHARD, JOSH TURNER, H.C. MCENTIRE, the OLD 97's, CIDNY BULLENS, the MAVERICKS, MANDY BARNETT, the LEMON TWIGS, FRUIT BATS (covering SMASHING PUMPKINS' "SIAMESE DREAM" album), BENT ARCANA, DECLAN MCKENNA, KATE BOLLINGER, DENT MAY, CUT COPY, GUIDED BY VOICES and JEFFERSON STARSHIP... And a new PHARRELL WILLIAMS/JAY-Z single that soundtracks a Pharrell-curated special edition of TIME magazine. And here's the sheet music.
- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
now here is nowhere
Billboard
Do Music Execs Need Their Own Managers? A Secretive Power Broker Explains Why 'It's More Crucial Than Ever
by Gail Mitchell
Steve Moir, Michael Ostin and Brian Postelle have quietly been helping label execs, attorneys, agents and creatives of all backgrounds climb the corporate ladder for years - here's how.
The Guardian
'Three people in a car, and we still lost money': was live music broken before Covid-19?
by Jenessa Williams
Musicians say touring was poorly paid and stressful. Can the chaos caused by the pandemic also be a moment of change?
Slate
How 'WAP' Became the Dirtiest No. 1 in Hot 100 History
by Chris Molanphy
The video is a smash, but it's the song that put it on top.
Okayplayer
Before WAP: The Evolution of Sex Anthems by Female Rappers
by DaLyah Jones
Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's explicit anthem "WAP" is the most talked-about song of the year. But it's not unprecedented.
GQ
Now Is a Great Time to Go Back to an Old iPod
by Jack Moore
Fed up with streaming? You're not alone. And these days, there's a whole micro-economy of custom iPod options, whether you want a 2 terabyte hard drive or built-in Bluetooth.
Time Magazine
Kenya Barris In Conversation With Tyler, The Creator: 'Why Can't We Tell Our Stories?'
by Kenya Barris and Tyler, the Creator
Tyler, the Creator, and Kenya Barris both grew up in the same suburban area of Los Angeles. As an independent rapper and hip-hop agitator, Tyler has spent a decade creating music that pushes boundaries and buttons. As a writer, director and producer behind shows like and the movie Barris has won accolades from audiences and critics alike.
Resident Advisor
Who Is Toyin Agbetu? A Conversation With The Godfather Of Street Soul
by Theo Fabunmi-Stone
Toyin's story is an important one, especially as we observe and discuss systemic racial issues in society and the music industry. In this interview, we not only get an answer to the question "Who is Toyin Agbetu?," we find out why his voice is more important now than ever before.
Tone Glow
Interview: Matmos
by Joshua Minsoo Kim
The duo's new album, "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form." was made with the help of 99 collaborators, including artists such as Yo La Tengo, Oneohtrix Point Never, and clipping., who were all given one instruction: The music must be 99 bpm.
VAN Magazine
In Belarus, Noise Has Become the Hallmark of Resistance
by Vitali Alekseenok
Vital cacophony.
Belt Magazine
Give Your Money to Mary Lane
by Katie Prout
I was looking for Mary Lane because I owed her twenty dollars: ten for the CD, and another ten to apologize for the year it took me to get the first ten to her.
ten silver drops
Okayplayer
Spotify Wants Artists To Do All the Work For Very Little Pay
by Anthony Malone
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has painted a picture where only the artists who constantly churn out content can survive a fulltime career in music. Streaming has changed the way we not only listen to music but how we interact with the artists who create it. 
God Is In The TV
Sonstream & Resonate: offering a more ethical alternative to Spotify
by Bill Cummings
Sonstream and Resonate aim to provide better return for streams and a more sustainable system.
Billboard
Why The Weeknd's 'Blinding Lights' Was the Right Song at the Right Time to Make Radio History
by Andrew Unterberger
"Blinding Lights" has proven to be the right song at the right time for total 2020 radio omnipresence.
i-D Magazine
Kylie Minogue wants the world to dance again
by Alim Kheraj
The pop music icon talks about her upcoming album "Disco" and her journey back to the dancefloor, and we premiere a BTS video from her latest video.
Music Business Worldwide
3 things the major labels can learn from Big Hit, home of BTS
by Murray Stassen
Lessons from Bang Si-hyuk's comments at Big Hit's Corporate Briefing last week.
The Ringer
How '(I've Had) The Time of My Life' Saved 'Dirty Dancing'
by Jake Kring-Schreifels
The Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Grey–starring movie was just an indie that no one believed in—until a song came along that lifted it to legendary status.
The Guardian
An oral history of 'Fame': 'We were dancing on cars in the epicentre of porn and filth!'
by Catherine Shoard
It was the late director Alan Parker's most enduring hit, capturing what it was to be young and ambitious in the hot, gritty New York of 1980. The cast and crew reflect on the acting, fighting, flirting and fallout.
Talkhouse
How To Score a Video Game
by Asy Saavedra
Asy Saavedra (Chaos Chaos) talks creating the "Trover Saves The Universe" soundtrack.
Tidal
Riffs, Rhymes, Rehabilitation
by Morgan Enos
Compassionate, innovative projects helmed by Ani DiFranco, Wayne Kramer, David Jassy and others use music to help prisoners restore the humanity that incarceration strips away.
Afropop Worldwide
Everything Transforms: Remixing Tradition in North Africa
by Sebastian Bouknight and Lauren Shenkman
Two new bands, one from Morocco and one from Tunisia, are mixing jazz, funk, and rock with centuries-old ritual music with roots in the trans-Saharan slave trade. It rocks, but what does it mean for the tradition? Afropop talks with both bands about the divergent ways that they negotiate innovation and conservation.
MUSIC OF THE DAY
YouTube
"Boundless Beings"
Nubya Garcia
From "Source," out today on Concord Jazz.
"REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'"
@JasonHirschhorn


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