| Apparently a disagreement between our distributor Kakao M & Spotify has made our new album Epik High Is Here unavailable globally against our will. Regardless of who is at fault, why is it always the artists and the fans that suffer when businesses place greed over art? | | | | |  | Billie Eilish at the very socially distanced premiere of "Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry," Los Angeles, Feb. 25, 2021.
(Koury Angelo/Getty Images) | | | | | "Apparently a disagreement between our distributor Kakao M & Spotify has made our new album Epik High Is Here unavailable globally against our will. Regardless of who is at fault, why is it always the artists and the fans that suffer when businesses place greed over art?" | | | | You Should See Me in a Movie
No matter how many horror movies or heart-wrenching dramas you see this year, I'm not sure you'll see a darker, more harrowing scene than the one in the new BILLIE EILISH documentary in which her mother walks in on her while she's curled up with a notebook writing a song about killing herself. "Are you seriously implying that you'd jump off the roof?," her mother, MAGGIE, asks. Billie nods yes. "Do you feel OK about a song like that?," mom, who's offscreen, asks. "I feel like it's something I wanna have said," Billie answers. "This song is the reason I don't—like having this way of saying it instead of doing it is better." And then, while the song continues to play, director R.J CUTLER cuts to Billie and her producer/collaborator brother FINNEAS, presumably moments later, staring directly at his camera and goofing around like they've just finished a song about baby giraffes. "Do you like this song?," Finneas asks. "I love this song," Billie says. She giggles. Mom has disappeared. Saying it instead of doing it *is* better. Much, much better. And it's a fantastic song.
BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD'S A LITTLE BLURRY is a beautiful documentary that moves like that for nearly two and a half hours, bouncing between high and low, light and dark, elation and depression, while Cutler's camera plays fly on the wall to a very real teenager doing very real teenage things (learning how to drive, doing laundry, texting her boyfriend, crushing on JUSTIN BIEBER) while also writing (really good) songs, touring the world and creating the first couple chapters of a not-so-typical career with the help of her brother and her doting parents. There's no narration and no plot except for the natural momentum of life moving in the direction of where anyone watching this documentary already knows it's headed. There's a lot of very real teenage pain—some of it extreme—and confusion, a lot of concerned parenting, a lot of screaming fans and a lot of indications that the teenager at the center of all of this, for all that confusion, for all that self-doubt, has a remarkably clear-headed understanding of what's going on around her and has her head screwed on impressively tight. Her story feels real and weirdly hopeful. It may leave you feeling—it's pretty much designed to leave you feeling—that pop is, for now, in very good hands. And, not incidentally, very believable hands.
"Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry" is streaming on Apple TV+.
Swinging Globes
Not to take the GOLDEN GLOBES seriously or anything, especially this year, but it was quite a night in quite a year for jazz and blues at the movies. The late CHADWICK BOSEMAN was named Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for his mesmerizing portrayal of the fictional trumpeter LEVEE GREEN in the real blues singer MA RAINEY's band in MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, and ANDRA DAY took the Best Actress – Drama prize for her acclaimed turn in the title role in THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY – beating out VIOLA DAVIS' Ma Rainey, among others. Best Original Score went to TRENT REZNOR, ATTICUS ROSS and JON BATISTE for the animated jazz feature SOUL, while Original Song honors went to DIANE WARREN, LAURA PAUSINI and NICCOLÒ AGLIARDI for the Italian-language power ballad "IO SÌ (SEEN)," from THE LIFE AHEAD.
Etc Etc Etc
The READING FESTIVAL sold out less than two days after organizers said it's actually going to happen in August, and only single-day tickets remain for its twin the LEEDS FESTIVAL, in case you were wondering if people were hungry to see live music again. They're not alone. But not everyone thinks this is a good idea... In Italy, meanwhile, more than 100 artists staged silent livestreams Saturday to raise awareness for the struggling live music industry. And rather elaborate silent livestreams at that, as the videos collected on this page make clear. Very much worth a look... I co-sign this tweet by Washington Post critic CHRIS RICHARDS so hard it hurts. (For further reading, see today's quote of the day, above.)... Pandemic notwithstanding, the US music biz enjoyed a fifth straight year of strong growth in 2020, powered almost entirely, of course, by streaming. There were 75.5 million paying subscribers to streaming music services in the US at year's end, up from 60.4 million in 2019. Also helping: The continuing boom in vinyl, which outsold CDs for the first time since 1986 (the year of WHITNEY HOUSTON's debut and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's LIVE/1975–85)... One more documentary for your watch list: EMMETT MALLOY's BIGGIE: I GOT A STORY TO TELL, chronicling the NOTORIOUS B.I.G.'s rise to fame, premieres today on Netflix.
Rest in Peace
"Ghetto fabulous" stylist DEREK KHAN... New York house DJ/producer ANGEL MORAES... British house DJ PETE ZORBA... IAN NORTH, founder of '70s power-pop band MILK 'N' COOKIES... Violinist and conductor YUVAL WALDMAN... Opera singer ANTOINE HODGE... Rolling Stone magazine's first managing editor, JOHN BURKS, who greatly expanded the magazine's scope.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | | | rave:// A long, provocative, great read. | | |  | | Essaying |
| | The Dolly Moment | | by Tressie McMillan Cottom | | Why we stan a post-racism queen. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | 'Record companies have me on a dartboard': the man making millions buying classic hits | | by Dorian Lynskey | | Hit songs can be a better investment than gold - and by snapping up the rights, Merck Mercuriadis has become the most disruptive force in music. | |  | | Input |
| | WTF is an NFT? Allow Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda to explain | | by Mark Yarm | | The rapper/producer talks to Input about launching his new single, "Happy Endings," via a blockchain-backed auction site. | |  | | Slate |
| | Should We Be Worried About Billie Eilish? | | by Carl Wilson | | A sweeping doc about her meteoric rise gives any worried onlookers plenty of calm--and a little bit of pause. | |  | | Billboard |
| | How Subscription Platforms Have Become Revenue-Generating, Real-Time Fan Clubs | | by Micah Singleton | | Patreon and OnlyFans and a slate of new startups that enable artists to connect directly with their biggest devotees — and generate revenue in the process — have become the Generation Z equivalent of real-time fan clubs. | |  | | Pitchfork |
| | Buy Music Club Gives Playlist Lovers a Community-Driven Alternative | | by Noah Yoo | | The online tool pushes back against algorithmic recommendations and reinforces the idea that music is worth paying for. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | 'Drivers License' Is a Runaway Hit. See How Olivia Rodrigo Made Her No. 1 Song | | by Joe Coscarelli | | The singer-songwriter and actress, 18, explains how she wrote her first-ever single -- after a good cry, with TikTok in mind -- before it took over the world. | |  | | The New Yorker |
| | "Dons of Disco," Reviewed: A Stranger-Than-Fiction Battle in the World of Italian Pop | | by Richard Brody | | Jonathan Sutak's documentary tells the amazing story of the lip-synching eighties star Den Harrow and the war between the two men who made up the act. | |  | | Variety |
| | Spotify Listeners Lose K-Pop Tunes From Kakao M After Deal Talks Fail | | by Patrick Frater | | Spotify users worldwide will no longer have access to music tracks from K-pop acts represented by Kakao M, an offshoot of Korean internet giant Kakao Corp. The global music streamer's deal with the label has expired and has not been renewed. | |  | | Tidal |
| | Remember the Sound: An Oral History of Philadelphia International Records | | by John Murph | | Gamble, Huff and Thom Bell tell the tale of Philly soul. | | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday | | by Randall Roberts | | "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" tells the tale of the FBI's targeting of the jazz singer, whose "Strange Fruit" became a protest anthem. | | | | The Guardian |
| | Festivals selling out after map to end England's lockdown announced | | by Sarah Marsh | | Wary organisers call for government cancellation insurance as ticket sales soar. | |  | | The Independent |
| | Announcing music festivals for 2021 is absolutely absurd -- here's why | | by Roisin O'Connor | | A sense of unease hangs over the announcement that Reading and Leeds organisers plan to hold the festival in August. Roisin O'Connor explains why she thinks it's still too soon to get our hopes up. | |  | | NME |
| | Madison Beer: 'I have a voice and it deserves to be heard' | | by Nick Levine | | Madison Beer on holding her own in the music biz and making a statement with her brutally honest debut album 'Life Support'. | | | | Billboard |
| | US Recorded Music Revenue Surpassed $12B in 2020 | | by Ed Christman | | Economic downturn brought on by the pandemic couldn't stop the U.S. music industry from its fifth consecutive year of growth as revenue increased 9.2% to $12.15 billion in 2020 from the prior year's $11.13 billion total, according the RIAA's year-end revenue report released Friday (Feb. 26). | |  | | Audiophile Review |
| | Are You Ready for The Rebirth of Cassette Tape? | | by Paul Wilson | | I was recently plugging around in a closet when I spotted it lurking in the semi darkness. I found myself staring at and wondering why, for about forty years, I held onto my JVC cassette deck. My trusty deck and I had some fun back in the day. | | | | Los Angeles Times |
| | ACMs shut women out of top country category but say female representation improving | | by Nardine Saad | | Women were snubbed for the Academy of Country Music's 2021 entertainer of the year field, but the organization touts 43% of nominees were female. | |  | | Mixmag |
| | Will rapid testing really save UK nightlife? Mixmag investigates | | by Jack Ramage | | The government says rapid testing will help its plan for nightclubs to reopen from June 21. | |  | | JazzTimes |
| | Ellis Marsalis' Final Album Is a Three-Generation Affair | | by Michael J. West | | When Ellis Marsalis and his son Jason went into a New Orleans studio in February 2020, they had no inkling that it would be the elder man's final recording. | | | |  | | | Music of the day | | "Viral" | | Year of the Ox | | An urgent message in 2020, relevant again in 2021. |  | | YouTube |
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An urgent message in 2020, relevant again in 2021. | | | | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | "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?'" | | |  | | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator | | |  |
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