jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 03/25/2021 - Token Understanding, Morgan Wallen Out of Sight, Demi Lovato's Brutal Audacity, 24kGoldn, Migos...

There's a lot of stuff that worked in the past that people forgot worked. ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ Open in browser Thursday - March 25, 2021 Anderson .Paak at the Outside Lands Festival, San Francisco, Aug. 11, 2019. (Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images) quote of the day "There's a lot of stuff that worked in the past that people forgot worked." — 24kGoldn rantnrave:// Token Understanding I try to avoid other people's trolling in this space (it's my newsletter and I'll troll myself if I want to) but I woke up Wednesday to this laugh/cry-out-loud thread from electronic producer MINT ROYALE on his adventure in a currently trendy way of transacting digital music and art that's so perfectly pitched I can't tell if he's joking or not. Which is in line with how I've felt about so much else I've read about this trend. Are the buyers real? Are the sellers real? Are the things real? Is it possible the buyers and sellers are real but the things are not? Or vice versa? Mint Royale's story is about too many currencies, too many hoops to jump through (each hoop presumably adding a little something to this), too many fees and far too little information on what's in the pot of gold on the other side of all those digital hoops: "I've been given no documentation at all. There is neither a smart contract, or boringly un-smart contract." I ended my day in MUSIC HQ's room inside CLUBHOUSE, where music/tech insiders SHARA SENDEROFF, ZACH KATZ and SUZY RYOO and journalist CHERIE HU were leading a discussion on musical rights and digital commerce, which could have been titled "What Don't the Record Companies Know About NFTs and When Didn't They Know It?" Rough takeaways: The number of people actually trading in these things is, for now, much much smaller than the number of people talking about them. The number of people who understand exactly what they're buying is much much smaller than the number of people who don't. Tech entrepreneurs and record executives still don't appear to have each other's phone numbers. There are some very very basic things that no one's figured out. Comms people and translators are going to be needed soon. In the middle of my day, someone in a FACEBOOK group I'm in (subject: politics) asked, "How can you tell the difference between real and fake NFTs?" Simple question. I wished I could have answered it. Nobody Else's Money Investment firm KKR, which owns a majority stake in RYAN TEDDER's songwriting catalog, is looking to go bigger with a new partnership with German label BMG. The two companies announced Wednesday they'll be going after master recording and publishing catalogs together, and KKR partner NAT ZILKHA told Rolling Stone they're prepared to pay $500 million for the right catalog if it comes along. The biggest sale so far in the catalog buying frenzy is the reported $400 million-ish that UNIVERSAL paid for BOB DYLAN's songs. For $500 million, you should get BEYONCÉ plus JAY-Z plus your choice of any painting currently hanging in their living room plus two or three GRIMES NFTs. KKR's other major investments include TIKTOK parent BYTEDANCE and guitar maker GIBSON (where Zilkha is chairman). Everything owns everything else... TRILLER has a new deal with the NATIONAL MUSIC PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION (NMPA), which has been openly critical of the social video app; it covers both past and future royalties... Trying to figure out if it was DAVID C. LOWERY or the NMPA who supplied JEOPARDY! with this rather pointed clue Wednesday night, in the category "About That Song": "43 million streams of his song 'HAPPY' on PANDORA led to only $2,700 in publisher & songwriting royalties." Rest in Peace CONNIE BRADLEY, who ran ASCAP's Nashville office and was a force in the country music business for more than three decades... LONE JUSTICE drummer DON HEFFINGTON, who also played with a who's who of singer/songwriters from BOB DYLAN and the WALLFLOWERS to EMMYLOU HARRIS and JACKSON BROWNE... New England house and techno DJ/producer PAT FONTES. — Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator malibu Variety Country Star Morgan Wallen Has Had the No. 1 Album for 10 Weeks -- and the Industry Is Happy He's Nowhere in Sight by Chris Willman Reports that Wallen is booking shows for the summer turned out to be ill-founded, but adverse reaction to the idea showed how unwise any quick comeback attempt would be... even as the embattled singer breaks records in absentia. The Muse The Brutal Audacity of Demi Lovato by Rich Juzwiak Rarely is a contemporary documentary with a pop star at its center so invested in *going there* as "Dancing with the Devil" is, and even more rarely does it deliver to the degree that this four-part YouTube Originals production does.  The Guardian 'So much pressure to look a certain way': why eating disorders are rife in pop music by Rhian Jones A documentary series about Demi Lovato shows how brutally controlled the singer's diet once was, and, as other pop performers attest, it's control that underpins damaging behaviour. Pitchfork What the Spotify/K-Pop Showdown Underscores About the Future of Streaming by Noah Yoo After the Korean conglomerate Kakao clashed with Spotify over international licensing agreements, the streaming platform removed hundreds of their artists' catalogs-only to restore them 10 days and much public outcry later. The New York Times 24kGoldn Became a Pandemic Pop Star. Now Comes the Real-World Test by Joe Coscarelli The 20-year-old rapper and singer had one of the biggest hits of last year with "Mood," and is easing into the life of a celebrity with the release of his debut album, "El Dorado." Complex Migos Cooled Off. Can They Get Back on Top? by Jessica McKinney Over the last few years, Migos have lost momentum as a group. Heading into their new album 'Culture III,' can they return with another hot streak? Electronic Frontier Foundation Facebook Treats Punk Rockers Like Crazy Conspiracy Theorists, Kicks Them Offline "I had 2,300 friends on Facebook, a lot of people I'd met on tour," says singer Gina Marie of the Oakland band Oakland band Adrenochrome. "Some of these people I don't know how to reach anymore. I had wedding photos, and baby photos, that I didn't have copies of anywhere else." Guitar World Is the guitar solo dead in the 21st century? by Jonny Scaramanga Until now, the most famous guitar solos have been made almost exclusively by men, mostly from the US and UK. It would be arrogant to assume all the guitar's possibilities have been explored when only a tiny slice of the population has even tried. Austin 360 SXSW 2021 music recap: We came, we saw, we channel-surfed on our couches by Deborah Sengupta Stith and Peter Blackstock We unpack what worked and didn't work as SXSW went online for 2021. Los Angeles Times Before Stevie and Lindsey, Peter Green was the soul of Fleetwood Mac. Just ask Mick Fleetwood by Rob Tannenbaum Founding Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green died in July, five months after Mick Fleetwood organized an all-star tribute concert to his ex-bandmate. oxnard Pollstar Q's With USC's Dr. Stacy L. Smith On 'Inclusion in the Recording Studio?' by Sarah Pittman "If somebody is having a conversation and they think of women artists, and they think of Billie Eilish or Rihanna or Nicki Minaj or Adele, they're going to likely overestimate how well women are doing in music. And that's why data is important." The New Statesman It's easy for women to be written out of their story. So I wrote my rock 'n' roll friend back in by Tracey Thorn Lindy Morrison, drummer with the band the Go-Between, endured the trials of being a woman in the music business in the 1980s, and her story should be told.  Music Business Worldwide Why we believe streaming subscription ARPU fell by around 8% globally for the record industry last year by Tim Ingham MBW runs the numbers from the IFPI's must-read new Global Music Report covering 2020. The Guardian Freak out! It's Nile Rodgers in your living room, singing and answering questions by Etan Smallman The superstar hitmaker spent five hours answering 350 questions - to become the world's first voice-interactive digital portrait. He reveals why the tell-all experience was thrilling - and sometimes upsetting. Song Exploder Song Exploder: Jon Batiste – 'We Are' by Hrishikesh Hirway and Jon Batiste Pianist, songwriter and composer Jon Batiste talks about how he drew from his roots, at a very personal level — and at a cultural, historical level — and wove all of it into the title track of his 2021 album, "We Are." Los Angeles Times 52 songs, four hours, one album: How jazz trickster Sam Gendel made a pandemic opus by Randall Roberts Rising jazz star Sam Gendel has released three albums in the past 12 months, the most recent of which, 'Fresh Bread,' is 'Justice League'-long. KQED HBO's 'TINA' Raises Questions About How We Treat Famous Survivors of Abuse by Rae Alexandra It's impossible to watch the new documentary without a sense of enthralled awe-and, probably, a little bit of guilt. Stereogum beabadoobee's Next Phase Begins Now by Arielle Gordon Beatrice Laus wrote her new EP 'Our Extended Play' with Matty Healy and George Daniel. Twenty Thousand Hertz Twenty Thousand Hertz: 20th Century Fox by Dmitri Vietze, David Newman and Aubrey Solomon The melodic fanfare that introduces every 20th Century Fox movie was first composed almost a hundred years ago. Since then, it's become one of the most enduring and recognizable pieces of music in modern history. It's survived company acquisitions, competition from television, and changing trends in Hollywood. But nothing lasts forever. The New York Times How Lonnie Smith Found an Unlikely New Collaborator: Iggy Pop by Brad Farberman The soul-jazz organist and the punk frontman worked together on a pair of covers and discovered a musical kinship. what we're into Music of the day "Open Eyes" duendita Kinda quiet, kinda stormy, kinda quirky. "Listening to what my body knows." I love this production. YouTube Kinda quiet, kinda stormy, kinda quirky. "Listening to what my body knows." I love this production. Video of the day "This Is the Life" Forward Movement Ava DuVernay's documentary about the '90s hip-hop scene based at South Central LA's Good Life Cafe, where acts like the Jurassic 5 and Freestyle Fellowship sprouted like wheatgrass. Recently added to Netflix. YouTube Ava DuVernay's documentary about the '90s hip-hop scene based at South Central LA's Good Life Cafe, where acts like the Jurassic 5 and Freestyle Fellowship sprouted like wheatgrass. Recently added to Netflix. 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