| As part of our continuing focus on developing new financial opportunities for creators, we will no longer apply existing unrecouped balances to artist and participant earnings generated on or after January 1, 2021 for eligible artists and participants globally who signed to SME prior to the year 2000. | | | | |  | Space oddity: Jobriath on "The Midnight Special," March 8, 1974.
(Gary Null/NB|C/Getty Images) | | | | | "As part of our continuing focus on developing new financial opportunities for creators, we will no longer apply existing unrecouped balances to artist and participant earnings generated on or after January 1, 2021 for eligible artists and participants globally who signed to SME prior to the year 2000." | | | | Un-unrecouped
Three proposals for righting decades of economic wrongs to music's Black creators/pioneers, all from June 2020, when the industry was pausing for a day to ponder the systemic racism within. "Give Black artists their master recordings back instead" of taking that day off, producer WHOAREI wrote in a since-deleted Tumbler post that made the simplest and, all things considered, most radical argument of all. "Those that want out of their contracts, let them out." USC professor JOSH KUN went viral with a similarly bold suggestion that labels and platforms "start with amending contracts... and retroactively paying back all the Black artists, and their families, they have built their empires on." Music lawyer RONALD E. SWEENEY drilled down into specifics, as if he were writing record companies' own business plans for them, in a 12-point plan that proposed, among other things, that labels "zero out [the] unrecouped royalty balances" of "Black artists signed to you prior to 2000, that are no longer signed to your companies." A slightly smaller ask but still a big one. It was easy to believe, as recently as 12 month ago, that none of these ideas would get past the front doors of a major record company, no matter how often they were tweeted, retweeted and otherwise cheered. Record companies aren't normally in the business of ripping up contracts and renouncing royalties they believe they're owed.
But last week, SONY MUSIC sampled generously from Ronald Sweeney's proposal with a surprising—shocking even—decision to stop counting unrecouped royalties against the earnings of any artist "signed... prior to the year 2000" who hasn't received an advance since then. Sony isn't zeroing out the debt of the exact group of artists Sweeney was targeting; it just isn't going to use the debt to garnish the earnings of that exact group of artists anymore. Sony's new policy affects any artist who meets the criteria, not just Black artists, but it addresses specific complaints that Black artists and their advocates have raised over the years. It doesn't retroactively pay back lost royalties and it doesn't return their masters, but it will immediately change—and improve—the way many of them are paid. And it kicks a door open in a way that invites followup questions: Why not do those other things, too? Why not keep going? Why not wipe more slates clean? Do retroactive pay and returning masters sound as radical as they did a year ago, or even a week ago?
Sony's move, revealed in a letter to artists that was leaked to various sites Friday, also answered a challenge from indie giant the BEGGARS GROUP, which several years ago started zeroing out the unrecouped debt of artists 15 years after their "active relationship" with any Beggars label ends. (Artists' debts to labels, unlike contracts, normally have no expiration date.) Beggars, which also raised the streaming royalty rate for its catalog artists, challenged major labels to do something similar. A laudable challenge. But it's clear Sony was directly responding to a year of record industry reckoning intersecting with Black Lives Matter protests. The reckoning and the protests are by no means over and there are plenty of specific asks still on the table, including concrete improvements to diversity in record company hiring and equality in pay. Change will take time, #TheShowMustBePaused co-founder BRIANNA AGYEMANG told Rolling Stone's ELIAS LEIGHT recently. But "we can't slow down." Ronald Sweeney, for now, is "actually smiling. Something really good finally happened for the people who need it most."
Dot Dot Dot
TANIA LEÓN wins the Pulitzer Prize in Music for "STRIDE," commissioned by the NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC as part of its 2020 celebration of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which cemented women's right to vote... Chicago is giving away LOLLAPALOOZA passes as incentives for residents to get a Covid vaccine.
Rest in Peace
JUAN NELSON, longtime bassist for Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals... RICHARD ANTHONY NUNNS, New Zealand musician and scholar of traditional Māori instruments.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | |  | | The New Yorker |
| | Julian Casablancas Wants a Better New York | | by Naomi Fry | | The singer led the city's rock revival. As a supporter of the mayoral candidate Maya Wiley, he's thinking much bigger. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Live music is back, but for roadies and crews, the pandemic's toll may be irreversible | | by August Brown | | From guitar techs to road managers to crew chiefs, a year without work devastated live music's behind-the-scenes workers, and many may never recover. | |  | | Music Business Worldwide |
| | In historic move, Sony Music is disregarding unrecouped balances for heritage catalog artists | | by Tim Ingham | | In a letter sent to thousands of artists, Sony Music Entertainment has announced the launch of a new initiative called "Artists Forward", which it says focuses on "prioritizing transparency with creators in all aspects of their development". | |  | | VICE |
| | Taco Bell Has Been Quietly Subsidizing Touring Bands for 15 Years | | by Josh Terry | | Being on the road is hard. The fast food chain's Feed the Beat initiative, which gives artists $500 in gift cards, claims to make it easier. | |  | | The Ringer |
| | The Organic Rise of Larry June, the Rap Game Jack LaLanne | | by Logan Murdock | | The San Francisco MC, who returns with 'The Orange Print' on Friday, is becoming Bay Area royalty, the healthy way. | |  | | Asheville Blade |
| | The misogyny at Moog | | by Veronica Coit | | A civil rights lawsuit tells the story of workplace discrimination, verbal abuse, assault and rampant misogyny at a major Asheville company. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | The push to archive the history of jungle and drum'n'bass | | by Lanre Bakare | | Historians aim to document small labels, record shops, pirate radio and clubs that helped scene thrive. | |  | | 5 Magazine |
| | 'Sociopaths in Headphones' -- What happened when plague raves came to Zanzibar | | by Terry Matthew | | Superstar DJs & plague ravers partied with MAGA conspiracists & anti-vaxxers while coronavirus silently whipped through Tanzania. | |  | | Please Kill Me |
| | Remembering Punk, the Magazine, Music, Moment in Time | | by Legs McNeil | | Five years after the punk wave had washed over New York and London, Legs McNeil looked back in anger and awe at what it had wrought. In this story from his archive, Legs explains the how, when and why of punk from his perspective on the front lines, as the "resident punk" at Punk magazine. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | Overlooked No More: Jobriath, Openly Gay Glam Rocker in the 1970s | | by David Chiu | | His space alien persona and theatrical rock music drew comparisons to David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust character. But American audiences seemed unwilling to accept his sexuality. | | |  | | Oxford American |
| | La Cancion de la Nena | | by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal | | An undiscovered guitar prodigy in the borderlands. | | | | The Guardian |
| | Lorde's comeback single is a lesson in letting pop stars take their time | | by Laura Snapes | | "Solar Power" delivers a statement of loose-limbed maturity from a mercurial star who is much imitated but utterly unique. | |  | | InsideHook |
| | 'In the Heights' Is a Blueprint for Saving the Musical. Will Anyone Take Heed? | | by Charles Bramesco | | After a decade of torturous singalongs, Jon M. Chu's dazzling adaptation breathes new life into a storied American tradition. | | | | The New York Times |
| | Juilliard Students Protest Tuition Increase With Marches and Music | | by Colin Moynihan | | After occupying parts of the school, some students were barred from entering the building. So they took the demonstration outside. | |  | | GQ |
| | How 42 Dugg Went From Solitary to Rap Star | | by Jayson Buford | | His new album, 'Free Dem Boyz,' is a top 10 hit. But he didn't start rapping until he was in the hole. | |  | | Complex |
| | Ruth B. Isn't in a Rush | | by Sumiko Wilson | | The Alberta songstress chats with Complex about the inspiration and anxieties behind her highly-anticipated sophomore album, "Moments In Between." | |  | | The Independent |
| | Does 2000s acoustic indie deserve another chance? | | by Sean Griffiths | | From Badly Drawn Boy and David Gray to Travis and Turin Brakes, the turn of the century was swamped by earnest troubadours singing sad songs. It's often seen as a nadir for guitar music but, asks Sean Griffiths, is the period really as dull as it's remembered? | |  | | On An Overgrown Path |
| | Classical's elusive young audience wants chewy music | | by Pliable | | Straight from the blender music may appeal to a toothless older demographic. But the prized young audience wants chewy music, because they have cut their teeth on recent trance and rave mutations of Klaus Schulze's cosmic rock. | | | | | |  | | | Video of the day | | "Jobriath A.D." | | Eight Track Tape Productions | | Kieran Turner's 2012 documentary on the '70s glam-rock cult figure. |  | | YouTube |
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Kieran Turner's 2012 documentary on the '70s glam-rock cult figure. | | | 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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