| Being in lockdown was about going back to the pure thing: writing a song because you feel something, want to express and process it. | | | | |  | Arlo Parks at the Brit Awards at the the O2 Arena, London, May 11, 2021.
(JMEnternational/Getty Images) | | | | | "Being in lockdown was about going back to the pure thing: writing a song because you feel something, want to express and process it." | | | | Ball of Inclusion
Shoutout ROC NATION CEO DESIREE PEREZ and RESERVOIR MEDIA chief GOLNAR KHOSROWSHAHI, the only two women of color currently holding a chief executive, chair or president title at a major player in the U.S. music biz. That's according to USC ANNENBERG's INCLUSION INITIATIVE, which ran the numbers on 4,060 executives at 119 companies, from 300 ENTERTAINMENT and 313 PRESENTS to XL RECORDINGS and YOUTUBE MUSIC, for its new report on "Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams." The lack of equal representation in the industry's top jobs, it turns out, is representative of a lack of representation elsewhere on corporate ladders. Among all executives at the VP level or above, only 7.5% are Black, while all underrepresented minorities account for 19.8% of those execs. Men outnumber women across the board. "Put differently," the report's authors write, "there were 17.7 white male executives to every 1 Black female executive." This is for an industry whose most popular product looks like this.
Only about a dozen of the 119 companies cooperated with the Annenberg study by confirming the info that the researchers gathered (from sources including company websites). Which is weird for an industry that pledged a year ago to "increase representation of Black employees at the company through hiring, mentorship and elevating the incredible pool of talent we already have" (SPOTIFY) and to review its "commitment to addressing and promoting tolerance, equality, and elimination of bias" (UMG). Is anyone making good on those pledges? How would anyone know? "Transparency is an important value in creating change, and something any company should consider when approached with requests like this," the report scolds.
One of the areas where Black and other minority employees are best represented is in record company A&R departments, whose execs are 21% Black and 34% underrepresented minorities. To put *those* figures differently, co-author KATHERINE PIEPER told the LA Times, "The people who work closest with artists show the most inclusion, and that's a strategy organizations need to think about."
Change takes time, of course, and there will be another report a year from now. A more specific report. While this one doesn't break out the numbers for individual companies, the next one will, lead author STACY L. SMITH says, so "we can see where there's been progress, and which companies are stalled in terms of change." But Smith doesn't seem interested in arguments that time is needed to develop a diverse candidate pool and give future executives the necessary experience. The talent, she insists, already exists: "It's access and opportunity that are the problem... So I'm not talking about a training program, I'm talking about: How are you going to change the culture within an organization?"
Reading between those lines, if I may, the idea isn't to chart incremental change from this year to next. Rather, it's to see which companies create those opportunities and make meaningful change and which ones, to be blunt, fail.
Dot Dot Dot
In a bipartisan letter co-signed by nearly half the U.S. Senate, Sens. JOHN CORNYN and AMY KLOBUCHAR are demanding the Small Business Administration speed up the processing of relief to independent venue owners under the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program. "Further delays," they write, "are unacceptable and would have irreversible consequences for these industries"... A scripted mini-series about the creation of SPOTIFY, inspired by SVEN CARLSSON and JONAS LEIJONHUFVUD's book SPOTIFY UNTOLD, is in production at NETFLIX. Will a podcast about the creation of Netflix follow from Spotify?... Streams of the original versions of the hits from TAYLOR SWIFT's FEARLESS have caught up with streams of her TAYLOR'S VERSION remakes. But the deeper cuts from the new album continue to outpace their equivalents from the original, Rolling Stone reports. It's "a good indication that die-hard Swifties are still streaming 'Taylor's Version,' while casual listeners may be more likely to cue up the original." At PANDORA, where the service, rather than users, has the final say, "the original versions seem to be overwhelmingly outstreaming the new versions"... JAY-Z suing REASONABLE DOUBT photographer JONATHAN MANNION for, Jay claims, selling prints without permission... The JESUS AND MARY CHAIN suing WARNER MUSIC for control of their classic debut, PSYCHOCANDY... Anti-vaxxers picketing FOO FIGHTERS.
Rest in Peace
JIM "KOZ" KOZLOWSKI, veteran of several indie rock labels including Relativity Records.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | |  | | USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative |
| | Inclusion in the Music Business: Gender & Race/Ethnicity Across Executives, Artists & Talent Teams [PDF] | | by Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Dr. Carmen Lee, Marc Choueiti... | | The purpose of this study was to map the diversity of the U.S. music business across different positions of power. Focusing on underrepresented racial/ethnic groups and gender in general and Black executives in particular, we examined the rank and titles of 4,060 executives across 119 companies in the music space. | |  | | Variety |
| | USC-Annenberg Leader Talks Damning Music Industry Diversity Report: 'These Companies Have a Workforce Crisis' | | by Jem Aswad | | While they're not singling out individual companies this year, next year, Annenberg's Stacy L. Smith pledges, they will. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | Can Streaming Pay? Musicians Are Pinning Fresh Hopes on Twitch. | | by Ben Sisario | | The gaming platform is becoming increasingly attractive to artists, who can earn money by cultivating fan tribes that express their loyalty through patronage. | |  | | PopMatters |
| | Punk Rap: The Early Years | | by Iain Ellis | | When the rebel subcultures punk and rap crossed paths in '70s NYC, a hybrid was born that endures and reconfigures to this day. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | 'Selena' writers say Netflix series disrespected the singer — and staff | | by Yvonne Villarreal | | Staffers say the project came with a low budget, poor pay and a brutal schedule. | |  | | GQ |
| | The Big Ambition of Lil Dicky | | by Gabriella Paiella | | The rapper and star of FX's surprise hit "Dave" opens up about his regrets, what drives him, and the powerful source of all his anxieties. (Hint: It's in his pants.) | |  | | Music x |
| | Music is getting the first peer-to-peer Decentralised Finance platform backed by real world assets | | by Bas Grasmayer | | Earlier this year, music distributor and label services company Ditto Music announced that they'd be setting up a financial support initiative powered by blockchain called Opulous. It has raised over $6 million in investment by selling $OPUL tokens through fundraising platform DAO Maker. | |  | | Billboard |
| | Spain Gears Up For A Return To Live -- Everywhere But In Ibiza | | While clubs are reopening in Madrid and Barcelona, the chances of a summer season in Ibiza, Spain's clubbing hub for electronic dance music, are looking grim. | |  | | The Daily Beast |
| | Rick James' Intense Rivalry With Prince Nearly Came to Blows | | by Marlow Stern | | In the new documentary "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James," the late funk icon's friends and confidantes open up James' chaotic relationship with The Purple One. | |  | | Pollstar |
| | UK Government Deals 'Crippling Blow' To Live Events Sector By Delaying Reopening | | by Gideon Gottfried | | The UK government has delayed the last step of its roadmap out of lockdown, which should have seen all restrictions on social gatherings lifted by June 21. The live events and hospitality sectors are devastated. | | |  | | Okayplayer |
| | TikTok's Hip-Hop Sample Videos Are Teaching Gen Z The Basics Of Sampling | | by Elijah C. Watson | | DJs and music enthusiasts alike have used TikTok to make brief, fun and informational explainers on hip-hop samples, showing how the once discrete practice of sample sharing has become more democratized through the internet. | |  | | Stereogum |
| | Album Of The Week: Backxwash 'I Lie Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses' | | by James Rettig | | "I Lie Here Buried With My Rings And My Dresses" opens with a haunting vocal sample, one that I haven't been able to source. It sounds like it could be a cult leader or a religious fanatic; in the world of Backxwash, maybe those are one and the same. | | | | The New York Times |
| | Joan Armatrading Is Still Searching for the Perfect Song | | by Jon Pareles | | At 70, the influential English songwriter is still writing and recording solo, remaining as private as she can and "trying to get really good." | | | | Billboard |
| | Music Discovery Is Entering New Age, With Streaming at the Helm | | by Russ Crupnick | | How we experience discovery, and what we are looking for, can be highly personal. Music discovery is fragmented. It is not only about new music or emerging artists. | |  | | Mintlounge |
| | Are musical earworms disrupting your sleep? | | When a sleep researcher realized he was waking in the middle of the night with a song stuck in his head, he saw an opportunity to study how music may affect sleep. | |  | | Complex |
| | SZA Is Manifesting Everything--Including Performances and a Tyler, the Creator Collab | | by Brenton Blanchet | | Before SZA's 'UNSTAGED' show on Thursday (Jun. 17), she caught up with Complex for an interview about the performance and manifesting a collab with Tyler, the Creator. | |  | | I Care If You Listen |
| | 5 Questions to Adolphus Hailstork (composer) about 'Tulsa 1921' | | by Dalanie Harris | | Dalanie Harris asked 5 questions to Adolphus Hailstork about the premiere of "Tulsa 1921 (Pity These Ashes, Pity This Dust)" on June 19, 2021. | |  | | Sound Expertise |
| | Sound Expertise: Cold War Money and New Music with Eduardo Herrera and Michael Uy | | by Will Robin, Eduardo Herrera and Michael Uy | | How did Cold War money shape the musical avant-garde? What were the roles of experts, elites, and the Rockefeller Foundation in shaping the cultural politics of new music--in the era of serial tyranny and Milton Babbitt's "Who Cares If You Listen?" | |  | | Clash Magazine |
| | OK Boomer: Rock's Angry Brigade Have Had An Inglorious Week | | by Robin Murray | | Each day seems to bring a new vox pop, with some old, grizzled hit-maker left red-faced and furious by the world they've found themselves in. | | | | | 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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