| Imperfections humanize the person. | | | | |  | JXDN playing a secret show at the Roxy in West Hollywood, Calif., July 17, 2021.
(Scott Dudelson/Getty Images) | | | | | "Imperfections humanize the person." | | | | One, Two, One Two Thr...
Imagine a band onstage, any genre, metal, funk, classical, doesn't matter. Imagine a featured instrumentalist—maybe the lead guitarist, maybe the drummer, maybe the principal French horn player—deciding at the outset of a piece that she's going to start soloing at the two minute 45 second mark. Not after the second chorus, not at the beginning of the 37th measure, just wherever everyone happens to be at 2:45. That probably wouldn't work, would it? For most ensembles in most situations it would be a terrible idea. (But power to the soloist and the group that can make that work; I want to see your next show.)
The British government was kind of doing that when it decided earlier this summer that it was going to lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions on July 19, even if case counts throughout the country were crescendoing, even if a variant was running wild, even if there still wasn't enough vaccine to go around, even if cases were showing up everywhere from the Olympic village in Tokyo to a Dutch music festival specially designed to keep the virus from spreading. The government didn't actually say any of that "even if" stuff. It just made clear it wasn't listening for any of it. Chorus not over yet? Chords haven't come around? Singer's in the middle of a line? Too bad. July 19 is here. Time to cue the saxophone.
PRIME MINISTER BORIS JOHNSON made a strange announcement Monday, the first full day of freedom from masking, social distancing and other restrictions at music venues and other businesses. Pivoting away from that full freedom just as it was getting started, Johnson said he's going to order music venues to require proof of vaccination—the so-called vaccine passport—from all patrons starting more than two months from now. Why two months from now? Because that's when all adults over 18 in the UK will have had the chance to be fully vaccinated. That sounds reasonable—you can't require people to have vaccines if you haven't made the vaccine sufficiently available—until you turn the logic around and realize the prime minister is saying maskless nightclubbing can't work if everyone isn't vaccinated and yet that's exactly what we're going to do for the next two months: Covid is surging and maskless, unvaccinated 18-year-olds are being encouraged to throw caution to the wind. The rhythm section isn't ready for that 16-bar sax solo to start but just go ahead and start anyway. You've waited long enough.
But have we?
Etc Etc Etc
Today would have been POP SMOKE's 22nd birthday and Spotify and Complex are marking the occasion by premiering COMPLEX SUBJECT: POP SMOKE, a six-part podcast on his life. Host DJ PVNCH will moderate a conversation about Pop Smoke's legacy with writers SHAWN SETARO and DANYEL SMITH in Spotify Greenroom at 5pm ET... TAYLOR SWIFT, CÉLINE DION and the EAGLES were the three highest-paid musicians in the US in 2020, a year in which, says Billboard, hip-hop and R&B artists stormed the top 40, fueled by big streaming paydays. Swift was one of several artists on the list with zero touring income. Worldwide, QUEEN, Swift and BILLIE EILISH topped the earnings chart... Two predictions (paywall) from IRVING AZOFF: Ticket prices will go up because "acts want to make up for lost time" and TV awards shows and "that whole kind of genre of music on TV" are in "serious danger"... KEIGO OYAMADA, better known as CORNELIUS, has stepped down from his gig as a composer for the Toyko Olympics opening ceremony after apologizing for bullying disabled classmates when he was a kid.
Rest in Peace
ROBBY STEINHARDT, violinist, vocalist and founding member of Kansas.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | |  | | The Atlantic |
| | How Spotify Has Changed Music Libraries Forever | | by Joe Pinsker | | If your entire collection is on a streaming service, good luck accessing it in 10 or 20 years. | |  | | Texas Monthly |
| | Leon Bridges After Dark | | by Casey Gerald | | On the eve of his third album release, the Grammy-winning artist talks with unparalleled candor about stardom-and how his best friends saved his life. | |  | | Chicago Reader |
| | How punk played in Peoria | | by Jonathan Wright and Dawson Barrett | | An excerpt from the new book "Punks in Peoria: Making a Scene in the American Heartland" takes us back to central Illinois in the 1970s. | |  | | Billboard |
| | Billboard's U.S. Money Makers: The Top Paid Musicians of 2020 | | by Ed Christman | | Taylor Swift tops Billboard's annual ranking in a year that saw top-streaming hip-hop acts replace the rock and country acts that fill arena and stadiums. | |  | | NPR Music |
| | Explaining 'Patria Y Vida,' The Cuban Song Defying An 'Evil Revolution' | | by Anamaria Sayre | | The lyrics pack in plenty of historical and current references, so we turned to Cuban-American musician Lilly Blanco to translate the lyrics and annotate the references. | |  | | Rolling Stone |
| | Why Gift an Album When You Can Send a Personalized Song? | | by Ethan Millman | | The custom song-request startup Songfinch has won The Weeknd, manager Wasim "Sal" Slaiby, and Atlantic Records CEO Craig Kallman as investors in its latest round | |  | | The New York Times |
| | When Pop Music Trolls Grow Up | | by Jon Caramanica and Justin Charity | | New albums from Doja Cat and Tyler, the Creator place their makers - children of the internet with a taste for friction - in a new light. | |  | | Stereogum |
| | The Kid Laroi Situation Is Escalating Rapidly | | by Chris DeVille | | Still a few weeks off from his 18th birthday, Laroi has become not just a rap star but one of the biggest names in all of pop music. | |  | | Backseat Freestyle |
| | The Evolution Of The Posthumous Rap Album | | by Jayson Rodriguez | | Pop Smoke's second posthumous album, "Faith," got me thinking about the (too) many posthumous albums that exist in hip-hop. And the changing nature of just what they provide. | |  | | Consequence |
| | McCartney 3,2,1 Producer on Capturing "Two Musical Giants" in the Studio: 'We Wanted That Intimacy' | | by Clint Worthington | | Jeff Pollack on Hulu's Beatle-centric docuseries and asking the right questions to a musical master. | | |  | | Variety |
| | Damon Dash on Where 'Reasonable Doubt' Lies in Legal Dispute With Jay-Z Over Debut Album | | by A.D. Amorosi | | Keeping track of what has gone on between Damon Dash and Jay-Z - onetime friends and cofounders of Roc-A-Fella Records - in the last three weeks has become something of a bloodlust-y spectator sport with unexpected twists at every turn. | | | | Billboard |
| | Bill Ackman on Pivoting UMG Bid: 'There's No Business I Have More Confidence In' | | by Glenn Peoples | | Pershing Square Tontine Holdings isn't going to invest in Universal Music Group, but Bill Ackman, CEO of the Pershing Square hedge fund, hasn't lost that loving feeling. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | These indie-rock lifers went from obscurity to scandal to a major-label deal in 10 months | | by August Brown | | When TikTok gave surprising new life to Surf Curse's 2013 song "Freaks," the band had just denied sexual misconduct allegations that nearly ended its career. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | 'It's unreal': London clubbers see in 'freedom day' at Fabric reopening | | by Alex Mistlin | | As nightclubs and venues in England reopen without restrictions, revellers celebrated with elation and a little caution. | |  | | WTF with Marc Maron |
| | WTF with Marc Maron: Episode 1245 -- Rick Rubin | | by Marc Maron and Rick Rubin | | Rick Rubin's love of music led him to help popularize hip-hop, rejuvenate artists' careers, and leave his mark on literally thousands of popular songs. But there was a point in his youth where Rick put music aside and focused on something else: Comedy. | |  | | Vulture |
| | The Many, Many Musical-Theater References Behind 'Schmigadoon's' Songs | | by Jackson McHenry | | Co-creator Cinco Paul talks us through the origin of every musical number, and the stories behind their references. | |  | | protocol |
| | Boomy's AI makes music faster than humans, but hasn't written any hits -- yet | | by Janko Roettgers | | Boomy is lowering the barrier to entry into music production. But what happens to streaming sites like Spotify and traditional music labels if algorithms are the hitmakers? | |  | | Slate |
| | Hollywood Has Long Abused Conservatorships. I Spent the Past Decade Studying One of the Worst Cases | | by Liz Brown | | The twisted story of Harrison Post, a gay man put under guardianship in the 1930s. | |  | | SPIN |
| | Sinead O'Connor: Rememberings | | by Chris Norris | | Trial lawyers say whoever tells the best story wins. And love her or hate her, in her memoir Rememberings, Sinéad O'Connor tells a case-winning story of her life. | |  | | The Root |
| | Dipset Forever | | by Shamira Ibrahim | | A Harlem Native reflects on the legacy of The Diplomats. | |  | | jukeboxgraduate |
| | Mary's dress waves. | | by Caryn Rose | | Mary is dancing, she is in motion, her dress is waving. She is not standing there listlessly on the porch like Blanche DuBois, she is so taken by a moment in "Only The Lonely" that she dances to it. | | | | Leon Bridges' "Gold Diggers Sound" is out Friday on Columbia. | | | | | 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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