| The only role black females have in [Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'] video is to catch (i.e., rescue) the 'angelic' Madonna when she is 'falling.' This is just a contemporary casting of the black female as Mammy. Made to serve as supportive backdrop for Madonna's drama, black characters in 'Like a Prayer' remind one of those early Hollywood depictions of singing black slaves in the great plantation movies or those Shirley Temple films where Bojangles was trotted out to dance with Miss Shirley and spice up her act. | | | | |  | Baby Keem at Day N Vegas, Las Vegas, Nov. 13, 2021.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images) | | | | | "The only role black females have in [Madonna's 'Like a Prayer'] video is to catch (i.e., rescue) the 'angelic' Madonna when she is 'falling.' This is just a contemporary casting of the black female as Mammy. Made to serve as supportive backdrop for Madonna's drama, black characters in 'Like a Prayer' remind one of those early Hollywood depictions of singing black slaves in the great plantation movies or those Shirley Temple films where Bojangles was trotted out to dance with Miss Shirley and spice up her act." | | | | Pay Me My Money Down
At the risk of overstating the obvious, $500 million is a hell of a lot of money. Like, half a billion dollars lot of money. More-than-anyone's-ever-paid-for-TAYLOR-SWIFT lot of money. More-than-BOB DYLAN-got lot of money.
Of course, BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN's stadium-shaking, arena-quaking deal with SONY MUSIC is a very different deal than either of those landmark music rights mega-sales.
SHAMROCK CAPITAL paid SCOOTER BRAUN's ITHACA HOLDINGS $300 million for the master recordings of TAYLOR SWIFT's first six albums, but not her publishing, 13 months ago. A few weeks later, BOB DYLAN sold his entire songwriting catalog, but not his masters, to UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP for a reported $300 million to $400 million.
The Springsteen-Sony deal, which Billboard says is "in the area of $500 million" and the New York Times says "may exceed" that, is for the kit and the caboodle, the devils and the dust, the sways and the waves, the masters *and* the publishing rights to the Boss's entire half-century of work. It "may well be the biggest transaction ever struck for a single artist's body of work," the Times' BEN SISARIO wrote Wednesday night. It's actually a pair of deals, according to Billboard's MELINDA NEWMAN and ED CHRISTMAN. SONY MUSIC, parent company of COLUMBIA, the only label Springsteen has ever recorded for, is buying the masters, and SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING is picking up the publishing. The exact terms haven't been announced, and may never be. But Newman and Christman crunched some numbers and concluded that if the record company offered a 20-times multiple based on the past three years of Springsteen's recorded music earnings and the publishing company offered a 30-times multiple on his even higher songwriting earnings, that combined offer would still fall about $100 million short of what they're reportedly paying.
A fortunes-of-heaven-in-diamonds-and-gold lot of money.
But is it a crazy amount of money? If all Sony was getting was Springsteen's 20 studio albums, a $500 million deal would work out to $25 million per album, which may seem like a lot for, say, THE GHOST OF TOM JOAD, but which may be a steal for the full master and publishing rights to BORN IN THE USA or BORN TO RUN. And the deal presumably includes a truckload of beloved live albums, too. And random singles. And songs he wrote for other artists. By way of comparison, $25 million in basketball money would get you about half a season's worth of GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO's time. And though we don't know the finer points of the deal, it seemingly gives Sony—or any potential future buyer of the company—the right to do pretty much anything it wants with the music of a singer/songwriter who's been famously protective of his art and how it's used. And to keep all the royalties for itself.
And like Universal with its Dylan catalog, Sony gets the shine of being able to tell other artists it's investing in and caring for the work of great musicians rather than leaving them for hedge funds and other Wall Street ambulance chasers, while simultaneously proving it can compete with those hedge funds. Don't underestimate the intangibles.
What's in it for Bruce? Presumably the same thing that's driven so many of his peers, and plenty of younger artists, to sell all or part of their catalogs in recent years. Valuations are high and may never be so high again—at the same time that royalty streams are becoming less and less reliable for individual artists. His songs, for all their staying power, are only getting older. Exchanging IP for cash presumably makes estate planning easier and saves his children from future headaches.
And maybe just maybe, now I'm completely guessing, the years have softened Springsteen's stance against hearing his music in commercials, dodgy movies and other such places. Maybe his priorities at age 72 aren't the same as his priorities at 32, or even 62. Maybe, having shared his life story in a memoir and on Broadway, he can let the past go and move on. There are new songs to be written, new stories to be told.
Etc Etc Etc
After having to cancel its flagship events in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid, the company behind MIDEM has scrapped its 2022 plans and says it's getting out of the business for good. Which doesn't necessarily mean Midem is finished forever. RX FRANCE (formerly REED MIDEM) says it's trying to get the city of Cannes to run future Midems. "There's a big, big need for an international event like Midem," outgoing RX France CEO ALEXANDRE DENIOT told Billboard. "We're still looking at different options"... Starting a month from now, New York's METROPOLITAN OPERA will require employees and audience members to have Covid booster shots. The policy won't apply to people who aren't yet eligible for a booster; they'll be allowed as long as they have proof of un-boosted vaccination... Bands we lost in 2021... In other financial news, $999,999 in a charity auction got one wealthy buyer an NFT of a recently discovered early WHITNEY HOUSTON demo. The NFT gives the winning bidder personal access to the song and a video by 17-year-old artist DIANA SINCLAIR. The sale benefits the WHITNEY E. HOUSTON FOUNDATION.
Rest in Peace
Puerto Rican producer FLOW LA MOVIE, whose hits included the all-star single "Te Boté" and Nio García's "AM." He was killed in a plane crash in the Dominican Republic Wednesday along with his longtime partner, DEBBIE VON MARIE JIMÉNEZ GARCIA, and their 4-year-old son, JAYDEN HERNANDEZ... SHAWN CRIPPS, frontman of Memphis garage-rockers LIMES... Bassist PHIL CHEN, who payed with Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and other classic rockers.
| | | | i got a dollar in my pocket |
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|  | | NME |
| | Music venues and nightclubs 'on the brink of collapse' and demand 'immediate' government action | | by Andrew Trendell | | Venues and clubs tell NME about the new challenges of Omicron, making themselves safe spaces and what needs to be done. | |  | | Pitchfork |
| | Did Chromatics' Album 'Dear Tommy' Ever Exist in the First Place? | | by Marc Hogan | | Amid an exodus of bands from Johnny Jewel's Italians Do It Better label, questions surround Chromatics' breakup and their mythic "lost" album. | |  | | Billboard |
| | Bruce Springsteen Sells His Masters and Music Publishing to Sony in $500M Deal | | by Melinda Newman and Ed Christman | | In what may be the biggest deal in music for an individual body of work, Bruce Springsteen has sold his masters to Sony Music and his music publishing to Sony Music Publishing in a combined deal that sources tell Billboard is in the area of $500 million. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | 'I wanted to show what happened': the tragic story of Juice WRLD | | by Adrian Horton | | An HBO documentary shares the rapper and singer's ascent filled with anxiety, depression and drug use before he died at 21. | |  | | The Nation |
| | The Greatest Teacher of America's Great Art Form | | by Ethan Iverson | | The pianist Barry Harris, who died last week, dedicated his life to continuing the oral tradition of jazz improvisation. | |  | | Sound Field |
| | How Black Culture Influenced Drumline and Marching Band | | by Arthur 'LA' Buckner and Dasmyn Grigsby | | Historically Black Colleges and Universities have heavily influenced some of today's biggest hits. Songs like "Industry Baby" by Lil Nas X and "Love Lockdown" by Kanye West wouldn't sound the same without the catchy, marching band-inspired beats. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | From Britney to the Beatles, it was a watershed year for music documentaries | | by Randall Roberts | | Thanks to deep-pocketed streamers with an insatiable need for content and subscribers, music fans enjoyed an unparalleled bounty of documentaries in 2021. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | North Korea Executes People for Watching K-Pop, Rights Group Says | | by Choe Sang-Hun | | At least seven people have been put to death in the past decade for watching or distributing K-pop videos, as the North cracks down on what its leader calls a "vicious cancer." | | | | Billboard |
| | Can the U.K. Really Make 'Fair Streaming' a Reality for Artists? | | by Richard Smirke | | Amid rising concerns about how streaming pays creators, the United Kingdom is exploring legislation to regulate the music business. | |  | | Paper |
| | RETRO READ: Hardcore Honey: bell hooks Goes on the Down Low with Lil' Kim | | by bell hooks | | This 1997 interview, which happened seven months after the release of Kim's breakout LP "Hard Core," focuses on the double standards that female celebrities embracing their sexuality endure. | | | i got a picture in a locket |
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|  | | Water & Music |
| | The state of music/Web3 tools for artists | | New platforms are launching weekly to help artists leverage NFTs, social tokens and DAO infrastructure to create new economic models around creativity and fan engagement. However, there is an urgent need to address imbalances in music/Web3 capital flows, plus gaps in the foundational metadata and community-building models. | |  | | Variety |
| | 'I Am Woman' Singer Emmy Meli on Overnight Fame, Writing a Self-Love Anthem and Accidentally Starting a TikTok Movement | | by Ellise Shafer | | When 21-year-old singer-songwriter Emmy Mli posted a video of herself singing the hook of "I Am Woman" on Oct. 19 to her 5,000 followers, she had no intention of it blowing up or starting a global trend — but TikTok had other plans. | |  | | VICE |
| | Anthony Naples Brings Techno Down to Earth | | by Rachel Hahn | | The humble producer makes galaxy brain music for everyone. | |  | | Penny Fractions |
| | BTS, UMG, and Recorded Music's Bright Future | | by David Turner | | BTS cannot complain about 2021. Sure the K-Pop group would've enjoyed hitting more international tour dates but the group, and by proxy, their label HYBE, formally Big Hit, squeezed out multiple Billboard no. 1 hits and ditched Columbia Records, for Universal Music Group. A label that also went public with a valuation of over $50 billion. | |  | | The Cadence |
| | COVID Keeps Coming For Our Concerts | | If all it takes is one break-thru case to halt a touring machine, artists will continue to have some tough decisions to make when it comes to hitting the road. | | | | The New York Times |
| | After a Tornado Blew His Roof Away, He Played Piano Under an Open Sky | | by Jenny Gross | | The morning after Jordan Baize's house in Kentucky was destroyed, he turned to his Yamaha piano. It was a moment of calm that his sister recorded on video. | |  | | The Ringer |
| | The Ringer's 100 Best Rap Songs of the 2010s | | by Justin Sayles, Jeff Weiss, Andrew Gruttadaro... | | Which songs defined rap in the 2010s? We count down the top 100, from Drake and Future to Juice WRLD and beyond. | |  | | The Daily Beast |
| | How Trevian Kutti Went From Repping R. Kelly and Kanye West to Hyping a QAnon Fan and Trump's Big Lie | | by Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng | | She pressured an election worker to "confess" to cheating for Biden and said she was talking with Trump's team-not so long after she'd donated to Hillary. | |  | | Tidal |
| | Music's Expanding: A Robbie Shakespeare Listening Guide | | by Reshma B | | Locked in alongside drummer Sly Dunbar, the bassist revolutionized reggae — and much more. | | | | The Guardian |
| | RETRO READ: Beyoncé's Lemonade is capitalist money-making at its best | | by bell hooks | | From slavery to the present, black female bodies have been bought and sold. What makes this commodification different in Lemonade is intent – its purpose is to seduce. | | | | | 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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