jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 01/21/2022 - Dashboard Light Goes Out, Invisible Music Stardom, Remble, Sonny Rollins, Pedro the Lion...

Look. I am a sex god. But I am not a rock star. When people call me a legend, I say, 'Don't call me that, I'm not a legend.' I don't pretend to be one. I want to be just a normal human being.
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Friday January 21, 2022
REDEF
Meat Loaf on the "Bat Out of Hell" tour, September 1978.
(Michael Putland/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
quote of the day
"Look. I am a sex god. But I am not a rock star. When people call me a legend, I say, 'Don't call me that, I'm not a legend.' I don't pretend to be one. I want to be just a normal human being."
- Meat Loaf, 1947 – 2022
rantnrave://
The End of Time

News broke early this morning that MEAT LOAF has rounded third base for the final time and headed home forever. I'll have more to say on Monday about a great rock and roll singer who put the bomb in bombast and the rizz in RIZZUTO and carved an oversized lane for himself that no one else has ever figured out how to access and no one else should ever try. For now, I'll leave you with this righteous protest that the man born MARVIN LEE ADAY in 1947 delivered to a Rolling Stone reporter in 2018: "You know, your magazine started this thing where we stole everything for BAT OUT OF HELL from SPRINGSTEEN and it was nothing but a rehash of BORN TO RUN. I'm saying to myself, 'Where does Springsteen have a "TWO OUT OF THREE"? Where does he have a "PARADISE"?'" Nowhere, dear reader. The answer is nowhere. Rest in peace, sir.

What Doesn't Happen in Vegas

ADELE has postponed the three-month Las Vegas residency that was scheduled to begin tonight at CEASARS PALACE, telling fans via Twitter video Thursday that her crew has been decimated by Covid and "I'm so sorry but my show ain't ready." The residency, ironically, was believed to be her way of supporting her new album, 30, without having to tour through the pandemic. "I think it's not a good idea to tell people one day out," a fan who was already in Las Vegas told USA Today. Others were more forgiving, with another fan telling the paper, "We have the flexibility to pay for another trip, so we will be there." HARRY STYLES, meanwhile, canceled an Australian tour that had previously been postponed from 2020 to 2022, and the co-owner of a Branson, Mo., theater told a congressional committee that "sagging consumer confidence is causing national no-show rates as high as 50 percent" at live events. Everybody, that is, is canceling on everybody else. Another reminder that it's the woods themselves, and no one else, who will let us know when we're out of the woods. If you're going to be strolling through the woods in the meantime, please mask up.

It's Friday

And NBA YOUNGBOY has released what Rap-Up dryly calls his "first project... since... last month," the mixtape COLORS, which is somewhere around his 20th or 22nd solo project in seven years, depending who you ask. Seven of them have gone top 10 in Billboard and four have hit #1. The New Yorker's Sheldon Pearce says he's "one of the most extreme cases of a recent developing phenomenon: invisible music stardom"... LITTLE GREEN HOUSE is the debut full-length from ANXIOUS, a buzzy Connecticut emo band whose songs, Stereogum's Chris DeVille says, "stack up hooks upon hooks until they spill over into euphoria." Guitarist Dante Melucci, one of the group's principal songwriters, has melodic instincts rooted, in part, in the Death Cab for Cutie and Fountains of Wayne records his dad—who, full disclosure, was my boss for a couple years—used to play for him. "I turn to dust," DeVille writes, "upon learning this adult musician discovered Death Cab *through his father*," but, hey, that's why they call it dad rock, isn't it?... PAPER ROUTE EMPIRE PRESENTS: LONG LIVE DOLPH features artists from the late Young Dolph's label, including his cousin KEY GLOCK, paying tribute to the Memphis rapper, who was murdered in November... J-pop star HIKARU UTADA's BAD MODE (released earlier in the week) features collaborations with Floating Points, A.G. Cook and Skrillex... CHRISTINA AGUILERA's Spanish-language EP, LA FUERZA, is part one of an album she plans to release in three parts in 2022. She hasn't released a Spanish-language album since "Mi Reflejo" in 2000.

Also today: New music from TANYA TAGAQ, PEDRO THE LION (surprise; released Thursday), NLE CHOPPA, IANN DIOR, RICH BRIAN, VADO, YEARS & YEARS, WALKER HAYES, KEB' MO', JOHN MELLENCAMP, JANIS IAN (her final album, she says), AOIFE O'DONOVAN, YOUNG T & BUGSEY, CHE NOIR, BORIS, ARTSICK, KIDS ON A CRIME SPREE, BEACH HOUSE, JAKE XERXES FUSSELL, JANA HORN, TAMMY ROGERS & THOMM JUTZ MILES KANE, PALACE, AURORA, YARD ACT, BILLY TALENT, VRSTY, DANIELIA COTTON, TINSLEY ELLIS, MICHAEL ROTHER & VITTORIA MACCABRUNI, EIKO ISHIBASHI, the OGJB QUARTET (Oliver Lake, Graham Hayes, Joe Fonda and Barry Altschul), LUDOVICO EINAUDI, ROBERT STILLMAN and LOGAN LYNN.

Rest in Peace

Brazilian samba star and activist ELZA SOARES... Canadian singer/songwriter/producer R. DEAN TAYLOR, who had some success as a songwriter for Motown in the 1960s and one major hit, "Indiana Wants Me," as an artist on Motown's rock subsidiary, Rare Earth Records, in 1970... BADAL ROY, tabla player known for his work with Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman and John McLaughlin. He's the second percussionist from Davis' 1970s band to die this month, following James Mtume... TOM SMITH, experimental/noise musician/producer best known as co-founder of the collective To Live and Shave in L.A.

- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
holy cow
The New Yorker
NBA YoungBoy and the Music Industry's Unseen Stars
By Sheldon Pearce
In 2020, a twenty-two-year-old rapper from Baton Rouge brought in nearly as much streaming revenue as Taylor Swift did. Why haven't most people heard of him?
Los Angeles Times
Remble is L.A.'s next big hip-hop star. He never wanted it to happen like this
By August Brown
Remble stood poised to become one of 2022's breakout stars. Then his mentor, Drakeo the Ruler, was killed. Remble's talent is undeniable. So is his loss.
The Guardian
'I was so close to the sky. It was spiritual': Sonny Rollins on jazz landmark The Bridge at 60
By John Fordham
It's one of the most romantic stories in music: the jazz star rejecting fame to practise on a New York bridge for two years. Now 91, Rollins recalls those long cold days - and how he has coped after losing the power to play.
Rolling Stone
RETRO READ: The Sound and the Fury of Meat Loaf: 'I Am Not a Rock Star'
By Erik Hedegaard
How a pudgy kid from Texas became one of rock's most bombastic stars. And why, even facing health struggles, he's still making noise 50 years on.
The Common Reader
How Beethoven Would Rage at the AI That Dares Finish Him Off
By Jeannette Cooperman
"How dare you?" he would thunder, stalking onstage, knocking down a few music stands along the way. The calm, self-congratulatory performance of his Symphony No. 10, finished this fall with the help of AI, would halt in jangled discord.
Vulture
'It Was Always All Pedro'
By Craig Jenkins
David Bazan had to reckon with Pedro the Lion - but really, himself - to arrive at the band's future.
The New York Times
The Morgan Wallen Conundrum
By Jon Caramanica
The country superstar had the biggest album of 2021 despite being captured on video using a racial slur. Is he on a redemption tour, or just on tour?
Music Business Worldwide
None louder: hello improved audio upsell, please meet consumer indifference
By Eamonn Forde
Eamonn Forde explores the announcement, and delayed launch, of Spotify HiFi.
Nashville Scene
Country Music Almanac 2022: Black Artists Bring Hip-Hop to Country -- Authentically
By Holly G
Talking with Hisyde and Chiyanti, two Texas artists whose blend of country and hip-hop is taking off.
Reasons to Be Cheerful
In the World's Fastest Drummer, Scientists See a Bionics Breakthrough
By Michaela Haas
The same A.I. technology that runs Jason Barnes' prosthetic arm can teach people how to read Braille or play the piano in a matter of hours.
i think he's gonna make it
theLAnd
In Party We Trust
By Lina Abascal
In this excerpt from hew new book, "Never Be Alone Again: How Bloghouse United the Internet and the Dancefloor," Lina Abascal tells the story of how the music spread through the Los Angeles area in the late '00s via a network of local parties and promoters that included an important, and often ignored, Latino component.
Vulture
Breaking Down Britney Spears's Accusations Against Her Father
By Claudia Rosenbaum
From millions of dollars in legal fees to her dad's defunct cooking series, Cookin' Cruzin' & Chaos With James Spears.
VICE
What the Free Britney Movement Did Next
By Jordan Page
Armed with an extensive knowledge of the US legal system, Britney fans are turning their attention to other conservatorship abuse cases.
Billboard
NIVA Sounds Alarm on No-Show Rates, Rising Costs at Congressional Hearing
By Taylor Mims
The National Independent Venue Association addressed the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday about the ongoing struggles live entertainment is facing in the midst of the surge in COVID-19 cases.
Brooklyn Vegan
An interview with Anxious, whose debut LP 'Little Green House' is a breath of fresh air for emo
By Andrew Sacher
"Little Green House" is an emo album that's in touch with the genre's gritty hardcore roots but also full of sparkly clean production, gorgeous harmonies, layered arrangements, and forays outside of punk entirely. 
The New York Times
Elza Soares, Who Pushed the Boundaries of Brazilian Music, Dies at 91
By Michael Astor
She rose from a favela in Rio to samba stardom in the 1960s. But her career was later overshadowed by an affair with a famous soccer player that became a national scandal.
Nashville Scene
Country Music Almanac 2022: Learn the Past, Know the Present
By Andrea Williams
Educator, historian and journalist Amanda Marie Martínez discusses teaching the full history of country music - without glossing over racism.
Attack Magazine
'I Removed My Music From Spotify'- Why Artists Are Stepping Away
By Harold Heath
In the first part of our three-part feature, we talk to some artists who have removed their work from Spotify.
FLOOD Magazine
Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker on Composing the Harrowing 'Yellowjackets' Score
By A.D. Amorosi
Listening in on the pair who've made the freakiest soundtrack on television with '90s indie-rock touches.
WTF with Marc Maron
WTF with Marc Maron: Episode 1298 -- John Mellencamp
By Marc Maron and John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp considers his whole career to be a total fluke. Maybe that's because he never planned for anything in his life and just let the chips fall where they may.
what we're into
Music of the day
"Bat Out of Hell"
Meat Loaf
"I'll be gone when the morning comes."
Video of the day
"Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST (Night Three)"
Al Bilali Soudan, Kiran Ahluwalia and Tufan Derince
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