| Unfortunately most of the news about Ukraine is about politics and war, but it is very important to talk about culture, too. |
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 | | Ukrainian singer, musician, composer Mariana Sadovska at GlobalFest, New York, Jan. 17, 2016. | | (Jack Vartoogian/Archive Photos/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "Unfortunately most of the news about Ukraine is about politics and war, but it is very important to talk about culture, too." | | - Mariana Sadovska, in 2015 | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Slow Waves
In a world of songs and albums that race to the top of the ITUNES chart in a matter of hours and then are displaced by their own remixes and deluxe editions a week or two later, there's something refreshingly old-school about the laid-back, leisurely pace with which GLASS ANIMALS' "HEAT WAVES" has conquered the world. This is a song that's not in a rush. Its electro-pop groove lopes along at a barely-mid-tempo 81 beats per minute; if you weren't humming along, you could take a decent nap in the time it takes "Heat Waves" to get through the four bars of a single chorus. But that chorus is practically speed metal compared with the time it took the song to scale the charts.
"Heat Waves" was released as a single on June 29, 2020, and first crept on to BILLBOARD's Alternative Airplay chart in November 2020. It crossed over to the Hot 100 two months later, quietly registering at #100 on the chart dated Jan. 16, 2021. It fell off for two weeks, re-entered at #91 on Feb. 6 and began its quiet and lengthy ascent. Seasons came and went. Variants swept the world. Baseball went on strike. That four-bar chorus kept coming around and around and around. And in March 2022, this week, "Heat Waves" hit #1 after a 59-week climb, by far the longest climb to #1 in Billboard history. So long, in fact, that if you buy or stream the #1 song in the US today, SOUNDSCAN will register it as a "catalog" transaction. Literally. As far as the industry is concerned, "Heat Waves" no longer belongs in the same category as "ABCDEFU" or "WE DON'T TALK ABOUT BRUNO." It should be rung up instead with your MARVIN GAYE and LED ZEPPELIN records. Catalog music has completely taken over the streaming music market and Glass Animals apparently are why.
Elsewhere in Billboard news, you won't find KANYE WEST's DONDA 2 on any chart. Since the album can only be played on Kanye's $200 STEM PLAYER, the magazine is counting all sales as merchandise/music bundles, which are disqualified from chart consideration under the Billboard's bundling policy. It's a reasonable policy—meant to prevent artists from juicing their chart placement by throwing in an album with every t-shirt or ticket sale—but a terrible result. No one is buying a Stem Player because they actually want a $200 device that can only play one album. In this case, the album is the thing the fans want; the Stem Player is the thing the artist is throwing in and forcing them to buy at the same time. They want the album so badly they're willing to spend $200 plus for it. Those album sales should count.
Elsewhere in catalog news, DUA LIPA's two-year-old album FUTURE NOSTALGIA is registering as a catalog sale every time someone picks it up at their local record shop, its placement next to JACK HARLOW and GAYLE on end caps notwithstanding. It's also registering as exhibit #1 in your local courtroom, with the single "LEVITATING" having become this month's plagiarism defendant du jour. Lipa was sued on March 1 by a Florida reggae group, ARTIKAL SOUND SYSTEM, and three days later by disco-era songwriters L. RUSSELL BROWN and SANDY LINZER, with the two groups of plaintiffs accusing Lipa of stealing the same hook from different songs, which, um, you do the math. This is a fantastic YOUTUBE musical analysis of the first accusation by the always insightful ADAM NEELY, who explains in detail how eerily similar "Levitating" is to Artikal Sound System's 2017 "Live Your Life" and how that similarly almost certainly has nothing to do with plagiarism. Or, as a snarky lawyer might put it to Artikal Sound System, just because you think it's about you doesn't mean it's about you.
Non-TV Party
The stars of Monday's ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS, the first major awards show to cut the cord and present itself via livestream, and possibly the first in a long time to go entirely maskless, included CARLY PEARCE and ASHLEY MCBRYDE, who tore through a performance of their Music Event of the Year winner "NEVER WANTED TO BE THAT GIRL"; the not-even-nominated BRELAND, who brought the church to Las Vegas' ALLEGIANT STADIUM with a show-stopping performance of his "PRAISE THE LORD" (with THOMAS RHETT); and AMAZON PRIME, which did the livestream and was name-checked more times over the course of the night than co-host DOLLY PARTON. There were no commercials—yay!—but also no pause and rewind buttons, which seemed a strange step backward for live event programming. The internet should give us things that TV can't offer, not take away things that TV can.
MIRANDA LAMBERT, who was eight time zones away in London, was named ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR after a decade of being nominated for the top prize and not winning at both the ACMs and country's other premier awards show, the CMAs. At the ACMs, save for a 2020 tie between CARRIE UNDERWOOD and Rhett, no woman had won the award since TAYLOR SWIFT in 2012. I wouldn't have bothered showing up either if I were Lambert. "This one goes out to the singer/songwriter girls out there, we did it, this is for us," she said via video.
Rest in Peace
Country singer/songwriter JIMBEAU HINSON, whose songs were recorded by the Oak Ridge Boys, Kathy Mattea, Steve Earle and others.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | The New York Times |
| | How the 'Encanto' Soundtrack Became a Smash | | By Ben Sisario | | With its eighth week at No. 1 on Billboard's album chart, the LP featuring songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda is a lesson in how fans drive hits from social media to streaming services. | | |
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 | | WQXR |
| | 4 Female Composers in Conversation | | By Heather O'Donovan | | We asked Missy Mazzoli, Jessie Montgomery, Angélica Negrón, and Gabriela Ortiz) what Women's History Month and International Women's Day (March 8) mean to them. All four have upcoming premieres with major symphony orchestras. They echoed the importance of amplifying women's voices, the necessity of representation, and, above all, the value of mentorship. | | |
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 | | Rhythm Passport |
| | RETRO READ: Interview: Mariana Sadovska (April 2015) | | By Marco Canepari | | When actress, composer, musician and singer Mariana Sadovska tried to 'cut the cord' with her musical traditions (or at least leave them momentarily behind) her tradition restated itself like a flashback or a musical reminiscence. Sadovska discovered she was unable to distance herself from Ukrainian music, her roots and her primary inspiration. | | |
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 | | Stereogum |
| | COIN Are The Last Gasp Of 2010s Alternative Pop | | By Rachel Brodsky | | The Nashville pop-rock band reminds me of peak millennial micro-trends, like pizza-patterned socks from TopShop, neon signage, finger mustaches, chambray shirts, direct-to-consumer products run by girlbosses who will later be accused of racism and workplace abuse. | | |
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 | | Black Music and Black Muses |
| | Tell 'em bout it Tyrone: On Sun Ra's "Nuclear War" | | By Harmony Holiday | | So glib you can't predict whether it's a prayer for war or a warning against it, Sun Ra's "Nuclear War'' (1982) is a preemptive war memorial, a song sculpted at the altar of imminent danger, but in a spirit of maddening and defiant play. | | |
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| what we're into |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "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?'" |
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