| If I'm an artist and someone can impersonate me, I would just be really clear and say, 'I'm not going to take part in this platform anymore because of that.' | |  |  | | Starman: Rauw Alejandro in Sunrise, Fla., Oct. 1, 2022. "Saturno" is out today on Duars Entertainment/Sony Latin. | | (John Parra/Getty Images) | | | | quote of the day | | | rantnrave:// | Tour Spiel
In a newsletter sent to her fans Wednesday, New Zealand's favorite pop star gives a LORDE's eye view of the turbulent state of touring in the middle of a global economic slump at the end of a pandemic that hasn't actually ended. "Immense crew shortages." "Extremely overbooked trucks and tour buses and venues." "Mindboggling" freight costs that Lorde pegs at "up to three times the pre-pandemic price" to haul your stage set around the world. Raising ticket prices is the obvious way to make up those and other costs, "but absolutely no one wants to charge their harried and extremely-compassionate-and-flexible audience any more f***ing money."
We've been hearing similar stories from middle class working artists for several months now, but seeing it laid out in clear detail by a major pop star drives home how widespread and damaging this is, on both business and human levels. Lorde, who'll be at PRIMAVERA SOUND in Chile and Argentina this weekend, says she can withstand the financial hit of the post-post-pandemic touring reality. "I'm doing pretty good," she assures her base. But if you've been wondering about the seeming epidemic of artists canceling shows and tours and citing mental health issues, she wants you to know that "we're a collection of the world's most sensitive flowers who also spent the last two years inside, and maybe the task of creating a space where people's pain and grief and jubilation can be held night after night with a razor thin profit margin and dozens of people to pay is feeling like a teeny bit much."
More Spiel
Musicologist ADAM NEELY's half-hour-long YouTube essay "The Grotesque Legacy of Music as Property" is as thoughtful and well-researched an argument against the idea of copyright and ownership in songwriting as I've seen in a good while. It starts with a history of the melody of THELONIOUS MONK's "RHYTHM-A-NING" that takes us from GEORGE GERSHWIN to DUKE ELLINGTON to MARY LOU WILLIAMS to the FLINTSTONES and beyond, and it has some choice words for the wealthy investors who'd dare to own and try to control any such treasure (or even to try to own/control ED SHEERAN). I'm not convinced the potential solution Neely workshops in his final few minutes—eliminating songwriting copyright but requiring songwriters/composers to cite their musical sources—is particularly useful or workable, but I am convinced the full half-hour would be a useful watch for any investor, lawyer or judge with $100 million or a publishing lawsuit in their pocket.
It's Friday
And that means new music from Nigerian superstar WIZKID, whose fifth album, MORE LOVE, LESS EGO, "is a quintessentially border-crossing offering that marries melodic Afrobeats and lilting Caribbean sounds with babymaking R&B," Yomi Adegoke writes in the Guardian. The title reflects a veteran artist, 32 years of age, who casually mentions to Adegoke, "I know I make a lot of club records but I feel like a pastor, really"... GLORILLA, from Memphis, is a decade younger, definitely not a pastor and one of the most fun breakout stars of 2022 hip-hop, which began for her with the glorious "F.N.F. (Let's Go)," in which she announces she's single, free and does not give a f***. She's maintained the energy through several followups, all collected on ANYWAYS, LIFE'S GREAT..., which is being marketed as her debut EP even though she already has a couple indie EPs under her belt and even though, at nine songs and nearly a half-hour, it probably could pass for an album. But she doesn't give a f*** about any of that and you don't have to either... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN walks in the shoes of the Commodores, Jerry Butler, Temptations, Walker Brothers and 11 others on ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE, a lovingly faithful soul covers album "whose unrelenting brightness," Pitchfork says, "veers as close to Vegas as Springsteen has ever allowed himself." Which it means in the good way: He's "never sounded quite so lighthearted, so unburdened, on record." Also, the entire running order could slide right into Springsteen's setlist as an extended encore when he returns to the road next year... Or, if you need an escape from Springsteen's salt-of-the-earth soul, reggaeton king RAUW ALEJANDRO abandons earth altogether on his third album, SATURNO. It's "a transmission from some brave new world in outer space, built on silvery synths, slick dancefloors, and Eighties and Nineties techno glitter," says Rolling Stone's Julyssa Lopez, name-dropping the Weeknd and Dua Lipa as potential points of reference and suggesting you might file the album under "reggaeton futurism."
Also today: new music from Nas (produced once again by Hit-Boy), Christine and the Queens, SoFaygo, Yung Bleu, Sarkodie, Run the Jewels (a Latin remix/reimagination of 2020's "RTJ4," featuring Bomba Estéreo, Akapellah, Zack de la Rocha and others), Duval Timothy, Dram, Louis Tomlinson, Black Eyed Peas, Morris Day (his final album, he says), Kygo, Ging (Toronto producer formerly known as Frank Dukes), Gold Panda, Plaid, Actress, FaltyDL, Bright Eyes (rereleases of three albums, each accompanied by an EP of new recordings of select songs), Dream Unending, L.S. Dunes (members of Coheed & Cambria, My Chemical Romance, Circa Survive), Fitz and the Tantrums, Bill Frisell, Sarah Elizabeth Charles, Ben LaMar Gay, Jason Yeager Septet (suite of songs inspired by author Kurt Vonnegut, who would have turned 100 today), Dan Weiss Trio, Olli Hirvonen, Colin Stetson, Bill Nace, Ernest Hood (previously unreleased ambient recordings), Larkin Poe, Randy Houser, Brantley Gilbert, Sam Bush (tribute to John Hartford), Jeb Loy Nichols, Mud Morganfield, Soul Blind, Homeboy Sandman, Tony Shhnow, Lyrics Born, Hyd, Sizzy Rocket, Lolahol (aka Lourdes Leon, daughter of Madonna), Dumb, Smut, Jordana... And "Live Forever: A Tribute to Billy Joe Shaver," featuring George Strait, Miranda Lambert, Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Margo Price and others... Oh, and, those five new Sault albums that were available as a free download for five, and only five, days are now on Bandcamp and the major streaming sites.
Rest in Peace
British label exec JOHN "KNOCKER" KNOWLES, who turned a job as a reggae sales rep into a long career at Island, MCA and Eagle Rock... Nigerian rapper DABLIXX OSHAA.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | |  | | Billboard |
| | Sped-Up Songs Are Taking Over TikTok | | By Elias Leight | | Hard-charging reworks of popular singles have been thriving on the social media platform, and labels are leaning into the trend. | | |  | | i-D Magazine |
| | How Coi Leray transcended TikTok fame | | By Kaitlyn McNab | | The self-assured rap star tells us what's next after her platinum-selling debut album 'Trendsetter', and how she's ready to become a household name. | | |  | | British GQ |
| | Jack Harlow's radical confidence | | By Lauren Larson | | With a second album, a cinematic debut, and in "First Class" one of the songs of the summer, the smoothest man in hip-hop is still poppin'. | | | | | |  | | The Smart Set |
| | Miles and Me | | By Matthew Duffus | | The accurate rating of the most important figure in jazz. | | | | | what we're into |  | | Music of the day | | "Nut Quick" | | GloRilla | | From "Anyways, Life's Great...," out today on CMG. | | |
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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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