| There is a history of music companies or the music industry as a whole being called out for unfair, unjust, or otherwise imbalanced practices. Historically, these moments are met with a flurry of public statements and activity... Then the public pressure rescinds, and in a few years things revert to how they were before, if not worse. |
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 | | Swedish pop singer Loreen, winner of her second Eurovision title, performs during a dress rehearsal in Liverpool, England, May 8, 2023. | | (Anthony Devlin/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "There is a history of music companies or the music industry as a whole being called out for unfair, unjust, or otherwise imbalanced practices. Historically, these moments are met with a flurry of public statements and activity... Then the public pressure rescinds, and in a few years things revert to how they were before, if not worse." | | - Black Music Action Coalition, "Music Industry Action Report Card 2022" | |
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Report Cards
In the spring of 2020, in the wake of nationwide protests over the murder of GEORGE FLOYD, social justice was in the news and very much on the agenda at music industry board meetings. SONY MUSIC and WARNER MUSIC pledged $100 million each to social justice causes. UNIVERSAL MUSIC made a smaller financial commitment but created a task force to address racial equity across the company and laid out goals for "promoting tolerance, equality, and elimination of bias, within UMG, the music community and the world at large." In the year that followed, a new report from the BLACK MUSIC ACTION COALITION notes, "Publications tracked pledges and spending; companies announced new initiatives regularly; roles and task forces were created and elevated; panels were frequent." But now, "if you do an internet search for any combination of music industry, social justice, George Floyd, Black executives, and The Show Must Be Paused, most of your results will be from 2021 and earlier."
Change takes time. But it also takes vigilance. That's one of the key messages from the coalition's Music Industry Action Report Card 2022, which arrives ahead of the three-year anniversary of BLACKOUT TUESDAY and #THESHOWMUSTBEPAUSED, the industry's most visible responses to Floyd's death, and which suggests there remains a long way to go.
"We expect this to be a process and a growth period," lead author NAIMA COCHRANE said in Nashville, where the report was unveiled at the MUSIC BIZ conference. "We're talking about dismantling and addressing years of inherent bias or business practices... We did not expect any company to turn around and do a 180 overnight."
But the BMAC is going to try to make sure they're staying the course. It hands out letter grades to the major labels as well as publishing companies, agencies, promoters and streaming services. Sony and Warner get A's for "Corporate Commitments, Partnerships and Giving" and B's and B+'s in other areas, while Universal gets dinged with a C for "Transparency and Public Accountability" and a C+ for "Internal Company Culture," with a specific callout in the latter category for CAPITOL RECORDS' disastrous attempt to promote virtual rapper FN MEKA (a "massive cultural blunder," says the group).
High on the to-do list for all of them: "A transparent, industry-wide review of contracts—recording and publishing—is a must, as is a continued push for fairer streaming royalties for writers and composers. These are core not only to restoration for historic predatory practices but also to a more equitable system for all artists moving forward." This is not the first, or second, time you've heard that one.
The RECORDING ACADEMY gets praise for diversifying its membership and AMAZON MUSIC for its "visible Black senior leadership." The coalition has harsh words, on the other hand, for the entire live music sector, where "Black people were systematically shut out for decades" and "Black agents, promoters, and other professionals in the live sector are still playing professional catch-up." AEG PRESENTS, for example, "has no visible Black leadership."
The overall state of the industry, says the BMAC, is "not negative" but also "not 'all good.'"
"We will continue to emphasize that this is a long game," the report concludes. "We're looking for action plans and steps that are incremental and sustainable rather than quick fixes or gestures."
Cost-Cutters Came and Broke Your Heart
The outpouring of love for MTV NEWS, which was reorganized/downsized out of business last week, has continued across social media and media media in a way that has surprised even me and some of my friends who spent parts of our careers there. Part of it, no doubt, has to do with how many millions of people grew up with KURT LODER as their WALTER CRONKITE, or spent days glued to MTV's reporting on the death of KURT COBAIN, or cheered their favorite network's access to BILL CLINTON and BARACK OBAMA (and vice versa). But there's more to it, which resonates especially hard in an age of downsizing of trust and belief in media in general. MTV News at its best was kind, open and non-judgmental. It disarmed skepticism before it had a chance to form. It "bridged a gap between news and pop culture without talking down to its young audience." Its presenters were "singularly effective in the way they connected teenage and 20-something viewers to current events, politics and politicians without coming off as pandering." It connected rather than divided. We've collected the personal memories, the oral histories, the eulogies, the reflections. MusicSET: "MTV News Killed the Newspaper Star."
Etc Etc Etc
One K-pop song, six languages, thank you artificial intelligence... Swedish pop star LOREEN becomes the second artist to win the Eurovision twice, this time for her dance ballad "TATTOO," and causes the internet to wonder: Is the history book on the shelf repeating itself, or is a conspiracy afoot?... Music critic reviews AI songs... BILLBOARD's 40 Under 40 (industry)... And 21 Under 21 (artists)... Are tour spoilers a thing?... RYUICHI SAKAMOTO'S final playlist... CAROLE KING goes to Washington... The TONY AWARDS are back on.
Rest in Peace
Pioneering rock radio DJ MARY TURNER, aka "The Burner," who ruled the LA nighttime airwaves in the 1970s and '80s at KMET... English horn virtuoso THOMAS STACY, who played with the New York Philharmonic for four decades... South African jazz bassist MUSA MANZINI.
| | - Matty Karas, curator | |
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 | | Black Music Action Coalition |
| | Music Industry Action Report Card 2022 [PDF] | | By Naima Cochrane | | Our inaugural report focused on the public pledges, promises and commitments made bymusic companies in response to The Show Must be Paused, and the actionable follow-throughon those commitments through June 2021. The 2022 report examines measurable progress and continued work since June 2021. | | |
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 | | REDEF |
| | REDEF MusicSET: MTV News Killed the Newspaper Star | | By MusicREDEF | | From video and album news to tragic deaths to presidential elections... From Madonna and Michael Jackson to Biggie and Tupac to Clinton and Obama... MTV News revolutionized not only how pop culture was covered, but how politics and the world could be covered. RIP. | | |
 | | Texas Monthly |
| | The Long Ride of Charley Crockett | | By John Spong | | After years of struggle, Charley Crockett is on the verge of stardom. The story of how he got here would be unbelievable if it weren't true. | | |
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 | | The Information |
| | TikTok Tests Exclusive Deals With Music Artists, Edging Into Labels' Turf | | By Erin Woo and Kalley Huang | | Over the past few years, TikTok has become a viral hitmaker, sending musical artists like Lil Nas X to the top of the record charts and propelling the careers of Olivia Rodrigo and Megan Thee Stallion. Now TikTok's parent, ByteDance, is angling to play a bigger role in these artists' careers, which could reduce the increasingly steep costs of licensing their music. | | |
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 | | NPR Music |
| | Karol G: Tiny Desk Concert | | By Karol G and Anamaria Artemisa Sayre | | The Colombian singer and global superstar shines brighter than ever in this surprising Tiny Desk performance. | | |
 | | The Face |
| | 03 Greedo is ready to live | | By Thomas Hobbs | | After recently being released from jail, the unique Californian rapper swiftly dropped a 33-track mixtape. He speaks to The Face about his new found happiness and the flaws of the US prison system. | | |
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 | | Tidal |
| | Highway to Highbrow | | By Ian Christe | | Once the exclusive domain of gloriously uncouth teenagers, heavy metal is today revered in art and academic circles and presented by symphony orchestras. How did we get here? | | |
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 | | MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| | Record Producer Agreements, a practical guide | | By Chris Castle | | Over the years I have had a number of posts about negotiating record producer agreements. Readers have asked that I combine them into one topic and I finally did it for the Copyright Alliance and now am posting the combined article here–all 30 pages of it. | | |
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 | | Rolling Stone |
| | Margo Price on Gun Violence, Protests, and Privilege | | By Margo Price | | How do you pick an appropriate song for the murder of elementary school children? I wrote down a list ranging from "Amazing Grace" to the old folk song "Crow in the Cradle" I learned from a Joni Mitchell compilation. I feared that the latter would be too dark, the former too light (and predictable). I wondered if I would be able to make it through singing anything at all. | | |
| what we're into |
 | | Music of the day | | "Turbulence's Pulse" | | Asher Gamedze | | "For the oppressed, being dispossessed as we are of the means of movement and being subject to the time of others, music is one space where we can autonomously articulate, define and live in our own sense of time." From the South African drummer's third album, "Turbulence and Pulse," out now on International Anthem. | | |
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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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