| It will stifle creativity of every sort. It will impede new art and music and literature. It will thwart the expression of new ideas and the attainment of new knowledge. It will make our world poorer | |  |  | | Kaytranada at Coachella, April 14, 2023. He's half of Kaytraminé, whose self-titled debut is out today on CLBN. | | (Arturo Holmes/Getty Images) | | | | quote of the day | | | rantnrave:// | (Late breaking sad news: ANDY ROURKE, bassist for the SMITHS, has died of pancreatic cancer, his bandmate JOHNNY MARR announced on social media early this morning. RIP to a rock and roll legend.)
Courtquake
My official take, for now, on the US SUPREME COURT's ruling that the estate of ANDY WARHOL violated the copyright of music photographer LYNN GOLDSMITH when it licensed a Warhol portrait of PRINCE based on a Goldsmith photograph of the ARTIST to VANITY FAIR magazine is: Wow. Not good wow or bad wow. Just wow.
The reverberations are going to be felt for a long time across the arts world, the music business very much included, and though I'm not a lawyer, I feel confident that it's way too early to say exactly how it's going to be felt.
Long before it divided the court's two longest-serving liberal justices in Thursday's salty decision (by JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR) and even saltier dissent (JUSTICE KAGAN), the case had divided arts interests. Photographers, for obvious reasons, generally sided with Goldsmith (a great photographer, by the way, with a lengthy rock and roll résumé). Museums sided with Warhol (a monumental artist, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you). SAG-AFTRA took Goldsmith's side. Record companies and publishers went with Warhol, and cheered Thursday's ruling.
But should the music orgs have taken sides in the first place, and does the ruling, which is as narrow as it is complicated, say what they think it does? How does, or doesn't it, apply to future AI creators? How does, or doesn't it, apply to future MARVIN GAYEs and ED SHEERANs? Does it matter that the court penalized the Warhol Foundation for licensing a single appropriated/transformed image to a magazine but said nothing about it selling a dozen other versions of the same image to collectors for a lot more money?
I'm going to have more to say about this next week, which may just be a bunch more questions. In the meantime, here are good pieces from ARTnews and the New York Times written before the ruling, and here's the decision itself, packed with music references from the 2 LIVE CREW/ROY ORBISON case that was one of the key precedents for this one to the history of appropriation, homage and plagiarism in rock, blues, jazz and classical music that colors Justice Kagan's dissent.
Wow. It's a doozy.
It's Friday
And this is the first paragraph of the NY Times' ominous rave review of 81-year-old PAUL SIMON's SEVEN PSALMS: "What do songwriters do when they feel death approaching?" Second graf: "It's an album akin to David Bowie's 'Blackstar' and Leonard Cohen's 'You Want It Darker,' which those songwriters made as mortality loomed; they each died days after the albums were released." Wow, Jon Pareles. Stay safe, Paul Simon. Simon's album, it should be noted, is designed as a continuous 33-minute suite and doesn't quite sound like either of those others... KAYTRAMINÉ is producer Kaytranada and rapper Aminé, two relentlessly inventive musicians who've officially merged into one nearly a decade after they met—on SoundCloud, where the producer, whose career was just taking off, noticed a remix of one of his tracks by the then-unknown rapper. They dreamed up their joint project in 2020, started working on it at a rented house in Malibu in 2021 with some friends you might have heard of, dropped a perfect summer jam with Pharrell Williams a month ago, did a few minutes onstage together at Coachella, and say they have no particular future plans...
BRANDY CLARK and BRANDI CARLILE were introduced by a mutual friend who had "two gay Brandys in her phone" and decided she should do something about it. They also share Washington state roots. Carlile, fresh off producing Tanya Tucker and jamming with Joni Mitchell, signed on to produce Clark, who had released three smart but little-heard country albums and is better known as an A-list Nashville songwriter (and co-composer of the Broadway musical "Shucked"). Her self-titled fourth album is "a different path," in Carlile's words. "I want her to be embraced by the fringe, by the marginalized, by the avant-garde outside the center of country music. I think she's gonna find a home with the freaks in Americana"... A decade and a half removed from brushing her teeth with that infamous bottle of Jack, KESHA's fifth album, GAG ORDER, finds her writing and singing about her insecurities and regrets, her fears and vulnerabilities, her anger, her spiritual awakening, and a tab of acid she didn't brush her teeth or do anything else with. And she does it in a voice that, at the encouragement of producer Rick Rubin, is free of Auto-Tune. Rubin, she tells the Guardian, "made space for the imperfections and embraced them almost to the point of making me like the parts of myself that are imperfect." Including that one lead vocal, meant to be a scratch vocal (no pun intended), that she sang on an iPhone while standing next to her cat's litter box.
MUMBLE RAP 2 is Palestian Canadian rapper BELLY's followup to his 2017 mixtape "Mumble Rap," this time with Hit-Boy as producer on most tracks as well as executive producer of the project, and a guest list that includes Gucci Mane and, most intriguingly, the late Gil Scott-Heron... A VISIT TO HARRY'S HOUSE is an instrumental, full-album cover of Harry Styles' 2022 album by New York experimental musicians DAVE HARRINGTON (of Darkside), SPENCER ZAHN and JEREMY GUSTIN... And speaking of 81-year-old singer-songwriters, MUSIC MAN is the long overdue debut album from LAYNG MARTINE JR., a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame whose résumé includes hits for Elvis Presley, Reba McEntire and the Pointer Sisters. It's also the first release from the reorganized Bloodshot Records. Martine's son Tucker, a Portland producer, oversaw the project with musicians including Bill Frisell, Laura Viers and Peter Buck.
Also today: New music from Lewis Capaldi, Summer Walker, Hannah Jadagu, Tinariwen, Juanes, Temps (aka British comedian James Acaster, with a sprawling cast of musicians including Quelle Chris, Open Mike Eagle, Xenia Rubinos and Deerhoof's John Dieterich), Khruangbin & Friends (live EP recorded at Stubb's in Austin), Angie Stone, Dave Matthews Band, Graham Nash, Megadrumz, bar italia, Tanlines, Slowspin, Isolée, Alex Lahey, Elder Jack Ward, Ghost, Frozen Soul, Thulcandra, Dave McMurray (Detroit jazz/pop saxophonist's second volume of Grateful Dead songs), Emilio Solla & Antonio Lizana, George Coleman, Joe Farnsworth, Joanie Pallatto, Gretchen Parlato & Lionel Loueke, Galen & Paul (aka singer/songwriter Galen Ayers and bassist Paul Simonon of the Clash), Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, Chapel Hart, Whitney Rose, Jordyn Shellhart, the Milk Carton Kids, Raul Malo, Ward Davis, Nicholas Jamerson, Leftover Salmon, Samantha Fish & Jesse Dayton, Keturah, Sufjan Stevens/Timo Andres/Conor Hanick, Shy Martin, Califone, Yes, Horse Jumper of Love, Mega Bog, Anna, Mandy Indiana, the Murlocs, Pony, Sir Chloe, Garden Centre... and the soundtrack to Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID.
Etc Etc Etc
SAULT, WET LEG, HARRY STYLES and RAYE & 070 SHAKE were among the winners of the IVOR NOVELLO AWARDS, which recognize songwriting in the UK and Ireland. Raye used Thursday's ceremony to call for better pay for songwriters... FOO FIGHTERS are holding a streaming event at 3 pm ET Sunday, at which they may or may not officially introduce a new drummer... What makes hooks catchy?... And speaking of Andy Warhol, the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has a new exhibition on the 1967 album THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO. Shoutout my VU-collecting friend MARK SATLOF, who loaned the museum 100 original vinyl copies of the album that showcase "a range of peeled-ness" of Warhol's celebrated album-cover banana.
Rest in Peace
ANDREW PENHALLOW, Australian dance music promoter and label exec. He ran the Australian division of Factory Records before founding his own Volition Records.
| | - Matty Karas, curator | |
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| | Do The Write Thing. | | By Merck Mercuriadis | | Merck Mercuriadis, founder and CEO of Hipgnosis, writes a message to the industry on the day of the Ivor Novellos. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | | Trapital |
| | Artist Independence (with Steve Stoute) | | By Dan Runcie and Steve Stoute | | It's Steve Stoute's third time on the podcast and this is the best one we've done. We talked about how UnitedMasters and Translation work alongside each other, Brent Faiyaz' new deal with UM, record labels, streaming, and more. | | | | | | | what we're into |  | | Music of the day | | "Fine Line" | | Kesha | | "This is where you f***ers pushed me / Don't be surprised if shit gets ugly." From "Gag Order," out today on Kemosabe/RCA. | | |
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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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