When I saw how serious [Bob Marley] took his music, that is what opened my eyes and I realize that the music is a serious thing. It's a responsibility that you have. Because here you are one person sending messages to the four corners of the earth. And... it is very important that the message you send to the world is a serious thing, and it is on your shoulder... whether it's going to divide or unite. | | | | The I Threes—Judy Mowatt, Rita Marley and Marcia Griffiths—performing with Bob Marley in London, June 3, 1977.
(Graham Wiltshire/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | | | “When I saw how serious [Bob Marley] took his music, that is what opened my eyes and I realize that the music is a serious thing. It's a responsibility that you have. Because here you are one person sending messages to the four corners of the earth. And... it is very important that the message you send to the world is a serious thing, and it is on your shoulder... whether it's going to divide or unite.”
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| | rantnrave:// There's one simple reason you can play a 70-year-old mono record on a brand new stereo record player, and a brand new stereo vinyl album on a 70-year-old mono record player. It's the same reason you've always been able to listen to a stereo radio broadcast on a mono device, and a mono radio broadcast on a stereo device. It's possible because the companies that developed stereo technology decided, many years ago, that compatibility mattered. Formats change. Vinyl records can be 7-inches, 10-inches or 12-inches. They can be made of plastic and built into cereal boxes. They can play at 33-1/3, 45 or 78 rpm. They can be mono or stereo. And though you've always had the option to buy a new soundsystem whenever the dominant format changes, and while there were often advantages to doing so, you've never had to. The companies that made the software (the records) and the hardware (the record players, amplifiers and speakers) made a conscious decision that you *shouldn't* have to. That your stuff should last. That their stuff should last. If you're still using, and zealously protecting, your vintage 1970s amplifier or speakers, you can attest that it did, in fact, last. The companies that make what we call software and hardware today have thrown this principle out the window. They've bricked it. In the words of ENDGADGET's DEVINDRA HARDAWAR, "Every smart device you love will die." In a smart 5-minute video, Hardawar explains why, for example, your SONOS speakers will never, ever last, the company's recent public relations fiasco, apology and half recovery notwithstanding. This is the fiasco in which I, like many others, was told by SONOS that my five-year-old top-of-the-line speakers were now officially "legacy" equipment, would no longer be updated or supported by the company and wouldn't be compatible with any newer Sonos equipment I might own. Five. Years. Old. After a backlash that anyone, even a tech company, could have seen coming, Sonos apologized and changed course, but didn't change the basic fact that your five-year-old stereo equipment is now legacy and its expiration date, even if it hasn't quite arrived, isn't far off. As Hardawar points out, this isn't just a Sonos problem. It's an industry problem that affects any company that makes connected products, which increasingly means pretty much every electronic thing you own. "Hardware evolves," Hardawar explains. "Standards change, and after a certain point it makes more sense just to end support and push people onto something new." What he doesn't explain is why, or if, this had to be. Why do APPLE and other computer manufacturers continually introduce cables and ports that are incompatible with your existing cables and ports? Why do streaming protocols and file formats change in ways that render previous protocols and formats useless? Who decided that was the best way to go? Who decided backward compatibility—which I'm willing to bet 99 percent of consumers would vote for if given the choice—is bad for business? Who decided the 21st century version of stereo wouldn't be compatible with the 21st century of mono, and that 2020's 7-inch single wouldn't play on the device you bought for 2019's 12-inch album? All this for a little more convenience (I do love convenience) and a little less sound quality than those 50-year-old speakers deliver? You know which one's called a smart speaker. But do you know which one's the smart choice?... Dead SPIN? (Apologies for the easy pun but this is almost too perfect a footnote to DEFORREST BROWN JR.'s lead story below on platform capitalism and the devalued music industry, and another small part of me just died)... Episode two of COMPLEX and SPOTIFY's podcast INFAMOUS: THE TEKASHI 6IX9INE STORY is live... Five episodes of the doc JUSTIN BIEBER: SEASONS are now available on YOUTUBE... One company owns (more or less) all the remaining major record store chains in the US, UK and Canada... RIP ANDREW BROUGH. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| After a decade of imperceptive belief in algorithms and platforms that sell music “wholesale”, the market is deflated and can be directly linked to the overall devaluation of music. | | |
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| Lil Mosey’s “Blueberry Faygo” has never been officially released. That hasn’t stopped a series of impostors from uploading it to Spotify, and making money in the process. | | |
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| Every smart device you own will die. Sonos was just the start. | | |
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| In the ten years since the Guild of Music Supervisors was formed, the organization has come a long way. Granted, the job still involves low pay, long hours and little respect, but at least the craft has been validated with Grammy and Emmy categories introduced by the Recording Academy and the Television Academy, respectively. | | |
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| Just before the release of his first solo album in over a decade, Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon sat with Rick Rubin to talk about his tumultuous career that's spanned five decades. Friends since the early '80s, they discuss the early days of Black Sabbath, Ozzy's first encounter with his late guitarist Randy Rhoads, and how blown away Rick is by the power of Ozzy's voice at 71 years old. | | |
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| The documentary is a compelling and thoughtful portrait of an artist reckoning with what she’s capable of, and, more interestingly, what the culture will accept from her. | | |
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| Rap duo The Outfit, TX aims to drag Dallas out of Houston and Atlanta’s shadows - and get the national attention the city deserves. | | |
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| The absurd tragedy of the Chuck Berry house: How the history of segregation prevents St. Louis from preserving itself. | | |
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| Activist Angela Davis and drummer and composer Terri Lyne Carrington on Nina Simone’s "Black Gold." | | |
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| When I released my book, "Anything For A Hit: An A&R Woman's Story Of Surviving The Music Industry," in September 2018, it was a starkly different environment than when I wrote it in 2016. Harvey Weinstein had been outed, Les Moonves was about to be removed from his CBS throne and Matt Lauer was weeks away from his own dismissal. | | |
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| As interest in the popular West African music genre grew, so did the desire to return to the continent where it all began. | | |
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| Very insightful reporting from Rob Copeland at WSJ on Google's revenue that culls out YouTube's share of Google's revenue-and boy are we getting hosed. Alphabet said YouTube exceeded $15 billion in annual revenue in 2019 . | | |
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| The mastermind of the arena-filling psych-pop band sounds off on his body of work. | | |
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| The Eighties hitmaker on his first album in a decade and the hearing loss that could end his career. | | |
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| New knowledge about the neurological effects of music coincides with revived musicological interest in the body. Does this mark a return to the Enlightenment view of music as a matter of the nervous system? A survey of modern musical aesthetics through the lens of medical history. | | |
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| Columnist Mark Beaumont is overjoyed that the 100 Club is saved. Shame the same can't be said for the UK. | | |
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| Combs Enterprises COO Tarik Brooks came on the Trapital Podcast to talk his role managing the Combs Enterprises portfolio of brands, which includes Ciroc, Bad Boy Entertainment, Revolt, Sean John, AquaHydrate, and more. | | |
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| Zoë Kravitz takes her turn on the tables in Hulu's gender-flipped Nick Hornby adaptation. | | |
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| The singer has loads of artistic integrity in a world that often doesn’t care. | | |
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| We reflect on the untimely passing of one of hip-hop's quietest but most profound influences -- the "cozy forever" J. Scott. | | |
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