We didn’t want to imitate Erma Franklin. Erma’s ‘Piece of My Heart’ had a delicacy and a sense of mystery that was just beyond us. | | | | Sisters doin' it for themselves: Carolyn, Aretha and Erma Franklin at Atlantic Studios, New York, Jan. 10, 1969.
(Stephen Paley/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “We didn’t want to imitate Erma Franklin. Erma’s ‘Piece of My Heart’ had a delicacy and a sense of mystery that was just beyond us.”
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| | rantnrave:// Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, ACADEMY AWARDS edition... Starting with EMINEM for some reason performing an 18-year-old song from an 18-year-old movie in the middle of the 2020 Oscars. He has an album to promote, so there's that. Immediately after the performance, Eminem tweeted an apology for not showing up when he actually won his Oscar all those decades ago. It's been suggested he skipped that ceremony because he didn't want to perform a clean version of "LOSE YOURSELF," which, if true, would be weird because the Oscar producers bleeped Sunday's performance into a clean version anyway. Also weird: Why haven't the Oscars, the GRAMMYS or any other awards show figured out how to mute one microphone without muting everything else? Also also weird: Why are we still muting anything on live TV in 2020? Also also also: It's Black History Month. Why not give that slot to THREE 6 MAFIA?... Something wonderfully new was Icelandic cellist HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR becoming the first woman since 1998 to win the Oscar for Best Original Score, for JOKER. She's one of only seven women ever nominated for scoring—in 92 years. She's also, as the LA TIMES' RANDALL ROBERTS pointed out, the only Oscar winner who's performed with both THROBBING GRISTLE and SUNN O))), not to mention the Icelandic band MÚM, of which she was a member. The last woman to win the category, ANNE DUDLEY (for THE FULL MONTY, in a year where there were separate scoring Oscars for dramas and comedies/musicals), is the only Oscar winner who's been in the ART OF NOISE. "To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up," Guðnadóttir said in her acceptance speech. "We need to hear your voices." Dear Hollywood producers: Please listen to those voices. (Nice added touch, sort of: A medley of the five nominated scores was conducted by WORLD OF WARCRAFT composer EIMEAR NOONE, the first woman ever to conduct anything at an Oscars ceremony. "Sort of" because that's all she was asked to conduct)... BILLIE EILISH and FINNEAS O'CONNELL borrowed something from the BEATLES, performing a hushed, emo version of "YESTERDAY" for the In Memoriam segment. It was—fine? And it very much suited the moment... CYNTHIA ERIVO went from something blue to something glorious over the course of her show-stopping performance, with a gospel choir, of the freedom song "STAND UP," which she co-wrote and sang in HARRIET, for which she was also nominated for Best Actress. That particular nomination combo is becoming strangely commonplace... JANELLE MONÁE is the best non-host host the Oscars have ever had... And, finally, a note for anyone from the Grammy Awards production team who may be reading. The first major Oscar of the night, BRAD PITT's Best Supporting Actor award, was handed out 15 minutes into the show. This year's first major Grammy, Eilish and Finneas' Song of the Year award, came two hours and 40 minutes into the broadcast... A fire at a lacquer manufacturing plant in Banning, Calif., "will present a problem for the vinyl industry worldwide," which may prove to be an understatement... This is how insane music copyright claims have become... RIP NELLO SANTI. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| K-pop supergroup SuperM scored a U.S. No. 1 debut and sold out the Forum. Are they the next BTS? | | |
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 | Billboard |
| With Warner Music Group's announcement Thursday of plans to go public with an upcoming IPO, now begins a waiting game to see how much of the company will be sold and how the shares will be priced, determining the company's overall valuation. | | |
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 | Time Magazine |
| In November, the musician Grimes made a bold prediction. "I feel like we're in the end of art, human art," she said on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast. "Once there's actually AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), they're gonna be so much better at making art than us." Her comments sparked a meltdown on social media. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Gospel music changed Cash’s career, and the gospel of Jesus Christ changed his life. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The band are shocking their fanbase with new album The Unraveling, full of fury about the state of America - from school shootings to caged kids. We meet the angry Alabamans. | | |
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 | Andreessen Horowitz |
| More than a decade ago, editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called " 1,000 True Fans ," predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to make a living off their creations, whether an artist, musician, author, or entrepreneur. | | |
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 | Water and Music |
| I wanted to write up a recap of the latest user and subscriber data that have been reported from the major music- and audio-streaming services. Spotify and Pandora parent SiriusXM just held their Q4 2019 earnings calls this week, while Amazon Music and YouTube Music recently made the rare move of revealing user numbers around their respective products. | | |
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 | PopMatters |
| By late 2018, nostalgia seemed to be outlasting the lifespans of most fashion trends and collective middle-age crises. The resurrection spree that encompassed Roseanne, Will & Grace, Murphy Brown, Cabbage Patch Kids, high-waisted jeans, wide-leg jeans and bell-bottoms, and record players was becoming a catchall, ferrying trash as well as treasure back to the future. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Tania León worked for the New York Philharmonic in the 1990s. But the full orchestra is only now performing her work. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| Elon Musk made a song so bad that it demands a re-examination of what it means to be an indie musician in the internet age. | | |
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 | The Future of What |
| When you hear people within the industry referring to “The Black Box,” they’re most likely referring to the growing sum of undistributed and/or undistributable royalties that have been collected on an artist’s behalf by organizations like SoundExchange. What happens with this “Black Box” is a hotly debated topic within the industry, as every collection society that has one deals with these unclaimed royalties differently. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Just after the release of her second album since her sexual-assault lawsuit, a judge has ruled that Kesha defamed Dr Luke. How did we get here? | | |
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| Billboard |
| Despite breakups and health issues, the Swedish band's 30-plus-year career continues with March EP 'The Pendulum.' | | |
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 | Bandcamp Daily |
| A guide to the work of the avant-garde legend. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Losses narrow at streaming service which famously served superstars with equity stakes. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Spotify’s R&B/soul playlist chief talks music curation, genre lines in 2020, and the comfort of a drive home in silence. | | |
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 | KCRW |
| Robert Glasper is a three time Grammy Award winning pianist, producer and artist. He recently took us on a jazz fusion odyssey when he performed in front of an intimate crowd at Apogee Studios. | | |
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| Vulture |
| The similarities between Hulu’s take on the Nick Hornby novel and 2000 film are unmistakable, but its changes to the source push it in new directions. | | |
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 | Tape Op |
| Greg Kurstin is an in demand producer who's worked with a laundry list of great artists, including Lily Allen, Sia, Pink, The Shins, Foo Fighters, Liam Gallagher, Beck, The Flaming Lips, Tegan and Sara, Peaches, Kelly Clarkson, Lykke Li, Ellie Goulding, Adele, and Paul McCartney. | | |
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 | Medium |
| I analyzed 691 album releases from 2019 in the US trying to find answers to: when are the best and worst times to release an album, how style of music effects release windows, and how can marketers strategically plan their record campaigns around optimal release weeks in 2020. | | |
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