| Your fans are a reflection of you. | | |
| |  | Mickey and (singer, guitarist, producer, music publisher and future founder of Sugar Hill Records) Sylvia in a New York studio circa 1958.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) |
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| | | “Your fans are a reflection of you.” | |
| | The Alphabet Song
Here's where I confess I have no idea what an NFT is, though it seems to be a virtual thing that's more fun and less valuable than a Bitcoin, which is another thing that I'm not quite sure exactly what it is. I do know the T stands for token, though I don't think it looks or works like a subway token. Also, MIKE SHINODA appears to have released his new single, "HAPPY ENDINGS," as a limited edition of 10 of them.
You can bid on a copy of a "Happy Endings" NFT at a site called ZORA that allows creators to sell digital art directly to collectors, without the mediation of galleries or labels or brands. As of early this morning, the high bid for "Happy Endings" number 1/10 was 1.6 WETH. I don't know what a WETH is either, but "Happy Endings" 8/10 had a high bid of 995 actual dollars until someone outbid that with 0.6 WETH, so I'm getting an idea.
Last summer, Shinoda released an album, DROPPED FRAMES VOL. 1, which he composed, with the help of fans, on TWITCH. Anything I have to say about any of this should be read with the understanding that I'm playing analog checkers and he's playing digital chess. I'd trust him. His NFTs come with rules, such as: "you have no right to license, commercially exploit, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, publicly perform, or publicly display the NFT or the music or the artwork therein," which I think is his way of saying that for your 1.6 WETH you're basically getting a digitally autographed MP3. Also, he's holding onto a 33 percent ownership of each copy, which, if I'm getting this right, means if instead of buying a song for $1.29 on ITUNES you choose to buy it for $1,029 on Zora, and if you want to trade it in next year at your local used NFT store, you're going to owe him a third of whatever you get for it. Whatever exactly it is.
Hopefully it's compatible with the NFT jukebox I got for Hanukkah.
Accounting Department
Weeks after old photos resurfaced of LUKE COMBS with Confederate flags, including one on his guitar, the country singer apologized on Wednesday. "There is no excuse," he said during a COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR panel discussion with MAREN MORRIS and NPR MUSIC's ANN POWERS on accountability in music. "I am now aware how painful that image can be," Combs said. "I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else."
This is one small step on country's long reckoning with issues of representation and accountability, and a welcome one. I have two wishes. One, that artists, or anyone, drop the talk about how "the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years" as they confront these issues and the questions around them. Combs went there. The world no doubt has changed, but confederate flags were no less problematic five or seven years ago than they are today, and it isn't as if no one was talking about it back then. Part of the reckoning should be coming to grips with that. The consequences for flying a Confederate flag may have been different five or seven years ago, but the meaning of the flag was not.
My other wish is that people notice what happened here: A musician was called to account for language/symbolism that he used sometime in the past. The musician became a Twitter meme. The musician did not get defensive. The musician did understand. A little while later, having contemplated and reflected, the musician publicly apologized. He sounded sincere. (Read the last paragraph of this account of his apology.) The musician is not going to lose fans or airplay or anything else of note. The musician is not going to let himself get anywhere near that flag again, I don't think. This is how accountability and apology works.
Dot Dot Dot
Pop radio, not surprisingly, is playing TAYLOR's new version. Country and adult contemporary are playing her old version... 2 CHAINZ at the TINY PEDICURE DESK... CHRIS CORNELL's widow, VICKY CORNELL, and the surviving members of SOUNDGARDEN have different ideas on the band's financial value... BOOTSY COLLINS on the first time he saw FELA KUTI: "We got our eyes blown and an earlobe of sound that I would never forget"... Rock band defying Communist rule in 1970s Romania... We don't talk enough about the late SYLVIA ROBINSON, who had a #1 pop hit in 1957 as half of MICKEY & SYLVIA and a #1 R&B hit 16 years later as just SYLVIA, who started a successful publishing company and label in between, and who returned in 1979 with yet another label, SUGAR HILL RECORDS, which you might have heard of. We should discuss.
Rest in Peace
FRANÇOISE CACTUS, half of the multilingual synthpopgaragerocklounge duo STEREO TOTAL, who delivered songs like "HOLIDAY INNN" with utterly unpracticed cool... Contemporary Christian singer/songwriter CARMAN, who became a major star in the 1980s and '90s with songs like "SATAN, BITE THE DUST" and "R.I.O.T. (RIGHTEOUS INVASION OF TRUTH")... Soul songwriter/keyboardist BRUCE HAWES, whose songs for the SPINNERS and others helped shape the SOUND OF PHILADELPHIA in the 1970s... Longtime talent agent GLEN KNIGHT, who spent his last decade at UNIVERSAL ATTRACTIONS AGENCY.
| | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| |  | The New York Times |
| | Black, Female and Carving Out Their Own Path in Country Music | | by Sarah Rodman | | Five singer-songwriters discuss the challenges of becoming the change they want to see in a famously homogeneous segment of the music industry. | |
 | The Independent |
| | The Pop Smoke phenomenon: How the late rapper became a superstar in death | | by Thomas Hobbs | | Brooklyn’s boy king was killed before he could release his debut album -- but a year on from his death, his music is bigger than ever. Thomas Hobbs pays tribute. | |
 | Billboard |
| | Can Big Hit & Universal Music Create the Next BTS on US TV? | | by Alexei Barrionuevo and Jeff Benjamin | | As part of a history-making deal, the Korean label is forming a joint venture label with Geffen Records to debut a global K-pop boy band. | |
 | WIRED |
| | The LA Musician Who Designed a Microphone for Mars | | by Eric Adams | | How an obsession with space led to a partnership on the Perseverance rover-and the chance we could finally hear what our planetary neighbor sounds like. | |
 | Variety |
| | Maren Morris and Luke Combs Take On Racism in Country Music at Radio Seminar | | by Chris Willman | | Talking about breaking the rule that you don't knock "family" within country music by having slammed Morgan Wallen's behavior on Twitter, Morris said, "I don't care if it's awkward sitting down the row from you at the next awards show — call them out!" | |
 | Penny Fractions |
| | Is There Independent Music in 2021? | | by David Turner | | Numerous organizations appear to represent the “independent” sector of music, but they often end up acting as small business trade organizations. They advocate their commercial concerns, not those of their workers or musicians, with larger industry players. | |
 | Hollywood Reporter |
| | 'Framing Britney Spears': Understanding the Law | | by Allen Secretov | | Allen Secretov, an entertainment attorney at Kinsella Weitzman, explains conservatorships and addresses the big question that's left ambiguous in the hit documentary. | |
 | SPIN |
| | Madison Beer’s Moment of Truth Has Arrived | | by Brenton Blanchet | | No longer bound by her musical past, breakups or the public’s expectations, the pop star is learning to stay truthful to her fans. | |
| rantnrave:// Very very good question | |
|  | Digital Music News |
| | I Pay $9.99 a Month for Spotify Premium. So Why Am I Listening to Endless Podcast Ads? | | by Paul Resnikoff | | Welcome to Spotify's risky double-dipping strategy. | |
 | Rolling Stone |
| | Bootsy Collins on the Genius of Fela Kuti: 'What He Brought Was Just So Powerful' | | by Bootsy Collins and Kory Grow | | The bass legend recalls witnessing the live brilliance of the Afrobeat pioneer, and explains why Kuti’s “undercurrent funk” should earn him a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. | |
|  | 5 Magazine |
| | Private equity keeps stabbing Guitar Center but it still won't die | | by Terry Matthew | | Music gear is selling at a record pace but Guitar Center is broke. It's not the pandemic that's screwed it up. | |
 | The Vinyl Factory |
| | Inside B&O’s laboratory: reimagining the Beogram 4000 turntable | | by Gabriela Helfet | | Behind-the-scenes of the iconic record player’s resurrection. | |
| rantnrave:// We're going to want to ask again in two or three years, when the dust has (maybe) settled | |
| | Variety |
| | Which Taylor Swift ‘Love Story’ Does Radio Love? Top 40, AC, Country Formats Are Split Between Old and New | | by Chris Willman | | Some stations may have played both, with instances of morning jocks playing part or all of the two tunes as an invitation to listeners to see if they could spot any differences. But most came down on one side or the other. | |
| The New York Times |
| | How Do Pop Stars Come to TikTok? Hat in Hand, Grasping at Buzz | | by Jon Caramanica | | After a song by an unknown gains attention on the app, a trend-hopping remix with a superstar usually isn’t far behind. | |
| Billboard |
| | NMPA President: Unmatched Royalties Finally Turned Over to MLC Brings Insight and Progress | | by David Israelite | | How we got here is complicated. Separate from the effort to improve how much songwriters are paid from streaming is the challenge of even receiving the money at all. | |
 | The Daily Beast |
| | How System of a Down’s Serj Tankian Helped Spark a Revolution | | by Nick Schager | | The singer opens up about his new activism documentary “Truth to Power,” the Armenian Genocide, the future of System of a Down, and their drummer’s support of Trump. | |
 | BBC |
| | Singer Glenn Medeiros: 'Sexual favours were the norm in music industry' | | by BBC News | | Former pop star Glenn Medeiros says many fellow performers were pressured into sex to get ahead. | |
 | The Forty-Five |
| | How to be a music supervisor -- the person behind TV’s most gripping soundtrack moments | | by El Hunt | | Ever wondered who chooses the music for your favourite TV shows? El Hunt talks to the people behind the soundtracks for three of the last twelve month's buzziest series, to get an idea of just what their jobs entail. | |
 | something old, something new |
| | On pop-punk, misogyny + me | | by Miranda Reinert | | Fun talk about All Time Low, being a teen, and rookie mag among other things. | |
 | The Ringer |
| | '60 Songs That Explain the '90s': TLC's 'No Scrubs' and the Biggest Girl Group of All Time | | by Rob Harvilla and Danyel Smith | | The trio's 1999 hit isn't their best-selling song, but it's the key to unlocking what made them so special. On the latest episode of '60 Songs,' Rob explores the history of T-Boz, Left Eye, and Chilli with help from 'Black Girl Songbook' host Danyel Smith. | |
| | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | “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?’” | |  | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator |
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