Ahmet Ertegun—arguably for a long time the greatest record executive of them all—told me that unless you’re 100% sure the artist is wrong, go with their vision. | | | | Kamasi Washington at AOL Studios, New York, Aug. 25, 2015.
(Grant Lamos IV/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Ahmet Ertegun—arguably for a long time the greatest record executive of them all—told me that unless you’re 100% sure the artist is wrong, go with their vision.”
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| | rantnrave:// To the best of my knowledge, I had not heard of the FYRE FESTIVAL until Friday. I have a congenital inability to absorb the information in celebrity hashtags, which apparently is how everybody else heard about it. But if I had, I like to think I would have shrugged my shoulders in the direction of the rich millennials the fest was aimed at. If you are young and carefree and have anywhere from $4,000 to $250,000 to throw away on a weekend on a deserted island with MIGOS, MAJOR LAZER, BLINK-182 and a bunch of other pop stars and supermodels, who am I to stop you? And if it doesn't turn out to be all it was promised to be, who am I to care? But now that the promoters have deluded themselves into thinking they will stage a make-good event next year after the disaster that was this year, I will offer some reminders to anyone silly enough to want to go: Co-founder BILLY MCFARLAND told ROLLING STONE this weekend he announced the event and launched its website before he had booked any talent or "actually [made] the music festival." In other words, those celebrity hashtags linked, in the most literal sense, to nothing. He also pretty much admitted he had no idea what he was doing. He missed promised payments to his own artists. And co-founder JA RULE formally apologized for the ensuing debacle by telling the world, in capital letters, it was "NOT MY FAULT" and "NOT A SCAM" while also claiming, in lower case, he was "taking responsibility," even though he was literally, according to his own note, not taking responsibility. Note to Ja Rule and all other guilty parties: your fest, your fault, your problem. And probably your last chance... PHOSPHORESCENT closes out OUR FIRST 100 DAYS... The power of positivity... ARETHA FRANKLIN is an AMERICAN hero and DIONNE WARWICK was one of the great pop voices of the 20th century and I don't pretend to know exactly what this thing between them is about—I mean, I know literally what it's about, but not actually what it's about—but this account of that thing involving godmotherhood, five-year-old grudges and fax machines is the most wonderful thing I've read in a long time and it would be wrong not to share it. I only wish I could fax it to you... RIP DICK CONTINO. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Unspeakable tragedy and grief had their way with Nick Cave, and his music had to change yet again. | | |
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| We head to South Carolina to meet DJ J.A.Z, and find out what oddball italo-disco and the Church might have in common. | | |
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| “We were standing in an empty gravel pit trying to figure out how to build a festival village from scratch.” | | |
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| It was supposed to a luxurious weekend in the Bahamas, with tickets ranging from $4,000 to $250,000. Instead, festivalgoers say, “it looked like a refugee camp.” | | |
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| Jimmy Buffett's hit came out in '77. Now it's a retirement community, a musical and a symbol for something lost. | | |
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| There's not a lot the top tier of the music business can throw at you that Jason Flom hasn't dealt with. | | |
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| Julianna Barwick starts to describe her experience in the male-dominated field of electronic music, but one sentence in, she interrupts herself to consider the ambiance on my end of our phone call. | | |
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| And why seeing concerts still matters to music. | | |
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| "I didn't expect anyone to catch it." | | |
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| The younger, twangier, country sibling of the Coachella music festival came into its own in 2017. Here's the why and how. | | |
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| Following the announcement of the cult punk act’s reunion, here is the tell-all tale of their classic 1993 album. | | |
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| From Canada to Singapore, our guide to the top destinations for vinyl aficionados. | | |
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| I pulled up to the mix soiree painfully late, but it’s a welcome refuge. | | |
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| With rock music, it’s easy to rewrite history. Black artists like Berry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe — who’s still not a Hall of Famer, while Berry was inducted the inaugural year — gave the genre its legs. Then white artists walked away with it. | | |
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| MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| The lopsided vote this week on HR 1695 (the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act) this week invites an explanation (378-48). | | |
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| In advance of an American tour, Midnight Oil open up about their history, their reunion and why their old songs feel more relevant than ever. | | |
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| They Might Be Giants singer on aliens, fake news, and the environment | | |
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| Decades later, the accusations against the King of Pop remain a mystery. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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