Even though the guy was bad, the song was great. | | | | Love (in the Name of Pride): Icona Pop's Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo at the LA Pride Parade, June 9, 2018.
(Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images) | | | | | | “Even though the guy was bad, the song was great.”
| - | Henry Rollins, back-announcing Generation X's cover of Gary Glitter's "Rock On" on his KCRW-FM radio show Sunday night |
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| | rantnrave:// Business booming. Revenues growing. And yet. Is there a long-term plan to make some actual money in this industry? Streaming companies? Labels? Artists? Anyone? Three years after laying out the (somewhat terrifying) state of the music biz in "Less Money, Mo' Music & Lots of Problems," MATTHEW BALL returns to find a strangely healthy business facing a strangely uncertain future in our new REDEF Original, "16 Years Late, $13B Short, but Optimistic: Where Growth Will Take the Music Biz." Ball dives deep into the data to ask what will a major label, or any label, mean in the coming years? Will it mean SPOTIFY and APPLE? Should it? Will artists go it alone? Can they? Must they? Can artists, streaming companies and labels find a reasonable, mutually beneficial way to go it together? Can an entire industry shed its old ways? Does an entire industry need its own DISCOVER WEEKLY to tell it what to do?... In completely related news, Spotify's market cap topped US $30 billion in the days after BILLBOARD reported the service is offering advances to indie artists to directly license their music... In equally completely related news, MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE asks why songwriters are getting "literally zero" from the selloff of Spotify stock following the company's public offering... The neverending search for reliable credits in the digital age. And one artist's creative (but totally unsearchable) solution... Gunshots onstage at BONNAROO. How would you react?... ANTHONY BOURDAIN dedicated his life to exploring—and connecting—the world not only through its unique and magical tastes, but also its sights, smells, touches and, not least, its sounds. The kitchens of his life had soundtracks. Punk-rock, hip-hop and beyond. (No BILLY JOEL, though.) A major, major loss, on so many levels... Congrats to KATRINA LENK, TONY SHALHOUB and THE BAND'S VISIT, the beautiful and affecting big winner at the TONY AWARDS. Does BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN now have 3/4 of an EGOT or do honorary awards not count?... RIP LORRAINE GORDON, patron and curator of the greatest New York jazz; DANNY KIRWAN, a (literally) long-lost central player in the early days of FLEETWOOD MAC; and Nigerian reggae star RAS KIMONO. And a special fond farewell to BUTCH PIELKA, a co-founder and longtime owner of the STONE PONY in Asbury Park, N.J., where I spent many wonderful lost weekends (and a few lost weeknights, too). Some dude who won an honorary Tony Award Sunday night spent a few nights there, too. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | she works hard for the money |
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| Sixteen years after the music industry's peak, revenues have returned to growth. But the core problems of streaming service profitability and minuscule artist royalties persist. There is cause for optimism, but transformation is needed. Enter, Spotify Records and Apple Music Groups? | | |
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| A trip down memory lane to the Neighborhood. | | |
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| Her full-album cover is her “solution for expressing anxiety about the future.” | | |
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| Anthony Bourdain’s love of music will forever be eclipsed by his passion for food culture. But the late chef, writer and TV star’s life was propelled by music, and he never wasted an opportunity to serve as rock ‘n' roll ambassador. | | |
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| Don't let anybody tell you different: 1977 was not a good year. Not a good decade, not a good time for New York City. Remembering now, it's easy to wax rhapsodic-the year gave us, after all, the first important explosion of punk rock and hip-hop. (Originally published in October 2007.) | | |
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| A rare Q&A with the Detroit house music producer and iconic DJ. | | |
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| "Oh, that's interesting. But he's not going to do that verse." That was the thought that ran through my head when the beat for "Criminal" kicked off during Eminem's headlining set at Bonnaroo on Saturday night. | | |
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| "The last 20 years have been the challenge of a lifetime – working with our companies to move forward into the digital age." | | |
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| By day, Kevin Martin runs on coffee and the promise of 5 p.m. But by night, it’s bright lights, shiny boots and steel guitars. He and his friend Brendan Malone are the Cowpokes, a two-step band playing 1950s country-western tunes wherever they can, including Nashville's American Legion Post 82. They're reviving honky tonk’s golden age with every show they play. | | |
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| Let it breathe before you call something a classic. | | |
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| Before the rise of digital music formats, the music business was one driven primarily by recorded music sales and labels who to a large extent developed music careers in conjunction with artists and managers. But declining recorded music revenues and the growth of the live music market over the last two decades changed that equation. | | |
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| At the same time as conversations about who worked on music are more visible than ever, our ability to access that information has never been more perilous. | | |
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| In these anxious times, Mr. Cave thinks we all need a place to unfurl. He has turned the Park Avenue Armory into a giant dance floor for “The Let Go.” | | |
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| What is a good subject for opera? These three women are creating vibrant and passionate works that flow from their own experiences and contemporary concerns - and prove that the genre need not be suffocated by its own history. | | |
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| On the importance of Sly Stone and the Maestro Rhythm King MRK2. | | |
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| Today, on the release of their latest video "What A Feeling", we chart their rise to prominence-one which saw them beat Stormzy and JAY-Z in the iTunes chart. | | |
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| This 20-year-old British singer makes even the slowest slow jam thrilling. | | |
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| Talking about the Seventies, the inside-baseball debate over sci-fi vs. SF, and who’s carrying the torch of sci-fi music today with the author of Strange Stars. | | |
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| Claire Lobenfeld chats with feminist icon Viv Albertine about a life in punk rock, the value of writing and the evolution and importance of feminism. | | |
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| For one writer, the Dave Matthews Band was a gateway to progressive politics in music. On its first album in six years, the group seems like it's sheltering in place. | | |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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