Football is freedom. | | | | The first kick is the deepest: The Faces' Rod Stewart in Glasgow, Scotland, Dec. 18, 1974.
(Mick Gold/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | rantnrave:// Imagine turning on the radio one day to discover that nine out of every 10 songs are by women. That only one song of every 10 you hear features a male voice in any capacity at all. And that almost everything getting any airplay was recorded and produced by women, too. Or imagine spending a year attending random classical concerts and realizing at some point that you've hardly heard any music by male composers. Maybe one out of every 20 concerts would feature a short piece by a dude like BEETHOVEN or MOZART, but that would be it as far as the great male classical composers—or any males—go. Would that seem strange? Would you think something was missing? Would you guess the DJs and concert programmers were overcompensating in favor of female voices? Would you complain, or let it be? These are hypothetical questions, obviously. It's doubtful you'll encounter this. But flip the genders, and that's the current state of country radio in the US and classical music around the world. Three years after TOMATO-GATE, the Nashville scandal sparked by a radio consultant's infamous pronouncement that the way to be get good ratings in country radio was to "take females out," the percentage of female-led songs getting country airplay has managed to get even lower. And a study of nearly 1,500 classical concert programs scheduled for 2018 and 2019 found that 95 percent of them featured no female composers. Does something seem missing now? Is someone overcompensating? There are initiatives happening in both disciplines to change the math, and if you're a DJ, programmer, promoter or anyone else who has say over airplay or bookings or playlists, maybe you can help. And not simply to give female artists the shot that bleeding hearts like me think they deserve, but to give everyone in the audience, no matter their gender, the chance to hear the full range of what music is—the low notes and high notes, the bass and treble, his perspective, her perspective, their perspective. More melody. More harmony. I like LUKE COMBS and LUKE BRYAN, too, but listening to nothing else all day would be exhausting. And boring. “It isn’t about changing the conversation," says country singer-songwriter CAM. "It’s about joining it." ALICIA KEYS on Wednesday announced the formation of SHE IS THE SONG, a group of female execs and artists hoping to "reshape the industry" in their image. That follows the RECORDING ACADEMY's establishment a month ago of a badly needed Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. And back in NASHVILLE, country radio DJ and AMERICAN IDOL mentor BOBBY BONES says he's going to syndicate a women-only radio show and "be really obnoxious about it." More of this, please... This year's WORLD CUP songs, ranked... All-time World Cup songs, ranked... BOB MARLEY and the beautiful game... RIP GHALIB GHALLAB. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack often seems to be suggesting the darker, more honest movie that 'Super Fly' won’t quite let itself be. | | |
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| While white Americana singers have infused more soul into their sound, black artists, such as Leon Bridges, still feel restricted by limited expectations. | | |
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| By some metrics, women have lost ground in country music. | | |
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| I want to just throw my hands up as all of the companies keep remaking themselves into model that may not work for them and just floods the marketplace with me-too services. | | |
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| The absurd outfits Jagger wore on the band’s 1981 U.S. tour signaled a major change in the band’s destiny. | | |
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| After a four-year hiatus, the rapper is back with a banging album and a new outlook on life. | | |
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| For the first time in the Billboard Country Airplay chart's 28-year history, two artists of color scored consecutive chart-toppers. The feat comes at a time when a number of black songwriters are also experiencing a burst of success. | | |
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| On "Resting in Power" and metal's fear of the dark. | | |
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| Kim Bayley of the UK's Entertainment Retailers Association on why a 'transition to digital' must be carefully thought through. | | |
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| Thirty years ago, Abdul’s debut album sparked her brief reign as the dancing, MTV-dominating princess of pop. Today, it’s worth another listen. | | |
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| | | waka waka (this time for africa) |
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| Ten years ago, a fledgling punk rock band out of New Jersey migrated to Los Angeles to begin work on their second album. When all was said and done, they had created a masterpiece that both defined and drastically altered their careers. | | |
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| An interview and chess game with Detroit rapper Tee Grizzley as he mentors the young students of the Shawn Carter Foundation. | | |
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| The power of the major labels is not to be taken lightly for Daniel Ek. | | |
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| As Neil Diamond is honored at the Songwriter's Hall of Fame ceremony, his longtime PRO cheers on. | | |
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| “I never gave myself an option of being anyone but me.” | | |
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| Detroit-born Harrison is so much more than a tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. Other roles he has taken on include educator, bandleader, composer, and entrepreneur. He is perhaps most well-known as co-founder of Tribe, a 1970s collective that was instrumental in both shaping and spreading the sound of Detroit jazz at that time. | | |
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| To address the unique challenges facing artists releasing their work in the digital economy, Rogers also co-founded the Dot Blockchain Music Project, an attempt to create a decentralized global registry of music rights using blockchain technology that will overhaul the commercialization and movement of music online. | | |
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| An exploration into the music of skateboarding. | | |
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| Pete Seeger's Hudson River sloop is one of the nation’s oldest music-inspired activist organizations. At the 40th Clearwater Festival, Jeff Tweedy, Ani DiFranco and more will sing for its future. | | |
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| Rebecca Lentjes discusses gender, the notion of "Otherness," and recent initiatives geared towards promoting female, trans, and nonbinary composers, including Alarm Will Sound’s Matt Marks Memorial Fund and Brooklyn Youth Chorus' “Silent Voices” concert series. | | |
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| | | | | Jason Derulo feat. Maluma |
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