The pain we sing of [in Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'] is a lingering, never-going-away pain. For the well-intentioned co-conspirator, it's a temporary pinprick—just enough discomfort to provide a false sense of assimilation and understanding. When they sing along, they never fully realize the luxury of pain that only lasts for a moment. | | | | Terence Blanchard at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, Jan. 24, 2007.
(Randall Michelson/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “The pain we sing of [in Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On'] is a lingering, never-going-away pain. For the well-intentioned co-conspirator, it's a temporary pinprick—just enough discomfort to provide a false sense of assimilation and understanding. When they sing along, they never fully realize the luxury of pain that only lasts for a moment.”
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| | rantnrave:// It's quite possible the best album of 2020 came out three days ago "out of thin air, and with little information." UNTITLED (BLACK IS) is the third album in 13 months by SAULT, a co-ed London neo-soul/funk/plus band about which pretty much nothing is officially known. It's a stripped-down 20-song Black Lives Matter concept album that has lots of drum-machine soul, plenty of chanting, a little Afrobeat, a touch of gospel and a moment of doo-wop, and which frames its considerable anger and pain inside the spiritual optimism of declarations like "We will never show fear / Even in my eyes / I will always rise / In wildfires." Also responsible for much of the framing: one of the most affecting female voices of this moment. It's hard to tell if the heart of the album is the phrase "Stop dem!" shouted angrily, almost desperately, three times in a row at the end of the song of the same name, or the almost romantically cooed "Black is so warm and pure / And when all else fails, Black endures" that ends the opening track. Probably both. The full album could have been recorded entirely in the past month, or in the past year; it's not as if the issues the album is speaking to popped out of nowhere this spring. For all the minimalism of the arrangements, the songwriting and production are perfectly conceived and detailed, sometimes with a throwback vibe that earns that "neo" tag. There's an alternate universe somewhere where like 12 of these 20 songs are singles. I have no idea how big that alternate universe is, maybe it's about the size of an Autonomous Zone in the Pacific Northwest, maybe it's a corner of TWITTER or BANDCAMP, maybe, hopefully, it could actually be this universe. You can download "Untitled (Black Is)" for free from the band here or buy it here or stream it at all the usual places... And yes, speaking of three days ago, that BOB DYLAN album is an A-plus late-career gift... And here's to BEYONCÉ surprise drops—and black-owned business directories... This TERRACE MARTIN quote was my quote of the day a week ago and I'm still thinking about it a lot: "For those that aren't reflecting the times, my job is not to question their artistry, but I question their being, and why they're doing this for a living"... RIP TRAY SAVAGE. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| Sault's latest and best album is a capital-B Black record that funnels rage and sorrow into contemplative streams of thought, over equally brooding music meant to slow your heart rate. | | |
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| Long an afterthought to YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, Twitch has won over musicians. Now it must deal with their lawyers. | | |
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| For as long as Black music has been popular, crossover, coveted by white listeners and dissected by white critics, it has also been criminalized by white police at all levels of law enforcement. | | |
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| UMG general counsel and interim Def Jam chief Jeffrey Harleston already had a full plate when he was tapped, with Motown's Ethiopia Habtemariam, to lead Universal’s Task Force for Meaningful Change in response to the crisis that erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s death. | | |
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| Kim Hyun Soo, head of CJ ENM global festivals, tells The Times about KCON:TACT, the digital K-pop festival replacing KCON amid a coronavirus outbreak. | | |
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| Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe opens up about their new self-titled album, the state of America, and why they’re one of the few metal acts that goes after Trump. | | |
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| The Nobel winner’s latest is a masterful (and crude) collage from our greatest remix artist. | | |
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| With her new album ‘Punisher,’ indie rock’s brightest star is letting us into her world. Now if only she could get a dog. | | |
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| If you've been following the evolution of the "aircraft carrier" revision of the U.S. Copyright Act styled the "Music Modernization Act," you will remember that America now has a blanket license for the mechanical reproduction of songs (or will have as of 1/1/21). | | |
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| The phrase "server fixation date and termination" might sound boring or gibberish to anyone other than an attorney or a tech reporter, but that term, from the U.S. Copyright Office's April update on the Music Modernization Act, has become a potentially thorny issue among those hammering out rules for the new law, which takes effect in January. | | |
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| In my case, it ripped off the branch and rolled all the way down the hill. | | |
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| Artists explain how they'd like the music industry to change and better support Black voices. | | |
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| With concerts on hold, emerging artists are figuring out how to adapt. | | |
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| The late singer-songwriter played the song for friends at Thanksgiving dinner and 'just melted everyone,' producer Dave Cobb says. | | |
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| The "Fire in Little Africa" project hopes to resurrect Tulsa's Black Wall Street legacy through the city's homegrown hip hop scene. | | |
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| The world Kendrick’s song envisioned seems far away today. The moment requires a different kind of protest song, and rappers are putting in work. | | |
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| Madonna, Basquiat, Lou Reed, and the New York Dolls were regulars at the shop known for its egg creams. | | |
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| Never EVER forget that this business runs on talent. Without the talent, there's nothing to sell. And talent is not fungible. | | |
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| With a projected $32 million loss in wages for canceled scoring dates because of COVID-19, the Los Angeles music community is gearing up for the return of film and TV recording - but cautiously, under strict guidelines. | | |
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| Tazewell Thompson’s libretto for “Blue” tells the story of a black family struck by tragedy. | | |
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| | | | | | | "Take off your badge / We all know it was murder / Murder, murder, murder." From "Untitled (Black Is)," out now on Forever Living Originals. |
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