[Real rap is] letting people in, letting people know what you go through. Let them know that you the same. | | | | Young Thug at the Osheaga Music and Art Festival, Montreal, Aug. 03, 2019.
(Mark Horton/Getty Images) | | | | | | “[Real rap is] letting people in, letting people know what you go through. Let them know that you the same.”
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| | rantnrave:// Look out, REPUBLIC RECORDS. TAYLOR SWIFT hasn't released her first album for the label yet and she's already rerecording songs from it. Or, at least, changing the spelling, as it were. Is nothing sacred anymore? At her old label, BIG MACHINE, these things are no laughing matter, especially after Swift told CBS SUNDAY MORNING's TRACY SMITH, in two two-word replies heard 'round the pop world, that she's "oh yeah... yeah absolutely" planning to re-record music from her Big Machine catalog. She's angered by the sale of the label to SCOOTER BRAUN, whom she has accused of trying to "dismantle" her career. There are many unknowns: Is she thinking of recording a handful of songs (see also: DEF LEPPARD) or her entire catalog? Would she do exact replicas or alternate versions? Will she go through with it? Is there an audience for this? Could—or would—Braun and Big Machine try to stop her? Is this some kind of negotiation? How is Braun feeling about his $300 million purchase? (He's presumably feeling good if he accepts VARIETY's estimate of a potential $1 billion valuation, and maybe not so good if he reads the rest of the article.) As for the legality of remaking her own songs, that depends on Swift's old deal with Big Machine; standard terms would prevent her doing any remakes until five years after any given album is released and/or two years after her contract is up. Which doesn't sound all that restrictive for an artist whose last album under her old deal came out nearly two years ago, and who has released only one album in the past five years. And with a good lawyer (Swift's is DON PASSMAN), "I would expect she has some kind of clout to get around that," entertainment lawyer ED MCPHERSON tells the LA TIMES. Swift, of course, has plenty of clout on her own. Her army of fans is well aware of her feelings about her old label and its new owner and, one imagines, would be more likely to seek out re-recordings on streaming services than, say, Def Leppard's fans would have been in the years before the band finally agreed to put its classic albums online. And she could refuse to allow any TV, film or commercial uses of the original recordings. But does an artist who famously said she'd rather "bet on the future" than on her own past really want to go back to "BACK TO DECEMBER"? Perhaps Scooter Braun, you and I will find out before December rolls around again... How to turn the December weather, or any weather, into a playlist, complete with coding instructions... K-pop giant BIG HIT ENTERTAINMENT did $166M in revenue in the first six months of 2019—after bringing in $178M in all of 2018... While YOUTUBE is making itharder for music owners to claim copyright in videos with short, incidental uses of music—which seems a reasonable plan to the naked eye—my old VH1 colleague KERRY MUZZEY, who composes for TV, notices that YouTube makes it really really hard to submit a copyright claim, no matter how seemingly legit, when the infringing video comes from China... JAY-Z is not in line to become an NFL owner or part owner, CBS SPORTS reports... RIP CELSO PIÑA, FRED RISTER and JOBINA BROWN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| When songs leak on Spotify and Apple Music, illegal uploads can generate substantial royalty payments-but for whom? | | |
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| Columbia Journalism Review |
| Digital publications struggle for access to artists who retain a greater degree of control over their narrative, with the help of an expanding field of publicists. Escalating traffic demands have pushed music publications toward a celebrity-driven model, covering artists who are already popular and focusing the rest of their coverage on others with the potential to become famous. | | |
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| Billboard spoke to the producers, reporters and MTV staffers who witnessed the madness firsthand. | | |
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| Young Thug's "So Much Fun" is finally out, but hip-hop’s brightest lodestar isn’t done changing culture - or releasing new music - in 2019. | | |
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| "What Did I Screw Up?" is a mental exercise that occasionally keeps me up at night. It's when I think back to something I wrote that I wish I could revise or even take back completely. Generally, I'm fine with the rogues' gallery of takes that I've accumulated over the years. | | |
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| In 2009, Taylor Swift was a country music princess on the verge of superstardom. In 2019, she’s a full-blown music juggernaut, and a case study for the ups and downs of modern pop stardom. | | |
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| Prince and Def Leppard successfully went that route when they felt they were being unfairly compensated by their original labels, but their contracts dated back to the 1970s. Record companies quickly got wise to the practice and wrote provisions into their standard contracts setting a time period before such recordings, which include live versions, could be released. | | |
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| Twenty years on, the band is Texas’s most subliminally recognizable export. | | |
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| It's been half a decade or so since music streaming services really took hold and death a death blow to the mass market for physical music formats. Internet-based music was originally given a big boost in 2001 when Apple launched its original iTunes program, based on a piece of software called SoundJam which Apple bought from Cassidy & Greene. | | |
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| The members of NCT 127 open up about their VMA nom, touring, and what's been making them happy these days. | | |
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| The new album from Quality Control--the label home of Migos, Lil Baby, and others--is a chance to hear the sound of contemporary rap evolving in real time. | | |
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| The legendary metal band is returning after a 13-year absence, and while its sound isn’t in, its disaffected embrace of spirituality is. | | |
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| The history of auditory surveillance is intertwined with one of our greatest sources of pleasure and entertainment. | | |
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| Hip-hop often blames Death Row's demise on its crime-ridden life it portrayed, but Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's infamous label was doomed from the start. | | |
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| MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| Here’s a new YouTube tactic that I first thought was a mistake when it happened recently, but they tried it again today, so now I think it’s pretty much just “the new stall tactic.” | | |
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| Her new album features duets with famous friends like Keith Richards and Maren Morris, but Crow's brilliant career hasn't always been given its due. | | |
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| Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music is back. Its third major overhaul gives it a new look, and brings its sprawling map of electronic style to 166 genres, 11,321 tracks, and exhaustive descriptions to match. | | |
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| Taylor Swift, BTS, and Travis $cott have followed Kanye West in the merch race--and it’s only the beginning. | | |
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| For Laura Karpman's "All American" at the Hollywood Bowl, percussion instruments will be replaced with sheet pans and pots, a reminder that women who wanted to write music often were told to stay in the kitchen. | | |
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| Jimmy Cobb says that while the musicians working with Miles Davis may not have known they were making history, “we knew it was pretty damned good.” The album, released 60 years ago, captured a moment when jazz was transforming from bebop to something newer, cooler and less structured. | | |
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| | | | | Tinariwen feat. Cass McCombs |
| | From "Amadjar," due Sept. 6 on Anti-. |
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