In today's society and with what's going on, people need music that makes them feel like someone else understands. And sonically, you can get that across with having the warmth and the dedication of an instrument actually speaking to people instead of it being an eight-bar loop. | | Jacob Bannon of Converge, whose "The Dusk in Us" is out today on Epitaph. (PYMCA/Universal Images Group/Getty Images) | | | | “In today's society and with what's going on, people need music that makes them feel like someone else understands. And sonically, you can get that across with having the warmth and the dedication of an instrument actually speaking to people instead of it being an eight-bar loop.” |
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| rantnrave:// She was told, she said, to wear revealing clothes and kiss and flirt with radio station employees, and to stand there and take it when a DJ asked her, "When are you going to be legal?" She was 15. It was made clear to him, he said, that he should submit to the sexual advances of his publicist or forget any chance of a career in NASHVILLE. His career was over, he said, within two days of sneaking out of the publicist's bed, which he had no memory of getting into. Et tu, Nashville? Yup, according to the stories that have been spreading over the past two weeks. KATIE ARMIGER's complaints about COLD RIVER RECORDS, with whom she settled a lawsuit, have been disputed by Cold River president PETE O'HEERON, who told BILLBOARD that Nashville is "an island of morality" compared to the rest of the entertainment business. TAYLOR SWIFT would dispute that. Common sense would, too. What started in HOLLYWOOD is not going to stay in Hollywood because what's being revealed in 2017 is not specifically a story about the movie business. It's a story about creepy or worse behavior by men in power in cities and industries everywhere. Is Hollywood the cause, or is it a symptom? The second complaint above, by singer AUSTIN RICK against publicist KIRT WEBSTER, has led to numerous other accusations and the collapse of WEBSTER PUBLIC RELATIONS, a Nashville giant. Kirt Webster has denied any nonconsensual activity. The clients who've dumped him in recent days include DOLLY PARTON, KENNY ROGERS, CYNDI LAUPER and numerous others. Nashville is a symptom, too. Other cities, other wings of the entertainment and media businesses, and other industries will follow, as each victim who speaks up emboldens another who has yet to do so. The LA TIMES' MIKAEL WOOD, in an essay titled "Can the music world learn from Hollywood?," notes that musicians have a different relationship with their fans than actors and movie studios do, and some have used their art to process trauma and to apologize for bad behavior. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Processing is important. Apologies are, too. But when will a real change in behavior come? When will the rules change? When will the men in power (it's mostly, but not exclusively, men) have an honest reckoning?... Journalists covering next week's CMA AWARDS have been told—at risk of losing their credentials—not to ask artists about LAS VEGAS, guns or politics. More time for questions about creepy men, then... Related NETFLIX watching for the weekend: THE HUNTING GROUND, featuring LADY GAGA's harrowing "TIL IT HAPPENS TO YOU"... PANDORA listeners down, revenues up... LIVE NATION revenues up, too... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from SAM SMITH, KELSEA BALLERINI, SHAMIR, BLAKE SHELTON, MAROON 5 (yes, Blake and Adam have albums coming out the same day and yes I, too, think it's v v cute), ANTI-FLAG, CONVERGE, BIBIO, RABIT, SHAWN MENDES, KYGO, JOJI, CANNIBAL CORPSE, BRUNO MAJOR, STEREOPHONICS, PROBLEM, BILLY BRAGG and GRACE VANDERWAAL... And new old music from BOB DYLAN, whose TROUBLE NO MORE covers his born-again years (1979-81) in eight CDS and a DVD... And another TAYLOR SWIFT single. | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Electric guitar is heard less and less in the Top 40 and it's even in steady decline on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart. But a survey of the industry and one of 2017's most surprising hit songs suggest the instrument's supposed demise may be overstated. | |
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"Sticky Fingers" author Joe Hagan says his new biography of Wenner ends on a "tragic" note for both the man and his groundbreaking magazine. | |
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CDJs may have made mixing easier, but they've also ushered in an exciting new era of DJing. Michelle Lhooq reflects on the possibilities they've unlocked. | |
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Michael Eisele knew exactly what he was going to do on the day Kesha's new album came out. He knew the first people he was going to text with his reaction after he listened to it for the first time. | |
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Perhaps the reason we’re no longer seeing women on radio is because they’re not putting up with harassing behavior by fat cat radio programmers anymore. | |
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Days after former Webster client and onetime aspiring country singer Austin C. Rick accused the Music City executive of drugging and assaulting him, 10 former employees of Webster PR described a culture of consistent workplace abuse and harassment. | |
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The roar of support from a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Palladium was proof enough: The past year of reckoning for sexual predators has a soundtrack, and it's Kesha's "Rainbow." | |
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There’s something about the era that appealed to a specific kind of sad young person. | |
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A company called Royalty Exchange is enabling songwriters to auction off their back catalogs to private investors, often for ample sums. | |
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We never just hear music. Our experience of it is saturated in cultural expectations, personal memory and the need to move. | |
| | gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal |
| After the Harvey Weinstein scandal, artists should reassess how they face their own scandals. | |
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Even though hip-hop and R&B are the most-consumed genres in the U.S. this year, they might not have the loyalest listeners. | |
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In our series where great musicians tell the stories behind memorable records from their back catalogue, the Led Zep frontman discusses his enduring love for Patty Griffin and why he’s happiest in the land of cider, Wolves and Welsh mythology. | |
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Doppler Labs tried to start an ear-puter revolution with its Here One earbuds. Then everything went downhill. | |
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When I was perusing the list of new-release albums from this past Oct. 13, it dawned on me after some time that three of the artists-Wu-Tang, Camp Lo and Krayzie Bone (with his group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony)-all released albums that I absolutely loved exactly 20 years ago. | |
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"I did it to show my appreciation to America ... I love this country." Jose Feliciano, on singing the national anthem his way. His performance at the 1968 World Series sparked a national controversy. | |
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In addition to being one of the greatest US rock icons in recent history, Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan is also something of an accomplished studio whizz. Daniel Gumble caught up with him to discuss the making of his new solo album "Ogilala." | |
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From LCD Soundsystem to Wolf Parade, indie bands are asking big questions about life, without much hope of finding answers. | |
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The singer explains how he wrote 'What Is It All But Luminous' and why he doesn't expect to sing with Paul Simon ever again. | |
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On Wednesday (Nov. 1), New Orleans said farewell to a favorite native son, the legendary singer and pianist Fats Domino. | |
| | | | From "The Thrill of It All," out today on Capitol. |
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