When I think about Afrobeats, or I think about how trap music has traversed into the Caribbean or you have people like Bad Bunny or J Balvin, I think there's a beat that everyone understands and once they understand that beat, they don't necessarily need to understand the language. It can speak to anybody. | | | | Fever 333 vocalist Jason Aalon Butler and drummer Aric Improta in Birmingham, England, Nov. 2, 2019.
(Katja Ogrin/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “When I think about Afrobeats, or I think about how trap music has traversed into the Caribbean or you have people like Bad Bunny or J Balvin, I think there's a beat that everyone understands and once they understand that beat, they don't necessarily need to understand the language. It can speak to anybody.”
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| | rantnrave:// So PHARRELL WILLIAMS and RICK RUBIN are sitting around talking on the lawn at Rubin's SHANGRI-LA studio and Pharrell is talking about how songs make him feel and how important it is for him to understand those feelings and how when he hears an amazing chord progression what he notices isn't the chords but the way the chords make him feel, "and I'm trying to remember that feeling, because when I go to chase it later, I'm gonna have to reverse engineer the feeling to get to the chord structure." OK, he also SHAZAMs it; he's human. But anyway, he'll eventually be at a recording desk trying "to figure out if we can build a building that doesn't look the same but makes you feel the same way." This, he casually mentions to Rubin, is how he wrote "BLURRED LINES." Doesn't look the same. Doesn't sound the same. Does feel the same. Says he. A jury famously disagreed, but you already know that. Pharrell and Rubin sitting around talking is a master class in how a certain kind of producer might listen to, absorb and, in turn, create music. And then it turns into a postmortem discussion of what Pharell and his lawyers might have done wrong in the courtroom and what the infamous case may or may not mean for how music gets made—Pharrell swears he hasn't changed his process at all—and then Rubin casually suggests he make a documentary. "Just explain to people how it works, what you did, what the rules historically have been and what impact this decision has on the history of music." Do any documentary filmmakers read MusicREDEF? Because, yeah, it would be a fantastic documentary and someone should make it. Title: Can't Copyright a Feeling. For now, we have this mesmerizing interview about the creative process, which in this case turns out to be at least as much about listening as it is about creating. There's a lesson in there. (Also, both men have speaking voices that could double as tranquilizer guns, and if it wasn't for the bizarrely random PRADA ads that break the spell, I'd use this video as a sleeping aid)... KANYE WEST's JESUS IS KING is #1 this week on the BILLBOARD 200 (his ninth straight #1 debut) as well as the Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums charts, which gives us a chance to ask the two questions Kanye's musical conversion raises: Does anyone really like Kanye West as a gospel rapper? And does anyone really believe him? MusicSET: "Kanye West Wants to Make America Gospel Again"... Don't mess with dragons. Especially the imaginary kind. SEBASTIAN GORKA, a onetime adviser to PRESIDENT TRUMP, learned that the hard way Monday when YOUTUBE deleted his channel, apparently the result of him repeatedly playing IMAGINE DRAGONS songs on his radio show and uploading the shows to YouTube against the enforceable wishes of the band... More of the best of the decade: The eighth best album of the '10s, per STEREOGUM, was SKY FERREIRA's 2013 alt-pop masterpiece NIGHT TIME, MY TIME. The ninth best, according to CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND, was ST. VINCENT's 2011 jagged emotional breakthrough STRANGE MERCY. I'd mention their #1s, but I already have, several times each, as everyone else's retrospectives have been rolling in. They don't call it a hivemind for nothing. MusicSET: "Alright Alright Alright: The 2010s in Music"... RIP MERCYFUL FATE bassist TIMI HANSEN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Rubin takes the role of interviewer, and Pharrell the interviewee, though they both weigh in to establish their mutual love for the Shazam app, as well as some of the ’80s hip-hop and hip-hop-adjacent tracks that will always stick with them. Another point on which the duo agrees: Pharrell got a raw deal in the "Blurred Lines" copyright lawsuit. | | |
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| Parties focused on the irrepressible sounds of the African diaspora are energizing the Los Angeles underground. Matt McDermott looks over the city's increasing prominence within a global movement. | | |
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| A discredited economic theory is still guiding the decisions of most digital music labels today - even if they don't know it. This is the dumb theory of the Long Tail and how a tsunami of s***music destroyed it. | | |
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| East Germans recall how their hard-line government tried to keep out rock music, considered a 'weapon of NATO policy.' Then Bruce Springsteen played. | | |
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| A musical conversion raises two essential questions: Do you like Kanye West as a gospel rapper? And do you believe him? | | |
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| “Athena,” the debut album of boundary-defying, violin-driven music by Brittney Parks, is a “soundtrack of the making of a goddess.” | | |
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| Credit listings can now run to 30 names. Here's why. | | |
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| Spotify's Head of Music for the UK & Ireland Sulinna Ong on her career in the music biz and the role that Spotify can play in an artist’s journey. | | |
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| These are the albums that defined the decade as we lived it. | | |
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| A decade passes in an instant, as do sounds and trends. | | |
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| Whatever demons were circling him, Kurt Cobain was in total control on a night that showed what his future could have been. | | |
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| Hip hop's southern voice breaks through with an unsuspecting song that redefines rap's cultural and geographic boundaries. | | |
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| The game was scored by veteran composer Sarah Schachner and hip-hop producer Mike Dean. | | |
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| Lambert, who just put out her seventh album, Wildcard, has closed the gap between serious singer-songwriter and arena-rocking entertainer to become the most riveting country star of her generation. | | |
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| Forming in 2010, rising to fame and receiving critical acclaim between 2015 and 2017, New Jersey indie band Pinegrove were hailed as cult heroes; "one of the greatest bands in the world right now," in July 2017. | | |
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| 'I believe we should be expecting more. What's important is to listen to the people.' | | |
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| Mark Mitchell and Nick Burgess answer MBW's questions on a big day for their Warner label. | | |
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| The Ground Control partner and agent explains when to get out on the road and what to expect your first time in new places. | | |
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| Immersing yourself in silent films offers another level of imagination and escape, one of the few remaining silent-film accompanists says. | | |
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| Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend |
| Music legend Neil Young feels good about being Conan’s friend. Neil and Conan sit down to talk about Neil’s 1957 Eldorado Biarritz, why he won’t allow his songs in commercials, the importance of preserving musical sound quality, recording his new album "Colorado" with Crazy Horse at 9,200 ft elevation, and what Neil loves about his Gretsch White Falcon guitar. | | |
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| | | | | Samthing Soweto ft. Shasha, DJ Maphorisa and Kabza De Small |
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