jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 11/02/2020 - Taylor Swift Is Free, Trapt Goes Full Proud Boy, J Balvin in Fortnite, Busta Rhymes, Marshall Jefferson...

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It's crazy. I feel like I'm in the game. Like I'm in Fortnite. Is this interest remix not displaying correctly? | View it in your browser. Charli XCX at the 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., Oct. 18, 2019. (Kyle Gustafson/Washington Post/Getty Images) Monday - November 02, 2020 Mon - 11/02/20 "It's crazy. I feel like I'm in the game. Like I'm in Fortnite." -  J Balvin, who spent four days taping his Halloween concert for the video game rantnrave:// In case anyone's unclear what November 2020 means to TAYLOR SWIFT, her social media offers a good clue: Her most recent INSTAGRAM post was about her endorsement in the US presidential election and her last tweet was a link to a get-out-the-vote video by BON IVER's JUSTIN VERNON (in which he sings through a mask; you can do it, too, if you really want to). But lurking in the background is another way November 2020 could be a season of change for the world's reigning pop star. As of November 1, Swift apparently is free, under her old contract with BIG MACHINE RECORDS, to release new recordings of her first five albums, something she has said she's eager to do as part of her ongoing quest to be in complete control of her work. She said it enough times in the aftermath of SCOOTER BRAUN's purchase of Big Machine 16 months ago to suggest she wasn't just letting off steam. Remaking her old albums would give her a chance to direct fans to recordings that directly benefit her rather than a label whose sale she bitterly opposed; it also would allow her to fully control movie, TV and commercial syncs for her songs. What she didn't know when she first talked about it last year was that a pandemic would keep her off the road for all of 2020. Is there a better time for redoing your life's work than the middle of a pandemic? For all anyone knows, she's already done it, has five albums in the can and is waiting for her moment. Whether such a moment is waiting for her is a matter of some conjecture. ALLEN KOVAC, who manages BLONDIE, who re-recorded an album's worth of greatest hits in 2014, told Rolling Stone last year, "The average re-record does 10 to 20 percent [in revenues] of what the original master does." SQUEEZE singer GLENN TILBROOK painted a worse picture for the magazine. A decade after releasing an album of re-recorded hits called SPOT THE DIFFERENCE, he said, "we've not had a single uptake" from a music supervisor. But those bands were past their heydays and neither has anywhere near the fanbase Swift currently has, nor the same ability to reach them. A pop star re-recording work that's less than a decade old and still enormously popular is a much less tested proposition. In 2018, JOJO remade two albums she had originally recorded for BLACKGROUND RECORDS, but the label had long kept the originals out of print, so she wasn't competing with herself. "My intention," JoJo wrote in Billboard (paywall), "was to give the fans the nostalgia that they couldn't get." Swift's intention has little to do with nostalgia. It would be more about controlling her career and her work, which makes her part of a more consequential trend—artists declaring their free agency. "The balance of power between labels and artists is tilting toward musicians," the Wall Street Journal's NEIL SHAH writes (paywall) in a piece about YO GOTTI, who's completed his deal with EPIC RECORDS, and TRAVIS SCOTT and KENDRICK LAMAR, who each owe their labels one more album. "The business," says DAVID STROMBERG, general manger of Scott's own CACTUS JACK label, "has changed"... Music publishing, strangely, seems to be moving in the opposite direction, with songwriters tripping over each other to sell their rights in their own work to companies like HIPGNOSIS, which is handing out millions of dollars like SPOTIFY hands out pennies. Hipgnosis' newest acquisition is 42 catalogs containing more than 33,000 songs from KOBALT MUSIC COPYRIGHTS, including pieces of MARIAH CAREY's "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU," JUSTIN BIEBER's "SORRY" and the FROZEN hit "LET IT GO." The price: $332.9 million... DON'T ROCK THE INBOX is a great new country newsletter from NATALIE WEINER and MARISSA R. MOSS... Techno is officially music and DJs are officially musicians in Germany, where those designations have financial consequences... The title sequences, including song classic theme songs, from all of the late SEAN CONNERY's JAMES BOND films, courtesy JAZZWAX's MARC MYERS... RIP gospel great BISHOP RANCE ALLEN, JAMES BROAD and NIKKI MCKIBBIN. - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator speak now The Daily Beast The Demented Drama Behind a Chart-Topping Band Going Full Proud Boy by Kelly Weill It's been a rough year for Trapt, best-known for their 2003 hit "Headstrong," and their fringe frontman. The New York Times How J Balvin Made His Trippy, Eye-Popping Halloween Concert in Fortnite by Ben Sisario The video game has become a music venue as the pandemic continues to keep live shows off the road. The Latin pop star put his own colorful spin on the experience. Billboard 27 Artists and Executives on the Importance of Voting in the 2020 Election Billboard spoke to artists and executives on the importance of voting. VICE South Koreans Are Divided Over BTS' Looming Mandatory Military Service by Junhyup Kwon Pop culture critics say the whole conversation has been politicized, with some officials using it to boost their popularity. Los Angeles Times Why does Trump love playing 'Fortunate Son' at rallies? John Fogerty has a pretty good theory by August Brown "The song is decrying the kind of person [Trump] is," says the Creedence Clearwater Revival founder of his 1969 antiwar classic. "He's absolutely that person I wrote the song about." Vulture We Should've Listened to Busta Rhymes by Craig Jenkins Hip-hop's foremost oracle returns with "ELE2," once again putting the world -- not to mention rap -- on high alert. Mixmag Marshall Jefferson: Why I quit DJing by Marshall Jefferson House music originator Marshall Jefferson on how the rise of EDM has whitewashed dance music and crippled Black artists. The Washington Post As the novelty of Zoom wears off, classical music reluctantly embraces its new virtual reality by Michael Andor Brodeur Orchestras and ensembles are pivoting to video, but some worry about what gets lost in translation. Chicago Tribune The Chicago company that is behind a lot of the new ways of entertainment, including drive-in shows, sets its sights higher by Britt Julious The entertainment world is changing amid a pandemic, and drive-in shows are growing in popularity in Chicago. The Bitter Southerner Power Music, Electric Revival: Education of 'Stankonia' in Three Parts by Joycelyn Wilson Hip-hop scholar Joycelyn Wilson discusses OutKast's "Stankonia" two decades after its release. fearless Pitchfork When Music Becomes Political Protest by Puja Patel, Jason King and Allison Hussey A conversation about the long and complex relationship between music and social justice movements, on our podcast "The Pitchfork Review." The New York Times A Decade Later, Salem Returns to an Even Darker World by Meaghan Garvey The band's 2010 debut alienated as many listeners as it inspired before Salem dropped out of sight. Its new "Fires in Heaven" arrives in a different landscape. SPIN Tori Amos: Loud and Clear by Liza Lentini Still using her voice to change the world? You bet your life she is. MusicAlly How can the music industry diversify its income streams? by Joe Sparrow Music Ally's Global Experts panel is an international group of industry leaders, and each month we put a single, vital question to them. This month's question: "What is the most effective tool, idea, or approach to take in the next 12 months in order to best diversify your income streams?" Pollstar Keeping Hope Alive: Adam Hartke Discusses NIVA's Lobbying Efforts by Francisco Rendon "The venues we operate are running on fumes." The Washington Post Marshall Allen is 96 years old and still leading one of the most visionary jazz groups of all time by Shannon Effinger "Swirling," the Sun Ra Arkestra's first new album since 1999, shows that his work is far from done. GQ Nigeria's Millennials Are Battling a Gerontocracy by Bolu Babalola On Fela Kuti, #EndSARS, and cycles of oppression. GQ Peter Guralnick Talks About His Obsession With the Blues, the Real Meaning of Country Music, and Selling His Record Collection by Hugo Lindgren The legendary music journalist and Elvis biographer on his new collection, "Looking to Get Lost: Adventures in Music and Life." NPR On 'Uncivil War,' Shemekia Copeland Sets Fire To A Relic Of American Slavery by Debbie Elliott The centerpiece of Copeland's latest album is a song born from the wreckage of the Clotilda - the last known slave ship to smuggle African captives to the United States. Unit 3 Films Massive Attack X Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research by Anthony Tombling Jr. and Massive Attack In 2019 Massive Attack commissioned the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research to report on the live music industry and make recommendations for decarbonisation. Subsequently an exemplar show was planned in Liverpool for October 2020. 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