| There is this dismissive attitude toward anything related to teen girls. So I really wanted to listen to [the fans]. They're very sensitive to being dismissed as, like, QAnon people. | | | | |  | All the Weeknds that you can't leave behind at the Super Bowl halftime show, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 7, 2021.
(Patrick Smith/Getty Images) | | | | | "There is this dismissive attitude toward anything related to teen girls. So I really wanted to listen to [the fans]. They're very sensitive to being dismissed as, like, QAnon people." | | | | Words and Guitar
And they say rock and roll is dead. A strange American Sunday began, in the early overnight hours, with a young woman getting under the skin of the oddly conservative subset of Americans who are aware of what happens on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. PHOEBE BRIDGERS screamed and then repeatedly smashed a DANELECTRO guitar against her monitor at the end of fiery performance of her song "I KNOW THE END," which is a thing that young men now enshrined in the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME have been doing for decades to significantly less national outrage. But if you're not pissing somebody off, can you really call it rock and roll? This strange American Sunday continued in the afternoon with another young woman, a pop star named MILEY, joyously covering BIKINI KILL's "REBEL GIRL" during a SUPER BOWL pre-game event, which I'm reasonably sure is a thing no pop, rock, country or any other kind of star has ever done at an event connected to any Super Bowl. Another young woman, H.E.R., inserted a blistering electric guitar into "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL," which she sang on the field where the game was about to be played, shortly before country star ERIC CHURCH and R&B star JAZMINE SULLIVAN took on "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER" accompanied, at the start, only by his earnest electric guitar.
No such instruments were visible during the strangest spectacle of all, the WEEKND's Super Bowl halftime show—violins yes, guitars no—whichg might have been the most rock and roll performance of all, if sex, drugs and not worrying about what the middle of America thinks are on your rock and roll scorecard. His dominance of current pop notwithstanding, the Weeknd was an odd choice for a Super Bowl halftime. His songs, even the R-rated ones, lean more toward introspection than toward lifting your spirits or getting you to pump your fists, and he doesn't exactly exude stadium charisma. But he compensates for that with high-concept visual spectacles, and in a year when you couldn't build a proper stage on the field, when there were more virtual fans than actual fans in the stands and when the very act of singing in public is a lethal risk, there may have been no better choice than a singer who looks like he's always trapped inside one of his own videos. The whole thing seemed virtual—his voiced was mixed noticeably low, as if to underline the idea that he might not actually be there, or, OK, maybe it was just a bad mix—and his violin players had more charisma than he did. And somehow the Weeknd completely owned that stadium, and America, for 13 minutes. No guests, no unexpected moments, no pick-you-up-and-make-you-feel-better interludes. This was his show, not yours.
Release came at the end when he finally descended from his stage above one of the end zones and advanced on the field, with an army of dancers dressed like him and wearing his now-familiar facial bandages, to sing "HOUSE OF BALLOONS / GLASS TABLE GIRLS" and "BLINDING LIGHTS." They danced, he did a kind of drunken-master walk, they fell down as if to play dead, he threw his arms to the sky, and PEPSI and the NFL thanked us for watching. Presumably 100 million or more viewers in the US alone had in fact watched this.
There would be one more guitar moment of a sort, when a guitarist named BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN claimed two minutes of airtime during the fourth quarter of the game to pay homage to America's mythical middle, in a JEEP ad apparently shot in America's literal middle in Kansas. It was beautifully shot and scripted and had an ambient soundtrack, courtesy Springsteen and producer RON ANIELLO that ended, in a nice callback to the Weeknd, with a violin. Springsteen did not, however, end the commercial by smashing it against a monitor and screaming.
Dot Dot Dot
SOUNDCLOUD is developing a way for fans to pay artists directly, according to Billboard, which would be a first among major US streaming services... ELTON JOHN and RADIOHEAD's COLIN GREENWOOD are angry at Brexit for making it harder for British musicians to tour Europe, and they've both written editorials for the Guardian demanding that the British government fix this. "This isn't about Elton John," Elton John writes. "In fact, if you hate every note I've recorded, because your tastes are edgier, weirder and more exploratory—if you think that the Parisian hotdog thrower had a good point—you need to support musicians' ability to tour"... MORGAN WALLEN has the ability to tour. He's still scheduled to headline several festivals this summer, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. "There are contracts in place and this is not a decision that can be made overnight," the general manager of COUNTRY JAM USA, scheduled for July in Eau Claire, Wis., told the newspaper... QUESTLOVE's SUMMER OF SOUL has been picked up by SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES and HULU in the most expensive acquisition ever of a SUNDANCE documentary.
Rest in Peace
STEFAN CUSH, singer for British folk punks THE MEN THEY COULDN'T HANG... Northern soul singer NOLAN PORTER... Bassist MATT HARRIS of ORANGER and the POSIES... Up-and-coming Chicago rapper JAMES "BCR MEEZLE" MCGILL JR.... Argentine label exec MARIO KAMINSKY... Actor CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER, player of GEORG VON TRAPP and CYRANO DE BERGERAC.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | |  | | Variety |
| | How Bruce Springsteen Agreed To Do a Super Bowl Commercial for Jeep | | by Brian Steinberg | | After driving "Thunder Road" for decades, Bruce Springsteen is taking a detour on Madison Avenue. | |  | | The Ringer |
| | The Weeknd's Halftime Performance Made Perfect Sense for a Strange Super Bowl | | by Rob Harvilla | | A blowout in a pandemic got the show it deserved, presented by Pepsi. | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | Britney Spears and the trauma of being young, female and famous in the '90s | | by Ashley Fetters | | The strength of "Framing Britney Spears" isn't in its new revelations; it's in its thoughtful hindsight. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Why the #FreeBritney movement is bigger than Spears | | by Meredith Blake | | Applying the rigor of "Frontline" to the story of her conservatorship, "Framing Britney Spears" is a pointed work of criticism aimed at celebrity culture. | |  | | NPR |
| | Celebrating The Black Women Guitarists Who Made Music History | | by Lulu Garcia-Navarro | | Fabi Reyna, founder of Sheshreds Media, highlights artists often left out of history books in her article "7 Guitarists That Prove Black Women Were Pioneers In Music History." | |  | | The Guardian |
| | Elton John: I learned by touring Europe in the 60s. Young artists need the same chance | | by Elton John | | Brexit negotiators have screwed up the deal for Britain's emerging musicians. They need our support. | | | | The Guardian |
| | European touring made Radiohead what we are. Brexit must not destroy it | | by Colin Greenwood | | Unless our government acts, the red tape and costs of touring Europe will kill off careers and diminish our national culture. | |  | | Billboard |
| | SoundCloud to Let Fans Pay Artists Directly | | by Micah Singleton | | SoundCloud is preparing to introduce a new payment system that would allow fans to pay artists directly, multiple sources close to the situation tell Billboard. | | | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Universal Music Group removes music from streaming app Triller over pay dispute | | by Wendy Lee | | Universal Music Group said it removed music by Drake, Pop Smoke and others from the streaming app Triller after the company stopped paying UMG artists. | | | | Variety |
| | The Sober Rebranding of Rock 'N' Roll | | by Steve Baltin | | For a long time, substance abuse was cool -- until it wasn't. | | |  | | Smithsonian Magazine |
| | How Black Composers Shaped the Sound of American Classical Music | | by Jim Beaugez | | A new project seeks to elevate artists like Harry T. Burleigh and Florence Price, whose work has been ignored by white audiences | | | | Billboard |
| | On Being Black: 'Dear White Music Executives' Author Ray Daniels | | by Ray Daniels | | The music industry — and this country — is still someone else's house. And we're reminded of that every day. | |  | | The Seattle Times |
| | 'Such a Seattle thing': How local music stars help uplift the next generations of homegrown talent | | by Michael Rietmulder | | It's an ethos passed from one generation to the next, and part of what continues to make Seattle one of the great American music cities. | |  | | Newcity Music |
| | The Idea of the Blues: It's Time for Chicago to Capitalize on the Heritage that Changed the Course of Music | | by Frank Luby | | Nashville has the neon lights of Broadway and the Ryman Auditorium. Memphis has the commercial glow of Beale Street and Sun Studio. New Orleans has the French Quarter, no embellishment needed. Chicago has... potential? That's frustrating. No city has better music stories to tell than Chicago. | |  | | InfiniteStateMachine |
| | Bandcamp: Gimme All Your Lovin' | | by Kenny Hanlon | | I take a look at Bandcamp's new crowd-sourced record pressing operation, and the implications of it and their business model on independent music. | |  | | Music Tectonics |
| | Music Tectonics: A&R in the Age of Data with Travis Rosenblatt of Meddling | | by Tristra Newyear Yeager and Travis Rosenblatt | | In the age of data, A&R is no longer a Dark Art. Find out how music industry veteran Travis Rosenblatt created Meddling to deliver indispensable data and tools, so the label executives who spot new musical talent aren't operating on gut instinct alone. | |  | | Genius |
| | Cardi B's 'Up' Hook Isn't Stolen, It's A Common Hip-Hop Phrase | | by Chris Mench | | "If it's up then it's stuck" has appeared in dozens of rap songs. | | | | Variety |
| | What's Next for Morgan Wallen? The Country Music Industry Considers His Future… and Its Own | | by Chris Willman | | Country music executives tell Variety what they think it might take for Morgan Wallen to return from his sudden banishment after a racial slur... and how the entire genre stands to be affected by the incident and its shakeout. | | | | NPR |
| | Music Venue Owners And Artists Reflect On How The Pandemic Changed Their Industry | | by Audie Cornish | | NPR's Audie Cornish checks in with music venue owners & artists to gauge how they're managing during the pandemic and what funding from the Save Our Stages Act would do for the live music industry. | | | | The Washington Post |
| | If Bruce Springsteen's Jeep commercial doesn't bum you out, congrats on the purchase of your new Jeep | | by Chris Richards | | Despite the healing sound of his voice, Springsteen is ultimately preaching reconciliation without reckoning — which after January's Capitol siege is no longer an acceptable path toward progress. | |  | | Vulture |
| | S***posting With 'the Guy From Eve 6' | | by Jill Gutowitz | | "I'm literally making fun of people who are more successful by orders of magnitude. With maybe the exception of Trapt, but he has it comin'." | | | | | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | "REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask 'why?'" | | |  | | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator | | |  |
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