| Getting into the spaces that are too weird, too confusing and too dangerous for parents to be in—that's where Rolling Stone's got to be. | | | | |  | Pop Smoke at the Olympia London, Nov. 29, 2019.
(Joseph Okpako/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | "Getting into the spaces that are too weird, too confusing and too dangerous for parents to be in—that's where Rolling Stone's got to be." | | | | Preservation Act 2
If the operation behind the newsletter you're currently reading—this is 100 million percent hypothetical, not based on any actual goings-on—ever goes belly up, there's no guarantee this sentence, or any other sentence I've written in the past seven years, would survive the fallout. Such is the fragile nature of online content. Pull the plug on a server or a website, and where does the content go? Sometimes nowhere. Sometimes, poof.
This is a good business idea from TED GIOIA: a blockchain-based digital vault for online music, to guard against "accidental deletion" and "deliberate cancellation." Imagine SOUNDCLOUD or BANDCAMP suddenly disappearing. It seems ludicrously unlikely, but bigger companies have failed. Or been sold and put out to pasture. Or imagine one of them one day having to cull its least-visited, least-played artist pages. Where would *that* content go? Who has backups of everything uploaded to SoundCloud in 2013? Gioia, inspired by a Norwegian company's plan to build a future-proof "doomsday vault" for the world's most important music recordings, which itself is meant as an extra layer of protection beyond record companies' own long-range music preservation efforts, wants to apply a similar level of protection to online music files. Not necessarily a forever guarantee, but a better guarantee than anyone is currently offering.
Shortly after I saw Gioia's proposal, someone sent me this account of a cool project to preserve music that might never have been recorded at all. The SONG COLLECTORS COLLECTIVE, based in Ireland, seeks out elder members of itinerant traveler communities in Ireland, Scotland and England and records them singing songs that exist only as oral tradition. It seems strange that, in 2021, there are still vast bodies of work that live nowhere but in the memories of the people who sing and hear them. They can't be Googled. They can't be played on demand. There's a certain magic in the way folklore can last for generation after generation while also disappearing a little bit every time it's repeated and passed along. And there's a certain beauty in the persistence of modern-day ALAN LOMAXes who want to capture it while they can and make sure it doesn't completely go poof. Because when we lose any music at all—when any culture disappears—we lose a part of who we are.
Etc Etc Etc
PAUL MCCARTNEY spends three hours in a studio chatting about his songs with RICK RUBIN in MCCARTNEY 3, 2, 1, a six-part series that drops today on Hulu. "I've grown to be a fan of the BEATLES," the former tells the latter. "Because then, I was just a Beatle. But now that the Beatles' volume of work is finished, I listen back to it, and you know, 'What's *that* bassline?'" And, then, down the long and winding road they go. Shoutout JEFF POLLACK... Arriving in theaters today is NO ORDINARY MAN, a documentary about BILLY TIPTON, the jazz pianist, saxophone player and bandleader who kept his identity as a transgender man secret until his death in 1989... The RECORDING ACADEMY has banned the use of chart, streaming and sales figures from all GRAMMY "For Your Consideration" advertising... The screen door slams. What, then, does MARY's dress do?... Congrats to NOAH SHACHTMAN, who's leaving the DAILY BEAST to become the next editor in chief of ROLLING STONE.
It's Friday
And that means new music from the late POP SMOKE, whose second posthumous album, FAITH, features collaborations with Future, 42 Dugg, 21 Savage, Kanye West, Dua Lipa and a shelf full of more A-list guests. Pop Smoke never got the chance to release an album while he was alive. His posthumous debut, SHOOT FOR THE STARS, AIM FOR THE MOON, came out last July and is 2021's biggest-selling hip-hop album... Bedroom pop singer/songwriter CLAIRO offers "introspection, angst, and echoes of '70s pop" on her second album, SLING, which she produced with Jack Antonoff... JOHN MAYER told Zane Lowe earlier this week that he was s***posting when he dreamed up his new album, the retro-but-you-can't-quite-place-what-it's-retro'ing SOB ROCK. But one suspects the actual s***post was Mayer saying it's a s***post. The album, says the LA Times, "is his testament to how hard it is getting easy right"... Santigold, Shaggy and the Clash's Mick Jones are among the guests on SOLID GOLD U-ROY, the final album by reggae and dancehall pioneer U-ROY, who died in February... WILLOW (uncredited last name: Smith) takes a pop-punk turn with assists fromTravis Barker and Avril Lavigne on LATELY I FEEL EVERYTHING... NATHANIEL RATELIFF's RED ROCKS 2020 is a live album recorded during this run of shows in front of tiny crowds at the iconic Colorado venue in the middle of the pandemic... KIRTAN: TURIYA SINGS is a remixed reissue of a nearly impossible to find 1982 ALICE COLTRANE album, and UNDERSTANDING is a revelatory, and previously unreleased, live session from the late jazz drummer ROY BROOKS...
Plus, new music from TONES AND I, BIZZY BANKS, KSI, WAVVES, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, DAVE MCMURRAY (jazz saxophonist explores the Grateful Dead), MEHMET ALI SANLIKOL, RODRIGO AMARANTE, WILLIAM TYLER & LUKE SCHNEIDER (released earlier this week), ADE & CONNAN MOCKASIN & ADE (New Zealand singer/songwriter and his father), STEPHEN FRETWELL, MIDLAND, MARGO PRICE, JOHN R. MILLER, IDA MAE, COCHEMEA, CHET FAKER, A PLACE TO BURY STRANGERS, TIMES OF GRACE, DRAKEO THE RULER, ATMOSPHERE, OJ DA JUICEMAN, CAKES DA KILLA, REMBLE, BOOSIE BADAZZ, CHLOE FLOWER, NICOLA BENEDETTI, MICHAEL MANTLER, GARY KEMP, BARENAKED LADIES, UMPHREY'S MCGEE, LAWRENCE ROTHMAN, JODI, JAWNY, KDAP (aka Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene), NENE H, MIDWIFE, RUNNER, LUGGAGE, MARC RIBLER, PIZZAGIRL, SMILE MACHINE, ACID DAD and the ZOLAS.
And Tomorrow Is Saturday
Which is 2021 RECORD. STORE. DAY. Part. Two.
Rest in Peace
Jazz bassist JUINI BOOTH, known for his work with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Art Blakey, Albert Ayler and many others... Nigerian singer/rapper/songwriter SOUND SULTAN.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | | the search for everything |
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|  | | NPR Music |
| | Re-Revising 'The History Of Jazz' | | by Natalie Weiner | | Ted Gioia first published his "History of Jazz" in 1997, updating it for the first time in 2011. This year he did so again, after a very important decade for the genre. He spoke with NPR about what he's learned in the 24 years since he first published his exhaustive history, what's surprised him about the music's development, and what he thinks will never change. | |  | | GQ |
| | High School Reunion With Machine Gun Kelly and Wesley Lowery | | by Wesley Lowery | | The singer's first-ever review was written by his Cleveland high school classmate. Nearly 15 years later, they talk about how Kelly willed himself into stardom—and the Megan Fox GQ poster that adorned his teenage bedroom. | |  | | Music Business Worldwide |
| | Are we witnessing the death of the streaming megahit? | | by Tim Ingham | | MBW analysis of MRC Data figures shows a dramatic reduction in streaming market share for Top 10 hits. | |  | | Billboard |
| | New Concertgoers Fueling Live Music Comeback, Data Shows | | by Dave Brooks | | Demand for concerts is rising -- including among fans who haven't attended one in a while. Here's what the data says about touring's post-pandemic comeback. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | Laura Mvula Set Her Sound Free. It Ended Up in the '80s | | by Jon Pareles | | After five years between albums, the award-winning English songwriter changed everything, trading orchestras for synthesizers and cranking up the beat. | |  | | Complex |
| | IDK's Vulnerability Is a Superpower | | by Andre Gee | | Maryland rapper IDK talks about the making of his new album 'USEE4YOURSELF,' his music business course at Harvard, and more. | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | 'The screen door slams, Mary's dress...' waves? Sways? An investigation into The Boss' mystery verb | | by Rob Tannenbaum | | Twitter can't agree on whether Bruce Springsteen sings 'waves' or 'sways' on his 1975 classic, 'Thunder Road.' Turns out, Springsteen isn't sure either. | |  | | West Virginia Public Broadcasting |
| | 'If They Can't Dance, We're Not Going To Play' | | by Trey Kay, Kyle Vass and Brad Stratton | | For this episode, of "Us & Them," host Trey Kay learns about an act of defiance against racial discrimination 50 years ago in a Charleston nightclub and the consequences for four musicians. | |  | | Refinery29 |
| | Two Generations, Two Exile Anthems: Music's Role in the Protests in Cuba | | by Elisa Baena | | The song Patria y Vida that's become a rallying cry for protests in Cuba reminds me of another exile anthem, Por Si Acaso No Regreso. Both about Cuban grief, these songs could not be more different. | |  | | Black Music and Black Muses |
| | Love Letter to a Suicide Note | | by Harmony Holiday | | On Kanye West's "I thought About Killing You" and the last song my parents wrote together. | | | | | The New York Times |
| | Push to 'Free Britney' Gains Steam on Capitol Hill | | by Aishvarya Kavi | | As lawmakers share social media posts and messages of solidarity, activists hope the increased attention on Britney Spears's conservatorship case will prompt legislative change. | |  | | Song Exploder |
| | Song Exploder: Foushe̩ Р'Deep End' | | by Hrishikesh Hirway and Foushe̩ | | The story of how the song "Deep End" came into existence and became a hit is kind of wild. One person who really didn't see it coming is the person who created it, Foushe̩. | |  | | Open Culture |
| | Pretty Much Pop: Do We Outgrow the Music of Our Youth? | | by Mark Linsenmayer | | What long-term effects do songs that we're exposed to early have on our adult tastes? As children we (hopefully) learn to love music, but then our critical faculties and peer pressure kick in, and many early influences become unacknowledged or transformed into guilty pleasures. | |  | | Mixmag |
| | 'I will be the first one there': Teenagers await the return of nightclubs | | by Paddy Edrich | | What's it like turning 18 when you can't go out partying? Paddy Edrich speaks to young adults who have had their coming-of-age year for clubbing locked off by the pandemic. | |  | | Pollstar |
| | Dreamstage Seizes The Opportunity To 'Move The Needle In The Live Business' | | by Sarah Pittman | | When acclaimed cellist and Dresden Music Festival director Jan Vogler found himself out of work at the start of the pandemic, he turned to his close friend Thomas Hesse, who's been a leader in the music business and venture capital for more than 20 years. | | | | Billboard |
| | Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Jr. Enter New Career Dimension with 'Blackbird,' 'Summer of Soul' & Second Hollywood Star | | by Gail Mitchell | | Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. return to spotlight with 'Blackbird' project, 'Summer of Soul' appearance and new Hollywood Star. | |  | | gal-dem |
| | 'We Are Lady Parts' reminds us to celebrate real Muslim punk stories too | | by Nasia Sarwar-Skuse | | Following the success of a TV show about a Muslim punk band, Nasia Sarwar-Skuse explores the real histories, talking to artists and writers cultivating a scene against the odds. | |  | | Austin 360 |
| | Longtime Austin Musician Billy Wilson, in hospice, says goodbye with a song | | by Peter Blackstock | | Latin at Heart bandleader Billy Wilson, in hospice with prostate cancer, is issuing a final single that was recorded at Arlyn Studios in early 2021. | | | |  | | | Music of the day | | "Charanam" | | Alice Coltrane | | From "Kirtan: Turiya Sings," out today on Impulse! |  | | YouTube |
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From "Kirtan: Turiya Sings," out today on Impulse! | | | | | 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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