| What I hear [in my own songs] is impossible to expect anyone else to hear. It's not just the cello part and the guitar part and the drum beat. It's also all the things that I lived through in order for that music to exist. | | | | |  | Xenia Rubinos at Pickathon, Happy Valley, Ore., Aug. 5, 2017.
(Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | "What I hear [in my own songs] is impossible to expect anyone else to hear. It's not just the cello part and the guitar part and the drum beat. It's also all the things that I lived through in order for that music to exist." | | | | Easy like Thursday Afternoon/Evening
It's Thursday, and that means "EASY ON ME," the lead single from ADELE's upcoming fourth album, "30," arrives to save the music industry at 4 pm PT, 7 pm ET and midnight in the UK. Except that for the first time since ADELE albums began ruling the retail roost a decade ago, the industry doesn't need saving.
When the biggest selling album of the 2010s, Adele's "21," was released in 2011, the global recorded music business had bottomed out after a decade-long collapse. When the second-biggest, Adele's "25," arrived four years later, global revenues were still near the bottom but had leveled off, and the first signs of a possible recovery where in the air. Hello. And though "25" was every bit the blockbuster everyone hoped it would be, it's worth noting that it was a somewhat strange and old-fashioned participant in that recovery, propping up a dying CD industry while sitting out, for the better part of its first year, the streaming world that would turn out to be the industry's actual savior. Or, perhaps, it was way ahead of its time, refusing to play along with a streaming economy that was paying out less-than-penny royalties and sending a signal to other artists that maybe, just maybe, they should ask for more.
In either case, the pennies have been falling from heaven ever since, so to speak, and Adele's new music will be welcomed by the healthiest industry, in terms of raw profits and losses, that any 21st century artist has known. It could certainly use another Adele-ish blockbuster—what industry couldn't?—but the desperation is no longer there. Which is good, because albums don't go 14x platinum anymore and because nothing is guaranteed when an artist returns after taking six years off from making records. There are YOUNG THUG and OLIVIA RODRIGO fans who barely know who she is. Adele herself is all too happy to temper any outsized expectations. "There isn't a bombastic 'Hello,'" she told Vogue last week. "I don't want another song like that. That song catapulted me in fame to another level that I don't want to happen again."
NEIL SHAH in the Wall Street Journal (paywall) and AL SHIPLEY in Billboard offer some perspective on what else has changed in the years Adele has been away, from the length of album promo campaigns to the rise of TIKTOK. Obvious spoiler #1: A lot has changed. Obvious spoiler #2: She's still Adele. And while there may not be another loud "Hello," there's talk of a Las Vegas residency, which would be a huge boost to the live music industry, which could, in fact, use the help.
Cash for Bars
Add CASH APP to the growing list of companies looking to provide an alternative to the traditional record company model. The mobile payment company, which has deep connections to the hip-hop world and shares a parent company with TIDAL, on Tuesday launched Cash App Studios, which is funding projects by a small list of up-and-coming artists including pop songwriter VICTORIA MONÉT, rapper TYRESE POPE and one-time THE VOICE contestant JACQUIE LEE. (It's working with filmmakers and designers, too.) The artists will own their work and Cash App isn't asking to be paid back, "which makes the partnerships seem more like grants than advances," writes Rolling Stone's ETHAN MILLMAN. This is a good thread from Trapital's DAN RUNCIE, who sees the initiative largely as a marketing play—an extension of Cash App's hip-hop influencer strategy—while taking note of the Tidal/JAY-Z connection.
| | | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | A year of country music controversies has left some fans disappointed — and wondering whether they should keep listening | | by Emily Yahr | | "I'm definitely looking at country singers a little bit more under the magnifying glass right now," one longtime country fan said. "I don't want to be supporting those who are doing more damage to people than good." | |  | | VICE |
| | The Wife of the Pulse Nightclub Gunman Is Ready to Speak | | by Rhana Natour | | In 2018, Noor Salman was prosecuted and then acquitted for helping her husband plan his attack. But the verdict was far from vindicating. | |  | | Billboard |
| | Five Ways the Music Industry Has Changed Since Adele Last Released an Album | | by Al Shipley | | Her continued streak of hits is close to a foregone conclusion, but here are five ways that the music industry has changed since we last heard from Adele. | |  | | Pollstar |
| | CAA To Acquire ICM Partners: What Major Agency Consolidation Means For Live | | by Deborah Speer | | When news of the impending acquisition of ICM Partners by Creative Artists Agency – two of the talent agency "Big Four" – broke, veteran agent Wayne Forte of Entourage Talent Associates' response was, "What took them so long?" | |  | | The Ringer |
| | The Eternal Cool of Talk Singing | | by Zach Schonfeld | | No, it's not rap. It's a vocal style that some of the most heralded rock bands of the year have adopted. (And yes, the Germans have a word for it.) But why is it having a moment? | |  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Reggaeton dances to a new beat, as lilt of dembow gives way to thump of EDM | | by Suzy Exposito | | J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Farruko and Rauw Alejandro are among the Latin stars who've scored global hits by adding EDM flourishes to their reggaeton-based sound. | |  | | Guitar World |
| | Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram: 'There's a lot wrong with the blues genre right now -- a lot of people don't think about the history and the significance of the actual culture' | | by Jim Beaugez | | The man they call "Kingfish" discusses the Delta blues tradition and the future of the artform - and how he worked through tragedy for his sophomore album, "662." | |  | | interdependence.fm |
| | Bringing the music industry on-chain with Bruno Guez (Revelator) | | by Holly Herndon, Mat Dryhurst and Bruno Guez | | We often have discussions on here about web 3 representing a real opportunity for the independent music industry, and Bruno Guez is an expert on how that might end up transpiring, from his time working as a label head, directing the Merlin Network and more recently in building Revelator. | |  | | TED Talks |
| | What you discover when you really listen | | by Hrishikesh Hirway | | "Every conversation has the potential to open up and reveal all the layers and layers within it, all those rooms within rooms," says podcaster and musician Hrishikesh Hirway. In this profoundly moving talk, he offers a guide to deep conversations and explores what you learn when you stop to listen closely. | |  | | The Guardian |
| | K-boom! How the unstoppable stars of K-pop went gunning for the art world | | by Stuart Jeffries | | First came K-cinema, then K-pop and K-TV. Now South Korea's young stars are conquering the world with K-art. But what do their dark visions say about their nation's psyche - and ours? | | |  | | Variety |
| | Why Was Kacey Musgraves' Album Disqualified From Grammy Country Nominations? Insiders Weigh In | | by Jem Aswad and Chris Willman | | "I can argue both sides, because they're both very legitimate," says an insider. | | | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Why the Grammys care if Kacey Musgraves is country (and why you're too smart to) | | by Mikael Wood | | When the Grammys declared Kacey Musgraves' 'Star-Crossed' not country enough for best country album, they started a firestorm about genre and authenticity. | |  | | The New York Times |
| | A Female Conductor Joins the Ranks of Top U.S. Orchestras | | by Javier C. Hernández | | Nathalie Stutzmann will be the only woman leading a major American ensemble when she takes the Atlanta Symphony's podium next year. | |  | | NPR |
| | A new museum in Nashville centers the artistry of Black musicians | | by Ambriehl Crutchfield | | Nashville has long been associated with country music. But a museum devoted to African-American music, which opened earlier this year, sets the record straight about the city's diversity. | |  | | The Irish Times |
| | Tears for Fears: 'It was five years of hell. I needed some respite from the illness, the dysfunction' | | by Laura Barton | | Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith on re-forming after the death of Orzabal's wife. | | | | Variety |
| | Fast Forward: A Vision of Inclusion in Music for 2025 (Guest Column) | | by Maria Egan | | Imagine it's 2025. The global music business has been radically transformed and disintermediated. | |  | | Africa is a Country |
| | Some kind of personal comfort | | by Liam Brickhill | | Kyle Shepherd's new music blooms brightly from out of the shadow of pandemic and considers what it means to be South African, African, and human. | |  | | WNYC |
| | Blanchard's 'Fire Shut Up in My Bones': A Boy of Peculiar Grace | | by Rhiannon Giddens, Terence Blanchard, Will Liverman... | | Sometimes the journey to self-acceptance begins when you find the strength to face your past and leave it the road. | | | | The New York Times |
| | The Music Lost to Coronavirus, Part 3 | | by Jon Caramanica, Doreen St. Félix, Gil Kaufman... | | Remembering Jacob Desvarieux, John Davis and Chucky Thompson. | | | | From "Una Rosa," out Friday on Anti-. | "We're talking about 14 songs we hope to get." "How many have we already recorded, good enough?" "None." | | | 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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