| As we edited these images, an unusual thing started to emerge: The grammar of film, where images drove the narrative, shifted over to where the song drove the narrative, and it didn't make any difference that the images were discontinuous. It was hyper-real. Even people who didn't understand film, including me, could see this was a profound conceptual shift. | | | | |  | Ranchera king Vicente Fernández, 1940 – 2021, at Madison Square Garden, New York, Oct. 21, 2001.
(Jack Vartoogian/Archive Photos/Getty Images) | | | | | "As we edited these images, an unusual thing started to emerge: The grammar of film, where images drove the narrative, shifted over to where the song drove the narrative, and it didn't make any difference that the images were discontinuous. It was hyper-real. Even people who didn't understand film, including me, could see this was a profound conceptual shift." | | | | Men With Hats
Ranchero legend VICENTE FERNÁNDEZ and cerebral Monkee MICHAEL NESMITH, stars of two rather different pop music universes who we lost over the past three days, had a few things in common. They traversed easily between the music and film & TV worlds (as both actors and producers). They knew their way around Texas. They spent a good chunk of their careers not being covered by the English-language music press. They knew how to wear a hat (for Fernández, an elaborately embroidered sombrero; for Nesmith, a simple green wool cap). And you might say they were both avatars of their national cultures, albeit in markedly different ways. Nesmith, a gifted country-rock singer/songwriter who lived and worked for the rest of his life under the shadow of the two years he spent on primetime television in the 1960s, was a pioneer in the art of playing a version of yourself on TV, blending biological fact and scripted fiction in a way that rendered the distinction ultimately meaningless. He was, in the end, exactly who he decided to tell you he was, nothing more, nothing less, with a couple notable reinventions along the way. Fernández, whose stardom was magnitudes greater, was an extraordinarily versatile crooner who won the hearts of Mexicans on both sides of the Mexico/US border by singing what he presented as an authentic version of a salt-of-the-earth Mexican life. "There are other singers of ranchera music who sing very beautifully but you can tell from the way they sing that they never lived on a ranch," the singer, affectionally known as Chente, told the LA Times in 1999. "They never knew what it was to milk a cow, to birth a calf, to shoe a horse. I've lived all that." Whether his lushly detailed songs, performed by upbeat, brassy mariachi bands, described actual ordinary Mexican life or, to quote that same LA Times story, "Mexico at its most romanticized," was beside the point. For the better part of a half a century, a country heard itself in his stories.
RIP to the King of Mexican Song and quite possibly the last of the great Mexican ranchera singers, and to the resident genius of the Monkees, who may have helped invent music television (again) a decade later.
Etc Etc Etc
TRAVIS SCOTT has reportedly been dropped from COACHELLA 2022, where he had been booked as one of three headliners... KANYE WEST and SINEAD O'CONNOR documentaries will premiere next month at SUNDANCE, as will the film version of LIZZY GOODMAN's post-millennium New York rock oral history MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM and a doc about the Lebanese female metal band SLAVE TO SIRENS... The SECRETLY GROUP has outlined a plan to become carbon neutral and "climate positive" by 2026... The 14-year-old who made an album with the FLAMING LIPS... The thrill of a good KATE BUSH meme... Congrats to the TENNESSEAN for a killer addition to its country music reporting staff: MARCUS K. DOWLING, who's filled in for me at MusicREDEF on occasion over the past few years while running around the country covering hip-hop, dance music, country and other styles for a dizzying number of sites in ways that emphasize the connections, rather than the differences, between the various branches of American music.
Rest in Peace Also
EDM producer CHARLESTHEFIRST... Angelic Upstarts singer THOMAS "MENSI" MENSFORTH—the second member of the band to die of Covid in 2021, following one-time bassist TONY "FEEDBACK" MORRISON.
| | | | pretty much your standard ranch stash |
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|  | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Vicente Fernández, a Mexican musical icon for generations, dies at 81 | | by Jesse Katz | | The last of Mexico's crooning matinee idols, the self-taught troubadour recorded more than 50 albums, all in Spanish, and sold tens of millions of copies. | | | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Appreciation: More than a Monkee, but a Monkee to the end | | by Robert Lloyd | | The Monkees' Michael Nesmith, who died on Friday, could mug with the best comic actors, but his musical intelligence and adventurousness set him apart. | |  | | Culture Notes of an Honest Broker |
| | The Many Missed Opportunities of Bola Sete | | by Ted Gioia | | The almost famous Brazilian guitarist's best work has finally been released-more than three decades after his death. But is the timing wrong, once again, for this underrated artist? | |  | | The Guardian |
| | Bands and DJs count the costs as UK fans fail to show up for gigs | | by Tess Reidy | | Artists are having to bump up the guest list to fill venues as growing numbers of ticket-holders drop out. | |  | | Newcity Music |
| | Beyond Livestreaming: Musicians Chart a More Complex Future | | by Seth Boustead | | Musicians and producers say they're planning on a hybrid model of in-person and virtual in 2022. But no one is sure how they'll pay for it or how they'll handle the added burden of developing an online audience in addition to filling empty seats in the venue, or even how many empty seats to try to fill. | |  | | Pitchfork |
| | The 100 Best Rxk Nephew Songs of 2021 | | by Alphonse Pierre | | No rapper was more chaotic this year. Let us count the ways. | |  | | The Washington Post |
| | Playboi Carti made the album of the year. Playboi Carti made the album of the year. Playboi Carti made the | | by Chris Richards | | The easiest thing to grasp about Carti's rapping is that it's relentlessly repetitive. The hardest thing to grasp is why that repetition feels so good. | |  | | Variety |
| | Rock's Backpages Celebrates 20 Years of Archiving a Museum of Essential Music Journalism | | by Chris Willman | | What do rock 'n' roll and rock journalism have in common? Out of many things, probably, one is that they were both once assumed to be ephemeral. | |  | | Vulture |
| | Who Really Benefits From This Elaborate Ye-Drake Reunion? | | by Craig Jenkins | | It's refreshing to have rap beef resolve without bloodshed or litigation, but hard to know where this truce goes from here. | |  | | Dallas Morning News |
| | Vicente Fernández made us feel closer to México with every song | | by Lorena Flores | | His songs will be cherished forever. Not only because of his great lyrics or mariachi music but because of how he made us feel for decades. | | | and the hits just keep on comin' |
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|  | | Complex |
| | Elephants in My Room: An Essay by Mick Jenkins | | by Mick Jenkins | | Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins' new album 'Elephant in the Room' finds him confronting issues in his personal and professional life and ultimately learning to grow and let go of negativity. We asked Mick if he'd like to talk more about that process and he dug deep in this moving personal essay about family, friends, the rap game, and much more. | |  | | JazzTimes |
| | Chops: Musicians as A&R Professionals | | by Michael J. West | | The best A&R professionals for jazz record labels are often other jazz musicians. | |  | | Trench |
| | Masked Heroes: Decoding UK Drill's Marvel Obsession | | by Sam Davies | | Both Drill and Marvel have irked grown-ups, with Marvel targeted by cinema snobs and drill suffering more establishment opposition than any music in history. But who says they're for kids? | | | | Variety |
| | Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg on the Long and Winding Road From 'Let It Be' to 'Get Back' | | by Roy Trakin | | " Let It Be" director Michael Lindsay-Hogg couldn't be happier with Peter Jackson 's "Get Back," the three-part, nearly eight-hour miniseries made up of outtakes from his original Beatles documentary, which arrived on Disney Plus two weeks ago to much fanfare. | | | | Los Angeles Times |
| | Vicente Fernández's journey was our parents' journey. Long may they live | | by Gustavo Arellano | | Mexican music icon Vicente Fernández was more than just a singer to his fans in the U.S. He was them. | |  | | The Forty-Five |
| | God, It's Brutal Out Here: Is being imperfect pop's new currency? | | by Jenessa Williams | | We look back at a year of vulnerable, honest and highly relatable songwriting. | |  | | MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| | The Revenge of the Internet Archive: Google and the Metashills Lead the Long March Through State Houses to Weaken Copyright for the Metaverse | | by Chris Castle | | Google has led a long march through the institutions to weaken copyright by propping up proxy warriors who mean to take us in a rush. That effort has now come to a head in Maryland with a bizarre statute that got through the Maryland legislature Tommy Carcetti-style--a state law compulsory license for ebooks. | | | | The Guardian |
| | Rockin' around the Christmas streams: why festive music is bigger than ever | | by Michael Hann | | As they chase a wildly lucrative market with their new Christmas albums, Gary Barlow, Jamie Cullum, Leona Lewis and more explain the financial - and emotional - pull of a seasonal hit. | |  | | Cocaine & Rhinestones |
| | Billy Sherrill's Nashville Sound | | by Tyler Mahan Coe | | CR027/PH13: Anyone who hears the name Billy Sherrill and thinks anything less than "he's one of the most important producers in the history of Nashville, who made some of the greatest and most influential records of all time in any genre" has not been given enough information about the man or the music. That changes today. | |  | | GQ |
| | Mach-Hommy: The Man Behind the Mask | | by Paul Thompson | | He's your favorite rapper's favorite rapper, and released two stellar albums this year. Now, he's giving a rare peek into his interior life. | |  | | Trapital |
| | Charlie Kaplan on Audiomack Supporters, Artist-Fan Monetization, and Streaming Business Models | | by Dan Runcie and Charlie Kaplan | | Charlie Kaplan is the VP of Product at Audiomack, a music streaming and discovery platform that reaches 20 million monthly active users. In today's episode, he weighs in on Audiomack's achievements and financial model. He then introduces the platform's new monetization tool "Supporters" and explains why it matters. | | | | | 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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