Monday, March 7, 2022

jason hirschhorn's @MusicREDEF: 03/07/2022 - Snooping Around, Music Reparations, Jinjer, LGBTQ Country, Prince, Band of Horses...

Being Ukrainian is all about the spirit. We don't go to a doctor if something hurts, for example. We will endure it until the end... We have steel balls.
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Monday March 07, 2022
REDEF
Singer Tatiana Shmayluk of Ukrainian metal band Jinjer at the Fillmore, San Francisco, Oct. 27, 2021.
(Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images)
quote of the day
"Being Ukrainian is all about the spirit. We don't go to a doctor if something hurts, for example. We will endure it until the end... We have steel balls."
- Tatiana Shmayluk, Jinjer singer
rantnrave://
Snooping Around

If I'm a rapper looking to sign with a major label or giant indie, I'm definitely signing with SNOOP DOGG, whose philosophy of working for a label is "You can bring me in to do executive s***, but remember I'm an artist, so I'm going to always pattern it for the artist." Which is how all contracts and negotiations should work. Why is anyone doing anything in this business if not for the artists? It was DEF JAM that brought Snoop in to do executive s*** last year, and Def Jam "didn't want Snoop Dogg the artist," Snoop Dogg the artist tells ELLIOTT WILSON in an entertaining interview for TIDAL's online magazine. "They wanted Snoop Dogg the businessman." Snoop the biz man's signings have included GRISELDA graduate BENNY THE BUTCHER, with whom he apparently shared this amazing advice: "You never know what you're worth until you overcharge."

Then again, if I'm a rapper looking to overcharge a major label or giant indie, I might have second thoughts about Snoop Dogg, whose philosophy of working with artists after he signs them is an aggressive form of laissez-faire. "I'm not in there trying to develop," he tells Wilson. "I'm trying to find muthaf***as that got that s*** that's already locked and loaded that just need me to be, 'Here you go. Come on, put the DEATH ROW logo on that. Let me take you to the metaverse.' Bang!"

If you're that locked and loaded, you can do that stuff yourself, too, can't you? But maybe that's what you're looking for. I guess. Notice Snoop has switched to talking about Death Row, the label he recently scooped up from investment firm BLACKSTONE's MNRK MUSIC GROUP. He's still at Def Jam but only for another year, he says. His Death Row purchase famously came with his own first two albums and two enormous question marks—the early work of DR. DRE and TUPAC, whose rights have reverted to the artists (or, in Tupac's case, to his estate). Snoop made headlines by telling Wilson he's "pretty sure we're going to be able to work something out" with Tupac's estate and "same with DR. DRE and THE CHRONIC... I got all those records."

"I got" is the ambiguous hip-hop phrase of the week. Does he mean he has all the vinyls at home? Does he mean he thinks he now owns all those masters? Or is he saying "I got this" as in "Leave it to me; I know how to get this done"?

Several other sites who picked up the news went with "owns all those masters," which prompted Dr. Dre's lawyer, HOWARD KING, to publicly respond with sorry, no, Dre's masters are, um, still Dre's. Which itself is ambiguous in the way everything any lawyer says is. Is he saying "Um, no," or is he negotiating? If anyone's in a position to overcharge right now, it's Dr. Dre.

And Snoop might not be as disinterested an A&R exec as he claims. His pitch to Dre, if I'm reading correctly, is EDM and Latin remixes and remakes. "When we made these records," he says, "EDM and Latin wasn't much. Now EDM and Latin run the world... I may explore that."

You have been warned. And/or overcharged.

Etc Etc Etc

The ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS, the first major awards show to cut the cord, airs at 8 pm ET tonight exclusively on AMAZON PRIME. DOLLY PARTON hosts, CHRIS YOUNG is the leading nominee and there will be no commercials... HIPGNOSIS has bought LEONARD COHEN's songwriting catalog—his writer's share of all his songs through the year 2000, for which SONY MUSIC will continue to control the publishing, and both the writer's and publisher's shares of everything Cohen wrote afterward, during his "Old Ideas" era.... Songwriter ROSS GOLAN has started a CHANGE.ORG petition asking performance rights organizations to sever ties with their Russian counterparts... Publicist CARY BAKER is retiring after a celebrated 42-year career repping "Americana, blues, power pop, classic rock, a little bit of indie-rock, up to a point—if it got too millennial, I had other excellent publicists I would refer to — and a little bit of jazz." He's shuttering his firm, CONQUEROO, which he opened in 2004 after working for six labels... QUESTLOVE's SUMMER OF SOUL was named Best Documentary at the INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS.

Rest in Peace

Nashville singer/songwriter WARNER MACK, whose string of top 10 country hits in the 1960s included "The Bridge Washed Out" and "Talkin' to the Wall"... TV producer JIM OWENS, who oversaw much of TNN's country music programming in the 1980s and '90s.

- Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator
doggystyle
Tidal
Snoop Dogg: Boss Moves
By Elliott Wilson
Death Row Records' new CEO reveals his plans to resurrect the legendary label, and reflects on his important role in Dr. Dre's historic Super Bowl halftime show.
Rolling Stone
'Compensation, Healing, and Closure': One Man's Quest for Reparations in the Music Business
By Jonathan Bernstein
Scholar Kevin Greene's ideas on how to fix the structural racism in America's copyright system used to be seen as too radical. Today, he's at the center of growing calls for action.
The Daily Beast
The Hip-Hop Blogosphere Has a Serious False News Problem
By Ernest Owens
By brazenly promoting misinformation, big-time bloggers claiming to be for the culture are doing a disservice to the Black community.
Slate
Did the Best Music Streaming Platform Just Sell Out?
By Nitish Pahwa
A huge video game company and an indie music haven are strange bedfellows.
Kerrang!
RETRO READ: Outlanders: How Jinjer survived a revolution and built their own world
By Nick Ruskell
Jinjer's resilient spirit was forged in the war that erupted their native Ukraine in 2014. As the groove metal quartet prepare to unleash their fourth and most complex album to date, singer Tatiana Shmayluk relives the turmoil that shaped them. Cue: one of modern music's most remarkable tales of survival, resistance and sheer determination.
Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed: A Putin supporter's Carnegie Hall appearance was canceled. Should art be separated from politics?
By Jonathan Rosenberg
Carnegie Hall announced that Russian conductor and Putin supporter Valery Gergiev will no longer be appearing. Should music and politics occupy separate spheres?
CNN
Meet the queer vanguard of country music
By Scottie Andrew
LGBTQ country stars like Orville Peck, Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country and Allison Russell are challenging country music stereotypes -- and broadening the genre. They open up about what it means to tell authentic stories.
The New York Observer
Musicians Organize Around DMCA Law, Time's Up for Spotify
By Annie Levin
Indie musicians take on big tech in campaign to stop mass online copyright infringement.
The Ringer
The Oral History of Prince's 'Batman' Soundtrack
By Alan Siegel
Batman is an eccentric hero with a cape, so when it came time to pick an artist to make the soundtrack for Tim Burton's 1989 film, the choice was obvious.
The New Yorker
Glaive Is Acing Hyperpop, Failing Math Class
By André Wheeler
The seventeen-year-old pop singer, who began making music as a COVID diversion, chats in his bedroom about his inspiration (girls), his current grade in math (54), and life as a sudden star.
doggfather
Billboard
The Majors' $25B in Revenue in 2021 Is Just the Start
By Glenn Peoples
Universal, Sony and Warner can can expect double-digit growth in 2022 with investments bolstering top and bottom lines this year and beyond.
KQED
How 415 Records Made San Francisco a Punk and New Wave Powerhouse
By Robert Ham
An interview with Bill Kopp, whose new book 'Disturbing the Peace' looks back at the label's lasting legacy and Bay Area music history.
Los Angeles Times
How a concert promoter turned her love for lowriders into L.A.'s most original new venue
By Jennifer Swann
After Angela Romero's brother passed away, she channeled her grief into a bar and music venue that embraces the lowrider scene while challenging its stereotypes.
Variety
Band of Horses Gets Back to the Garage on First Album in Six Years
By Jonathan Cohen
Frontman Ben Bridwell reveals how personal trauma informed 'Things Are Great.'
The Washington Post
For Michael Tilson Thomas, the grandeur of music answers a grim diagnosis
By Michael Andor Brodeur
To speak to MTT about music is not so far removed from speaking frankly of life and death. His music — whether conducting or composing — has everything to do with the push-and-pull of opposing forces and the musical space in between them: sound and silence, harmony and dissonance, instinct and intelligence.
The Guardian
'The canon is so heavy with the male genius': Neneh Cherry and Robyn on changing the face of pop
By Laura Snapes
As they reboot the classic Buffalo Stance, the friends talk sisterhood, being Swedish and fighting the system.
Trapital
Frank Cooper III Brokered Beyonce-Pepsi's $50 Million Deal. Here's Where He Sees Industry Going Next
By Dan Runcie and Frank Cooper III
Frank's unique pedigree that spans music, entertainment, and finance makes his views on business all the more fascinating. And believe me, Frank has a lot of thoughts about today's ever-changing music landscape — whether it's in the inflow of capital or the ripples that Web 3.0 will create.
Resident Advisor
From One Ukrainian to the Global Underground: Help "Stop This Apocalypse"
By Mariana Berezovska
Writer, editor and co-founder of Borshch Magazine Mariana Berezovska issues a rallying cry to implicate the electronic music community in the fight for Ukrainian freedom.
Variety
Veteran Music Publicist Cary Baker to Retire After 42 Years
By Chris Willman
The L.A.-based Baker is hanging up his shingle and shutting down Conqueroo, the independent music PR firm he founded in 2004, and officially retiring.
Bookforum
Anti-American Graffiti: The Revolutionary Music of J Dilla
By Harmony Holiday
Arthur Jafa relays a haunting interpretation of the griot as someone who cannibalizes the flesh of those whose stories he tells, as a matter of pragmatism, in order to keep those stories alive for the telling in himself. At the end of his life, the griot's unsolicited efforts at preservation of both self and other are met with the same gesture: he is denied a traditional burial.
what we're into
Music of the day
"Ultrabeat"
Space of Variations (feat. Alyona Alyona)
Metalcore from Vinnytsia, Ukraine. At least eight Russian missiles hit the city Sunday and its airport was destroyed.
Video of the day
"Live in Melbourne, March 5, 2020."
Jinjer
Originally from Donetsk, a part of Ukraine controlled by pro-Russia separatists. The metal band fled several years ago to Lviv and was in Kyiv when Russia invaded the country two weeks ago. Singer/screamer Tatiana Shmayluk is a force of nature.
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