| Please... don't play shows [in Russia]... Maybe if they don't care that people are dying in Ukraine, they will care that they can't go watch f***ing Nick Cave. |
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 | | Ukraine rocks: The crowd at the Atlas Weekend festival in Kyiv, June 29, 2017. | | (Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
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| rantnrave:// |
Run the World (Or at Least Trying To)
On Tuesday, International Women's Day, we got a couple in-depth updates on how women are faring in the music business, and guess what?
In overwhelming numbers in every corner of the US industry, women say they're discriminated against and/or treated differently because of their gender. Artists and other creators in particular are likely to say gender bias directly affects their jobs. And in a finding that RECORDING ACADEMY co-president VALEISHA BUTTERFIELD JONES said was "hard to read but important to see," fewer than two of 10 women working in music in have children under age 18, and the culture of their jobs appears to be to blame. The percentage is even lower for women making less than $40,000 a year, which is more than a third of all women and almost half of those who identify as artists or creators. If you're at a show and there's a woman onstage, she's statistically unlikely to have a child and her profession is one of the reasons why.
Those are some of the depressing, if not especially surprising, findings in "Women in the Mix," a major study by the Recording Academy, Arizona State University and Berklee's Institute for Creative Enterpreneurship of "the socio-economic landscape of women and gender-expansive people working in the music industry across the United States."
"We don't have the support systems in place so they can make those choices [to have children]," one of the study's authors, Arizona State director of popular music ERIN BARRA, told Billboard. "Everyone should have the right to choose to have a family. We want people working in the music industry to be able to make those choices."
In another report that zoomed in specifically on electronic music festivals around the world, an advocacy group called FEMALE:PRESSURE crunched the numbers and found that female acts represented 27% of the artists booked at fests in 2020-21, which is a nice jump from just 9% in 2012, but still underwhelming. Representation of non-binary artists increased by a similar percentage, from 0.4% to 1.3%, over a shorter period, 2017 to 2021. Women and non-binary artists do worse at large fests than at small fests.
None of the numbers from either study is especially surprising, and the issues for the most part are by no means exclusive to the music business. But it isn't unfair to expect better of an industry that prides itself on liberal values and regularly trumpets its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Music should be leading on these issues.
Both studies come with recommendations and calls to action, many of which you've heard before and all of which are worth hearing and re-hearing as long as the problem they're trying to address persists. Create more opportunities for women, from internships through corner offices. Make and enforce diversity pledges. Creative safe and supportive work environments. Etc.
Or just do the most obvious thing you can think of. CHICO DUB, founder of the Brazilian festival NOVAS FREQUÊNCIAS, told Female:Pressure that once he realized he needed to diversify his festival, "the action taken was quite simple actually... It was all about researching more female artists and booking them."
Do you run or book a festival? You can do that, too.
Do you have a recording studio? You can do this.
Another simple solution comes from the credits database JAXSTA, which is partnering with mastering engineer EMILY LAZAR's WE ARE MOVING THE NEEDLE nonprofit to add gender pronouns to the database for anyone who wants them, and make them searchable, to encourage networking with female and non-binary engineers, producers, mixers and songwriters.
Plus Also Too
Add UNIVERSAL and PRS FOR MUSIC to the entities that have pulled out of Russia—while, in Universal's case, pulling even further *into* China, as several people have pointed out... Winners at the SOCIETY OF COMPOSERS & LYRICISTS' SCL AWARDS included GERMAINE FRANCO's ENCANTO score (studio film) and DANIEL HART's THE GREEN KNIGHT score (indie film), with original song nods going to BILLIE EILISH and FINNEAS O'CONNELL for "NO TIME TO DIE" (drama or documentary) and ARIANA GRANDE, NICHOLAS BRITELL, KID CUDI and TAURA STINSON for DON'T LOOK UP's "JUST LOOK UP" (musical or comedy). "Dramatic of Documentary Visual Media Production" is a strange mashup of a category, but it's cool they're at least thinking of the documentary song people... APPLE announced this at Tuesday's Apple Event and I can name two film composer friends who had ordered it, for north of $5,000 each, before the day was done.
Rest in Peace
Australian musician and YouTube star LIL BO WEEP.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | SPIN |
| | From Rock Clubs to the Resistance | | By Franz Nicolay | | Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady explores the solidarity and heartbreak Ukrainian musicians face as they shelter, flee, and take up arms against Russia | | |
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 | | Recording Academy |
| | Women in the Mix [PDF] | | By Erin Barra-Jean, Mako Fitts Ward, Lisa M. Anderson... | | This report by the Recording Academy, Arizona State University and Berklee presents the results from a survey designed to examine the socio-economic landscape of women and gender-expansive people working in the music industry across the United States. | | |
 | | Complex |
| | How Memes Changed the Rap Game | | By Andre Gee | | Behind most hit songs these days are viral campaigns. From Gunna's "Pushin P" to Drake's 'Certified Lover Boy,' here's how memes are changing the rap game. | | |
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 | | female:pressure |
| | FACTS 2022 [PDF] | | The female:pressure FACTS survey quantifies the gender distribution of artists performing at electronic music festivals worldwide. FACTS 2022 reveals a rise in the proportion of female acts from 9.2% in 2012 to 26.9% in 2020—2021. The data on non-binary artists shows an increase from 0.4% to 1.3% from 2017 to 2021. | | |
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| | Complex |
| | What's Next For Travis Scott? | | By Eric Skelton | | When is the appropriate time for Travis Scott to perform again? How and when should he release music again? What's next for his music career? | | |
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 | | The New York Times |
| | Reggaeton's Global Expansion and Wide-Open Future | | By Jon Caramanica, Isabelia Herrera and Katelina Eccleston | | As the genre grows in worldwide popularity, it is engaging with the pop music mainstream and stratifying into subsets, introducing new opportunities and dilemmas. | | |
 | | The Ringer |
| | Where Are Hip-hop's Superstars? | | By Charles Holmes and Justin Charity | | Examining the current dilemmas that make it hard to sustain a career in hip-hop. | | |
 | | Dazed Digital |
| | After seven years of hell, Stromae is back | | By Jeremy Allen | | The Belgian pop star soared to fame in the early 2010s before withdrawing from public life with depression -- now he's returned with a new album. | | |
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| what we're into |
 | | Music of the day | | "Overpowered" | | Somali Yacht Club | | From Lviv, Ukraine. "This is our big 'F*** YOU' to fascist tumor called russian federation." | | |
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| Music | Media | | | | | | Suggest a link  | | "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?'" |
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