| It's asinine that labels are still sending paper statements to artists a couple times each year. |
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 | | Reggaeton star Karol G at Coachella, April 17, 2022. | | (Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "It's asinine that labels are still sending paper statements to artists a couple times each year." | | - Milana Rabkin Lewis, Stem CEO | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Asinine Ponies
Blockchain, NFTs, direct distribution, the Metaverse, selling vinyl at gigs, selling WAVs on your website, call it what you want, wrap it in whatever packaging you want, at the end of the day the best way to disrupt the recorded music business for the benefit of artists, if that's the goal, is to give them agency and information. Just tell them where their money is. Let them know how many units they've sold, how many songs have been streamed and downloaded, how many plays they've gotten on radio in Mexico City and in bars in Paris, what they're owed and when they're going to get it, and then make sure they do get it. That's it. That's my recipe for disruption. LOL at today's salty quote of the day, above, from STEM's MILANA RABKIN LEWIS, which comes from the middle of an otherwise business-like press release on her company's new $20 million funding round. Labels are "asinine," here's why, and now back to our press release. Stem is one of a number of innovative companies offering alternative tools to artists to fund, release, distribute and track their music, and I've always liked the basic approach, which makes clear it isn't a tech company looking for a way to capitalize on music but an artist services company with ideas on how to capitalize on tech. An essential difference, and quite a few artists and smart people in the business believe in it. Anyway, that's my explanation for today's quote of the day, which if funny/true and which I assume most people at most big labels agree with... Quote of the day #2 comes from new DEATH ROW RECORDS owner SNOOP DOGG, who, when he's not sipping Coronas on the beach, is a Metaverse and token guy, and not, apparently, a SPOTIFY guy. His first order of business upon taking over his old label, he told the Drink Champs podcast, was "snatched all the music off of those platforms traditionally known to people, because those platforms don't pay. And those platforms get millions and millions and millions of streams and nobody gets paid other than the record labels." For now that appears to mean Spotify and APPLE MUSIC but not TIDAL, which still has Death Row classics like DOGGYSTYLE and THE CHRONIC. The plan, Snoop tells the pod, is to start a Death Row app "sort of similar to AMAZON, NETFLIX, HULU," which sounds like a questionable prospect for fans—are you going to have to open a new app every time you want to hear an artist or record on a different label?—but maybe a necessary temporary one for artists and a label trying to navigate their way toward agency, transparency, information and eventually, one hopes, toward a more inclusive app, or maybe one that ties all the other apps together... Album announcement of the day belongs to KENDRICK LAMAR, whose official announcement of his fifth album, MR. MORALE & THE BIG STEPPERS, came in the form of a retweet of a two-month old tweet from a fan complaining that "Kendrick Lamar is officially retired." Dear all other artists: That's how you reply to a tweet. The announcement of Lamar's first album in five years also serves as a subtle rebuke to Spotify boss DANIEL EK's infamous dictum that "you can't record music once every three to four years and think that's going to be enough." Dear Daniel Ek and colleagues: Yes. You can... Spotify competitor DEEZER is going public, at a planned valuation of $1.13 billion, via a merger with I2PO, a special purpose acquisition company. Deezer has about a 2% share of the global streaming market and, reports the Wall Street Journal (paywall), about the same valuation it had in 2018, when it last raised capital.
Rest in Peace
Romanian piano virtuoso RADU LUPU, who was venerated by his fellow players both for his technical prowess and his ability to express himself through the instrument. "The piano is... an impersonal machine of levers and hammers," the New Yorker's Alex Ross wrote in a review of a 2005 program of Beethoven concertos at Carnegie Hall. "But an A above middle C sounds different under Lupu's finger. It glows from within"... Modernist British composer HARRISON BIRTWISTLE, renowned for his complex, theatrical works... DAVID FREEL, singer/guitarist of the San Francisco rock band Swell, who in later years ran a custom vinyl-cutting business.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | The New Yorker |
| | Fivio Foreign's Big Move | | By Kelefa Sanneh | | He made his name rapping about gang warfare. Can he go mainstream? | | |
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 | | Rolling Stone |
| | Every Harry Styles Song Ranked | | By Rob Sheffield | | He's built one of the wildest, weirdest songbooks of modern times -- from Seventies raunch to epic folk beauty to glam grandeur. | | |
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 | | BBC Sounds |
| | Carl Cox: Music and Motorbikes | | By Rick Faragher and Carl Cox | | Legendary DJ Carl Cox opens up about the glory days of dance music and his love of bikes. | | |
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 | | Complete Music Update |
| | The battle for Sheffield's Leadmill music venue | | By Andy Malt and Chris Cooke | | CMU's Andy Malt and Chris Cooke review key events in music and the music business from the last week, including the battle over Sheffield's Leadmill venue after its current management were served with an eviction notice, plus the producer suing Justin Bieber for allegedly breaking promises on royalties. | | |
| what we're into |
 | | Music of the day | | "Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)" | | Arcade Fire | | A last-minute addition to the Friday early evening lineup. "Unconditional I" is from Arcade Fire's new album, "We," due May 6 from Columbia | | |
|  | | Video of the day | | "Round Midnight" | | Bertrand Tavernier | | Director Bertrand Tavernier's smoky portrait of an American jazz musician in Paris earned Dexter Gordon an Oscar nomination for his acting and Herbie Hancock an Oscar win for his score. | | |
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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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