| Music is the pinnacle of human expression... There is nothing to touch music. Perhaps this is why in medieval stone carvings the angels are playing instruments rather than making coffee or watching television. |
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 | | Arooj Aftab at Coachella, April 22, 2022. | | (Scott Dudelson/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "Music is the pinnacle of human expression... There is nothing to touch music. Perhaps this is why in medieval stone carvings the angels are playing instruments rather than making coffee or watching television." | | - Roger Eno | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Country Discomfort
Wait, is this true? "You don't see a lot of country songs in commercials," LARRY MESTEL, founder and CEO of music publisher/investor PRIMARY WAVE, told correspondent KELEFA SANNEH on CBS SUNDAY MORNING. Mestel, who's in a position to know these things, was reeling off the genres his company is interested in. "Classic rock. Urban. We do jazz. We do soul." In the past, he's described the company's core strategy as acquiring "comfort music," an approach he says has served Primary Wave well during the pandemic. The company's holdings include stakes in the catalogs of JAMES BROWN, BOB MARLEY, PRINCE, NIRVANA, WHITNEY HOUSTON and STEVIE NICKS. But, a recent deal with MARTINA MCBRIDE notwithstanding, "we don't typically do a lot of country music," Mestel told Sanneh.
Sticking to what you know makes sense. Letting Nashville publishers and investors take the lead on acquiring and monetizing country catalogs makes sense. But are America's advertisers really steering clear of the traditional* music of the American heartland? Does that make sense? Do GARTH and REBA and GEORGE and SHANIA and DOLLY and LORETTA not have the commercial staying power of Primary Wave's triple-A threat of AEROSMITH, AIR SUPPLY and AMERICA? Is there no comfort in country? I'm not offering answers today, just asking questions. Genuinely curious! Does country not translate outside its region, a region that covers a fairly huge swath of America? Is country a giant bubble? Is everybody else living in a giant bubble? Hmmm.
(The asterisk next to "traditional" in the above graf is intentional. Jazz and blues are also traditional musics of the American heartland. As are rock and hip-hop and Latin music. I'm using "traditional" there in the sense of how America tends to perceive and talk about its own traditions, in the broadest sense. Beyond that, the history is complicated and wonderful.)
Kacey at the Bat
The country industry, of course, has its own strange history of investing in its own music. Rolling Stone has a fantastic excerpt from MARISSA R. MOSS' upcoming HER COUNTRY: HOW THE WOMEN OF COUNTRY MUSIC BECAME THE SUCCESS THEY WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE. The chapter-length excerpt focuses on KACEY MUSGRAVES' tireless attempts to introduce herself to radio programmers in advance of her major-label debut, especially at the 2012 COUNTRY RADIO SEMINAR, where she stunned a room of strangers into silence, followed by a standing ovation from "rows and rows of crinkled chinos and checkered shirts." And then... "crickets" from the radio dial itself. Because, well, read the title of Moss' book again. The answer lay within.
Etc Etc Etc
Billboard's International Power Players... Mail-order vinyl club VINYL ME, PLEASE is building a pressing plant in Denver. The company says the 14,000-square-foot space, expected to open by the end of this year, will produce audiophile-grade vinyl and will be an "experiential space" designed with visitors in mind. GARY SALSTROM, formerly GM of QUALITY RECORD PRESSINGS in Salinas, Kan., will oversee the operation... And here's a mouth-watering collection of vintage Japanese portable record players to play that vinyl on, if you can track one down. The NATIONAL company's SO-111N model came with a built-in 23-key piano for anyone who might want to play along, while COLUMBIA offered a matching set of portable record players and a portable mixer for aspiring portable DJs... The UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO is inviting non-students to audit its summer semester course on "SELENA: A Mexican American Identity & Experience"... BAD BUNNY announced the name of his next album in a classified ad for a 2019 Bugatti Chiron. The asking price for the car, if it in fact exists, is $3.5 million. The album, UN VERANO SIN TI (A SUMMER WITHOUT YOU), presumably will be available, later this year, for a little less. Also, he's becoming a movie star.
Rest in Peace
Longtime Earth, Wind & Fire saxophonist ANDREW WOOLFOLK II.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | Rolling Stone |
| | That Time Kacey Musgraves Wowed Nashville -- But Still Didn't Get Played on the Radio | | By Marissa R. Moss | | In this excerpt from her book "Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be," Marissa R. Moss places the reader in the chaotic midst of Country Radio Seminar, the annual Nashville gathering of radio gatekeepers, where a then-unknown Kacey Musgraves is about to take the stage. | | |
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 | | CBS Mornings |
| | Megan Thee Stallion on 2020 shooting | | By Gayle King and Megan Thee Stallion | | Megan Thee Stallion tells Gayle King about being shot by rapper Tory Lanez and the aftermath of the 2020 incident. She says she still has bullet fragments in a foot and remains traumatized. Lanez has pleaded not guilty to assault and weapons charges. | | |
 | | NPR Music |
| | Her Voice Is In The Air | | By Ann Powers | | The Brazilian singer Flora Purim helped create the sound of jazz fusion. Now, as she releases what she says will be her final album, it's time to give her artistic legacy its due. | | |
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 | | No Bells |
| | New Orleans rap is weathering the storm | | By Millan Verma and Nigel Washington | | Over a decade after peak Wayne, New Orleans rap is having a renaissance. From Rob49 to Neno Calvin, here are some of the city's new talents. | | |
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 | | Pitchfork |
| | The 20 Best Punk Movies | | By Simon Reynolds | | A guide that runs the gamut from essential historical documents to thrilling fables of disobedience. | | |
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 | | Music Ally |
| | Music advertising has a streaming attribution problem | | By Adrian Burger | | Adrian Burger, founder of creative management agency Lafter, argues that the streaming of digital products via digital ads has not only proven difficult to measure – but that there's also a mistaken assumption that clicks lead to streams. | | |
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 | | Trapital |
| | How TikTok's Evolution Can Help Artists Grow | | By Dan Runcie | | The overwhelming narrative is that the "party is ending" since it's now tougher to grow on TikTok because the hyper-growth moment has passed. But TikTok's next stage of TikTok is where the flash-in-the-pan stories fade and the real businesses emerge. | | |
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| what we're into |
|  | | Video of the day | | "We Are the Best!" | | Lukas Moodysson | | Stockholm calling: Lukas Moodysson's 2012 feature about a trio of 13-year-old girls who form a punk band in 1982 Sweden. | | |
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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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