| I think the best seat in the arena is the second tier up, where you get to see the band but you also get to see all the fans. Forget the band—look at the audience. |
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 | | Crowd surfing at Riot Fest, Douglass Park, Chicago, Sept. 16, 2022. | | (Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images) | | |
| quote of the day |
| "I think the best seat in the arena is the second tier up, where you get to see the band but you also get to see all the fans. Forget the band—look at the audience." | | - James Hetfield, Metallica singer/guitarist | |
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| rantnrave:// |
Holiday Sales
We're fully into the holiday season now, Thanksgiving having passed and end-of-year lists, Christmas and MARIAH to come. Lol J/K, Mariah's already here (and this is the greatest Mariah quote ever: "I don't acknowledge time. I don't know her"). As is this early Christmas gift for metal fans, AMANDA PETRUSICH's delicious 9,000-word profile of METALLICA, which arrives in metallic harmony with the announcement of the band's 2023-24 tour, for which the scariest thing in all of music begins Wednesday: TICKETMASTER pre-sales.
Two weeks after TAYLOR SWIFT's pre-sale blew up into an existential industry crisis even as 2 million tickets were being sold, the basic questions remain unresolved, with a Justice Department investigation reportedly under way and a Congressional hearing to come. Much of the analysis to date has fallen into two camps: 1) Of course it was hard and expensive to get tickets; Taylor Swift is insanely popular. 2) Ticketmaster was woefully underprepared for this and needs to be broken up. It's possible, of course, the most useful answer lies somewhere in the middle, and that some re-thinking, re-strategizing, re-pricing and re-prioritizing from all sides is in order. Who are concert tickets meant for? Who should they be meant for? What's the best way to get as many of them as possible to those people? Is putting an entire arena tour on sale on a single day ever a good idea?
Kudos to BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, who had his own recent Ticketmaster debacle, for on-the-record honesty in saying what he wanted, this time around, was as much dough as he could possibly get: "So this tour," he told the Asbury Park Press, "we said 'Hey, the guys are in their 70s. I'm 73. Do what everybody else is doing who are my peers... If that's controversial for you, I don't know what to say." That strategy may not work for all artists in all venues at all points in their career, though. Fifteen-year-old pop fans going up against bots, speculators and people with too much disposable income, for example, will never be a fair fight. And it remains to be seen if Ticketmaster's opaque Verified Fan program is the best way, or any way at all, to achieve the desired outcome. Or if Ticketmaster and Live Nation are too big to fail, or so big they had to fail. MusicSET: "Is Taylor Swift the Straw That Broke Ticketmaster's Back?"
Etc Etc Etc
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON launches a classical streaming service (while the world waits on APPLE's)... The music rights champion in line to replace NANCY PELOSI... BILLIE EILISH and VANITY FAIR's Same Interview, Sixth Year... K-pop arrives on Broadway, to mixed reviews... Every song with 1 billion Spotify streams, visualized... Autopenned in my soul from me to you... Don't stop fightin' over that Amex card, men of JOURNEY... Out-of-context movie quote of the day, from CATE BLANCHETT's LYDIA TÁR: "I'm going straight to LUCIAN. Maybe he needs to be reminded of his ANNENBERG INCLUSION INITIATIVE"... Sending love to Chicago house pioneer JESSE SAUNDERS.
Rest in Peace
IRENE CARA, the powerhouse voice of "Fame," "Flashdance" and "Sparkle." "Her true superpower," according to Andscape's Keith Murphy," was "the ability to transform slick early '80s, headband-adorned anthems into uplifting statements that felt like spiritual testimony"... Cuban balladeer PABLO MILANÉS, a founder of his country's revolutionary nueva trova movement of the 1960s. "His career," the New York Times' Ed Morales wrote, "was an open dialogue with the revolutionary government that had once disciplined him, then propped him up as one of its most powerful ideological icons... But he never renounced his artistic labor, that of the singer with a story to tell about loves lost and won, a towering voice with a guitar and a sense of poetry and swing"... The great art-song (and more) composer and celebrated diarist NED ROREM, a modern master of writing for both voice and orchestra... Legendary label and publishing exec CHARLES KOPPELMAN, who began his career as a Brill Building songwriter and went on to top roles at Columbia, ATV Music, EMI and his own SBK Entertainment and SBK Records.
Also: Dr. Feelgood guitarist WILKO JOHNSON, a key influence on British punk (and, in his role as the executioner Ser Ilyn Payne, a literal roller of heads on "Game of Thrones")... Hip-hop artist manager and record exec JONATHAN "HOVAIN" HYLTON, whose clients included T-Pain, Cam'ron and Styles P... South African amapiano artist DJ SUMBODY, murdered in a drive-by shooting in Johannesburg... Woodwind session player GENE CIPRIANO, who played on countless films and records by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis and Paul McCartney; he was "perhaps the most recorded woodwind player in show business history," the Hollywood Reporter wrote... Hip-hop MC DON NEWKIRK, who collaborated with De La Soul and 3rd Bass... Blues-rock guitarist DANNY KALB, of the Blues Project... Jazz pianist/composer DAVID ORNETTE CHERRY, who was born the same year his father, trumpeter Don Cherry, recorded his first album with Ornette Coleman; thus, his middle name... Nightclub singer, actress and activist JOYCE BRYANT, the "bronze blond bombshell" of the 1950s... Big band jazz singer LOUISE TOBIN, best known for her years with Benny Goodman's orchestra... Oklahoma Red Dirt country singer/songwriter JAKE FLINT, who died in his sleep hours after he was married Saturday night... Scottish singer-songwriter RAB NOAKES, a founding member of Stealers Wheel and longtime fixture of Scotland's folk scene... Art director GEORGE LOIS, a Madison Avenue legend whose "I Want My MTV" campaign helped put the music video channel on the map.
| | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator | |
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 | | New Republic |
| | What Was the Music Critic? | | By John Semley | | A new book exalts the heyday of music magazines, when electric prose reigned and egos collided. | | |
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 | | Vulture |
| | Fousheé Is Done Sulking and Wants to Rage | | By Craig Jenkins | | "I would encourage people to stop being a bitch," says the newly Grammy-nominated artist. "Embrace different. Be a part of the renaissance." | | |
 | | CBS Sunday Morning |
| | Extended interview: Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir | | By John Blackstone | | Nearly 60 years after Bob Weir helped form The Grateful Dead, the band's music is being adapted for the concert hall. In this extended interview, correspondent John Blackstone talks with Weir, now 75, about adapting the Dead's music for a symphony orchestra, the curious life of a song "critter," and the unfinished business resulting from bandmate Jerry Garcia's passing. | | |
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 | | Chicago Reader |
| | The accidental TikTok star | | By Leor Galil | | Chicago rapper Sonny went viral on a platform he didn't use with a remix he hadn't made—and it hasn't changed his old-school grind a bit. | | |
| what we're into |
|  | | Video of the day | | "Sparkle" | | Sam O'Steen | | The 1976 original. RIP Irene Cara. | | |
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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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