Oscar music host Questlove shared his 2021 Oscar Playlist, 144 songs he played before, during, after the show, about 10 hours of music. Plenty of music there - Kendrick Lamar, Rolling Stones, Prince, Donna Summer, Phil Collins, a bit more Prince, Talib Kweli, Beastie Boys, some more Prince...
Trapital appreciates how H.E.R. went from a 9-year-old star to a 23-year-old Oscar winner, completely changing her identity on the way: "At nine she was on Nickelodeon’s 'School Gyrls'. When she was 10, she performed on The Today Show and covered Alicia Keys. At 12, she was a finalist on Disney’s Next Big Thing and performed at the BET Awards. She was first signed by Sony when she was 14. She released music under her real name Gabi Wilson. In 2016, she emerged under the new persona, 'H.E.R.'. There was no public connection to Gabi Wilson. H.E.R. added to the allure by wearing sunglasses at all times. This wasn’t like Puff Daddy or Christina Aguilera developing alter ego-type names. This was a brand new artist".
An amazing, albeit not the newest, Twitter thread by YourWullie, about famous album covers, and the photographs that inspired them. One of them is the original photograph used for Sonic Youth's 1990 album 'Goo'. Pictured are Maureen Hindley and David Smith, key witnesses in the Moors Murders trial. Maureen was serial killer Myra Hindley's sister.
Pitchfork looks back at 40 years of albums by "pop stars to metal urchins to avant experimentalists" covering the issue of climate danger. The list goes back to The Clash and Dead Kennedys, and also covers today's pop stars such as Grimes and Billie Eilish, as well as metal heroes Cattle Decapitation, avant-guard artist Babe, Terror, and indie-rock heroine The Weather Station.
Stereogum made a list of 45 never-released albums they would want to hear "a collection of projects that at least supposedly existed in something approaching completion, that are formed enough that artists or other personnel have discussed their existence or their plausible release somewhere down the line". The list starts with the 1970 Jimi Hendrix' acoustic concept album 'Black Gold' that got forgotten in a suitcase. The list also includes unreleased works by U2, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Deftones, Beck, Soundgarden, Purple Mountains, and many more.
"Music has always acted as a pillar on which teenagers hang visions of their ideal life, with each generation forging a sound representative of their era. This time, the urge to escape is magnified and, in the face of a global pandemic, increasingly unrealistic" - Clash Music looks into slowed + reverb, re-worked songs in a way that features the angst and longing for post-COVID freedom, mirroring the moodiness of its teen creators. Slowed + reverb edits have catapulted into popularity over lockdown, because, as one of its producers, Slowerbed believes - “people might be very bored or sad during lockdown because their freedom is limited. They find their escape in slowed songs which make you relax and get your mind off bad things”.
"I no longer have any need for drugs, the Maharishi or the Beatles. I am myself and I know why" - John Lennon has said at the time when his 'John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band' coming out, which was also when he was going through then-fashionable but now-discredited “primal scream” psychotherapy technique. The new technique was the work of psychotherapist Arthur Janov who believed that unlocking repressed childhood pain required a physical release - maybe even screaming. GQ brings the story of the cult-like therapy and its connection to the album (deluxe edition came out last week).
InsideHook offers a brief rundown of some of the best musician archives on the web, from indie superstars like Radiohead, Courtney Barnett, and Fugazi to icons like Neil Young, Johnny Cash, and the Dead, with some Def Leppard in between.
A hilarious article by Tracy Clark-Flory for Jezebel about men displaying their power with air-sex: "When I think of stage humping, I think of a man thrusting against the floor in a modified pushup, an enactment of missionary screwing that presupposes a very long, and soon to be broken, dick... Recently, I came across similar moves on TikTok and was reminded, once again, of men making love to the floor. And I thought: From whence the floor grind? It was time to investigate this important topic".
An encouraging story in BetterHumans about going from a “screeching cat” to "opera singer" in singing skills. What it took to step over that gap, was the transformation of the physical component of singing, perfecting sight-reading, and getting better at auditioning.
Glass Animals wrote 'Heat Waves' in desperation at the end of a long and unproductive day in the recording studio in the summer of 2018, and it took almost 3 years for the song to break the waves, BBC reports. When they demoed it, frontman Dave Bayley saw there was somebody else in the studio, playing piano, totally in key, realizing it was - Johnny Depp. However, things didn't go smooth from there - the band had to delay their third album after drummer Joe Seaward suffered devastating injuries in a cycling accident. By the time he'd recuperated, the pandemic had derailed the band's comeback, and they were told to "write off" their album until they could tour again. The band decided to give it a chance. The video for the song, taped during the pandemic, was made with the help of Bayley's neighbors. Once released, last summer, the song didn't make it to the charts until it appeared on the multi-million-selling video game Fifa 21, only to reach the top of the charts this year.
While waiting for concerts to start all over again, Pitchfork had a number of artists, such as Bartees Cox Jr. of Bartees Strange, Jamila Woods, Natalie Mering of Weyes Blood, Buck Meek of Big Thief, Angel Bat Dawid, KeiyaA and others chose and describe their favorite independent music venues in the US. Cassandra Jenkins' favorite is Chicago's Hideout: "Part of the Hideout’s charm is that it just barely works. It’s pretty out of the way, and it’s small and disarmingly quirky, with a skinny shotgun space that feels familiar even if it’s your first time there. The stage is just deep enough to fit a band, and the bar is just wide enough for people to hang out. The size of the venue lends itself to acts that can play when they’re still figuring themselves out, and to nights that feel really special when the entire space is packed full of people".
A great read in the Guardian - Canadian novelist remembers what Laurie Anderson's debut album was and what it had meant when it first came out. It's being reissued on vinyl this week. "As the 20th century has morphed into the 21st, as the consequences of the destruction of the natural world have become devastatingly clear, as analogue has been superseded by digital, as the possibilities for surveillance have increased a hundredfold, and as the ruthless hive mind of the Borg has been approximated through online media, Anderson’s anxious and unsettling probings have taken on an aura of the prophetic. Do you want to be a human being any more? Are you one now? What even is that? Or should you just allow yourself to be held in the long electronic petrochemical arms of your false mother?".
Rolling Stone renewed their list of great one-of albums by artists who published their debut LP and were promptly derailed by death, internal band politics or the simple desire to put something down and never pick it back up. Here's the top 10:
10. Madvillain - 'Madvillainy'
9. The Postal Service - 'Give Up'
8. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - 'L.A.M.F.'
7. Buena Vista Social Club - 'Buena Vista Social Club'
6. Minor Threat - 'Out of Step'
5. The Modern Lovers - 'The Modern Lovers'
4. Jeff Buckley - 'Grace'
3. Lauryn Hill - 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'
2. Derek & the Dominos - 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs'
"Sometimes when I am a bit bummed, I don’t look for music to lift me up; I look for music that captures my mood. For some reason, I find solace in listening to songs from my sad bastard brethren" - Medium writes introducing its playlist of sad music. The songs are predominantly about heartaches and hearts breaking, mostly singer-songwriter stuff - Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Whiskeytown, Lucinda Williams, etc.
Author and critic Nelson George met Andre 3000 of Outkast and had asked him about new music, but Andre expressed no interest in putting out a collection of new songs. His reason is very simple: “You write about what happens to you. Last week I got glasses. That was the big that happened to me. I don’t think people want records about my new glasses”. George believes middle-aged rapper is an oxymoron: "The youthful concerns of hip hop in the ‘90s, like the youthful concerns of trap music now, are very much tied into hot cars, fly girls and guys, the drugs of the moment, and the most current slang. Hip Hop freezes the MC, and the audience, in time because it’s composed of very specific references tied to its moment of creation. Its contemporary nature is a great strength, but a weakness too".
"Even if you’ve heard them a million times or come across them in a dozen movie soundtracks, classics like 'My Girl', 'Come See About Me', or 'The Tracks of My Tears' still sound almost impossibly fresh, just as the radical spirit of 'What’s Going On' or 'Living for the City' resonates perfectly in our present political moment. And amid all the hits, there are still lesser-known gems to be discovered" - Rolling Stone writes introducing the 100 greatest Motown songs list, 60 years after label's first Number One hit, 'Please Mr. Postman', by the Marvelettes.
The New Cue very highly recommends a mix by Heavenly Records supremo Jeff Barrett on his Mixcloud. The one you can listen to here "is an absolute cracker, filled with gems from around the globe, particularly Africa".
Movie director Andrew Dominik is making a new documentary about Nick Cave and Warren Ellis "attempting to play 'Carnage' and 'Ghosteen' live", Cave has announced in his Red Hand Files blog. Cave also describes how he and Ellis recorded 'Carnage' while not really trying to make a record - "I had been sitting at my desk — suddenly and shockingly not travelling — writing lyrics and poems into a void, with no real objective other than to make sense of this stationary moment. The world felt weird. My body felt weird. I had been jet-lagged for forty-five years. Now my inner clock had begun to tick regularly. Some nights I even slept. I think Warren’s experience was not dissimilar. I think we both felt the enforced stasis, not just unnerving, but also strangely and fitfully energizing, and so, when we began working in the studio, Carnage came out fast and necessary, as proof of life".
Now Orleans pianist and composer Jon Batiste, also the musical host of 'Late Show with Stephen Colbert', describes how he made his empowering song 'We Are' at the latest episode of Song Exploder. Batiste talks about "how he drew from his roots, at a very personal level — and at a cultural, historical level — and wove all of it into the song".
When Lady Gaga fired him, Troy Carter turned to Silicon Valley where he invested in Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Warby Parker, Spotify, Gimlet, and Slack, Trapital reminds.
A fan described Nick Cave on his Red Hand Files blog how he gave his father an Elvis-themed funeral, and wondered what Cave had in mind for his final hour. Cave answered he would "be very happy with one too - to be ushered into the next world by the voice of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll singer of them all. 'Kentucky Rain', that’s what I’d like, 'Kentucky Rain' and 'How Great Thou Art' - Elvis singing gospel, with heaven and all its angels listening".
A lovely text by Guardian's Annie Zalecki about how Tori Amos changed/formed her as a person: "I had Tori teaching me how to be a woman on my own terms. She was secure yet vulnerable, so connected to her feelings in ways I couldn’t yet articulate, and comfortable in her skin... And Tori spoke frankly about religion and desire, and even discussed the impact of her own rape... To an introvert like me, her willingness to be open about these heavy topics was revolutionary... I marvel at how lucky I was to have had this aspirational role model: a woman fearless enough to speak all of her truths, so her fans could find their own".
New rock n' roll biopic 'Creation Stories', about the cult UK publisher Creation Records and its frontman Alan McGee, is out this week, made by the 'Trainspotting' team of Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh as producer and screenwriter, while Ewan Bremner, who played Spud in 'Trainspotting', stars as McGee. Brooklyn Vegan took this opportunity to select 21 best records by Creation. Here's the Top 5:
5. House of Love - 'House of Love'
4. Oasis - '(What's the Story) Morning Glory?'
3. My Bloody Valentine - 'Isn't Anything'
2. My Bloody Valentine - 'Loveless'
Is it safe to destroy our CD collection? - Guardian's Matt Charlton asks and answers: "With a monthly streaming subscription, or even the likes of iTunes, we are paying for a licence to listen to the music, not ownership of the music itself. What if, as happened last month with a number of K-pop songs on Spotify, the music we hold dear and listen to every day suddenly disappears?.. Of course, there are sentimental reasons for holding on to our CDs, too. For some of us, they are a physical manifestation of youth; a disc-by-disc autobiography... Amid our stressful lives and the fresh starts we’re about to embark upon, our CDs are scratched little time capsules worth holding on to".
Google Arts & Culture has a very well laid-out microsite about the history of electronic music. It covers the technology used to make the music, the essential clubs, the studios, the musical innovators, and much more (although it is a microsite).
Grammy-winning producer Ian Brennan made a selection of 14 global music artists, who weren't nominated for Grammy. Some of them are Mulatu Astatke - “the father of Ethio-jazz”, OOIOO - Japanese noise/post-rock quartet, Russian throat-singers Huun-Huur-Tu, Palestinian rap collective Da Arabian MCs featuring distinctive sound, The Good Ones - Rwandan folk...
A great read in the Music Journalism Insider about rock fanzines from the late period of the Soviet Union, from 1977 to 1991, written by Russian academic Kat Ganskaya. Roxy from Leningrad (St Petersburg today) was the first big fanzine, Zerkalo (The Mirror) from Moscow followed, founded by Artemiy Troitsky, the first DJ in the USSR and one of the founding fathers of music journalism in the Russian language. One of the bigger fanzines was Kontrkultura (Counterculture), which can also be read as "counter the cult of UR".
The music industry has risen to meet the challenges of the pandemic, and Variety chose several women - artists and executives - who are leading the charge. They are UK pop star Dua Lipa, Natascha Augustin, Senior creative director in Warner Chappell Germany, K-pop stars Blackpink, Vanessa Craft, Director of content partnerships in TikTok Canada, and others...
A great series of texts in Guardian by the members of Mogwai, Chic, Charlatans, Haim, Hot Chip and others about the joy of playing live. Chris of the Christine and the Queens goes all the way with her text: "I like the animalistic side of touring: it’s about being a nice beast on stage, you have to sniff things and feel things and adapt. I like the accidents, the awkwardness of it. It can be really humbling because you think you know your show, and then you learn it again because the audience reacts differently. I like the challenge – to prove myself on stage, to try to win people over. It’s almost like a Don Juan thing, every time you have to make love, and you have to find a different way".
