An excellent article in The New Yorker about a tendency of American courts to use rap lyrics and videos as evidence against rappers. The latest such example is a testimony of Brooklyn rapper 6ix9ine. Before him, there were Texas rapper Tay-K, Florida rapper YNW Melly, and California rapper Drakeo the Ruler, whos videos and lyrics […]
NME's writers argue pro and contra of traditional album-tour-album cycle. So, contra: "Over the past few years artists have started to eschew these traditional album release schedules again, and it’s exciting! It’s boring being constrained by these rules, especially when it’s so easy to write, record and drop a song on Soundcloud in the course […]
"It’s been around ten years since a new underground scene really broke through... So, with the South London scene already dubbed gristle rock, let’s continue with crank wave – Fontaines, Squid, Idles, Do Nothing, Life, Famous, insert your own band here; smart, modern guitar bands with a singer who sounds like someone having a psychotic episode […]
Lucien Greaves, co-founder of The Satanic Temple, recently listed his favourite devilish songs for NME - Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, Iron Maiden... - and of course Mark Beaumont had to react: "The devil’s music is far more insidious... It’s the pleasing four-note trumpet fanfare you hear when paying ten quid for an ‘exclusive’ in-game plough, […]
Dave Grohl played a concert in London with Rick Astley, an unusual pairing, but Mark, My Words thinks there should be more of it: "Simon had Garfunkel. Bowie had Iggy. The Beatles had Ringo... Primal Scream had Kate Moss, Oasis had Paul Weller, I’m pretty sure Radiohead had Stephen Hawking... Dave Grohl’s Astley bromance feels […]
BBC asks whether Pride events have lost their original purpose, and have became marketing tools to attract big crowds to commercial events. This weekend it's Manchester Pride Live, in a new site, Mayfield, with Ariana Grande as a headliner, that costs £70 (last year it was £28). Brighton Pride was similar, it was headlined by […]
Jay-Z will produce the Super Bowl halftime show, as part of the new, multi-year deal with the National Football League, and many people are surprised at best; betrayed at worst. The Guardian reminds Jay-Z how he name-checked Fred Hampton, a Black Panther party leader murdered by the police, who insisted: “We say you don’t fight […]
PopMatters has an interesting article where they compare albums 'Blood on the Tracks' by Bob Dylan and 'IGOR' by Tyler the Creator, as the tipping points in each of artist's careers. As PM says: "Breakup albums have a rare power; they mark the moment when an image-conscious artist is suddenly compelled to let his guard […]
Katy Perry, her collaborators and her record label must pay 2.78 million dollars for 'Dark Horse' sharing elements of song 'Joyful Noise' by Christian rapper Flame. Musician and teacher Rick Beato analyzed the two songs, arguing the similarities aren't that big (watch the good analytical video below).
"The rap, grime and future R&B (Nao, slowthai, Little Simz, Dave) represented the most incisive rising British talent, the guitar rock (Idles, Fontaines D.C., Black Midi) was suitably disjointed, angular and innovative, the poised and/or melodramatic art-pop (Anna Calvi, Cate le Bon) bore not the faintest trace of Paloma or Florence, the bigger names (The […]
Beyoncé is now selling the diet she followed to prepare for her 2018 Coachella set - for $14 a month, or $99 a year, all this can be yours. Except it can’t, because Beyoncé is selling a lie, the Guardian writes about Beyoncé's latest venture. Why is it to impossible? "The performance of physical perfection […]
Guardian writes how jazz is having a moment in the UK lately. The signs? Streaming sites are reporting a growth in young listeners, mainstream artists are collaborating with jazz stars and big music festivals are signing up more jazz acts than ever. The names deserving credit the most - Sons of Kemet and The Comet […]
An interesting point made by Rolling Stone about Woodstock 99, and in a good moment since Woodstock 19 had died, it seems, before even being born: "It was, in all, a weird pre-echo of the future, maybe: hot and dry and violent and desperate. It hinted at the WTO riots that November, and a century […]
The term “world music” has become toxic, so a new word for this monthly planet-spanning roundup, however reductive, is needed - the Guardian writes in en excellent article about the music from around the globe (apart from pop music coming mostly from Europe and America). Womad festival has also stopped using the term, and Pete […]
Of the 16 singles that made the top of the US chart in the first half of 1979, only three were not disco tracks. The previous year, disco singles had been No 1 for 37 weeks out of 52. Than, on July 12 the Disco Demolition Night happened - after that, radio stations that had switched […]
Brian Eno conceptualized a new approach to music through dedicated use of tape loops and sampling, smuggling ideas previously offered by the avant-garde into the pop/rock lexicon, eventually breaking free to codify the ambient music genre and presage music created by algorithms and apps with generative music, Exclaim says in their context-article about Eno.
Funny and to the point, NME's Mark Beaumont in his latest column wants the 1980s revival to end: "The ‘80s revival has lasted far longer than the original decade itself. And that wasn’t even worth the ten years it hung about... It’s a source of unending frustration to those of us that lived through the […]
On his headlining set at Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Stormzy appeared with a customized stab-proof vest made by the elusive graffiti artist Banksy, a work of art set perfectly in the moment, and the one that makes sense only then and there. "It added a punch of visual tension to his verbal mash-up of modern […]
PopMatters has a great and an easy to read article about punk and industrial, the same starting points both genres had, and the different methods they used to make similar messages: "It is difficult to understand the past 40-plus years of industrial music without also recognizing its un-identical twin sibling of punk over that same […]
Bluegrass music has been considered unworthy of notice: low art, uncomfortably associated with white redneck culture, but now the things are changing - this music is becoming increasingly politically potent, because of it "fundamentally social tradition – and the democracy of the picking circle", as the Guardian points out - "bluegrass is unique in the […]
"We want to piss people off. We know where our place is, and our creed is solidarity and respect for others, even though we may bring knives or scythes to gigs" says 38-year-old Marek, singer of Czech band Bahratal, who insists that Nazi references in his band are just punk provocations, part of the theatre […]
From music that "felt so full of authentic, unfiltered emotion" on his first album to "his best album in years and his most stunning artistic achievement since he introduced himself to the world almost a decade ago" on this year's 'IGOR? - Brooklyn Vegan sums up Tyler, the Creator's career. BV sees him as one […]
Organizers of the British festival Glastonbury banished punk band Killdren because of their lyric "kill Tory", which made the Quietus point at double standards at Glastonbury. Glasto booked a singer - Carrie Underwood who has released several songs glamorising the act of murder. tQ goes, rightfully, into travesty in the article - at Glasto headliners are […]
The Washington Post has an interesting article about something "unthinkable" twenty years ago - indie/jam crossover. "Indie rock (let’s say: everything that descends from the Velvet Underground) and jam band music (let’s say: everything that descends from the Grateful Dead) have traditionally felt incompatible, if not adversarial. Indie people are skeptical and fickle. Jam band […]
Guardian's Fiona Sturges writes about the issue of age of musicians, specifically - with men it's not an issue, unlike women where it becomes an obstacle: "Older men, with their silver hair and laughter lines, are seen as stately and wise. Women of the same age are past it and embarrassing. Today, Iggy Pop (72) […]
Although it kind of lives on in another form, iTunes as we know it is a thing of the past... iTunes was exciting during its inception, and even beyond its heyday, in the late noughties and early noughteens, when streaming services weren’t widely available on mobiles, so it still seemed novel to be able to […]
"You sample a song, you get it cleared. The music industry has always been a wild west of rip-off artists, snake oil salesmen and manipulative profiteers but the plagiarism lawyers have beaten some sort of gentlemanly practices into it over the decades. Talent borrows, genius steals, previous genius sends legal letter outlining their cut. There’s […]
“One of the biggest stars in the world is using it [Instagram aesthetic] in their video – that might mean it’s reached its peak” - Lev Manovich, author of 'Instagram and Contemporary Image', says about Taylor Swift new video 'ME!'. Maddie Raedts, founder of the Influencer Marketing Agency (IMA), believes that perfection is no longer […]
Woodstock 50 organizers ignored recommendations from partners and regulators about things like the festival’s proper size, budget, number of stages, transportation plans, Spin comments after documents have been made public about the legal battle between the apparently doomed festival and the event’s erstwhile investor Dentsu Aegis. Documents show that Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang declined to reduce the […]
Lana Del Rey recently teased an upcoming cover of Sublime song 'Doin’ Time', a move sure to bring the 1990s ska-rock band to a new and younger group of listeners. The Ringer argues that "larger appetite for ’90s nostalgia shows no signs of abating, and people looking for a short-lived and influential band led by […]
