Renowned Indian singer SP Balasubrahmanyam, a Guinness world record holder for his more than 40,000 songs over 50 years, has died aged 74, following a Covid-19 diagnosis, CNN reports. From romantic hits to popular dance tracks, he sang some of Indian cinema's best-known numbers, spanning 16 languages. The Wire listed 15 of his awards for which he won awards.
The 2020 Mercury prize for the year’s best British album has gone to Michael Kiwanuka for his self-titled album, 'Kiwanuka', BBC reports. He has been nominated for each of his previous albums: 'Home Again' (2012) and 'Love & Hate' (2016). He gets the honor and wins £25,000 this year. The other nominated artists this year were Anna Meredith, Charli XCX, Dua Lipa, Georgia, Kano, Lanterns on the Lake, Laura Marling, Moses Boyd, Porridge Radio, Sports Team, and Stormzy.
"Is the very sound of pop changing to adapt to TikTok? And can these new viral [TikTok] stars become anything more than one-hit wonders?" - LA Times writes about the increasingly popular social network. Labels are very keen on signing artists trending on TikTok stars - Columbia has signed indie-pop Ritt Momney, the emo-rap yowler 24kGoldn, and the raunchy ppcocaine, Arista Records has signed the San Bernardino-based WhoHeem, and Republic Records the slyly cheerful Claire Rosinkranz. Some of the numbers at TikTok are staggering - TikTok’s most-followed personality, 16-year-old Charli D’Amelio has 88 million followers and can charge as much as $40,000 to dance to a track in a video.
"In 2020, the Griselda Records boom works as a sort of canny counter-programming to the streaming-era rap mainstream" - Stereogum says presenting the unusual un-mainstream un-alternative hip hop collective and record label. "Instead, the rappers and producers in the Griselda braintrust have come up with their own version of Roc Marciano’s broken, impressionist take on East Coast impressionist-rap". The core of the collective are rapper Westside Gunn, his brother Conway the Machine, their cousin Benny the Butcher and in-house producer Daringer.
Paddy Hanna released an Italian murder ballad 'Sinatra'; Violent Life Violent Death step into dark metallic hardcore with 'Roseblade'; Bruce Springsteen announced his new album with a thumping rock song 'Ghosts' which takes him back to her earliest days; The Shins shared a clubby indie rock song 'The Great Divide'; Clipping feature twin-duo Cam & China on their new single ''96 Neve Campbell'; Sylvan Esso released a simple yet rich ballad 'Free'.
"I think they probably always did look down. They always felt guilty about listening to certain things. I don't think it's us so much but definitely Limp Bizkit and shit like that. I think motherfuckers were embarrassed for that shit back then, too" - Chino Moreno of the Deftones said in a Vulture interview of the nu-metal scene the band was associated with for a while. He continued according to Loudwire - "you can't deny it. It's fucking stupidly good, some of it, but they knew back then that it was stupid. I mean, listen to the words. It's stupid. So it's not like in retrospect they're like, 'I can't believe I listened to that'. It's like, 'No, when you listened to it then, you knew it was dumb, but you liked it'. And that's okay. No one should be embarrassed by shit they like that's dumb".
A number of musicians - Megan Thee Stallion, The Weeknd, Selena Gomez, J Balvin, Halsey, Jennifer Hudson, Yo-Yo Ma, Anaïs Mitchell - made TIME Magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Megan Thee Stallion and The Weeknd also made the covers.
Rockers cover rock songs, jazz musicians play other jazz musicians, whereas in hip-hop it's really hard to find a rapper covering other rapper's song. Music YouTuber Adam Neely tries to explain why.
Canadian venues and performance spaces lit up red Tuesday evening (Sept 22) in a show of support for the live event industry "that is still dark", Indie 88 reports. The #LightUpLive campaign says "the effect of shutting down a $100 billion industry in Canada will have unimaginable impacts on both companies and individuals".
American National Public Radio had Korean boy-band BTS for their Tiny Desk concert on Monday, which set a record for online viewership. Later that day, Gabe Rosenberg, the digital news editor for Columbus, Ohio, NPR affiliate WOSU, encouraged the K-pop band’s fans to donate to public radio stations to say thanks. And, so they did, Washingtonian reports. Earlier this year, Korean band’s fans, who are known as ARMY, raised more than $1 million for Black Lives Matter.
“We sell an extraordinary amount of records on Bandcamp Friday. It’s enough for me to pay for a month’s worth of groceries. It keeps lights on in my house” - Nashville singer-songwriter Emma Swift told the LA Times about how much Bandcamp means to her. In August she earned $1,400 through the platform, and another $1,500 on the first Friday of September. On each first Friday Bandcamps forgoes its regular 15% cut on digital sales to artists. Since then, fans have paid artists nearly $100 million. The platform has generated $584 million for artists since 2008.
Juliette Greco, a French singer, actress, cultural icon and muse to existentialist philosophers of the country’s post-War period, has died aged 93, Billboard reports. Greco immortalized some of France’s most recognizable songs in an enduring seven-decade career, including the classics 'Soul le ciel de Paris' ('Under the Parisian sky') and 'Je hais les dimanches' ('I hate Sundays').
Experimental rockers Joan of Arc will end their 25-year career with one final album, 'Tim Melina Theo Bobby', due December 4, Pitchfork reports. As the title implies, the album was made by the band's current lineup of Melina Ausikaitis, Bobby Burg, Theo Katsaounis, and Tim Kinsella. The video for the first single 'Destiny Revision' was made up of photos taken on various Joan of Arc tours.
Evoke Candle has announced an officially licensed Motörhead candle, which smells like smoked whiskey and oak, Loudwire reports. It has a burn time of 70 to 80 hours. The store sells candles inspired by popular rock and metal songs, including the 'London Calling', 'Paint It Black', 'White Wedding', 'Heavy Metal' etc. The standard price for any candle is 36$.
Bristol venue Colston Hall is dropping its name following decades of protests and boycotts over its association with the 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston. A statue of Colston was toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters and thrown into the harbour in June. The process of renaming the hall began in 2017, following protests by civil rights campaigners, music lovers and artists, including the Bristol band Massive Attack, who refused to perform in the venue. From now on it will be known as Bristol Beacon.
Video producer and YouTuber Andrew Huang has made an amusing music theory video arguing - with plenty or arguments! - that there's AAA-LOT of D tone in pop music right now. Why is it a supersonic right now? - it just goes well with the others.
Words of hope from Dayna Frank, the president-CEO of the famed First Avenue club in Minneapolis, in Variety: “After the Spanish flu of 1918-20, we had the roaring ‘20s, and that’s really what I foresee when we come out of this and it’s safe to do so. It’s just gonna be a celebration — hopefully a decade long, maybe just a few years. We just want to make sure the right people are still in business and able to make that celebration happen”.
Loudwire lists 26 bands from the metal/rock realm that sound nothing like they did on their first albums. Incubus started as a funk/hip-hop rock band, and turned to alt-rock early in their career. Opeth were Iron Maiden lovers before turning to prog-metal. Ministry were a synth-pop band, a la Depeche Mode, before stepping to the side with industrial. In Flames started as a death-metal band before discovering melody...
"It's becoming a sort of respect thing" - singer-songwriter Gordi, now a practising doctor in hospitals in Australia, told BBC about face-masks. "As someone that is going to work in these places everyday, where health workers are putting their lives and the lives of their loved ones at risk - to wear a mask is not asking you to do a great deal," the 27-year-old says. This spring, after putting her doctor's career on hold, she moved to London and was supposed to start a tour with Bon Iver. When corona started she turned back home and to her patients...
"Khadifa Wong’s new documentary, 'Uprooted', reveals that the popular image of jazz obscures the true history of a dance form of African descent, born of slavery and enmeshed with the African American experience – from cakewalk to Charleston to Lindy hop – but then dominated by a series of white mem" - Guardian says in a review of the new documentary about jazz dance. It covers Marilyn Monroe’s choreographer Jack Cole, Patrick Swayze’s mum, Patsy, the only teacher in Texas who took black students alongside white, JoJo Smith, who was John Travolta’s dance consultant on 'Saturday Night Fever' etc.
Georgia Dobbins Davis, the founding member of the Marvelettes - one of the pioneering female vocal groups, and co-author of 'Please Mr. Postman', has died, Soul Track reports. 'Please Mr. Postman' was not only a 1961 hit, it was Motown’s first #1, and help set the label up for a decade of radio dominance in the 60s. Dobbins’ father forced her to leave the group because he was worried about the teens playing in nightclubs...
"It’s an album of earth tones -- oranges, dark greens and browns -- that comes just in time for autumn" - Brooklyn Vegan writes about the new album by British comedian and musician Matt Berry. "A lonely, lovelorn quality... a heartfelt album" - the Times says. "Matt Berry is on wonderful form" - Clash Music reviews.
Rolling Stone has revised their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, the first time since 2012. The electorate this time includes Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Billie Eilish. There are also rising artists like H.E.R., Tierra Whack, and Lindsey Jordan of Snail Mail. Veteran musicians are represented by Adam Clayton and the Edge of U2, Raekwon of the Wu-Tang Clan, Gene Simmons, Stevie Nicks, and others. Check out all the albums from Arcade Fire's Funeral' to Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' here.
Everyone from Massive Attack and Hot Chip to Animal Collective and Caribou has sung their praises, and now This Heat’s remastered catalogue is available to download and stream on various platforms. The band themselves described their music saying the people willing to listen to them were fuelled by “a desire to commit violence to accepted notions of music”. Guardian brings the story of the band, and talks to the surviving members.
A third (34%) of professional British musicians are considering abandoning the industry completely, because of the financial difficulties they face during the pandemic, a survey of 2,000 members of the Musicians’ Union has found. Almost half (47%) have already found work outside their industry, Dazed reports.
"We in Northern Ireland are very proud of the fact that one of the greatest music legends of the past 50 years comes from our part of the world... So there's a real feeling of disappointment - we expected better from him" - Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann has written in Rolling Stone about Sir Van Morrison's songs that protest against the coronavirus lockdown. In the lyrics, Van Morrison claims scientists are "making up crooked facts" to justify measures that "enslave" the population. "It's all bizarre and irresponsible. I only hope no one takes him seriously. He's no guru, no teacher" - Swann wrote.
Nine Inch Nails have announced a line of limited edition "Pandemic" shirts, and a hat - "this collection of re-takes re-flects our anxiety and anger during this unprecedented time", NIN said. Included in the collection are the "Mutation" tee ("Time to mutate. Feels good man"), the "Every Day Is Exactly the Goddamn Same" tee ("Getting tired of predicting the future accurately"), the "USAshamed" tee ("American pride, R.I.P.")...
he European Court of Justice has ruled that record labels will be forced to pay performers an increased share of revenue collected from the broadcast and public performance of sound recordings, Hot Press reported. The ruling makes it clear that each time a musical work generates a payment to the record label for broadcasting or public performance, the performers on that recording are entitled to receive an equal share of earnings, by now it was approximately 20%. Phonographic Performance Ireland has argued that the rule of equal share could not happen where Irish performers did not receive similar payments from non-EEA countries. The EU court ruled, however, that EU law precludes a member state from excluding performers who are nationals of non-EEA states from the right to a single equitable remuneration for the playing of recorded music, Law Society reports.
Surely something we could have expected from a poetry-loving bearded guy, Jarvis Cocker releases a brand of tea - Peppermint Jungle. It goes with hit new musical identity, so it's named Jarv Is, just like his latest album 'Beyond the Pale'. NME took a sip, says it "is undoubtedly the most soothing release of 2020". So, Jarv Is, planning on live-streaming your tea at 5?
In a series of tweets, Kanye West outlined some “new recording and publishing deal guidelines”, demanding for artists to own the copyright for their recordings and songs, and lease them to the label and publisher “for a limited term. 1 year deals”, with those “service provider” partners taking a 20% cut of the income. Also, “every audio file, every asset, every deal stored WITH the money. Money and Music must stay together. When your term ends, download it all. Leave”.
Employment in the UK music industry plunged by 35% from 197,000 in 2019 to 128,000, UK Music unveiled in its This Is Music 2021 annual report. The report also shows that in 2020 music industry’s economic contribution fell 46% from £5.8bn to £3.1bn in 2020. Launching the report, UK Music called on the Government to introduce tax incentives and other employment-boosting measures to help the sector rebuild after the pandemic.
A number of digital service owners – including Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google – are trying to cut the amount of money they pay songwriters in the US to the “lowest royalty rates in history”. The National Music Publishers’ Association, on the other side, is looking to raise the current rate up to 20% of a streaming service’s annual revenues (it's 15,1% at the time). Music Business Worldwide tries to find out whether the music streaming services can actually afford to pay artists more.
A lovely little article in the Guardian about Yugoslavian pop music in the 1980s when it got closest to the trends of the western world: "Yugoslavian musicians defied the limitations of technology to make superb electro-pop in an apparent socialist utopia... Yugoslavian disco, post-punk and electronic music thrived in the 1970s and 1980s – yet was mostly forgotten until recent efforts by hobby archivists and specialist record labels".
An interesting chat in The New Cue with the hit-balladeer James Blunt who talks about his life in pandemic: "I've been on the road for 17 years and I was forced to go home. I discovered all kinds of things. I discovered I had children, I didn't know that… Where the hell did these come from?!?". On life post-pandemic: "I suppose people are just excited to be out and able to socialise with each other. And then I've been playing live shows and that's been amazing too because again, people are thrilled that there’s any live music. I can play them Baa Baa Black Sheep and they’d still probably turn up. They might be expecting some other singer, but they'll take what they can get".
Adele's comeback single, 'Easy On Me', broke the global record for day-one streams on Spotify after its release on Friday, Rolling Stone reports. UK superstar achieved the same feat on Amazon Music. 'Easy On Me' had 19.75 million chart-eligible day-one Spotify streams (10 plays per head per 24 hours are counted), nearly double of BTS' 'Butter', which had 11.04 million plays on its day one on Spotify in May.16
Atmosphere shares a space-rap song ‘Barcade’ with a posthumous verse from MF Doom; Black Country, New Road manage to get chaotic and groovy in the same song - 'Chaos Space Marine’; just some pretty folk-rock by Scout Larue Willis on ‘Love Without Possession’; Stammering share s math-prog song ‘No, Yeah’.
WordTips has a great feature - Singers Vocabularies. They counted the words used by 100 modern stars and the 100 greatest singers of all time and added up the number of unique words they used per 1,000 and used the formula for the feature. What they found is that the star with the biggest vocabulary overall is legend Patti Smith, who uses 217 unique words per 1,000 - she used 2,669 different words across a total word count of 12,291. The modern singer with the biggest vocabulary is Billie Eilish who uses 169 per 1,000. Legend Luther Vandross and modern star Trey Songz are tied with 66 for the smallest vocabulary. The song with the most unique words is Lou Reed’s 'The Murder Mystery', recorded by The Velvet Underground, with 639 words.
An interesting conversation on the Bandcamp with Weedie Braimah, a master of the djembe, a West African drum, the origins of which date back to the 12th Century. He talks about his position: "I am a quote-unquote percussionist. But let’s go deeper... There was a time when the drum wasn’t segregated. Let me say that again: There was a time when the drum wasn’t segregated. We, in this world in the West, segregated the instruments. We segregated the drums so bad that now cats be like, ‘Yeah, man I’m the drummer, and he’s the percussionist’". Braimah also goes on to explain the history of djembe.
The music theorist talks about working on music that explores human perception of time through irregular grooves in his latest video. Neely explains that "because they're grooves you're meant to feel them, to embody them, to move to them. With everything groove-related, when you overthink them, ever regular grooves you're kind of missing the point". It all started two decades ago with the song 'Soil' by System of a Down.
The first Black Lives in Music study found that 63% of Black music creators in the UK had experienced direct or indirect racism, including explicit racist language or different treatment because of their race or ethnicity, and 67% had witnessed such behaviour. Racial microaggressions were rife, experienced by 71% of Black music creators and witnessed by 73%. The report highlights the racial pay gap that disproportionately affects Black women. DJ Mag brings the important story.
