ritish fashion designer and punk style icon Vivienne Westwood has died aged 81 peacefully, surrounded by her family, at her home in London. In the fashion world, Westwood was a beloved character who energized and pushed the boundaries of the industry until her death. To the media, she was "the high priestess of punk". She worked as a primary school teacher, before setting up clothing shop Let It Rock on King's Road in London with her then partner Malcolm McLaren in the early 1970s. The business was later renamed Sex and McLaren began managing a punk rock band made up of shop regulars - the Sex Pistols. They shot to fame in 1976 wearing Westwood and McLaren's designs. Musicians are paying tribute to the designer. Chrissie Hynde, the Pretenders frontwoman who worked at their boutique said on Twitter: “Vivienne is gone and the world is already a less interesting place”. Sir Paul McCartney shared on Twitter: “A ballsy lady who rocked the fashion world and stood defiantly for what was right. Love Paul x”.
The former American president revealed his favorite songs of 2022. In includes SZA’s 'Shirt', Danger Mouse and Black Thought’s 'Belize' featuring MF DOOM, Lizzo’s 'About Damn Time', Rosalía’s 'SAOKO', Beyoncé’s 'Break My Soul', Bad Bunny’s 'Tití Me Preguntó', Kendrick Lamar’s non-album hype track 'The Heart Part 5', and others.
Zambian songwriter, rapper, and singer Sampa the Great in the latest episode of Song Exploder tells the story of her song 'Let Me Be Great'. Sampa the Great and producer Mag44 break down the song, which features vocals from legendary West African singer Angélique Kidjo. Sampa the Great speaks about how she went from being defensive about her culture in her music to celebrating it.
Maxi Jazz, the lead singer of British dance act Faithless, has died "peacefully in his sleep" in his south-London home on Friday night, aged 65. A statement shared on Jazz's Instagram and signed by his former bandmates said: "He was a man who changed our lives in so many ways. He gave proper meaning and message to our music". Beyond Faithless, the versatile musician formed Maxi Jazz & The E-Type Boys, playing "melodic funk and blues mixed with reggae beats, dub baselines [and] Jamaican melodies". The music world pays tribute to Maxi Jazz.
"Music can be complicated" - music theorist Adam Neely explains in his latest video about notes C flat and B, which sound the same and are placed on the same note in a piano but serve a different purpose. It's simple, but it's complicated at the same time. Watch the video below.
“At its core, this song is my way of saying ‘this too shall pass’ but in a way that feels honest” says Brooklyn singer-songwriter Brian Dunne of 'Sometime After This'. He offers a perspective to the song: “It starts with a big idea and gets smaller with each verse. The first one addresses the social and political state of things, and how sad it is that we can't even agree on what it is that we disagree about (and also has the first, and likely last use of the word ‘email’ in one of my songs). Verse two is about everything that led me here, to this particular song, and finds me asking a classic NYC vampire - a sacred character to me - what exactly to do with it. And verse three is just about a single cup of coffee and how it all just comes down to that; being grateful for a hot beverage.”
Terry Hall, the singer of the influential English ska band The Specials, has died at the age of 63, following a short illness, the AP reports. Hall dropped out of school at 14 and found himself in the English punk scene, joining a band called the Squad. But in 1977, he joined The Coventry Automatic, the first incarnation of The Specials. Melding the British punk of the late-70s and Jamaican ska of the 60s, the band broke through, influencing a generation of anti-racist punk and ska bands. “His music and his performances encapsulated the very essence of life… the joy, the pain, the humor, the fight for justice, but mostly the love” - the band's statement reads. Guardian selects 10 of his recordings.
Music writer Ted Gioia made a list of his favorite online articles and essays from 2022 on music, arts, and culture - "if the article is good enough, I include it, no matter what the subject". Interesting pieces about heavy metal’s fascination with Roman emperors, the connection between Mozart na J Dilla, using music as torture, and many more.
"In the punk world, 2022 was a year of innovation, a year of new generations staking their claim, a year of new trends emerging and old trends making comebacks. For the purposes of this list, "punk" incorporates punk, pop punk, indie-punk, emo, hardcore, post-hardcore, screamo, metalcore, ska-punk, and various other microgenres that fall under those" - Brooklyn Vegan introduces their list of 50 best punk albums. The top 10 are:
10. The Interrupters - 'In The Wild'
9. Pinkshift - 'Love Me Forever'
8. JER - 'Bothered / Unbothered'
7. The Wonder Years - 'The Hum Goes On Forever'
6. Pool Kids - 'Pool Kids'
5. Mindforce - 'New Lords'
4. The Callous Daoboys - 'Celebrity Therapist'
3. Drug Church - 'Hygiene'
2. Anxious - 'Little Green House'
In a rare interveiw for the Wall Street Journal, Bob Dylan shares his thoughts on how technology might represent the end of civilization, the music he likes, as well as creativity - "When we’re inventing something, we’re more vulnerable than we’ll ever be. Eating and sleeping mean nothing. We’re in 'Splendid Isolation', like in the Warren Zevon song; the world of self, Georgia O’Keeffe alone in the desert. To be creative you’ve got to be unsociable and tight-assed. Not necessarily violent and ugly, just unfriendly and distracted. You’re self-sufficient and you stay focused".
There are many, many great books released this year - Variety introduces its list of the best music books released in 2022. "Bono writes beautifully about his relationship with his parents and his wife... Tom Breihan’s new book looks at how 20 top tracks affected the culture, and/or changed the game, musically and sociologically... Stunning 'The Byrds: 1964-67', a comprehensive oral history and a gorgeous coffee-table photo book all in one... In his first book, the ace New York Times reporter Coscarelli puts a microscope on the thriving and enormously influential Atlanta hip-hop scene".
Only one of the top ten most-searched songs of the year on Google came from a Western artist, the search engine's trending searches of 2022 show. The list features several Indonesian and Japanese singers, a reggaeton-inspired Pakistani track, and one from Nigerian singer-songwriter Burna Boy. The top spot is taken by 'Tak Ingin Usai' ('Don’t Want to End'), by Indonesian singer Keisya Levronka. The only Western artist on the list is Harry Styles with 'As It Was' at number seven.
"First, many artists could not tour this year due to a variety of factors, including inflation, high gas costs, supply-chain shortages, overbooked music venues, and poor mental health... Second, a much smaller number of artists this year... found that touring for the industry’s top one-percent is almost too viable, in that the shadowy corporations who run the live-music business... were able to gouge consumers for hundreds (if not thousands) of extra dollars above the original face value of tickets" - Uproxx looks back to "a weird and often bad year".
Space rock jazz band Chui three years ago have accompanied a screening of the 1927 silent movie 'Berlin: Symphony of a Great City' ('Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt') by director Walter Ruttmann, This year, Chui have released a full album 'Zagreb-Berlin' based on those compositions. This week, they have a new video out, 'Symphony Of A Metropolis Act I' from the Berlin part of the album.
Music streaming service Anghami is claiming that it will soon become the first platform to host over 200,000 songs generated by AI, MBW reports. Anghami has partnered with a generative music platform Mubert, whose tech takes samples written by human musicians and sound designers, and then, using Artificial Intelligence, arranges them into finished tracks. Mubert’s technology is being combined with Anghami’s user data and algorithms to create thousands of AI-generated songs. According to Anghami, the service has already generated over 170,000 songs.
ChatGPT is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot that specializes in dialogue. The OpenAI-developed chatbot is a large language model fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. Trapital's Dan Runcie has a few ideas on how musicians could use it - "to generate ideas for new songs or to help them come up with lyrics. They could also use it to help them brainstorm new ways to arrange their music or to come up with unique melodies and chord progressions. Additionally, chatGPT could be used to help musicians write press releases or other promotional materials, or to generate titles and descriptions for their music on social media or streaming platforms.”
"This has proved a fantastic year for extreme music and metal, and the new wave is masterfully progressing" - PopMatters points out about the year 2022 in metal. They selected 20 albums with technical death metal band Aeviterne's 'The Ailing Facade' on top. Stereogum selects 10 albums - Blut Aus Nord's 'Lovecraftian Echoes' takes the top spot. Treblezine expanded its list from 25 to 30 albums, with grindcore band Cloud Rat taking the No. 1 spot with 'Threshold'. Loudwire is the most generous - they selected the 50 best rock and metal albums.
"From show-stopping set design and performances in videos by Björk and Rosalía to stirring documentaries on Phil Elverum, Sinéad O’Connor, and Poly Styrene, music-focused visual media helped to flesh out the stories and aesthetics of great artists past and present" - Pitchfork introduces its selection of the best music videos, movies and TV of 2022.
The United Nations cultural agency Unesco has recently added Raï music to its intangible cultural heritage list. Popular amongst Algerians, Raï is a style of folk music focused on themes of love, social justice, and freedom. The genre often addresses social taboos and is popular both within Algeria and amongst the North African diaspora. The genre originated in rural areas and developed from forms of spoken poetry that were performed at weddings and during special occasions. In the late 1990s, many Raï singers were murdered, including one of the most famous, Cheb Hasni, who was murdered in Oran in 1994 by Islamic fundamentalist extremists. After the killings, Raï slowed in popularity, but it has seen a resurgence in recent years. Middle East Eye looks back at the history of Raï.
Manuel Göttsching, the innovative German guitarist and electronic music pioneer who released influential works with Ash Ra Tempel and as a solo artist, has died at age 70. His early band Ash Ra Tempel released five albums from 1971-1973, helping to define the sound of the emergent krautrock scene. Later, Göttsching’s 1984 solo album 'E2-E4' played a key role in the evolution of house and techno music. Guardian remembers the musician.
Violinist and singer Sudan Archives talks to Pitchfork about her musical style, her identity, and her urge to change. “There are people who want me to be this certain type of Black artist woman singing about hippy shit and the trees... The highest version of myself is a ghetto fabulous girl. I can’t run away from that. It’s time to show these motherfuckers who I am" - SA talks about her early fans. On the topic of artists who stay fateful to their old sound - “that’s some pussy-ass shit right there. I’d rather make horrible songs and be feeling like I’m expressing myself and growing”; on steady pathologizing of Black creative power in every industry - “I’m not their magical nigger”.
virtual artists is that, while K-pop stars often struggle with physical limitations, or even mental distress because they are human beings, virtual artists can be free from these" - says Park Jieun, the woman behind K-pop girl band Eternity. There are 11 members in the band, all of them virtual characters. Since releasing their debut single I'm Real in 2021, K-pop girl group Eternity have racked up millions of views online, BBC reports. There's a girl band aespa with four human singers and dancers - Karina, Winter, Giselle and Ningning, and their four virtual counterparts known as ae-Karina, ae-Winter, ae-Giselle and ae-Ningning. During the Covid-19 pandemic, K-pop group Billlie had to cancel their live performances. In order to throw a party for fans in the virtual world, the band's management company created virtual copies of band members. At least four of K-pop's biggest entertainment companies are investing heavily in virtual elements for their stars, and five of the top-earning K-pop groups of 2022 are getting in on the trend.
"Electronic music may have its problems and peculiarities... but one thing the genre doesn’t suffer from is a lack of quality music" - First Floor introduces its list of best dance electronic music of 2022. Three albums "that resonated the most this year" are: Hudson Mohawke's 'Cry Sugar' - "a manic album in which elements of happy hardcore, stadium rap, emotive R&B, swaggering EDM and kaleidoscopic bass contortions all live side by side"; Moin's 'Paste', a "guitar-driven post-hardcore album... made like a techno record"; The Range's 'Mercury' which melds "elements of electronic music, hip-hop, soul and R&B into remarkably potent little pop packages".
Angelo Badalamenti, the composer most famous for his “dark beauty” work with filmmaker David Lynch in the synth-heavy music for 'Blue Velvet', 'Twin Peaks' and 'Mulholland Drive' died at 85. Badalamenti scored nearly 50 films and worked with directors including Paul Schrader and Danny Boyle, while also collaborating on records and music videos with David Bowie and Michael Jackson. The composer’s 'Twin Peaks' theme music won a 1990 Grammy Award, and the soundtrack album was an international smash. CNN looks back into life and career.
Top 100 Tours of 2022 have set a new record with $6.28 billion grossed this year, based on Pollstar’s Year End Top 200 Worldwide Tours chart. It represents a whopping 13.2% increase over 2019 — the pre-pandemic year saw a record-setting gross of $5.5 billion. Overall ticket sales reported around the globe in 2022 also set an all-time gross record with an astounding grand total of $11.7 billion — just over a 5% increase compared to 2019’s $11.1 billion. This number is just a part of the entire global live industry, which easily surpasses an estimated $30 billion annually. Pollstar reports on the successful touring year.
"This surprise 10-track collection is a clear-headed riposte to the fame game and the industry hangers-on trying to take a slice" - NME reviews the new Little Simz album 'No Thank You', adding that this "quiet, understated release" has a "certain looseness and freedom to the tracks, and... a clear-headed Simz has something to say urgently". Alexis Petridis points out the sonic element - "There’s no doubt that No Thank You’s impact is vastly potentiated by the work of producer Inflo... whose approach to his project Sault – no promotion, no live performances, no interviews, music apparently released as and when he feels like it, even if that means putting out five albums on the same day – seems to reflect the manifesto outlined on 'Angel': 'Fuck rules and everything that’s traditional.'”
Bad Bunny has grossed $435.38 million in 2022 alone from touring, setting an all-time record amount made from touring in a calendar year, Pollstar reports. Puerto Rican artist surpassed the previous record set by Ed Sheeran for his Divide tour, which amassed $432.3 million in 2018. Bad Bunny also became Spotify’s most-streamed artist globally for the third year in a row after amassing more than 18.5 billion streams on the platform.
The Complex UK team (and extended family) chooses the best of what they have been reading and rating in 2022. There's a New York Times article about the exhibition on how grime transformed British music. LA Mag's piece about the killing of Drakeo the Ruler, Dazed & Confused's article on West London musician Dréya Mac, Miccheque's piece on best UK rap albums of all time, and plenty more. Check them all out here.
A great video by the music theorist 12tone, about the - prechorus, a relatively recent invention in Western popular music, which quickly established itself as an essential part of a song. "A good prechorus not only elevates the chorus, it transforms the song, changing its narrative and musical structure to more effectively tell certain kinds of musical stories. But where did they come from, and more importantly, how do they work?".
Global recorded music revenues grew 6.7% year over year in 2022 to reach $31.2 billion, according to a new report from Midia Research. This marked a significant drop in estimated 24.8% YoY growth for 2021 versus 2020, MBW reports. Streaming accounted for 64.1% of all recorded music industry revenues in 2022, with revenues estimated by Midia to have grown 8.3% YoY, or by $1.5 billion, to $20 billion in 2022.
"Uniquely memorable record, encapsulating its creator’s restless spirit" - Mojo reviews the new album 'Oh Me Oh My' by the avant-garde jazz/electro artist Lonnie Holley. Uncut points out it's "his most substantial and accessible album yet," as well as an "act of spontaneous divination, revisiting past traumas with pained understanding, yet also hopeful and celebrating the wonder of life." Pitchfork argues it's Holley's "most ambitious and approachable album: an extraordinary aural memoir that tells a cosmic story of survival" (rated 8.5, tagged Best new music), whereas Treblezine is confident that the album "will be deeply treasured". "This album is a report of loss, deep and personal and historic, yes, but most importantly, tangible and true" - Sputnik music writes enthused.
"I just think this whole idea of changing words and books because they make one uncomfortable or taking the rape scenes out of the 'Metamorphoses' — this is, to me, it’s not just dangerous. You start there, and where do you finish?" - Patti Smith talks about historical context of works of art in The Active Voice podcast. She also shares a few thoughts on cancel culture: "I’m always optimistic. I just refuse to be pessimistic. Pessimism breeds nothing. A pessimistic person does not create anything. A pessimistic person does not envision anything. It’s not that I feel pessimistic. I just feel that people are moving too quickly via social media, not examining everything in a cubistic way, not examining all the facets of things, not trying to understand how certain things fit in the context of the history that happened or when they happened."
"The market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) may have collapsed over the last year, but independent musicians are still minting. Is this because the... other revenue options for musicians in a post-pandemic, inflationary economy, in which media is free for everyone with a data connection, have dried up?" - composer and strategist Marc Moglen asks in his FWB piece. "NFTs hold great promise — especially for musicians looking to supplement existing or dwindling monetization opportunities, and especially if enterprising companies manage to crack the code of usability, standardization, and bridging the 'one-way chasm'.”
"No matter how much cost cutting Spotify and the other streaming companies do, there’s likely only one way for them to increase revenue to a point where significantly higher streaming payouts would be possible: raising prices... Artists need consumers to pay more for streaming, but here’s the question that even the harshest streaming critics often refuse to ask: what if they don’t want to?" - music writer Shawn Reynaldo asks the ultimate question in his latest newsletter. "Consumers didn’t create this system, but in 2023, they are accustomed to it, and if their current spending habits are any indication, they don’t seem terribly bothered by how streaming has negatively impacted artists or larger musical landscape."
It's definitely not a definitive list, but rather an interesting perspective by the rock journalism institution on the history of heavy metal (which they believe started with 'Black Sabbath' by, ahem, Blach Sabbath). The list starts with Venom's 'Wellcome to Hell' at No. 100, and reaches the high-point with, well, guess which song!?! A great lead of the article by the way - "Thousands of years after the Bronze and Iron Ages, the true Metal Age dawned half a century ago"!
Music theorist Adam Neely in his latest video is paying homage to jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, who recently passed away. The YouTuber analyses his favorite shorter song 'Infant Eyes' and the style of "jazz impressionism" he hears there. Neely builds three pillars of Shorter's compositional style:
Impressionistic harmony that creates tonal ambiguity
Elegant melodic construction that invites improvisation
Deep use of the blues
"The scene Def Leppard and Judas Priest helped consolidate 40-plus years ago has never had this much talent, or represented as many disaffected voices, as it does today" - Guardian argues in its piece about the current British heavy metal scene. Some of the important names the G is picking out are Bristol post-hardcore collective Svalbard, black metal trio Dawn Ray’d, masked prog-metal Londoners Sleep Token, noise-punk duo Nova Twins, anti-fascist metalcore fivesome Ithaca...
Indie-rock supergroup boygenius - the trio of Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus - performed at the baggage claim area at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, upon arriving in the city for their SXSW set, Stereogum reports. In two weeks, they’ll release their debut album 'The Record'.
You enjoyed our hummus. You enjoyed our shawarma. You enjoyed our falafel. Arab music is about to take over, you motherfuckers” - rapper, curator, and strategist Suhel Nafar says in the Pitchfork piece about Arabic music which is supposedly "on the brink of a global breakthrough". Palestinian-Chilean singer Elyanna is to become the first artist to sing her entire set in Arabic on the biggest stage at Coachella. Egyptian artist Wegz, the most-streamed Arab artist on Spotify across Southwest Asia and North Africa in 2022, has recently sold out London’s 2,000-capacity O2 Shepherds Bush Empire and became the first Egyptian artist to perform at the World Cup. The P mentions others - 25-year-old UK-based Palestinian-American artist Lana Lubany, the collective Laylit which hosts parties in New York, Montreal, and Washington D.C., and DJ Nooriyah, who grew up in Saudi Arabia and Japan.
