In the latest edition of his How to Get Good at Music segment, music theorist Adam Neely and his guest Christian Li argue there are no rules in music, it's the context that matters. Neely and Li emphasize that music needs to be alive, rather than just a series of notes.
Jon Batiste won album of the year for 'We Are', Silk Sonic won record and song of the year for 'Leave the Door Open' and Olivia Rodrigo walked away with best new artist ath the Grammy awards. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared mid-show to speak of Ukrainian musicians: "The war — what's more opposite than music? We defend our freedom. To live. To love. To sound. In our land, we are fighting Russia which brings horrible silence with their bombs. The dead silence. Fill the silence with your music! Fill it today. To tell our story. Tell the truth about war". Check out all the winners.
“I found myself reading about coronavirus and the effects of it on clubbing. I feel slightly blessed and overwhelmed wih what has happened because of it” - Goldie says in The Face interview. There's this other burning issue, smartphones - "‘Oh my God, what about my daughter’s kids? What about this new generation that have been pacified with telephones? Are they smart enough to jump over the telephone and go, ‘There’s a new trend where you switch it off and go to a club!’ It scares me slightly.”
"The best songs on 'Diaspora Problems' master this balance of chaotic hardcore with more approachable hooks and a wide palette of non-hardcore styles" - Consequence reviews the new album by the Philadelphia band. Exclaim believes the album makes them "one of the most important heavy bands in 2022". Ian Cohen calls it "staggering... a ticking time bomb hurled by a band tired of waiting on solutions and taking power into its own hands". The band is very political, what they emphasize in the Guardian interview: "The real political character of America is just sheer apathy and a focus on oneself, for the sake of survival”.
A nice little blog post by Medium about movie titles inspired by songs. The top spot is taken by Inner Circle's 'Bad Boys' - a song "about teenage life and becoming semi-aggressive as you start growing up... it’s about troubled kids who have problems at home”. The song was picked up in 1995 by the 'Bad Boys' action comedy franchise, which stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two Miami narcotics detectives.
It seems like Covid-19 is disappearing, especially now as there's a much more sinister threat. However, for musicians, Covid is still hanging above their heads. Pitchfork explored the issue:: "For rising bands and independent musicians tours are a crucial way to pursue a viable career path as a musician and often serve as the crux of their income. If musicians catch COVID-19, that’s potentially hundreds if not thousands of dollars down the drain... With mask and vaccine mandates evaporating around the country, artists are forced to once again ask themselves an important question: Should they risk their health by heading out on the road, or should they risk their income by missing out on another year of touring? Lately, it seems like indie artists are realizing there’s a hidden asterisk in this ultimatum; they can give touring a try so long as fans mask up".
Billie Eilish and Finneas won an Oscar for their song 'No Time to Die' from the James Bond film of the same name. In the other music-related Oscar category, Hans Zimmer won an Oscar for best original score for 'Dune'. The Roots' Questlove was awarded an Oscar in the Documentary feature category for 'Summer Of Soul'.
The Face surveyed 314 young people aged 14 to 23 across the UK about life in the pandemic. The answer by a 14-year-old Lucy tells a lot and is very, very sad: “Being 12 when this pandemic began and turning 15 this year, it scares me how I’ve had the majority of my life in lockdowns. I got my first period, my first ‘love’, and although I feel like so many others have had a far worse time than me, I feel like I’ve lost my life to this virus. I think my experience is probably very similar to others, but I always wonder what life would be like if I could have gone out and experienced the things that a 13-year-old does".
"TikTok app is being blamed for the ‘TikTokification’ of music, but not only by adults who don’t understand it" - The Forty-Five notices a trend. "Urban Dictionary defines ‘TikTokification’ as, 'A song that was once amazing is now the worst thanks to TikTok'. While it’s true that trending music can get stuck in your head until you can’t bear to listen to your favourite song anymore, the complaint also reveals an online discourse that treats fans who discover music through TikTok as less authentic and respectful than fans who discover it elsewhere."
"The Foo Fighters family is devastated by the tragic and untimely loss of our beloved Taylor Hawkins. His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever"- the Foo Fighters said in a statement. Foo Fighters drummer Hawkins has died aged 50. Watch Foo Fighters play ‘Everlong’ at their final gig with Hawkins, at Lollapalooza Argentina on March 20th, the last song the drummer played before his death five days later.
Alewya released her new video for 'Zuggy', a guitar-ornamented afro-beat song, shot in an industrial setting. A solo dancer is surrounded by Alewya's works. 'Zuggy’ is taken from her EP ‘Panther in Mode’.
Today, Aldous Harding released her new album 'Warm Chris', a strange collection of minimalist baroque folk songs. Recently, she talked to Pitchfork about it (The P tagged it best new music, gave it 8,2), and her personality: "For me, taking identity too seriously is really detrimental to my music. People say to me, 'Why don’t you use your real voice?'. But what people don’t understand is that I don’t know what my normal voice is anymore. In a lot of ways, I feel like the songs are like secrets that the muse is keeping from me. I have to listen, and then it tells me where the gaps in the universe are, and then I try to fill them with good intentions".
"Every time I pop out, I keep running into fools talking on the dancefloor. Just standing around, chitty-chatting" - Michelle Lhooq is frustrated and angry in her latest post. She also gives the oblivious a scientific explanation of the dancefloor: "The key to a popping dancefloor is ENERGY CIRCULATION. The DJ opens the portal and radiates nrg through the speakers, which disseminates through the dancers and twists into an atmospheric vortex. So when Chatty Kathys cluster by the DJ booth, ya’ll create ENERGY BLOCKS right at the power source, siphoning radiance with your black hole of self-absorption. This is not your aunty’s tea party. We out here exorcising demons. Out here for dissolution, for relief, for fucking feeling something—not networking!!!".
Last year 52,600 artists generated over $10,000 on Spotify, the platform has announced, the MBW reports. 15,140 of these 52,600 artists – around 28% – uploaded their own music. Of the 52,600 artists who generated more than $10k last year:
Spotify paid out $7 billion (across publishing and recorded music) to music industry rights-holders.
"In recent years, experimental musicians have been steadily building Ukraine’s reputation as a crucial node in Europe’s electronic underground. The country’s scene began coming into its own after 2014’s Maidan Revolution, in which protestors seeking closer links with Europe ousted a pro-Kremlin president and ushered in a new era of democracy and reform. In the wake of those events, young ravers clad in secondhand ’90s fashion began carving out a new future underneath the slogan “poor but cool.” Since then, parties and clubs like CXEMA, Closer, and ∄ have helped Ukraine establish a reputation as one of the most stylish (and hedonistic) electronic scenes in the world" - Pitchfork points out introducing the besieged country's electronic scene.
An awesome bassline, some seriously great grooves and a killer melody on Dublin post-punk band's new song. 'Skinty Fia' is taken from the new album of the same name, out 22nd April on Partisan Records.
The global recorded music industry saw its wholesale revenues increase by USD $4.0 billion in 2021 to $25.9 billion, according to IFPI. That sum is the largest in history, MBW reports. Also, that $4 billion year-on-year increase was much higher than in the previous years - YOY growth in 2020 was $1.5bn, and in 2019 it was $1.5bn. Annual paid-for streaming revenues bounced up by $2.2 billion to $12.3 billion last year. Revenues from physical formats – CD and vinyl combined – grew to $5.0 billion in 2021, up from $4.3 billion in 2020. Ad-funded streaming platforms or free streaming, including video services, generated $4.6 billion in 2021, up 31% year-on-year.
A lovely interview by The New Cue with Kae Tempest who is releasing their new album 'The Line Is A Curve' in April. They talk about recording vocals in one take - "really what I want, to get the most amount of truth in the vocal and to get the best vocal is I want to do one full pass of the whole record, a live take. There’s something about the endurance of it that creates this feeling in the lyric that you can’t get if you do 150 takes at each verse"; about all the songs on the album being connected - "all of that stuff that happens as one track leads into another that gives you this sense of propulsion and forward motion and movement"; about how music for them is an outer-physical experience - "when I go to the music and I go to the poetry, I go with my soul, it’s not really about my physical experience in the world, it’s another place that I go to when I’m making music or when I’m on stage so it didn’t affect it like that I don’t think".
“I left at the end of last year, after the new record was complete. There was no acute reason beyond that I’ve changed—and the band has changed—over the last almost 20 years. Time for new things” - Arcade Fire longtime multi-instrumentalist Will Butler and the younger brother of bandleader Win Butler, broke the news on Twitter. Will Butler joined Arcade Fire in late 2003 and first appeared on Arcade Fire’s debut album, 2004’s 'Funeral', and has contributed to every album since then, including the band’s upcoming studio LP 'WE'. Butler announced he is working on music for a David Adjmi play.
"The process of turning music into notation and then back into music is hazardous, and while it's still a very useful tool, we should really talk more about the things we lose along the way" - music theorist 12tones points out in his latest video.
ng Stone looks at the Russian rappers going against the war in Ukraine. "The big bosses will send [you] to the slaughterhouse. Bosses never gave a f*ck" - rapper Morgenshtern says in one of his songs. Oxxxymiron has opposed the war since its beginning, canceling Russian shows in protest. Siberian rapper-producer Slava Marlow shared footage on his Instagram story of the March 1 Russian strike on Kharkiv’s Freedom Square that killed at least 10 people. The Face is believed to have left Russia for Dubai sometime in early 2022. He said - “You made a wrong joke. And you wound up on the blacklist”.
The Smile continue their walk on the edges of early Radiohead and avant-garde sound on 'Skrting On The Surface'; Greentea Peng shares her first new track since last year’s debut album - the psychedelic r’n’b ‘Your Mind’; Father John Misty's 'Goodbye Mr. Blue' is pleasant and comforting, just like the nature; a reminder of Jenny Hval’s recently released album, her gorgeous single ‘A Year of Love’.
"Indie artists like Roc Marciano, R.A.P. Ferreira, and more have incorporated DSP-sidestepping, direct-to-consumer models for years. But now, some mainstream artists like Kanye West, who is selling 'Donda 2' on his $200 Stem Player, are divesting from DSPs, and the reaction to it has been a mixed bag" - Complex goes on to question the motives of artists pulling their music from the big three streaming platforms.
Music theorist Adam Neely admits he had never noticed an interesting moment in Adele's hit single 'Rolling In the Deep'. He goes into it in his latest video.
"COVID-19 is only the most recent, and acute, setback for independent acts, some of whom have argued that streaming revenue alone doesn’t provide enough money to pay the bills. That reality, coupled with the loss of earnings from touring, has led... artists to turn to the centuries-old model of individual song commissions – and some are seeing substantial returns" - Billboard reports about artists writing songs directly for their fans. Seemingly, it's working out just fine - Torquil Campbell, co-lead singer/songwriter of the Montreal-based indie band Stars has this year received over 70 commissions for $1,000 each.
Arcade Fire have announced their new album 'WE', which deals in topics of isolation and human connection - the band’s sixth full-length is due out on May 6th. Arcade Fire set out to record an album in February 2020, but when the pandemic began, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne decided to write more songs - “It was the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever,” Butler said in a statement. The project was produced by Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich. They’ve shared the first single, 'The Lightning I, II' - listen to it below.
Spotify has struck a major four-year sponsorship agreement with Barcelona worth $310 million. MBW calculated that in order for an artist to generate $310 million in recorded music royalties on the Spotify platform – at $0.00348 per-stream average rate – they would need to rack up a gigantic 89.08 billion plays on the service. No artist in the history of Spotify has ever, across their entire catalog, attracted that many plays. The most cumulative streams ever recorded by a single artist on Spotify is Drake with 62.84 billion.
Detroit proto-punk outfit MC5 has announced that a new album of original MC5 songs will be released in October via Ear Music, a full 51 years after the release of the band’s last album. The album is also set to feature contributions from Kesha, Tom Morello, Alejandro Escovedo, Jill Sobule, and Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath.
"Incorporating everything from Mayan flutes to medieval choirs to ancient Mediterranean pots, contemporary producers are looking to the past to help unlock the present"- Pitchfork writes introducing their piece about a new wave of electronic music. "Shuttling between avant-garde contexts and popular celebrations", this new wave is "a link to the past that refused to be stuck there".
Bandcamp has announced that users can now build playlists from a collection of purchased music. Songs can be added from a track or album’s context menu or with one long press on a track. Playlists can also be downloaded for offline listening. Bandcamp promises more playlist features are in the works.
Nipsey Hussle’s killer, Eric R. Holder Jr., has been sentenced to 60 years to life in prison, the Los Angeles Times reports. Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed in March 2019 at age 33. Court documents and testimony indicated that Holder, a Crips gang member, shot Nipsey Hussle at least 10 times in front of the rapper’s Marathon Clothing store, resulting in a severed spinal cord, and kicked him more than once on the ground. Holder was arrested on April 2, 2019, two days after the shooting. Nipsey Hussle, legal name Ermias Asghedom, was seen as a philanthropist and key community figure who had reinvested in the Crenshaw neighborhood he often rapped about. Hussle owned and operated several businesses in the area, including the clothing store where he was killed. Referred to by some as “Neighborhood Nip,” Hussle had poured nearly $2.5 million into the lot where he was killed and often traveled the area without security despite his status as a hip-hop superstar. He was signing autographs the day he was killed.
"Despite the challenges that the electronic music community in general—and women in particular—face, there remains a deep desire to create, build, rebuild and share music from behind the decks to dancefloors worldwide" - Bandcamp points out to the generation of female producers from South West Asia and North Africa redefining the sound of electronic music.
"Since the war with Ukraine, dissenting Russian bands have been canceled en masse, including many of the scene's original founders. Bands who faced censorship, harassment and intimidation during the Soviet days are now experiencing the same thing some 40 years later" - Bandsplaning looks beyond the Russia-Ukraine frontline and into the ever-shrinking freedom of expression the Russian musicians are facing. Since the start of the war a year ago, according to one promoter, around 30% of Russian domestic performers left the country or stopped performing.
Resident Advisor reached out to five web radio stations across the globe - Dublin Digital Radio (ddr.), Rádio Quântica, Oroko in Accra, Skylab in Melbourne and Threads in London - to provide some tips on how to start your own online radio.
A very well written text in LARB by Chicago musician Eli Winter about touring as an independent musician - "The thought of going on tour and sustaining this work produces an undercurrent of excitement that moves beyond the reach of words. Sometimes I wonder if I’m wrong to feel this way, wrong to carry on. Sure — touring has changed my life, deepened its meaning, made me a kinder person who is more open and assertive, strengthened my resolve. It’s taken me to parts of the country and world I’d otherwise not be able to visit, and it’s given me experiences I would otherwise never have had and communities of friends around the world."
"Streaming music has cultivated a new breed of creators who seem to be totally in the dark about what a DJ does in the first place. As a result we have what’s almost a new format of music that broadly fits into the parameters of club music, but will almost certainly never be played in a club — or by any DJ at all" - 5 Mag looks into the issue of dance music today being made for the purpose of being streamed, rather than danced to. "A fairly large number of people who declare themselves making deep house and techno are doing so in ignorance of DJ culture, with music that is almost hostile to DJing".
Fortnite has launched a new soundtrack option called Radio Underground, featuring indie music from all over the world, The Verge reports. The in-game radio station, curated by Bandcamp editors, is available now through March 8, when the game’s Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 1 comes to an end. Fortnite’s creator, Epic Games, purchased Bandcamp in March 2022, and this new initiative marks the first integration between Epic’s flagship game and the indie music marketplace and service.
"It may seem strange to hear it from a music writer, but I'm always looking for a quiet moment" - Ted Gioia takes a moment to appreciate silence and differentiate music from noise. "I always crave more quiet moments in my life. But I still love the music. Maybe I love it all the more, for having refreshed the ears with a dose of quiet before returning to that next song".
"When Beyonce and Adidas teamed up on Ivy Park in 2019, it seemed like the sky was the limit. Beyonce wanted a partner that offered creative control. Adidas wanted to replicate Yeezy’s massive success... But the recent Wall Street Journal report of a 50% sales decline and a $200 million drop in Adidas’ sales projections brought a series of challenges to light" - Trapital's Dan Runcie points out in his latest memo. "There were uninspired drops, less enthused customers, and creative tension... It’s very difficult to push a celebrity-influenced direct-to-consumer product in the social media era without that celebrity promoting the brand in an accessible way... It’s a reminder that even the most powerful celebrities still need product-market fit and alignment with business partners to succeed. “the next Yeezy” never happened."
