Investment company HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired the publishing catalog of latin music superstar Luis Fonsi, the artist known globally for his megahit 'Despacito' with Daddy Yankee, MBW reports. Launched just four months ago by former Tempo Music CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares, HarbourView is focused on investment opportunities in the media and entertainment space. The Financial Times reports that “industry executives estimated that Fonsi’s catalog could fetch as much as $100 million”.
Neil Young has posted an open letter to his website directing his management and record label to remove all of his music from Spotify, which he accused of “spreading fake information about vaccines—potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation being spread by them”. He wrote “they can have [Joe] Rogan or Young. Not both”, referencing the Spotify podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which doctors have decried for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, Rolling Stone reports.
Pitchfork shares a lovely introductory text about part 1 of 'Jeen-Yuhs', a new, 3-part Kanye West documentary, 21 years in the making: "Much of what Donda West says in 'Act 1 (Vision)' feels like ancestral wisdom, words from a loving parent that serve to humble and uplift her child. One passage in particular stands out, and Coodie even repeats it in his own narration of the film: 'You can stay on the ground and be in the air at the same time', she says, a paradox that West made true until the day Donda died".
Bob Dylan has sold the master rights to his entire recorded music catalog to Sony Music Entertainment, in a deal worth over $200 million, by Billboard estimate. In 2020, Dylan sold the publishing rights of his entire catalog to Universal Music Publishing in a deal that’s estimated to be worth over $300 million. Songs have two copyrights: recorded rights (which include master tracks) and publishing rights (which pertain to composition—i.e., music and lyrics). Rolling Stone puts it simply: “Recorded rights are tied more directly to streaming and sales royalties while publishing rights pertain more to performances and use in film and television”.
The Weeknd has now risen to have 85,667,564 monthly listeners on Spotify, becoming the artist with the most monthly listeners on the platform, Hip Hop DX reports. The title had previously been held by Justin Bieber for nearly a year. The feat comes after The Weeknd has released his new album ‘Dawn FM’ earlier this month. 'Dawn FM' has also set a new record for the Billboard Global 200 chart with 24 charting songs, making the most ever by a solo male artist.
Ahead of the February 2nd premiere of the 25th season, 'South Park' creators have released an orchestral performance of the 'SP' original 'Gay Fish'. This iconic tune from Season 13, Episode 5 was sung by a character named Kanye West, who, after a full episode of not understanding a joke about fishsticks, had just discovered, to his great relief, that not only was he an aquatic vertebrate, but he was a homosexual one at that.
Don Wilson, co-founder and rhythm guitarist of surf rock legends The Ventures, has died of natural causes at age 88, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. The Ventures had massive hits with their rendition of Johnny Smith's 'Walk, Don't Run' and the 'Hawaii Five-O' theme. They've been cited as an influence by The Beatles' George Harrison, The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty and others.
“Maybe this might sound a little bit corny to people, but it was a spiritual feeling to me... It felt great to me – that distance thing, reaching out to something beyond the people” - jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins tells the Guardian recalling his two years of playing on a New York bridge. Beginning in the summer of 1959, Rollins played the saxophone on the Williamsburg Bridge day and night, rain or shine, in solitary sessions of sometimes 15 hours or more, for two years. This month is the 60th anniversary of his return to the recording studio where he made - 'The Bridge'.
The New Yorker looks into the very successful career of NBA YoungBoy: "It is easier than ever to be a hit by all of the industry’s standard performance metrics and still go unnoticed by the general public—to have an enormous following that barely registers within the wider pop-culture ecosystem. This occurrence is, first and foremost, the by-product of a streaming infrastructure that uses a plays-per-song model to approximate record sales—a system that allows artists to bypass the old display stand, even if they risk anonymity. But it also illustrates a gap between what is promoted and what is popular".
Black Country, New Road take a turn on 'Snow Globes' to some classic post-rock-like crescendo drama; J.I.D demonstrates some great flow on ‘Surround Sound’; Sevdaliza announces her new EP with trippy love song ‘High Alone’; Nilüfer Yanya slides through tension on ‘Midnight Sun’; and one that has passed under the radar - Ruth Radelet’s cover of Elliott Smith’s ‘Twilight’.
US singer and actor Meat Loaf has died aged 74, with unconfirmed reports suggesting he had died of Covid-19, Rolling Stone reports. Meat Loaf’s 1977 debut album 'Bat Out of Hell' remains one of the biggest-selling albums in history, whereas his 1993 album 'Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell' produced the global hit single 'I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)'. He completed the 'Bat Out of Hell' trilogy with 'The Monster Is Loose' in 2006. The three albums have sold more than 65m copies worldwide. Meat Loaf appeared in more than 50 films and TV shows, among them 'Fight Club', 'Wayne’s World' and 'Spiceworld the Movie'.
“The pandemic pointed me to the necessity of there being some rhythmic backbone. I had to use some drums, because you can’t be floating right now” - Earl Sweatshirt says about his latest album 'Sick!' in a Pitchfork interview. Stereogum argues "'SICK!' is still sharper and more tangible than the foggy, atmospheric doubt-trips of Earl’s last few records. Earl’s voice is higher in the mix. There’s less blurry noise around the edges of the tracks. The drums kick more. The melodic loops resolve".
YouTube music theorist Adam Neely ranks polyrhythms people have sent him. His Sungazer bandmate, drummer Shawn Crowder plays those strange polyrhythms and then they rank them together. Very nerdy stuff, but still plenty of fun.
Rob Sheffield writes a lovely ode to the CD (not sure he really proved the CDs are back, although in 2021, CD sales increased for the first time in 17 years): "It’s an inarguable fact that music sales reached their all-time peak when the CD was king. No audio device did a sharper job of separating fans from their 20-dollar bills. People loved to buy those digital discs, in numbers that look crazy now. We all spent the Nineties going to the 'record store' ('CD stores' never existed, even though most record stores had no vinyl), browsing the racks, taking something weird home, listening all the way through. You invested time and emotional energy, instead of giving up quick as you do with streams. The disc encouraged you to turn off your 'meh' reflex and let yourself hear whatever weird shit was going on".
Acclaimed metalcore and hardcore band Every Time I Die has announced that their last show together took place on December 11th, Loudwire reports. The band breaks up after a 20-plus year career. Every Time I Die had just released their ninth album, 'Radical', in October.
Bono doesn't like hates the band’s name, and is “embarrassed” by most of their songs, as he's told the Awards Chatter podcast (via CNN). When it comes to band's name “in our head it was like the spy plane, U-boat, it was futuristic — as it turned out to imply this kind of acquiescence, no I don’t like that name. I still don’t really like the name”. The music isn't much better either: “I’ve been in the car when one of our songs has come on the radio and I’ve been the color of, as we say in Dublin, scarlet. I’m just so embarrassed”.
Guitarist and former Smiths axeman Johnny Marr talked to The New Cue about how he managed to stay sane over the last couple of years: "I've been into meditation for years so I suspect that it's doing me some good. It’s become a habit and I'd miss it if I didn't do it. I imagine things would be a little bit more wobbly without it, or a little stranger. To be serious for a minute, that's kind of what creativity is for. And work, in whatever field it is. I’m extremely lucky because I’ve had a creative outlet since I was a kid, but you don't have to be an artist to lean into some of those things that make life more pleasurable".
A great thread by the Future of Music Coalition about Bandcamp Fridays, a day where the company waived its usual cut of the revenue to pass on more money to artists and rightsholders. In 15 Bandcamp Fridays since March 2020 fans paid artists/labels $61 million. The waived rev-share works out to an effective donation by Bandcamp of roughly $7 million.
An interesting point by Michelle Lhooq in her latest Rave New World post: "Clearly, we are entering the most absurd era of the pandemic, where ravers are actively trying to catch the virus, the scarcity of COVID testing is a joke, and the President himself is tweeting 'LMFAO IDK just Google it'. As the void closes in, the question lingers: is there any use resisting the nihilism of this moment? Or do you just cross the goddamn Rubicon, and jump into the gabber rave mosh pit?".
Very interesting facts in Rolling Stone's article about last year's highest-paid musicians. The world’s 10 highest-paid musicians of 2021 made in a combined $2.3 billion, which is more than double what they were making annually in the years before Covid-19. Only Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Taylor Swift made the top 10 without a massive catalog sale, the others like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, and Red Hot Chili Peppers made a majority of their income by selling their catalogs.
Ronnie Spector, who rose to fame as the leader of 1960s girl group the Ronettes and emerged as one of pop music’s first female stars, has died at the age of 78. "With her towering beehive hairdo and powerfully melancholic, melodramatic voice, Spector is among the most distinctive figures in American pop" - Guardian points out.
Rock guitar heroine Nita Strauss made history this week when her song 'Dead Inside' hit No. 1 on the Mediabase Active Rock Chart. This is the first time in history for a female solo rock artist to have a #1 single on rock radio, Loudwire reports. Strauss says she is a descendant of Austrian composer Johann Strauss through her father.
Music theorist and bass player Adam Neely went on a tour with his jazz band and played - improvised sets. They didn't play any structured songs, it was band practice every night of the tour. People seemed to appreciate it. Neely recorded it, of course.
'No Time to Die' from the James Bond movie of the same name, written by Billie Eilish and her brother and collaborator Finneas, won the Golden Globe for best original song. Hans Zimmer’s 'Dune' won the Globe for best original score. Find the list of all the nominees and winners here.
Michael Lang, famed co-creator of the Woodstock music festival, died Saturday aged 77, Fox News reports. Lang was just 24 years old when Woodstock took place in August 1969 in New York's Catskill Mountains. Officially billed The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, An Aquarian Exposition, the festival staged on a dairy farm in White Lake became a seminal moment in music history.
Kelefa Sanneh made a selection of top 10 books of "writers documenting single-minded scenes with obsessive passion". There's, among others, 'Deep Down in the Ghetto' by Roger D Abrahams about hip-hop written a decade before it existed, 'I’m With the Band' by Pamela Des Barres about groupies, 'Lords of Chaos' by Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind about the dark side of black metal.
In the US alone, 16 million people have picked up guitar since the pandemic began, many of them for the first time, Fender's CEO Andy Mooney told CNBC, based on their comprehensive research. Sales of guitars, according to CNBC, have nearly doubled since 2020, total sales are up 30% in 2021, and sub-500$ guitar sales are up 40%.
20-year-old PinkPantheress, who only started releasing music a year ago, has won BBC Radio 1's Sound Of 2022. The singer, who goes by her TikTok username, remains shrouded in mystery - she comes from Bath and currently lives in London, where she's studying film. Her real name remains a secret and, until relatively recently, she didn't show her face on social media. Indie-pop duo Wet Leg came second in this year's list, with powerhouse vocalist Mimi Webb third.
All the copyrights to all the sound recordings made prior to 1923 in the US have expired on January 1, 2022, according to the Music Modernization Act, passed by US Congress in 2018. For the first year under the new rule, some 400,000 recordings stretching back to the 19th century have suddenly become available. Check out all pre-1923 recordings on Internet Archive here, and the Library of Congress’ Citizen DJ project here.
Sales of CDs in the US increased from 40.16 million units in 2020 to 40.59 million in 2021, marking the first time CD sales have increased on a year-over-year basis since 2004. Vinyl album sales volume increased a massive 50.4% to 41.7 million. Billboard via Yahoo.
Playboi Carti allegedly choked his pregnant girlfriend, leaving visible injuries on her neck, chest, and back, during an argument on December 20, TMZ reports. Carti’s girlfriend, who was 14 weeks pregnant at the time, told police that she and Carti were arguing about a paternity test when he grabbed her throat, pushed her into some bushes, and held her neck until she could barely breathe. She went to her car and tried to call police, but Carti attacked her again.
"The labels are in a constant tug of war with digital streaming providers, who would rather their users listen to tracks that are cheaper to license, or podcasts with zero marginal costs. Artists feel like they can’t break through. Everyone feels squeezed" - Trapital's Dan Runcie points out in his latest memo as he's thinking about the music industry’s business model. "Music is always the first tech medium to be disrupted, but its companies are often the last to adapt to the changes. It could be time to flip that narrative, and it’s better late than never... Any significant change starts with the record labels" - Runcie believes, and offers a few ideas.
James Brown's 'Funky Drummer' beat was sampled over 1,700 times, yet its originator, drummer Clyde Stubblefield never got a penny for it. He didn't really like his beat either, unlike Brown who heard "a mother" in it. Arthur "LA" Buckner and Linda Diaz delve into the history of it, tracing its impact on Hip Hop music and the cultural significance of this iconic rhythm.
"Why does it take at least five songwriters to write a chart-topper today when it used to take one or two? Are musicians just less talented?... If it’s not talent, then what is it? In my opinion, it comes down to three factors: money, the computer, and the changing definition of what songwriting is" - musician Chris Dalla Riva goes into the issue on Tedium.
David Jolicoeur, a founding member of De La Soul, has died at the age of 54, with the cause of death still unknown, All Hip Hop reports. The musician has commonly performed under the stage name Trugoy the Dove, and later in his career as Dave. On De La Soul's debut - '3 Feet High and Rising', the band's most commercially successful record, and widely considered a masterpiece - they differentiated themselves from their contemporaries with their eccentric wordplay and eclectic jazz and funk samples.
Quite a few funny little posts on Composers Doing Normal Shit Twitter profile lately, the latest being composer Burt Bacharach having cheese and crackers. Previously seen - Leonard Cohen playing pinball, Franz Liszt having miserable time with his students, Miles Davis having fun, and many more.
Rock and metal music YouTube channel has shared a video about gatekeeping, what it is, why it’s hurting heavy music, what can be done about it, and why it had increased over the last few years. The key point is to make the heavy metal environment as inclusive as it once was.
Rihanna performed last night at the Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show singing a medley of her biggest hits. She sang on a floating stage wearing an all-red ensemble, with her dancers all in white. Yahoo describes her show as a "historic, glass-ceiling-shattering". Rihanna also showed her baby bump during the performance. Watch her performance here.
"Tracks in dance music have not only gotten shorter, but significantly so - average track lengths appear to have dropped by at least a minute or two during the past decade, and that drop seems to have accelerated during the latter half of the 2010s" - First Floor points out. The reasons? "Streaming services provide not only seemingly infinite content, but also remove virtually all costs for engaging with that content. There’s literally zero consequence for quickly pressing the skip button and moving on to something else. For consumers, the benefits of this system are obvious, but it’s also given rise to a listening public with little patience and an urgent need to be entertained as quickly as possible, lest they move on to the next thing... At this point, the idea of laying back and 'getting lost in the music' seems almost quaint; most listeners, especially young ones, simply want their favorite songs to hurry up and deliver a dopamine hit as quickly as possible".
"What we really need is a robust indie environment—in which many arts and culture business flourish and present their diverse offerings. Let a thousand flowers blossom... That’s where the future is happening right now. By alt culture, I’m referring to things like podcasts, Bandcamp albums, YouTube channels, Substacks, and various other emerging platforms. Some of these aren’t just growing, they are growing exponentially" - music writer Ted Gioia points out in his State of the Culture address. There's also a place for major record labels or movie studios or non-profits in this new environment - "If they start helping out in our project to build an audience and infrastructure for bold creative work, we have a golden age of artistry and culture ahead of us." Let's go!
