Singer-songwriter Jim Ghedi shares his new album 'In the Furrows Of Common Place' with 'Beneath the Willow' as the stand-out track; Adrianne Lenker shares the new Big Thief song 'Simulation Swarm', played by her alone; Debbie Friday shares a dark electro-pop song 'Runnin''; José González is back with his first new song in six years, Spanish-sung 'El Invento'; female trio Horsegirl share their dreampop/shoegaze single 'Ballroom Dance Scene'.
The use of Splice, a highly rated app for mobile video editing, has boomed during the pandemic, as people stuck at home experimented with making their own tracks, Bloomberg reports. The company specializes in royalty-free samples, which allow people to use drum sounds or flutes from a large library for a monthly fee. The company has just raised an additional $55 million from investors, raising the value of the company at close to $500 million.
Spotify is expanding into over 80 new markets in more than 36 new languages – including key territories across Africa such as Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, Spotify reports. Together, these 80 markets house more than a billion people with nearly half of them already using the internet. The vast expansion over the coming days means that Spotify will be active in more than 173 markets.
Bruce Springsteen has teamed up with former American president Barack Obama for a new podcast series titled 'Renegades: Born in the USA', Reuters reports. The eight-episode series will cover a range of topics, including race, fatherhood, marriage, and the state of America. The first two episodes are available on Spotify.
Trapital believes there is great potential for Non-fungible tokens in hip-hop: "The late MF DOOM had just held an auction for augmented reality NFTs for his signature masks. Soulja Boy recently minted his own NFT. Hip-Hop Legends NFT is also selling several collectibles on its marketplace". An NFT is a unique and not interchangeable digital asset that relies on blockchain technology, which makes it easier to verify authenticity. Cherie Hu said in Water & Music on NFTs that hip-hop is ahead of most genres.
Daft Punk announced their split via an 8-minute video, so it's quite fitting to look back at their career through the lens of music videos. Pitchfork picks out their best videos, going from 1996's 'Da Funk' to 'Get Lucky' from 2013.
The Pudding has a great and fun interactive site Live Music Jukebox where it compares studio and live versions of popular songs. The idea is great, and the execution ever greater with technical details for every song. The collection is expansive with hundreds of artists and thousands of songs. Great stuff!
Parisian duo Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who gave us some of the most popular dance and pop songs ever made, have split, Pitchfork reports. Daft Punk broke the news with an 8-minute video titled 'Epilogue', excerpted from their 2006 film 'Electroma'.
Name3Songs podcast discusses the problem of sexual misconduct in alter music. Questions they pose: "Why sexual misconduct reoccurs at alarming rates in the music industry. What is the psychology behind this? How has this behavior been perpetrated across decades? How can this behavior be stopped and prevented? What is accountability and how do we apply it effectively?".
Writer Clover Hope released a new book 'The Motherlode: 100+ Women Who Made Hip-Hop' which spans decades, and took her 2,5 years to write. In a Music Journalism Insider interview she explaines how she "wanted to write about what each of the women brought to hip-hop as a culture and rap as a genre... For Queen Latifah, I wanted to talk about her achieving longevity through film. For Eve, I decided to write about her bringing high fashion to hip-hop. For Cardi B, I wanted to write about her wielding the power of social media to star-making effect". Why 100? - "I wanted people to see the number and think about magnitude and impact".
"She enjoyed fashion and had a performer’s joy in being looked at, in satin, silks, heels and hairstyles" - the Guardian writes about the fashion choices Billie Holiday made, and what they meant. "For a Black woman in the US at that time, this glamour could be seen as a kind of resistance, too... People said, ‘How dare she wear diamonds, how dare she wear fur,’ but she dressed as a woman of her stature should have. She represented herself exactly as she wanted to and that in itself was revolutionary”. Lee Daniels’ film 'The United States Vs Billie Holiday' is released this week.
“Borders are a dreadful invention of mankind, and so we are just putting up another one, and I think it’s a dreadful retrograde step” - Queen's drummer Roger Taylor said about consequences Brexit will have on UK touring bands, NME reports. His band is OK, he said - "we can fall back on our songwriting and our publishing", it's the road crew that are suffering - "it’s a daily, weekly job for them and so it’s made it really hard for our industry, very hard indeed”. Guardian reports about road crews for some of the biggest bands in music that are being forced into homelessness and turning to food banks to survive during the pandemic.
Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson of the Roots will direct a documentary about Sly & The Family Stone, with Common executive producing it, Deadline reports. “It goes beyond saying that Sly’s creative legacy is in my DNA….it’s a black musician’s blueprint" Questlove said, with producers MRC Entertainment adding the film "follows the story of the influential artist, king of funk, and fashion icon". Questlove's directorial debut, the music documentary 'Summer of Soul', recently won two awards at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Morgan Wallen stays on top of the Billboard 200 chart for the sixth week in a row, amidst his racial slur scandal which got him canceled from the radio, Billboard reports. 'Dangerous: The Double Album' sold 93,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. in the week ending Feb. 18, down 38% from the previous week. Wallen captures the most weeks atop the list for a male artist’s album since Drake’s 'Views' in 2016, and the most for a male country artist since Garth Brooks' 'TheHits' in 1995.
De La Soul were the latest guests at the animated show 'Teen Titans Go!' where they had their music eaten by an enormous monster, Rolling Stone reports. It's a direct reference to the band's troubles with their publisher. De La Soul are one of the foundational voices of modern rap, but today most of their catalogue remains digitally unavailable, with everything before 2004 missing from streaming services. The reasons are said to involve issues with sample clearance, bureaucratic feet-dragging across Warner and Tommy Boy Records, and muddled contract disputes.
Five nights of protests in Barcelona have followed after the arrest of rapper Pablo Hasél, convicted of criticizing the country's monarchy and glorifying a separatist group in a series of tweets, Reuters reports. Thousands took to the streets Saturday night, protesting Hasél's conviction and nine-month sentence. Protests turned violent on Saturday with protesters throwing objects at police, setting fires and looting and vandalizing many luxury shops.
Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda becomes the first major label artist to launch a single via NFT - non-fungible token auction, according to Loudwire. 'Happy Endings' is a collaboration featuring rising vocalist Upsahl and alt-pop star Iann Dior, and he is using the cryptocurrency as a new avenue to promote his music. Shinoda gave his fans the opportunity to bid for a chance to win an original print of the single artwork signed by him and contemporary artist Cain Caser at a cryptocurrency auction.
Discogs has seen a big growth in sales last year, their year-end report shows: the marketplace is up 35.78% to 8,845,534 orders over the prior year and in total 16,290,197 pieces of physical music were sold around the world, bringing an overall 40.12% increase year-over-year. The most popular physical music format sold in 2020 was vinyl - 11,961,998 records were sold, up 40.75% from 2019. CDs have also increased 37.18% year-over-year with 3,441,769 compact discs purchased. Interest in cassettes hasn’t died down, with a total of 282,798 sold through the Marketplace, a 33.33% increase over 2019.
Kim Kardashian has filed for divorce from rapper Kanye West, according to CBS. The couple have been married for almost seven years and have four children together. Reports suggest Kardashian has requested joint legal and physical custody of their children.
"Surrounding her voice with saxophone and fretless bass, drum loops and field recordings, acoustic instruments and new age synth, Jenkins’ accompanists mirror the conversational tone of her writing, ensuring that the revelations aren’t limited to the lyric sheet" - Pitchfork writes in the review of Cassandra Jenkins' second album (tagged it Best New Music, grade 8.3). Brooklyn Vegan thinks highly of it as well: "Warm, '70s-style folk music is still one of the big influences here, but 'Overview' also finds Cassandra embracing a sophisti-pop/indie rock blend... The instrumentals alone on this album are gripping enough to stop you in your tracks, but sealing the deal is Cassandra's lyricism and vocal delivery, which feel casual and conversational but also poetic and quietly devastating".
Experimental Indonesian metal Senyawa are releasing their new album ‘Alkisah’ on 44 different independent labels around the world (release dates vary from Feb 19 to Feb 21). Labels span from the experimental duo’s hometown of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to the United States, United Kingdom, EU and other Asian countries, the New York Times reports. Senyawa confirmed the album release will vary by label, each with their own “different design and packaging, with multiple remix/reinterpretations by various artists”. Senyawa said that the concept of releasing through multiple labels would decentralise the “former hierarchical system of music distribution” and would allow shipping distances and cost to be reduced, and empower “smaller scattered powers to grow and connect”.
Đjorđe Balašević, a Serbian folk-pop singer who remained widely popular throughout the former Yugoslavia after the wars of the 1990s, has died aged 67 after contracting the new coronavirus, ABC reports. Balašević started his musical career in late 1970s, and, as an anti-nationalist and a pacifist during the wartime-era, he remained popular in ex-Yugoslav states, filling up concert halls after the wars. In 1998 he was named UN's Goodwill Ambassador. Balašević is survived by his wife, three children, and his music.
The third album by East London rapper "depicts honest tales of London through the art of true lyricism, a tradition that will never die out" - NME writes about Ghetts' 'Conflict of Interest', an album rich in lyrics and collaborations (and minutes - it's over an hour long). Alexis Petridis says the album "feels like the work of an artist who’s in it for the long haul rather than short-term rewards". Clash Music puts it simple: "His strongest album to date, and one of grime’s true classic".
Billboard examines the financial side of Morgan Wallen's scandal, estimating that Wallen's label, Big Loud, is currently making more than $1.5 million a week from sales and streaming of his album 'Dangerous'. This record has been the #1 album in the US for five weeks, two of those weeks coming after his racial slur. Officially, Big Loud has suspended Wallen, but his fans are coming to his defense, so the sales of that double album have gone up. Country star Maren Morris sums it up pretty good: "I think that your fans are a reflection of you and what you’re about. And you can’t control a human being, but you absolutely can let them know where you stand", meaning it's a change that'll take time.
Music mogul Irving Azoff has acquired a majority interest in Beach Boys' music, their master recordings, a portion of their publishing, the Beach Boys brand, memorabilia, an archive of photos, videos and interviews, for an estimated $100 million to $200 million, Rolling Stone reports. Azoff, manager of the Eagles and Jon Bon Jovi, takes control over everything from Beach Boys' social-media accounts to their names, likenesses, and life stories. Azoff's company Iconic will be overseeing Beach Boys their work even after the remaining members die.
A year ago Pop Smoke was shot and killed at age 20, as he was preparing to release his debut album. Although he died, his music reached high levels in the meantime, as Independent sums it up. Last summer, the rapper’s breakout 2019 single 'Dior' became fuel for the Black Lives Matter movement. His posthumous single 'What You Know Bout Love' reached the top spot on the US rhythmic radio chart last month. Song 'For The Night' is now a staple among the top five played songs on urban radio stations. His posthumous album 'Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon' has topped the Billboard 200 twice...
1980s pop singer Glenn Medeiros was often asked for sex by music industry figures in return for help with his careers - as he has told the Celebrity Catch Up podcast. Medeiros said he saw these offers "everywhere", and he refused them all, but other artists, as he said, would accept them: "I had friends who specifically said, 'I am going to be moving in with this person because this person is going to be helping me with my recording career. The person's attractive and I like them anyway, so it's OK"". Medeiros now runs a school in Hawaii.
Miles Cooper Seaton, a founding member of the experimental rock band Akron/Family, has died aged 41, Stereogum reports. Seaton took a multi-instrumental role in Akron/Family releasing six albums with the band in the 2005-2013 period, continuing to make experimental music under his own name in the following years.
Perseverance, the largest, most advanced rover NASA has sent to another world, touched down on Mars Thursday, carrying for the first time a small microphone that will have recorded the sounds of the descent and the martian environment itself. NASA doesn't really make audio-recordings - “in the space business we don't do a lot with microphones and sound, since most of our research is done in a vacuum”, so the microphone was designed by Jason Achilles Mezilis, a Los Angeles–based rock musician, composer, and lifelong space enthusiast. The mic is scientifically focused, and it sits in an instrument called SuperCam to help study what happens to rocks when they get zapped with a laser. It could also record ambient sound. Wired brings the amazing story.
Prince Markie Dee, a member of the pioneering hip-hop group the Fat Boys, died aged 52 on Thursday, a day before his birthday, Rolling Stone reports. Together with Human Beatbox and Kool Rock Ski he launched Fat Boys in 1983, becoming one of rap’s premier pop culture ambassadors. The Roots' Questlove said “they were figuratively (no weight jokes) the biggest act in hip hop at some point in time. Like the first act that showed this culture might have some real international legs to it". After the band's breakup, he wrote and produced pop songs for the likes of Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey under his birth name Mark Morales.
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".
