If everything goes right... by the time we get to the early to mid-fall [of 2021], you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience. | | | | Gospel queen Mahalia Jackson in 1961.
(Don Cravens/The Life Images Collection/Getty Images) | | | | | | “If everything goes right... by the time we get to the early to mid-fall [of 2021], you can have people feeling safe performing onstage as well as people in the audience.”
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| | rantnrave:// I was shocked, shocked, bloody shocked, to read over the weekend that the British government has interpreted the country's vote five years ago to quit the European union to mean that the people of the United Kingdom want to make it harder for metal bands from Germany to play in the UK and for rappers from the UK to play in France. (And who's to say that interpretation is wrong? If you're scared of immigrants, which is what Brexit was largely about, that means you're scared of people from other countries, and if you live in the UK, metal bands from Germany are people from other countries, right?) According to the Independent, the British government rejected a deal that would have allowed its touring musicians to travel to the continent for up to 90 days without having to apply for work visas. The reason: Britain didn't want the unwashed musicians of Europe coming to London and Manchester and Liverpool without going through expensive bureaucratic hoops. The Independent got the news from an "EU source close to the negotiations." The UK government, which has blamed Brussels for the lack of visa-free touring, dismissed the story as "incorrect and misleading speculation," but who are you going to believe—the government that wanted to maintain a unified Europe or the government that wanted to split it in two? British musicians are livid. As they should be. Is this what you voted for, England? Is this how you value music and musicians?... If you want to hear music freely crossing borders the way it ought to, artists from Algeria, Ukraine, Japan, Peru, Mali, the US and elsewhere—but none, as fate would have it, from the UK—are participating in the 2021 version of GLOBALFEST, which normally brings musicians from around the world to New York but this year is bringing them to the virtual version of NPR MUSIC's TINY DESK. It begins tonight with DEDICATED MEN OF ZION, LABESS, SOFIA REI and DAKHABRAKHA and continues through Thursday... No big deal, just PHIL COLLINS playing drums for the first time in several years. I know it's January but this beautiful clip courtesy the DRUM HISTORY PODCAST may be the best drumming video you'll see in 2021... "OLD TOWN ROAD" is paved with platinum, 14 times over... I loved NICKELODEON's kid-friendly, slime-filled simulcast of the SAINTS v. BEARS NFL playoff game Sunday, and now I’m wondering if some other VIACOMCBS channel should do an adult-friendly simulcast of the GRAMMYS in which JAY-Z, DAVE GROHL and DIONNE WARWICK explain DABABY and MEGAN THEE STALLION to people over 35 from the familiar comfort of a recording studio filled with vintage guitars and microphones. (Or should there be a Nickelodeon version in which the members of BTS explain BLACK PUMAS and H.E.R. to people *under* 35?)... Untruths and consequences: Indie rocker ARIEL PINK has been dropped by MEXICAN SUMMER and genre-hopping Georgia musician JEFF ZAGERS' catalog has been deleted by WHARF CAT RECORDS, both as a result of the artists participating in the protests in Washington last Wednesday. Zagers posted on social media that he was proud to be part of the group that attacked the US Capitol, while Pink said he attended the president's rally to protest the election results but did not continue on to the Capitol... RIP MARSHA ZAZULA, co-founder of the most consequential record company ever formed in New Jersey; ED BRUCE, who warned you not to let your babies grow up to be cowboys; MICHAEL FONFARA, who played in LOU REED's band for years and helped inspire the BLUES BROTHERS; DEEZER D, who played a nurse on TV and a rapper in real life, and MICHAEL APTED, who directed COAL MINER'S DAUGHTER but strangely was not a recipient of one of the LORETTA LYNN biopic's seven Academy Award nominations. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| 'Standard' proposal to exempt performers for 90 days was proposed, but 'the UK said no.' | | |
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| In a time without gigs or IRL conversation, Makua Adimora examines how online communities have given space for Black music discourse. | | |
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| Five years after Bowie’s passing, cover artists are going deeper than pale imitation. They are finding new meaning in the late legend’s music and expressing their hidden selves. | | |
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| Five years after his death, the dystopian world that his music describes seems closer than ever. But maybe he can show us a way out of it. | | |
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| The social media app is a launchpad for music superstardom, but the record label pipeline won't work for every breakout star. | | |
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| Artists including Justin Bieber, Drake, and Travis Scott are making clumsy plays at humble relatability during an era of deepening economic inequality. | | |
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| MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| No matter how much Big Tech tries to commoditize music, this is not about selling widgets at a deep discount–it’s about people’s lives. | | |
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| Sweden's new punk-rock hell-raisers have made their name mocking right-wing fanatics, die-hard sports fans, drunken misogynists-and themselves. | | |
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| The cost of taking another songwriter's work without permission and illicitly leaking a remade version is $450,000. That's what Nicki Minaj will be paying Tracy Chapman to satisfy her copyright infringement claims over "Sorry," a derivative of "Baby Can I Hold You." | | |
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| Kunt & The Gang's offensive attack on Boris Johnson was one last year's top-selling singles. Tim Burrows looks at the work of the Essexploitation songwriter and argues that there's still an important place for his brand of offensive pop in 2021. | | |
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| | | i will move on up a little higher |
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| Dr. Anthony S. Fauci told performing arts professionals that if the vaccination program was a success, performances could resume with relatively few restrictions. | | |
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| The National Independent Venue Association is making $3 million in critical short-term assistance grants available to some 153 independent venues and promoters throughout the U.S. awaiting funding from the recently enacted federal relief package resulting from the COVID crisis. | | |
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| The Netflix series " Bridgerton" features incredible sets and costumes and outstanding performances but the glue that holds it all together is the music of Kris Bowers, who reimagines what a period piece sounds like. | | |
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| The bluegrass musician, who died on Christmas morning, had a towering technique and a severe and idiosyncratic ear. | | |
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| A strange package arrived on our doorstep this week. Strange because it didn't contain masks, or disinfectant wipes, or even another jar of that chili-crisp paste we keep blowing through. It was a box of opera. | | |
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| The organization informed the category's two remaining nominees, Joanie Leeds and Justin Roberts, that the Grammy will be given to whichever of them receives the most votes. | | |
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| Musician and composer William Basinski on revisiting your scraps and rejects, being open in collaboration, the joy of listening, and making the most of your time. | | |
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| “Drugs became his escape hatch and his prison. As his In Our Lifetime so brazenly articulates, the devil was after his soul and damned if he wasn’t determined to win.” | | |
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| | | | | | | "Soon it will be done..." |
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