My attitude is if you can’t deliver it like a garage band, f*** it. That’s one thing that’s never been explored, delivering complex things in a very straightforward rock and roll way. My old excuse is if I’d wanted to be a poet, I’d have been a poet. | | | | Mark E. Smith at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, May 27, 2010.
(Jordi Vidal/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “My attitude is if you can’t deliver it like a garage band, f*** it. That’s one thing that’s never been explored, delivering complex things in a very straightforward rock and roll way. My old excuse is if I’d wanted to be a poet, I’d have been a poet.”
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| | rantnrave:// The FALL was one of those hard-to-like, easy-to-love rock bands that influenced 7,000 other bands, all of which were more successful and none of which were as good, and none sounded all that much like the Fall, but then again neither did the Fall a lot of the time. MARK E. SMITH, the band's perpetually irritable frontman (and only permanent member), didn't care a whit about any of that, and that's not why he was so grouchy, that's just how he was. A lot of people didn't like him, including some of his bandmates, and a lot of others adored him. He didn't want to be adored. Smith, who died Wednesday at age 60, was an astonishing observer of people and without doubt one of rock's sharpest, darkest, funniest, greatest lyricists. He was genuinely hilarious. His singsong bark fell somewhere between CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, late-period BOB DYLAN and RAKIM. Sometimes you could sort of sing along. He liked to drink. He didn't suffer fools gladly, or at all. He was a crotchety old man by the time he was 30. He oversaw a punk art dance project that lasted more than 40 years and went through more than 40 musicians, two of whom he married. The Fall's discography of 30-plus studio albums is maybe a little intimidating and—considering the band's revolving-door membership—remarkably consistent in quality, and if you were just starting out you could plunge in almost anywhere and find snippets of pop and disco and other such things among the minimalist sonic barrage. Mostly, though, you'd find the wonderful and frightening world of the Mark E. Smith and the Fall. His famously scrunched-up, contorted countenance belongs next to the phrase "sui generis" in the dictionary. No one ever sounded like him and no one ever will. Which is too bad for everybody else. MUSIC SET: "Wonderful and Frightening: Mark E. Smith Was the All-Time Greatest Mark E. Smith"... Oh, one more thing: Mark E. Smith reading soccer scores. You could meditate to this... The MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT, which seeks to improve digital royalties for songwriters, was introduced in the US SENATE Wednesday with solid bipartisan support. But that's just republicans and democrats, no big deal. Will it continue to have bipartisan support in the real world of music companies and tech companies?... If you want a master class in how to conduct an interview with a celebrity who has just expressed empathy for ADOLF HITLER, read DAVID MARCHESE's exemplary chat with ERYKAH BADU for VULTURE. (Badu: "Hitler was a wonderful painter." Marchese: "No, he wasn’t!") If you want a master class in how not to talk about Hitler in public (or in private), just read Badu's answers. The ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE weighs in... ELTON JOHN says he's quitting touring so he can spend more time with his kids, who will be three years older than they are now when he finishes playing the 300 (!) shows he just announced for his farewell tour... MILLI VANILLI svengali FRANK FARIAN paid "GIRL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE" rapper CHARLES SHAW more money to shut up than DONALD TRUMP paid STORMY DANIELS to shut up... I am shocked, shocked, that JACK WHITE hates your IPHONE. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Variety |
| As Spotify increases its lead over rivals like Apple and Amazon, its upcoming direct listing is raising concerns that the company could experience the kind of turbulence currently rocking another digital-media darling, Snap. | | |
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 | throwback hits/facts |
| 30 years ago this year, Milli Vanilli was one of the biggest bands in the world, with awards, million-selling records and an army of fans. The only problem? They didn't sing any of their songs. @Goldenerahits_ has the tale. | | |
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 | REDEF |
| Nasty, unlikable, salty, hilarious, a master of the language, a grandmaster of the insult—and all but impossible to understand—Mark E. Smith was like no other rock singer, and the Fall was like no other band. Which is too bad for every other band. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| "Hick-hop" is thriving despite little to no help from the mainstream music industry. Inside a scene full of big dreams and complicated politics. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| This production and songwriting team was in a fallow period before reconnecting with one of its early collaborators: Mr. Mars. Now the group is up for three Grammys. | | |
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 | The Associated Press |
| The return of the Grammys to New York City for the first time in 15 years has hit a sour note, with the Recording Academy complaining that the city hasn't met its commitment to shoulder the added costs of staging the awards ceremony. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| With the 2018 awards right around the country, a look at all the times that the Academy has bungled their winners. | | |
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 | MTV News |
| Boy bands are back -- or maybe they never left. | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| The most pointed quote of the second day of Music Biz and Music Ally's NY:LON Connect conference in New York came from Jesús López, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Latin America and Iberian Peninsula. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| For the most part, everything around us is getting progressively less quiet. | | |
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| | | this nation's saving grace |
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 | PopMatters |
| In its response to modernity, romanticism's grand enterprise inspires us to question the current state of things, to ponder how we might "be heroes / just for one day." | | |
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 | The Conversation |
| Number crunching the Hottest 100 votes produces fascinating insights into shifting musical tastes and poses the question: why was 1997 such a great year for music? | | |
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 | Genius |
| “We made a lot of records, but when we made this we were like, ‘Oh, what is this?’ We knew that this was crazy.” | | |
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| Variety |
| Does Paul Rosenberg's arrival at Def Jam and Ron Perry's new gig a Columbia signal a new era for the major labels? | | |
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| The New York Times |
| Mr. Mills, a Grammy nominee for albums by John Legend and Perfume Genius, said his goal is always “to make this better than all the other records the artist has done.” | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| The death of Hugh Masekela marked the passage of a legendary life spent re-orienting the world towards his vision - here, a look at his singular and expansive influence through the decades. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| With 'The Phantom Thread,' the musician is now an Oscar nominee. Here's a look back on his past works in cinema. | | |
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 | GQ |
| "GQ" talks to the contralto behind "New Rules" about striking pop gold and plans for the next record. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| As Superchunk and Yo La Tengo pull call me by your names, we look at those who borrowed before them. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| There's a small, select group of rappers who first got famous for being namechecked on other rappers' songs; think 50 Cent saying that he's going to tell us what Banks told him. Even on that small list, though, Fredo Santana stands out. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Dreams and Daggers," nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album. |
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