The reality of what happened over the last four or five months will put a different spin on the way people will view it. | | | | Takeoff of Migos, whose "Culture" is Grammy-nominated for Best Rap Album and whose "Culture II" is out today on Quality Control/Motown/Capitol.
(Prince Williams/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “The reality of what happened over the last four or five months will put a different spin on the way people will view it.”
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| | rantnrave:// Here's an album cover from 1974 featuring models who had nothing to do with the music. Here's one from 1989. And here's one from 2017. They're all representations of, or comments on, beauty, perfection, fantasy, sex and escape. All, in different ways, helped sell the album. That's one of the essential things album covers do. The producer of the 1989 album famously went one or two steps further. He told his band to stay home and he sent the models out on tour, to continue to look beautiful, to dance and to pretend to sing. To extend the fantasy. There have always been pop stars who don't sing 100 percent live 100 percent of the time. There always will be. Different circumstances demand different degrees of illusion. Here's an artist who's nominated for BEST NEW ARTIST at the 2018 GRAMMY AWARDS who is not singing 100 percent live—in front of an audience that probably knows and probably doesn't care. (If you need a couple minutes to call your congressman or your local RECORDING ACADEMY chapter, go ahead, I'll wait.) I have a feeling the 2018 nominee is not going to win Sunday; he has tough competition. But no one will complain if he does. It would be a defensible choice. The 1989 charade was defensible, too. Think of those models as human versions of the wall of MARSHALL cabinets at an IRON MAIDEN or JUDAS PRIEST show that have no speakers in them and emit no sound but look very metal and very fabulous. And cause no harm. Just a sweet, sweet fantasy, as 2016 lip-syncer MARIAH once sang. Give those GRAMMYS back to MILLI VANILLI. The album was, and remains, as real as a STEINWAY piano... Speaking of which: Does Best New Artist still come with a curse? Or was that a little overblown in the first place? MusicSET: "Best New Artists of the 21st Century, According to the Grammys,"... On the eve of a Grammy ceremony that will put a major performance spotlight on KESHA and feature #METOO white roses (in place of the GOLDEN GLOBES' black dresses), my RSS feeds delivered these stories on Thursday: Another woman has accused RUSSELL SIMMONS of rape. Two more women have accused NELLY of sexual assault. Ex-REAL ESTATE guitarist MATT MONDANILE posted a long, rambling FACEBOOK note detailing his own s***ty man behavior and then lamenting how he and other abusers have been "cut off and abandoned from public life." And then, and this is completely related, this: 90.7 percent of Grammy nominees in the past five years have been men... The team behind the BILLBOARD POWER 100 has made a slight improvement over past years in noticing women in the upper echelons of the music biz. Kudos for the effort, and a special congrats to our friends SUSAN GENCO and ELIZABETH COLLINS (AZOFF MSG ENTERTAINMENT) and ANTHONY SALEH (EMAGEN ENTERTAINMENT GROUP and WNDRCO), who made the list for the first time... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from MIGOS (why weren't they ever nominated for Best New Artist?), TY SEGALL, NILS FRAHM, PAYROLL GIOVANNI & CARDO, DREAM WIFE, STEEP CANYON RANGERS, NO AGE, RICK SPRINGFIELD, HOLLIE COOK, CALEXICO, SHEKU KANNEH-MASON, NIGHTMARES ON WAX, JAMISON ROSS, GHOSTFACE KILLAH & APOLLO BROWN, SONNY DIGITAL, MACHINE HEAD, MARY GAUTHIER, BEN MILLER BAND, EVIDENCE, LOUDNESS, DJANGO DJANGO and CRAIG DAVID. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Muse |
| The real reason puritanical sex ed managed to infiltrate Top 40 radio for a bizarre moment in the aughts had less to do with the actual personal beliefs of its stars and far more to do with the conservative political climate that helped create them.00:0000:00 | | |
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 | Noisey |
| In the wake of the #MeToo movement, the nightlife industry is talking about the ways they deal with misconduct on the dancefloor. | | |
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 | Slate |
| When my son Benj was a small boy of 4 and 5 with virtually no original language and no ability or desire to play in conventional ways, he and I connected through music. I'd put on "Rebel Rebel," or "Suffragette City," or "Changes," and he'd snap to attention, break into a smile, and lustily sing along, every word and note perfect. | | |
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 | REDEF |
| Being crowned Best New Artist at the Grammys was long considered a curse (if not always justifiably). But after one notorious pick in the 1990s, the Recording Academy has paid extra attention. How has it done? Here are stories of every winner since 2000. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Coordinated efforts at the Golden Globes drew the world’s attention to abuses against women, but big stars in music are mostly mum for now about their industry’s big night. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Over the last two decades, Paul Rosenberg has taken Eminem to history-making heights. Now, as the supermanager starts a “dream job” as Def Jam CEO, he sits down in Detroit with his No. 1 client and day-one friend to talk about their “broke” beginnings, many highs and lows, and what makes a great rapper (hint: it’s not streams). | | |
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 | XXL |
| Tuma Basa, global programming head of hip-hop at Spotify, is a guest on XXL's Shot Callers podcast. Basa reveals how rappers can get their music on the RapCaviar playlist. | | |
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 | The Globe and Mail |
| Kelly McQuillan’s home is having an analog renaissance -- and there should be one in yours, too | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| "If Michael Jackson was alive and 'Thriller' just happened … He would be doing virtual reality right now." | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Remembering the post-punk frontman upon his death at age 60. | | |
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| | | till the white rose blooms again |
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 | Grailed |
| In the 35 years since Nike first introduced the Air Force 1, one of its most iconic sneakers, rap’s relationship with the sneaker industry has gone through many phases. Rappers have gone from subtle co-signers who helped start grassroots movements to indirect ad men, to power brokers with creative control over entire lines of product. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| After years of criticisms, Sunday's (Jan 28) ceremony will have the most diverse lineup of nominees ever. Insiders tell us how it happened. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| According to leading experts in the very scientific field of complaining about things, there is no pastime more popular than griping about all the instances where the Grammys screwed up and gave an award to the wrong person. As you may have surmised, this is a deeply objective exercise. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| For years, hip-hop has ridden a wave of bravado. But a younger generation is finally getting candid about the cracks in that facade, and the realities of mental health in their scene. But as the death of Lil Peep shows, self-medicating is often the first and most dangerous resort. | | |
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 | Resident Advisor |
| Why are problems with turntables in clubs so common? Gabriel Szatan goes deep on the issue, and asks what can be done to solve this technical crisis. | | |
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 | Nashville Scene |
| Country music is superb at addressing adult concerns - something we badly need right now. | | |
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 | Variety |
| It's an interesting time. Consider Portugal. The Man, a rock band whose hit "Feel It Still" was one of the most pervasive songs of 2017. I heard it everywhere. And it sounded strange. It is truly an odd song -- a throwback with entirely modern production at the same time. | | |
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| Billboard |
| Michael Rapino likes to hold court in a corner seat of Live Nation's new employee lounge and bar, a space stocked with high-end tequila and craft beer that feels more like a miniature House of Blues than the first-floor reception area of the company's Beverly Hills headquarters. | | |
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| Los Angeles Times |
| A new study on gender and racial figures in pop music proves the old James Brown refrain is still true: It's a man's man's man's world. The study, in part, looked at the gender breakdown of Grammy Award nominees, and found a wide imbalance. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| In 1998, Bob Dylan and the world met Soy Bomb. Twenty years later, we’re still not the same. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | Grammy-nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance. Kesha's "Rainbow" is up for Best Pop Vocal Album. |
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