I always put things in perspective. Since the situation in Syria escalated five years ago, I know so many people who lost everything, who lost their loved ones, who lost their homes, either they cannot go back or their family is disappearing. Even in this, I'm a very lucky person. I have my clarinet, I can express my feelings through music. | | | | | Gaetano Otira Tep Yer Yer and Kornelio Odong Mulili of Sudanese band Acholi Machon in 2015. (Judith Burrows/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I always put things in perspective. Since the situation in Syria escalated five years ago, I know so many people who lost everything, who lost their loved ones, who lost their homes, either they cannot go back or their family is disappearing. Even in this, I'm a very lucky person. I have my clarinet, I can express my feelings through music.”
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| | rantnrave:// LUCAS GONZE, a music tech guy whose resume includes MOG, GRACENOTE and YAHOO! MUSIC, writes about the monetary and branding power of playlists—specifically official, professionally generated playlists, which are (you've heard this before) the new radio, and which companies like SPOTIFY can use as leverage in negotiations with labels, who very much want placement on them. He links to BAS GRASMAYER, a smart digital strategy guy whose pieces I feature with some frequency, who informs us (and this is the natural and obvious outcome of that which you've heard before) that playlist promo is the new radio promo, and that there are playlist and promo people who spend their time thinking about where exactly on a playlist a song should go based on how likely a user is to skip it, and they have concluded that it's sometimes helpful to be near the bottom of the playlist, where you will get fewer plays but also a lower skip percentage, which will make the professional playlist generators more likely to keep placing your song on subsequent playlists. This all makes an incredible amount of sense and sounds like super smart business and now I would like to crawl under a professionally generated digital rock. But I'm old and I was trained in true freeform radio (shoutout WMFO), where the only metric anyone ever talked about, thought about or even knew about was "does this song sound good after that song?" Shoutout segues. Shoutout music. Everything else makes me cry... On the plus side, there's no song worth hearing right now that doesn't segue nicely in or out of this... Someone please write the definitive story on the playlist promo business circa 2017 and send me a link when you're done (or send me a pitch right now)... THE CHAINSMOKERS embrace the NICKELBACK-of-EDM thing... And—speaking of segues—feel free to file that next to the CAR SEAT HEADREST/SMASH MOUTH thing... I got you babe, every day, always... RIP MAX WILCOX. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | New Republic |
| Did a violin teacher from Plano, Texas solve the world's greatest classical music mystery? | | |
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 | ESPN.com |
| The meaning of “The Star-Spangled Banner” -- America’s original protest song -- on the brink of its most high-profile performance. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| With “genuine humility,” this shy British pop singer and electronic producer is releasing his first full-length album. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| There have never been more great rock bands. You just have to be willing to go beyond the mainstream. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Before he joins A Tribe Called Quest and Anderson .Paak at this year's ceremonies, let's take a look back at the legacy that led us invariably to this moment: a history of Dave Grohl's unlikely Grammy collabs. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| Dr Jeffrey McCune of Washington University breaks down queerness, black excellence and ego in ‘Politics of Kanye West: Black Genius and Sonic Aesthetics.’ | | |
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 | Medium |
| Mark Mulligan asks why Netflix is profitable but not Spotify, and concludes: The main reason for Netflix's stronger position is that it owns so much of its content, while Spotify and co rent their content. So what is Spotify's path forward? | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor and live frontman Adam Lambert discuss how their collaboration came about, and their big summer tour. | | |
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 | The Trichordist |
| Musicians Action is a participatory democratic grass roots organization dedicated to public direct action to support economic justice for working artists in the digital domain. | | |
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 | The Huffington Post |
| Don’t let us down ― we can't take much more of that right now. | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| Grime is the UK’s most exciting musical and cultural export in decades, but it’s also fascinating on a business level. | | |
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 | The Stranger |
| We would sit in his red Volvo station wagon and listen to the 2002 "Ben Folds Live" album, memorizing his stage banter. "Whatever and Ever Amen" was paired with our hesitant make-outs, "The Battle of Who Could Care Less" scoring the fumbling of two pheromone-drunk teens who couldn't help but care the most about everything. | | |
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 | Aquarium Drunkard |
| The best songwriting works like a Rorschacht test. Observed from different angles, it reflects as much about the listener as it does the artist. | | |
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 | The Fader |
| Meet pop-punk’s secret superstar. | | |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| A fresh addition to his 28-album discography have Bay Area legend E-40 back in the spotlight. A high-profile disagreement over broccoli didn't hurt either. | | |
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 | Genius |
| The Mobb Deep rapper invited Genius into the The Illuminati Ball House. | | |
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| Billboard |
| New deals with industry partners mean that DotBlockchain has taken another significant step towards solving the music industry's most glaring data -- and payment -- problem. Will it pay off? | | |
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 | The Miami Herald |
| Emily Estefan, the 22-year-old daughter of pop and Latin singer Gloria Estefan and producer Emilio Estefan, releases her debut album and performs her first solo concert for the University of Miami’s Festival Miami music series. | | |
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 | Artsy |
| “I have come to the conclusion that much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom,” Cage once explained. | | |
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 | Perfect Sound Forever |
| First of all, allow me to point out that some instruments we now take for granted in music didn't exist at all not too long ago. Pianos were not in common use until the 1800's. Saxophones were invented in the same century. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | from "Trance Percussion Masters of South Sudan" (2013). |
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