I'm a purist and a romantic about rock and roll, and I feel like you go either one way or the other. You crash and burn, you f*** up, you fail, you have a glorious burnout. Or you just grit your teeth and like f***ing go to work, and you tour, and you tour, and you tour. | | | | | Lady Gaga drops in on the Super Bowl. (Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I'm a purist and a romantic about rock and roll, and I feel like you go either one way or the other. You crash and burn, you f*** up, you fail, you have a glorious burnout. Or you just grit your teeth and like f***ing go to work, and you tour, and you tour, and you tour.”
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| | rantnrave:// WOODY GUTHRIE wrote "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND" as an angry, politically pointed response to IRVING BERLIN's "GOD BLESS AMERICA." A line from Guthrie's original version: "There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me." If you're complaining this morning that LADY GAGA's SUPER BOWL halftime show was safe, conservative or "lacked any edge," I urge you to consider that she opened with snippets of those two songs, emphasizing that "this land was made for you and me," before diving off the roof of NRG STADIUM to play a deliciously glammy and poppy set that included an LGBT anthem featuring the phrase "transgendered life." If that's considered playing it safe in 2017, keep playing it safe, Gaga... I'm always amazed at how halftime crews can build and dismantle a stadium stage within a rigid 30-minute window—with a 12-minute performance in the middle. Championship-level preparation and execution... MARC SPITZ, who died unexpectedly at age 47 on Saturday, was a rock critic, playwright, novelist, raconteur and sunglasses-at-night throwback to a louche NEW YORK rock and roll spirit that has been repeatedly pronounced dead over the past 20 or 30 years but has never actually died because that's not how spirit works and because nothing is stronger than willpower plus imagination plus desire, which by all accounts Marc Spitz possessed in copious amounts. I never met him, but my social feeds were full this weekend of stories of all the obnoxious things he did that made people fall in love with him. And tears. Lots of tears. RIP... Here's his 2003 SPIN cover story on the STROKES... And his episode of WTF With MARC MARON... Speaking of louche rock critics, BARNEY HOSKYNS once invoiced NME for a quarter-gram of heroin, which he says he needed to secure an interview with JOHNNY THUNDERS. Hoskyns writes beautifully about overcoming his drug addiction and embracing his life... How do you know a band's last show is really its last show? "As far as I am concerned, this is the end," OZZY OSBOURNE said of the end of BLACK SABBATH's "The End" tour Saturday in their hometown BIRMINGHAM. It ended with an encore of "PARANOID" amid a sea of black and purple balloons. But as far as TONY IOMMI is concerned, "We're not saying goodbye as such, as in we're never going to do it again." Bottom line: Never say die... Meantime, here's our REDEF MusicSET on artists' Last Waltzes—Black Sabbath included, for now... BANDCAMP did over $1 million in sales on Friday, a day on which it donated all revenue to the ACLU... RIP DAVID AXELROD and WALTER HAUTZIG. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| MJ’s $5 million deal. Madonna’s premiere of “Like A Prayer.” Commercials with Beyoncé every few years. The Super Bowl Halftime Show. This is how Pepsi sells sugar water to kids. | | |
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| CDs were sold to consumers as these virtually indestructible platters, but the truth, as exemplified by the disc rot phenomenon, is more complicated. | | |
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| Music journalist Marc Spitz touched a raw nerve with Marc, thanks to his memoir “Poseur.” The two Marcs share more than a name. They share a compulsion for the drugs, the grit and the rock and roll allure of New York City before the new millennium. | | |
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| As a young journalist, Barney Hoskyns mingled with rock and roll’s brightest stars. Then heroin got the better of him. But it was finally confronting his all-consuming addiction that gave him the biggest high of all. | | |
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| Lady Gaga put on one helluva Super Bowl halftime show. More, she made a pointed political statement about equality and LGBT acceptance at a time when fear and divisiveness rules. | | |
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| After years on the fringes of the UK hip-hop scene, Rory Graham -- AKA Rag’n’Bone Man -- has struck gold with his massive hit ‘Human.’ | | |
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| When CeDell Davis was a boy, his mother told him he would go to hell if he kept on playing the guitar and messing around with the devil’s music. Davis was born in the Delta town of Helena in 1926, and there was no shortage of devilment. | | |
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| In my Theories of Sound & Music class we studied the Nietzsche/Wagner beef, and there are two themes I want to mark here so we can return to them later when we talk about poptimism, on the one hand, and neoliberalism/Attali/Foucault on the other. For y’all not in the class, this provides some useful 19th c context for phenomena we generally locate in the late 20th c. | | |
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| Donald Trump might be the reason you find your next favorite artist | | |
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| How much has Daniel Ek's company promised in terms to secure a $1bn loan intake? | | |
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| Next to sex and death, there’s no more compelling subject for songwriters than the thing that happens in between those two endpoints on the cycle of life. Aging--and all the excitement, confusion, and existential dread that accompanies it--has long captivated the songwriter, whose work within a ruthlessly youth-focused industry makes them hyperaware of the passing of time. | | |
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| The company has quickly become a player in the industry, as a new ad for Frank Ocean’s “Blondie” highlights, by attracting independent artists who like to collaborate. | | |
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| 'The Young Pope' makes a purposeful soundtrack choice -- decadence scored by the height of trash. | | |
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| A moving new documentary called ‘Strike A Pose’ reunites Madonna’s estranged ‘Blond Ambition’ dancers twenty-five years on and discovers what’s happened to them since that controversial tour. | | |
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| Lӕtitia Tamko creates compact, detailed songworlds to explore the intersection of loneliness and companionship. | | |
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| Tim Cook is ready to acquire and wants original content. What could that mean for music? | | |
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| Junglepussy, Battyjack, Black Lives Matter activist Kei Williams, and Mic's Jamilah King discuss the essential questions. | | |
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| Black Sabbath reflect on their 50-year career as they play the final gig of their last world tour. | | |
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| Wave of closures hitting live venues has fans fretting, but politicians and a veteran booker say there’s no need for panic. | | |
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| For a minute in history, it was oh-so-cool for legacy tech companies to hire pop stars. It didn’t work. | | |
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| | | | | ScHoolboy Q ft. Miguel and Justine Skye |
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