When you go after Cîroc vodka and Phat Farm and all that s***, God walks out of the room. I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even 'Thriller.' No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money. | | | | Mahalia Jackson bringing the gospel to Berlin, June 9, 1969.
(Bettmann/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “When you go after Cîroc vodka and Phat Farm and all that s***, God walks out of the room. I have never in my life made music for money or fame. Not even 'Thriller.' No way. God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money.”
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| | rantnrave:// Notes on the music industry gender divide, continued: I looked around the room during the "Woman + the Road" panel at the POLLSTAR LIVE! conference Wednesday afternoon and couldn't help noticing that the audience was about 70 percent women. There was no shortage of men at any other panel I attended, and I was hoping at least a few would consider it a good idea to learn about "the specific challenges and rewards that women face when hitting the road within a male-dominated workplace," since they, the men, presumably are responsible for all of those challenges. Such as walking up to country singer/songwriter AUBRIE SELLERS after gigs and giving her guitar tips and setlist suggestions. Or groping KREWELLA's YASMINE YOASAF almost every time she crowdsurfs. Or, as Yasmine's sister JAHAN put it, making women so uncomfortable they're hesitant to go to post-show hangouts with the band and crew. "They’re missing out on networking," Jahan said. "They’re not going to business meetings.” And that, she argued to the women of the live music industry assembled in the room, is why they're not moving up into positions of power in the business. And the more women in positions of power at places like, say, the RECORDING ACADEMY, the less likely U2 and STING would wind up with three appearances each at the GRAMMY AWARDS while Album of the Year nominee LORDE winds up with none. Or, at least, the more likely someone in the room would raise their hand and say something before the show's lineup was locked down. This is the kind of discussion that would have been good to have at today's "Behind the Grammy Awards Show" panel, if only featured speaker NEIL PORTNOW, the embattled head of the Academy, hadn't pulled out at the last minute. It's important to have these discussions across the business. It's important to acknowledge these problems across the business. The first step—as in many endeavors—is an easy one. Show up... Other ideas floating in the air at Pollstar: Barcode concert tickets are going away, sooner or later, in favor of digital tickets that identify the ticketholder. "Identity has to become an important part of our business," LIVE NATION CEO MICHAEL RAPINO said in his keynote. With barcode tickets, "we don't know who's there," JARED SMITH, president of TICKETMASTER in North America, echoed a couple hours later. Knowing who's in the venue is crucial for safety and for fighting scalping, they said, and they're confident that concertgoers are prepared to give up their anonymity for that. Which may not be big a deal if, as MARK CUBAN noted, anonymity no longer exists... Your car radio will eventually know even more about you than concert promoters do. It will know exactly where you are and what time of day it is, and it will play the right PANDORA station for the moment if Pandora CEO ROGER LYNCH has his way. Perhaps "ska and classic rock in the morning but I want to listen to R&B in the afternoon." The goal is to make Pandora "as easy as FM"... Concerts and festivals are about experiences, not music. My inner thought bubble screamed "noooooo" when Cuban said concerts are "the worst possible way to listen to your favorite artist," even if I did get where he's coming from. (To be fair, the DALLAS MAVERICKS owner also said watching basketball is not what most people to go to basketball games for.) Rapino, asked about the increasing sameness of festival lineups, suggested, "If your proposition is solely your headliners, you’ve got a tough business model... If your proposition is (the experience), you’ve got a shot"... APPLE's EDDY CUE said the HOMEPOD is going to be the 21st century version of (I am now putting words into his mouth) my old employer, MUZE. "While the song's playing, (you can say), 'Tell me more about the artist.' Or, 'Who's the drummer?'" I am very much here for that functionality... Someone please give JIMMY JAM a radio show. The most mesmerizing speaking voice in America... I love that new-magazine smell. Congrats to RAY WADDELL and team on the launch of VENUESNOW... RIP JOHN PERRY BARLOW. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Verge |
| ‘We hear from incredulous fans all the time. It’s opaque for them’ | | |
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 | Vulture |
| The music legend on the secret Michael Jackson, his relationship with the Trumps, and the problem with modern pop. | | |
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 | Google Arts & Culture |
| To celebrate Black History Month, hip-hop legend, producer and entrepreneur Nas pays homage to a long tradition of Black musicians and storytellers who continue to empower us today in this compelling open letter and video. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Donald Glover and Ryan Coogler’s righthand man traveled around West and South Africa with local musicians, hoping to honor their traditions in one of the year’s biggest blockbusters. | | |
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 | MetalSucks |
| The biggest difference I’ve found between my playing and men who plays drums is the men doing so haven’t been kicked out of multiple bands for refusing to f*** another member, saying “no” to Craigslist requests from potential bandmates for headshots, or giving a big “f*** you” to men who say things like, “Oh, so you’re like a *hot* drummer, huh?” | | |
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 | Variety |
| An ongoing battle between AEG Presents and Live Nation, the world's two largest concert promoters, broke into the open Wednesday when a fiery letter to AEG from Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy Osbourne's manager, was serviced by a publicist to media outlets. | | |
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 | L’Officiel USA |
| The enigmatic Lana Del Rey opens up to a cadre of contemporaries, collaborators, and celebrators about everything from music to meditation and the future of mankind. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Here we are in 2018 where featured recording artists are facing many issues in the industry that are unique to them alone: the need of a performance right for recording artists from AM/FM radio, the continuing battle with labels challenging the artist’s termination rights (despite the law), and the erosion of artist royalties. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Singer Merrill Garbus speaks about the duo’s latest album, white artists drawing from black artistic traditions, and the Buddhist seminar that informed her racial awakening. | | |
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 | Pollstar |
| Pollstar Live! tackled the future of music consumption in a high-profile panel inlcuding Marc Geiger (WME), Scott Greenstein (Sirius XM), Gayle Troberman (iHeartMedia), Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks) and Roger Lynch (Pandora). | | |
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 | TrackRecord |
| Who could save the institution of the Super Bowl halftime show? And would they even want to do it? | | |
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 | Slate |
| Fifty years ago, a prince tried to get all national symbols banned from the games. He almost pulled it off. | | |
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 | Lefsetz Letter |
| Bob speaks with the CEO of Lava Records, Jason Flom, about his rise through the music industry, his early work with AC/DC and Twisted Sister, and more recently, discovering acts like Katy Perry and Lorde. He also shares his passion for criminal justice, telling stories of corruption and injustice which are highlighted in his own podcast, Wrongful Conviction. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| After Fifth Harmony, she wanted to explore different sounds and different ideas; "Camila" is surprisingly quiet, with her voice often simply layered over sparse piano or electric guitar and intimate words about control and loneliness. | | |
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 | Audio Media International |
| The Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) is a San Francisco/Oakland-based nonprofit dedicated to advancing women in music production and the recording arts. AMI caught up with founder Terri Winston to find out more about what the organisation does and how it is working to achieve equality in the pro audio industry. | | |
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 | Invisible Oranges |
| As a fan of music, I won’t miss Slayer and Ozzy. Both have long since past their glory days, and could have easily called it quits years ago without their legacies changing. But as a fan of heavy metal as a popular music form, I do find the gradual phasing out the genre’s money-makers to be a tad worrisome. | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| Eli Zeger on the origins of a complex and conversational vocal technique, from its use by African Pygmies to its modern adaptation by Meredith Monk, the Dirty Projectors and many more. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| Right now everyone in Hollywood wishes they were Donald Glover. We sat down with the legend in the making. | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| Warner Music Group's latest global expansion is Warner Music Middle East, a wholly-owned affiliate which will cover 17 markets across the Middle East and North Africa. Managing director Moe Hamzeh and Chris Ancliff, EVP of Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa, discuss the thinking behind the expansion; how mobile can unlock the market’s potential; and why localisation is key. | | |
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 | The Bitter Southerner |
| Over three decades, he wrote 31 country songs that went to No. 1. He worked songwriting like a 9-to-5 job and saved every legal pad he ever wrote on. Now, those 217 legal pads are in the collection of the Country Music Hall of Fame, teaching young writers how he made those hits. | | |
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