A lot of people be stupid and they think signing [to a label] means I’m gonna be bigger than what I am, but they never think of the opposite situation. What if this goes bad and this f***s up my career? | | | | Chaka Chaka Chak-Chaka Khan.
(Waring Abbott/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “A lot of people be stupid and they think signing [to a label] means I’m gonna be bigger than what I am, but they never think of the opposite situation. What if this goes bad and this f***s up my career?”
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| | rantnrave:// Remember guitars? Those vintage music-making devices that look like this, but smaller? GIBSON, one of the premier makers of the music tool popularized by musicians from MOTHER MAYBELLE CARTER to SISTER ROSETTA THARPE to JOAN JETT, has hundreds of millions of dollars worth of notes coming due and faces potential bankruptcy, according to pretty much the entire music and business media, all of whom cite the same source—a 13-paragraph story published on NASHVILLE POST, a business news site, on FEB. 9. The Post updated the story Monday with the news that Gibson is bringing back an ex-CFO, BENSON WOO, "who has made a career of working at companies in distress or in times of major change." The company, which has been dutifully streamlining its operations and holdings, says it expects a solid year, financially speaking. It has annual revenues of $1 billion—which sounds good until you learn it had revenues north of $2 billion as recently as four years ago. Also in debt these days: FENDER, whose guitars tend to be more affordable, and GUITAR CENTER, which spent decades steamrolling over local music stores from SEATTLE to ATLANTA and now may be asking itself: "To what end?" Gibson, maker of the top two guitars on my current want list (please don't streamline your lefthanded manufacturing capabilities out of existence, thanks guys), appears confident in its future, and an analyst at MOODY'S tells the Post that "the core business is a very stable business, and a sustainable one," but there will have to restructuring elsewhere. Rock and roll, meanwhile, will continue to struggle on the charts, while country continues to incorporate hip-hop and other current pop influences. It's a vicious cycle. That isn't according to Moody's; that's according to me and pretty much the entire music and business media... I loved the loud, persistent African percussion in BLACK PANTHER, and this video from GENIUS in which composer LUDWIG GÖRANSSON documents the writing, demoing and recording of his theme for T'CHALLA, with assistance from talking drums, a ROLAND TR-808 and the spirit of BAABA MAAL, is my video of the day. There's plenty more about the music (and culture and politics and art) of BLACK PANTHER in our MediaSET "'Black Panther' Matters"... BIG DADDY KANE at NPR MUSIC's TINY DESK... 18th and 19th century Italian music, like 21st century Italian and Japanese and American social media, was sometimes about cats... RIP STORMIN, BOYD JARVIS, SERGIO DELLA MONICA and DIDIER LOCKWOOD. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| In her first interview since accusing Crystal Castles ex-bandmate Ethan Kath of rape, Alice Glass voices support for women now coming forward with their own stories of his abuse. | | |
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 | Genius |
| The "Black Panther" composer spent a week on tour with Baaba Maal, a legendary Senegalese singer and guitarist. “He opened up his solo shows with this just kind of like, ceremonial outcall,” Göransson recalls. “Every time I saw it I got goosebumps, and I was like, what if we start the movie like that? What if we start the score like that?” | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| Meet the street-up educators and straight-up music lovers that have helped bring up London’s latest generation of exploratory, incendiary performers. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The commodification of digital music is accelerating—and the path forward is … a boozy brunch playlist? | | |
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 | National Sawdust Log |
| National Sawdust Log's John Hong shares his uniquely informed insights about the new fourth season of Mozart in the Jungle, which debuts Feb. 16 on Amazon Prime. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Both "I Tonya" and "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story" use the Laura Branigan hit as a plot device. | | |
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 | Village Voice |
| Floor fillers and surprises from Ben UFO, Lone, Colleen “Cosmo” Murphy, Noncompliant, and Dense & Pika. | | |
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 | The Next Web |
| I've spent the past few months trying to teach myself the piano, pretty much from scratch. It's been tough, and sometimes disheartening, but also hugely rewarding. You might be wondering by now what an article about learning to play piano is doing on a tech blog. | | |
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 | gal-dem |
| Why are we, as an international community, still not only giving Chris Brown a platform, but driving his singles and albums to the tops of international charts? Why do artists including Zendaya, Afrojack, Kind Ink and Pia Mia continue to invite him to their studio slots? | | |
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| The Ringer |
| I watched the artist’s calamitous performance at Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game so you don’t have to. | | |
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 | Reverb.com |
| "Every record I own is a must-have. I wouldn’t have them otherwise." (Excerpted from "Why Vinyl Matters: A Manifesto from Musicians and Fans," by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike.) | | |
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 | TrackRecord |
| My name is Sam Ray, and I’m the singer in the band American Pleasure Club. We weren’t always called that. I started recording music under the name Teen Suicide in 2010, and continued doing so until 2017, with a rotating cast of musicians by my side. | | |
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 | Texas Monthly |
| Digging into the U.S. Senate hopeful Beto O'Rourke's six hour Spotify playlist. | | |
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| Genius |
| CupcakKe is way more than just raunchy raps, but her sexual bars are spreading a powerful message of self-love. | | |
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 | RealClearLife |
| RealClearLife caught up with the world’s greatest improviser. | | |
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 | The Root |
| Andre Torres is a vinyl and hip-hop head, who's also a veteran of music journalism. With over two decades in the trenches, Torres, who founded Wax Poetics magazine and was also executive editor at the lyrics site Genius, is now vice president of the urban catalog at Universal Music Enterprises. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| This week, we had a thoughtful discussion of the genre's sometimes controversial depiction of women. | | |
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 | Resident Advisor |
| "Dance or die!" Holly Dicker attends the biggest indoor hardcore rave in history to tell the story of Thuderdome and Holland's most significant youth culture movement. | | |
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 | Music Think Tank |
| If you’re not signed to a label and you’re putting together a DIY tour, your band’s finances are the number one issue to consider. Ready to hear about just how nightmarish it can get? Kick back for a minute and listen to my story. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Table-tennis-playing soloists swing paddles, hand drums, small gongs and even a wine glass in Andy Akiho’s unconventional concerto, “Ricochet.” | | |
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 | YouTube |
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