| 'Homework'... was a way to say to the rock kids, 'Electronic music is cool.' 'Discovery' was the opposite, of saying to the electronic kids, 'Rock is cool, you know? You can like that.' | | |
| |  | Black tie, silver and gold helmets: Daft Punk walk the red carpet at the Grammy Awards, Jan. 26, 2014.
(Christopher Polk/Getty Images) |
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| | | “'Homework'... was a way to say to the rock kids, 'Electronic music is cool.' 'Discovery' was the opposite, of saying to the electronic kids, 'Rock is cool, you know? You can like that.'” | |
| | Something About Them
In a career that lasted 28 years, officially ending Monday with an eight-minute YOUTUBE video in which one of them blew himself up and the other walked off into the desert sun to the sound of one of their own songs advising, "Hold on / If love is the answer you hold," the two men who constituted DAFT PUNK released four studio albums of mostly electronic dance music (lowercase e, d and m) and a film soundtrack and produced a few handfuls of singles for a select group of artists including KANYE WEST and the WEEKND. They toured infrequently, but on a very very grand scale. They studiously avoided showing their faces in public. It had been eight years since they released anything under their own name, save for guest spots on two singles by the Weeknd that they co-wrote and co-produced, one of which went to #1 in the US and both of which were performed at the Super Bowl two weeks ago. “Our output is rare,” the one inside the silver helmet once said, “and that means people pay attention more." They won the GRAMMYS for Album of the Year and Record of the Year seven years ago, which seemed simultaneously impossible and inevitable. "We all wanted to know what would come next," BEN CARDEW wrote for DJ MAG on Monday. "It could have been anything. They could have returned with an album of thunderous techno or vocal house anthems, deep disco or piano laments, R&B grooves or punky beats, and it wouldn’t have surprised us." Instead, Daft Punk's long-awaited followup was an eight-minute announcement, with no dialogue and no text, that there would be no more.
Three of the four studio albums will be remembered as pop and dance classics that progressed, somewhat counterintuitively, from a sort of futuristic house music to a sort of retro disco: 1997's HOMEWORK, 2001's DISCOVERY and 2013's Grammy-dominating RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES, which de-emphasized the e while doubling down on the d and the m. All were dripping with hooks. The fourth, 2005's HUMAN AFTER ALL, on which the synthesizer-playing and robot-helmet-wearing THOMAS BANGALTER and GUY-MANUEL DE HOMEM-CHRISTO first tried to consciously "humanize" themselves, divided fans at the time but is not without considerable pleasures of its own. The humanity runs deep through all their albums; that was one of their not-so-secret secrets. Computerized vocals have feelings, too; never forget. There isn't a single electronic act today who wasn't directly affected by Daft Punk, and there are quite a few hip-hop, pop, R&B and indie-rock artists in the influenced-by pile, too. The Daft Punk influence hasn't quite hit Nashville yet but give it time. A lot of regular humans, too, left something of themselves on Daft Punk's dancefloors, and most of them took something better away. MusicSET: "No More Times: Daft Punk Powers Down."
Tenth Avenue Podcast
SPOTIFY announced a ton of news at its "Stream On" event on Monday, including that it's adding a hi-fi tier later this year (no pricing or timing info yet), that it's expanding a variety of existing tools for artists and labels and that it's launching in 85 (!) new countries. I'll be coming back to some of this later this week, especially the fidelity boost and what it means and doesn't mean. There was a ton of podcasting news, too, including the dropping of the first two episodes of a tantalizing eight-part series in which BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and BARACK OBAMA sit around and chat in Springsteen's home studio about big issues. Episodes 1 and 2 of RENEGADES: BORN IN THE USA are here and here. A small issue which they don't discuss but somebody should: You can find the podcast in Spotify by searching for "Springsteen," but you can't find it by searching for "Obama," nor can you find it on either Springsteen's or Obama's artist page.
Dot Dot Dot
BOBBY SHMURDA is scheduled for release from prison today after serving six years for conspiracy and weapons possession. NPR's RODNEY CARMICHAEL and SIDNEY MADDEN on what happens next... We don't know yet if there's life on Mars, but there is most definitely most definitely sound on Mars... June 21 is the earliest that restrictions on concerts, festivals and clubs in England could be lifted under a roadmap unveiled Monday by Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON. There are a lot of ifs and unknowns, obviously, between now and then that might make it hard for anyone to book tours and events for any particular target date.
Rest in Peace
Roots-rock pianist GENE TAYLOR, who played with the FABULOUS THUNDERBIRDS and the BLASTERS and who was found in his bed in Austin Saturday morning after living without heat for five days... JAMES BURKE, one of the FIVE STAIRSTEPS who broke out of Chicago with this 1970 soul classic.
| | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| |  | REDEF |
| | REDEF MusicSET: No More Times: Daft Punk Powers Down | | by Matty Karas | | One of the most influential groups of the past 25 years? One of the most memorable live shows ever? Just a couple robots who were a little harder, better, faster and stronger than the rest? There'll be time for debate; for now we dance to the memory of Daft Punk, 1993 – 2021. | |
 | British GQ |
| | How Maluma went global in ten years | | by Kathleen Johnston | | With billions of streams, collaborations from The Weeknd to Madonna, serious fashion credentials and, now, a starring role alongside Jennifer Lopez in upcoming Hollywood movie "Marry Me," Colombian megastar Maluma is the musician of the moment. | |
 | South China Morning Post |
| | The K-pop artists joining Clubhouse to connect with fans and fellow musicians | | by Tamar Herman | | Mark Tuan, Song Mino, DinDin, Simon Dominic, and Hyomin among the K-pop artists to take advantage of iPhone audio app Clubhouse to converse with fellow musicians, fans, and music industry employees. | |
 | Billboard |
| | Billboard’s 2021 Top Business Managers | | Touring income plummeted. The value of song catalogs soared. Government loans flowed fast. And these money men and women held it all together for their superstar clients. | |
 | Audiofemme |
| | For Single Moms In The Music Industry, The Battle For Respect Is Real | | by Jerilyn Jordan | | Three single mothers -- two in Australia, one in the UK -- detail how they've balanced raising children and working in the music industry despite odds stacked against them. | |
 | Rolling Stone |
| | The Rope: The Forgotten History of Segregated Rock & Roll Concerts | | by Steve Knopper | | The Platters, the Flamingos, and other pioneering performers share stories of divided audiences, Jim Crow absurdities and harrowing violence. | |
 | Spotify |
| | Renegades Ep. 1: Outsiders: An Unlikely Friendship | | by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen | | President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen discuss the making of an unlikely friendship, growing up as outsiders. | |
 | NPR |
| | Bobby Shmurda Is Coming Home. What Happens Next? | | by Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden | | The rapper who ignited Brooklyn with his 2014 viral hit "Hot Boy" is set to be released from prison Tuesday. Louder Than A Riot hosts Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden say some big questions remain. | |
 | MusicAlly |
| | Spotify CEO Daniel Ek talks Bollywood, creators and radio rivalry | | by Stuart Dredge | | "if we want to be a global service and we want to be the number one audio service in the world, we have to be everywhere. This [week’s expansion] allows us to get to more than a billion new potential users." | |
 | HUCK Magazine |
| | The LA punks throwing ‘Covid-safe’ backyard shows | | by Nat Kassel | | Last summer saw a string of raucous outdoor gigs in Los Angeles – critics say they’re being reckless, but they claim they’re just keeping their scene alive. | |
|  | The New Yorker |
| | Julien Baker's Songs of Addiction and Redemption | | by Amanda Petrusich | | On her new album, “Little Oblivions,” it is sometimes hard to tell whether Baker is singing about drug use or love. | |
 | Complex |
| | Lil Durk Has Reached Greatness in His Second Act | | by Yoh Phillips | | Lil Durk has been on a phenomenal run lately, reaching new heights of mainstream relevance on his own terms. Here’s how he’s dominated in his second act. | |
 | The Guardian |
| | Bands rally to help as jobless roadies turn to food banks | | by James Tapper | | Stage crews laid off as a result of the pandemic are ‘falling through the cracks’ in government aid for the self-employed. | |
 | Desert Sun |
| | Music mogul Irving Azoff on the return of live music and the California desert | | by Andrew L. John | | “I think it’s going to be the Roaring Twenties,” Irving Azoff said of the post-COVID-19 era of live music. | |
 | Trapital |
| | NFTs potential in hip-hop | | by Dan Runcie | | Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have come a long way since CryptoKitties first debuted in 2017. These digital assets have been valuable for NBA collectibles and have big potential in hip-hop too. | |
 | Variety |
| | Our Native Daughters on Their Smithsonian Channel Special and the Making of a Black Roots Supergroup | | by Chris Willman | | To be young, gifted and banjo-playing ... and, yes, Black: these were the requirements for inclusion in the group Our Native Daughters, which was assembled by Rhiannon Giddens to make an album for the Smithsonian Folkways label that started as a one-off collective project and turned into a real band. | |
 | The Nelson George Mixtape |
| | 1971: Marvin, classic LPs and Black Brand Ambition | | by Nelson George | | Celebrations of "What's Goin' On's" 50 anniversary lead me back to an crucial era of black media expansion. | |
| Billboard |
| | John Branca on How Michael Jackson Changed Music Publishing | | by Gail Mitchell | | “Michael’s dream was to create the biggest publisher in the world,” says entertainment attorney John Branca. | |
| Variety |
| | Why Grammy Eligibility for Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’ Is a Completely Moot Question | | by Chris Willman | | "Could Taylor Swift's remake of 'Fearless' be nominated for the Grammys?" It's a question that has arisen repeatedly in the short time since Swift released "Love Story (Taylor's Version)" and promised that her full-length recreation of the blockbuster 2008 "Fearless" album would arrive in April. | |
 | Money 4 Nothing |
| | Financialization Feeding Frenzy with Cherie Hu and David Turner | | by Saxon Baird, Sam Backer, Cherie Hu... | | When we first covered the vast amounts of cash that companies like Hipgnosis were throwing into the music publishing market, we thought things had hit some sort of insane peak. Well were we VERY wrong. | |
| | | | Kazuhisa Takenouchi's 2003 animated feature based on Daft Punk's "Discovery" album. |
| | Music | Media | Sports | Fashion | Tech | | “REDEF is dedicated to my mother, who nurtured and encouraged my interest in
everything and slightly regrets the day she taught me to always ask ‘why?’” | |  | | Jason Hirschhorn | | CEO & Chief Curator |
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