| The acts that look after the fans will be the ones that last. | | |
| |  | Ed Sheeran launches an Australasian tour by sharing some bubbly with Aussie music mogul Michael Gudinski in Perth, March 1, 2018.
(Matt Jelonek/WireImage/Getty Images) |
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| | | “The acts that look after the fans will be the ones that last.” | |
| | New Fangled Thingamajig
So OZUNA put an edition of 15 NFTs on sale Saturday—you know what an NFT is, you've known at least since last Tuesday or Wednesday—each of them containing 19 seconds of music accompanied by a digital animation that would work nicely on the wall of a rave in 1998 (and, to be fair, probably on the wall of an illegal 2021 pandemic rave, too), and all 15 sold out, and three of them have already been resold at four-figure-ish markups, and nine more were available for resale as of early this morning at asking prices ranging from (don't ask why) $5,115.14 to (seriously, don't ask) $50,000. Don't let me disrupt your art auction fun but that sounds more like a pyramid scheme to me, but maybe that's just me. Anyway here's a good short thinkpiece by MICHAEL DONALDSON musing on both the environmental cost of all this and the coming class stratification in which "music’s 1% will dominate, just as they do on SPOTIFY" while not discounting the very real creative possibilities for the format. I agree. Producer 3LAU, meanwhile, reportedly just sold $11.7 million worth of this digital stuff in an auction of 33 tokens whose main value is that they can be traded in for physical goods and experiences including limited-edition vinyl, the chance to pick songs for an upcoming 3LAU mix and, most expensively, a "custom song created by 3LAU with winner's creative direction," which went for $3,666,666 (which, while I'm being fair, is a pretty creative figure). Since it's a New Fangled Thingamajig, the winner is free to mark that last one up a few more million bucks and try to resell it, with some of the markup going to 3LAU, which is one of the digitally enforced attractions of NFTs for artists, and with the new buyer assuming the rights to that custom song, which I assume will eventually be about either ELON MUSK or 50 CENT. Does this mean NFTs work or that there's always someone happy to pay three or four million bucks for a vanity song, or both, I confess I don't know. Business Insider tells me GRIMES made a relatively modest $5.8 million for her NFT artwork on Sunday but she made it in 20 minutes, which would seem a not bad per-minute haul. There's new Grimes music embedded with the art. I'm not sure what to make of Business Insider breathlessly telling me one of the Grimes pieces "has already been relisted at $2.5 million" but not telling me the previous price was $6,600 and not pointing out that no one has actually offered $2.5 million. Am I reading business news or fan fiction? Anyway that's today's NFT report and I may well regret every word of it six months from now but how else was I going to get you to read that LUCY DACUS promoted her upcoming single, "THUMBS," by sending VHS tapes with the song on it to 100 fans? Each is hand-numbered and titled as if recorded over a different classic movie. More of this please, my analog friends. If anyone wants to resell one of those for either $50,000 or $2.5 million, I'm not interested but I promise to do everything I can to help you find a buyer. VHS was once the disruptive future, too.
What Is "Twisted Vaxxer"?
We ARE gonna take it: The public health official overseeing vaccine distribution sites in Baltimore County, Md., generally keeps the TWISTED SISTER tattoo on his left arm hidden. But he doesn't hide his 12 years working as a roadie for the metal band, which he says was perfect preparation for his current job. "Running something like this, running a large-scale music event or even a concert — the similarities are all there," TERRY SAPP tells the Baltimore Sun, pointing to the gaffer tape and equipment cases at one metal-sized outdoor site... HARVEY MASON JR. says there will be a new RECORDING ACADEMY CEO by May... The current JEOPARDY! champion, JON SPURNEY, who won $37,201 Monday, is a well-traveled session musician and TV and film composer who performed onstage in two of the greatest rock musicals ever made: PASSING STRANGE on Broadway (that's him playing electric guitar at stage right in this clip from SPIKE LEE's film version), and the original off-Broadway production of HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH. I'm not even mad that he dethroned a champ from my hometown ofd Newton, Mass.
Rest in Peace
MICHAEL GUDINSKI was a giant in the Australian music industry who founded the MUSHROOM GROUP and who, as an indie label head, publisher, agent and promoter, worked with pretty much every band who so much as thought about setting foot on the continent "My heart is broken and I can't believe he's gone," KYLIE MINOGUE tweeted Monday. "One of the greatest promoters that ever lived," IRVING AZOFF told Billboard... Jazz drummer RALPH PETERSON JR. played with ART BLAKEY & THE JAZZ MESSENGERS and carried Blakey's hard bop spirit into his career as a bandleader and educator.
| | | Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| |  | The Ringer |
| | How Cloud Nothings Created Their Own Netflix | | by Charles Holmes | | Dylan Baldi of the great Ohio band discusses how the group survived the pandemic and what comes next. | |
 | Music Business Worldwide |
| | The Services Sector Is Transforming The Future Of The Music Industry | | by Justin Kalifowitz | | Justin Kalifowitz, CEO of Downtown Music Holdings, paints a picture of how the music industry is changing. | |
 | The Independent |
| | ‘I call it a mutual break-up’: When stars ‘disappear’ on their fandoms | | by Adam White | | Often a celebrity’s pivot to lifestyle or out of the public eye means that their dedicated fansites are left bereft, unsure what to post about. Adam White speaks to the Twitter armies who’ve been deserted, from Rihanna to Sarah Michelle Gellar. | |
 | The Undefeated |
| | Netflix’s ‘I Got a Story to Tell’ documents the story of Biggie Smalls’ most tragic friendship | | by Justin Tinsley | | Roland ‘Olie’ Young came up on the same streets and was the rapper’s biggest supporter. | |
 | Billboard |
| | Michael Gudinski, Legendary Australian Independent Music Entrepreneur, Dies at 68 | | by Lars Brandle | | Michael Gudinski, the Australian music industry pioneer whose Mushroom Group would become the template for independent companies and who, with his exuberant personality, became the face of his country’s music scene, died Monday (March 1) at the age of 68. | |
 | The Sydney Morning Herald |
| | ‘A sentimental guy’... with a power shake that made Australia rock | | by Michael Dwyer | | That first handshake with Michael Gudinski never left me. I was about to interview Jimmy Barnes, but when the flesh got pressed in the record company boardroom, I learned who was in charge. | |
| rave:// One of my favorite music podcasts | |
|  | The New Yorker |
| | The Musicological Zest of 'Switched On Pop' | | by Alex Ross | | The show’s hosts deliver charmingly rigorous dissections of Taylor Swift and Weeknd songs, slipping in a fair amount of music history and theory. | |
 | 8Sided Blog |
| | The Hidden Value(s) of Digital Art | | by Michael Donaldson | | Crypto art may seem radical but its preservation of systemic traditions in the music industry won't move us forward. | |
 | VICE |
| | Pooh Shiesty's Mischievous Memphis Raps Are For the Streets | | by Kristin Corry | | On 'Shiesty Season,' the 21-year-old rapper only tells the world what we need to know and that’s a part of his allure. | |
 | SPIN |
| | Dreaming of Debbie | | by Liza Lentini | | We spoke to the 75-year-old icon about her upcoming tour, her endless optimism, and why nice girls finish first. | |
| | The New Yorker |
| | Obama and Springsteen’s Podcast Is Here to Lull America | | by Lauren Michele Jackson | | In “Renegades,” a new Spotify podcast, the rock superstar and the ex-President dub themselves rebellious outsiders while playing their familiar hits. | |
 | Spotify |
| | Renegades Ep. 3: Amazing Grace: American Music | | by Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen | | President Obama and Bruce sit down to talk popular music, the most American of art forms. As a bonus, Bruce plays a few songs and President Obama tells the story behind one of his most famous speeches. | |
| Music Business Worldwide |
| | Slowly but surely, the major labels’ dominance of Spotify is declining | | by Tim Ingham | | Spotify statistics show that nearly 10% of market share has shifted away from the majors and Merlin in just the past three years. | |
 | The Muse |
| | What Do You Want From Billie Eilish? | | by Maria Sherman | | Turns out, you don’t have to be very famous for very long to be worthy of a story—you just have to be open to the documentation of it. | |
 | Level |
| | Is Bun B the Future of Houston Politics? | | by Bonsu Thompson | | H-Town has a climate problem--and the UGK rapper says the only solution is switching from red to blue. | |
 | TechHive |
| | Roon 1.8 review: Unparalleled for music listening and exploration | | by Michael Brown | | The barrier to entry can be steep, but the reward is oh so worth the investment. | |
 | Dazed Digital |
| | Day6’s Jae Park is leading K-pop’s vital mental health conversation | | by Anjana Pawa | | The musician discusses his solo project, eaJ, and reveals how a panic attack led him to tackle his own mental health issues and launch a social initiative. | |
 | The Line of Best Fit |
| | How should bands deal with criticism and opinions? | | by Rhian Jones and Lucy Heyman | | As a creative person, it’s inevitable that you’ll want to put your work out into the world and that at some point you’ll receive criticism. With any luck, you’ll receive praise too, and that can bring its own unique complications, but for most people, it’s negative feedback that’s the hardest to navigate. | |
 | Paper |
| | The Deeper Racial Implications of Comparing BTS to COVID-19 | | by Sandra Song | | BTS may have made history in February as the first Korean act to ever appear on MTV Unplugged, however this landmark achievement has since been soured by a series of vile, racist statements made by a German presenter named Matthias Matuschik. | |
 | The Guardian |
| | Like Pablo Hasél, I faced jail for my rap lyrics -- but the worst censorship is self-censorship | | by Valtònyc | | The rapper’s arrest shows Spain has a problem with freedom of ideology. But people shouldn’t be scared to write songs that stand up to power. | |
 | Stuff |
| | Want to make a Gen Xer cry? Tell them 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' is 30 | | by Kylie Klein-Nixon | | One time I took a horrific 16-hour bus ride and stayed in a grimy fleapit, just for a chance to hear this song live. | |
| |  | | Music of the day | | "Nothing Without You" | | Cloud Nothings | | From "The Shadow I Remember," out now on Carpark. |  | YouTube |
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From "The Shadow I Remember," out now on Carpark. | | |
| | 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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