In the music business, if you care about the Grammys and submitting your stuff before a certain time frame, you want a single out in the summer, and then you want to have your record [out] before the Grammys [consideration] deadline... Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. | | | | Judas Priest's K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton defending the faith in 1986.
(Paul Natkin/Archive Photos/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “In the music business, if you care about the Grammys and submitting your stuff before a certain time frame, you want a single out in the summer, and then you want to have your record [out] before the Grammys [consideration] deadline... Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”
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| | rantnrave:// Following a barely noticeable two-year hiatus that may or may not have registered with you as a hiatus, AMERICAN IDOL returns Sunday night with a new network, a newly controversial host and three new judges, one of whom is making LEBRON JAMES money and none of whom is SIMON COWELL. There are questions and doubts, not completely unlike the doubts expressed when the show debuted in 2002. "Idol" produced one of its two memorable winners in that first season, before the show itself became a hit. For most of its run, America watched talented singers compete for the chance to be pop also-rans. But as with all TV talent shows, it was the judges, not the contestants, who mattered in the end. RANDY's bark. Simon's bite. "Idol" didn't have a noticeable influence on pop so much as it did a good job of reflecting a certain strain of technically confident, adult-leaning pop (and country) through the first decade of the 21st century, while having a massive influence on reality television. THE VOICE, which now claims "Idol"'s greatest winner as a judge, disrupted both the format—its smartest innovation was to turn the judges into competitors—and the music, by seeking out (slightly) more contemporary sounds. "The Voice" hasn't done any better, though, at producing pop stars. Which, as everyone knew before they signed up for this, is hard. Reality TV has done a better job grooming U.S. presidents than pop singers. There may be a reason for that... Someone please write a 3000-word essay on the massive vessel of cool that is ALICIA KEYS on "The Voice." I promise it will be the top story in the next day's MusicREDEF... Before she was wrinkling time, AVA DUVERNAY was wrinkling rhymes... DONALD GLOVER and ATLANTA's impression of what the inside of a streaming music company looks like... To celebrate the label's 30th anniversary, KEXP is playing every SUB POP record ever... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from DAVID BYRNE, LIL YACHTY, YOUNG FATHERS, THE SKULL ECLIPSES, LOGIC, JEREMIH, JUDAS PRIEST, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, BRAD MEHLDAU, MOOSE BLOOD, YFN LUCCI, EDITORS, ALBERT HAMMOND JR., BRETT NAUCKE, NAP EYES, MINISTRY, OF MONTREAL, LIZA ANNE, the A WRINKLE IN TIME soundtrack and more finds from the JIMI HENDRIX vault... RIP NITIN VADUKUL and SONNY AKPAN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Chicago Reader |
| The Teklife producer integrates rap so perfectly on his new Still Trippin’ that he could bring footwork to new heights. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| AWAL recruiting 100 people to take on Universal, Sony and Warner with "extremely aggressive" A&R gameplan. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Legendary producer and Michael Jackson collaborator Quincy Jones recently accused the King of Pop of stealing parts of songs, copying rhythmic grooves, and other forms of musical plagiarism. But do Jackson's borrowings add up to actual theft? | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Mary Anne Hobbs, who worked at the British music newspaper in its heyday, reflects on what we’ll miss when the title stops publishing in print. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| NF's "Let You Down" begins with plaintive minor-key piano chords and a trembling vocal run through that omnipresent chipmunk effect, the wildly popular pitched-up modulation that makes the human voice sound slightly alien. The singer intones, "All these voices in my head get loud/ I wish that I could shut them out/ I'm sorry that I let you down." | | |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| The Toronto music scene is flourishing after years of hard work from a dedicated community. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| While Spotify may be the current leader in its space by market share, it still has neither the truly global reach nor the diversified revenue streams of rivals Apple, Google and Amazon to paint a clear-cut path to profitability. | | |
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 | Track 7 |
| Mia Hughes reflects on how Minor Threat (and JD Salinger) changed the way she views the world, and herself. | | |
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 | The Thin Air |
| Throughout history, female fans’ behaviour has been characterised as over-zealous and irrational. | | |
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 | NME |
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| The New York Times |
| He’s been a Commodore, a solo superstar, a parent to children in the public eye. Now the man who made it from Motown to memes will dole out tough love on TV. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Gary Zimet claims he’s had serious interest from American rappers and European athletes in buying the vehicles. | | |
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 | Slate |
| Oddball Canadian rapper Lil Windex dropped the music video on Wednesday to fans who weren’t sure if it was earnest or meant in jest. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Whether it’s standing up to sexual abuse or male-dominated festival lineups, female Australian musicians, and their #MeNoMore campaign, have got their government listening. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| Katy Perry is one of the best judges ‘Idol’ has ever had, but that’s not enough to justify the tired retread of the show that can’t be bothered to prove it deserves to be revived. | | |
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 | Little White Lies |
| How Abel Ferrara’s brutal 1990 gangster flick captured the imagination of the hip hop community. | | |
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| Billboard |
| Julian Casablancas may be the last of his scene with enough stardom to agonize over. Good thing he’s got a band that just wants to have fun. | | |
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 | The Bitter Southerner |
| Dr. Joycelyn Wilson dissects the superpower of “Black Panther, the Album.” | | |
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 | NewMusicBox |
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 | Medium |
| Wherein we look at the brain drain caused by Rap. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Cocoa Sugar," out today on Ninja Tune. |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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