In a marketplace shaped by corporate interests, blandness always thrives—from Muzak to corporate radio to MTV to Spotify. Knowing that, we as listeners always have the option to break away and find alternative platforms that better suit our ethics and our aesthetics. | | | | Bully, fronted by Alicia Bognanno, play tonight at the Mohawk as SXSW Music begins.
(Josh Brasted/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “In a marketplace shaped by corporate interests, blandness always thrives—from Muzak to corporate radio to MTV to Spotify. Knowing that, we as listeners always have the option to break away and find alternative platforms that better suit our ethics and our aesthetics.”
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| | rantnrave:// Depending on your age, your musical preferences and your feelings about the musical benefits of laptop computers, you may or may not be weirded out to learn that A$AP ROCKY and 6IX9INE are among the many rappers who have found beats by Googling themselves in search of instrumentals specifically produced to sound like them. Welcome to the world of type beats, where producers (established and up-and-coming alike) make music that sounds like ARTIST X, and anyone in search of that kind of a beat, up to and including Artist X, can buy it (or even lease it) on the cheap. If you're a rapper or producer and you're under 25, you may have never known a world without type beats, according to DAVID PONTE, co-founder of AUDIOMACK, one of the internet's many purveyors of them. If you're over, say, 35, perhaps you're breaking things right now. To be fair, plenty of young producers hate them, too, for a variety of reasons, most of which you don't need me to explain to you. But the thing is, type beats, which were a natural outgrowth of producers tagging their beats with the names of genres and moods and putting them online in the hope of being discovered, aren't all that different from an established producer like NO I.D. telling an artist like JAY-Z that he has some "BLUEPRINT-level" beats. It's the same basic idea in a public marketplace with a search box and better prices. If the resulting song is good, then the resulting song is good, right? Same as with any other way of making music. Same as with the million '80s bands who made careers out of what were essentially MICHAEL JACKSON or PRINCE type beats, or the '90s bands who did the same with NIRVANA type beats. My favorite quote on this, from veteran producer DJ PAIN 1, who makes type beats in addition to working with the type of artists that type beats are made for: "People blame type beats for uncreativity—uncreativity has existed forever"... SXSW MUSIC, the festival that everybody loves to hate but damn, the tacos and the barbecue are good, kicks off tonight with a slate of live performances including the US premiere of MAX RICHTER's eight-hour "SLEEP," which invites listeners to stay out all night while also, literally, sleeping. Which sounds like some kind of perfect metaphor... Turned on the IHEARTRADIO MUSIC AWARDS just long enough to hear GRAMMY-snubbed-but-he's-still-a-man-so-there's-that ED SHEERAN named as winner of SONG OF THE YEAR. A handful of women won awards, too. Full winners list here... Congratulations to our friends at OAK VIEW GROUP on a $100M-plus investment from private-equity firm SILVER LAKE... Recapping AMERICAN IDOL... SAMPA THE GREAT wins AUSTRALIAN MUSIC PRIZE... Why yes she was... Love this SUPERORGANISM live set for KEXP (but hate the camera work; is it asking too much to just let us see the whole band sometimes?)... RIP GARY BURDEN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Washington Post |
| For listeners, the world of streaming music should feel a little bit like utopia - a magical place where we can access millions of songs instantly and effortlessly. So why is everybody so freaked out about it? | | |
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 | Genius |
| Is making beats that explicitly mimic another artist’s style a viable career path for a producer or just a another scheme to get noticed? | | |
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 | The Tennessean |
| Suddenly, country music is not keeping its mouth shut. Recent months have seen major artists and industry leaders speak out about gay rights and race issues, gun control and sexual harassment in the industry. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| From SZA and Charli XCX to Gucci Mane and Jake Paul, 25 writers - John Jeremiah Sullivan, Angela Flournoy, Hanif Abdurraqib and more - tell us what’s happening to pop. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| Sony Corp. held preliminary talks to acquire a majority stake in EMI Music Publishing, according to people with knowledge of the matter, as its Abu Dhabi-based owner seeks to cash in on the booming market for streamed music. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| From Bob Dylan to the Clash to Madonna, the Gramercy Park Hotel is steeped in history - but for the family who owned it, a legacy tinged with tragedy. | | |
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 | Pollstar |
| Three decades in, SXSW has been both exalted and excoriated by artists, managers, agents and fans alike. Is it a launching pad for artists’ careers or a dystopic shark-jumped clusterfest straying from its mission of music discovery with too many corporate sponsors, big-name artists and restrictions on performers? | | |
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 | 1843 Magazine |
| What the decline of Gibson and Fender tells us about music | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| Although the late R&B innovator Aaliyah is one of the most beloved pop stars of the past three decades, her music has been kept off major streaming platforms — unless you know where to look. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| In this industry, nothing’s working and everyone’s just buying time until a fix. | | |
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 | The Root |
| Biggie’s life meant a lot to us, but his death meant more to me. | | |
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 | Daily Mail Online |
| Workers at the charity founded by Bono have been subjected to a "toxic" culture of bullying and abuse. ONE bosses covered up the horrific allegations for years, but a Mail on Sunday investigation has exposed a catalogue of humiliating incidents that has now sparked a multi-million-pound lawsuit. Bono says he is 'deeply sorry' and has promised to meet victims in person. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| UMG's acquisition of a majority stake in Kenya's AI Records is the latest deal this year that indicate the music industry is beginning to recognize Africa's potential as a music mecca and profit center. | | |
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 | Two Cents |
| Do some research on Spotify’s business. You need more backup than just the fact that you like the product. | | |
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 | Complex |
| For years, producers would sell their beats to artists for use on a single song. Now, a whole new approach is emerging and taking over the industry. Beats are being used on dozens of songs at a time, and this approach is taking over the music industry and changing what it means to be a producer. | | |
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 | NPR |
| Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas traces the history of classical music, revealing its power to present a variety of complex human emotions. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Review Of Books |
| My four-year-old daughter recently she has taken to Moz with a vengeance, which is the best way to take to him. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| With the return of the Spice Girls on the horizon, Ginger and Sporty talk us through the birth of a pop phenomenon, and how they made Adele cry. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Drakeo the Ruler may be the next big thing in hip-hop. Major labels are frantically bidding to sign him. National magazines celebrate his genius. One of the Migos hit him up on Facetime and Lil Yachty slid in his DMs. | | |
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| Complex |
| A group conversation about cultural appropriation from YouTube got chopped down to a 2-minute clip that's gone viral. We spoke to the woman at the center of it. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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