I like re-inventing. That's probably why I have so many name changes. It's why I follow David Bowie and Madonna. | | | | Fela Kuti in Paris, 1981.
(Michael Putland/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I like re-inventing. That's probably why I have so many name changes. It's why I follow David Bowie and Madonna.”
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| | rantnrave:// I'm reasonably certain that irrespective of genre, taste, mood, business priorities and whatever other considerations might go into constructing a playlist, FOUR TET's 18-months-old-and-still-growing SPOTIFY playlist is the single best such endeavor on Spotify, or anywhere. It was 618 songs when I last mentioned it, in October. It's now up to 782, with Four Tet adding clumps of songs on pretty much a weekly basis, with a curatorial aesthetic that defies any explanation beyond "Four Tet likes it." There's a dancefloor vibe through most of it, sometimes as text, sometimes as subtext; it's a dancefloor that honors minimalist music, smooth jazz, not-so-smooth jazz, hip-hop, folk, alt-rock, harp instrumentals (see music of the day, below), Brazilian pop, Bangladeshi pop and whatever else might fit under the rubric of a playlist whose title is a long string of wingdings. It's sublime curation, and a service to both listeners and artists: If you click on the "about" page of any artist on the playlist, you'll notice how many of them are best known in Spotify because of this exact playlist. Sort of like DISCOVER WEEKLY, but programmed by a human who doesn't care about charts or record-company priorities or what you listened to last week. He cares only that you were interested enough to follow him. Which is all a great DJ ever really needs to know about you. If Four Tet did nothing else, this would make him one of the most interesting artists working today. And he does it, by the way, for free, as a labor of love, as a work of art... Any girl-group or boy-group worthy of the name is destined to split into an array of solo careers sooner or later, one of them reasonably successful if they're lucky, two if they're incredibly so. Also, they're destined to call the split a "hiatus." FIFTH HARMONY officially went hiatus on Monday, with the possible bad luck of knowing that the one guaranteed solo success already belongs to CAMILA CABELLO, who walked away from the group in 2016. According to the LA TIMES' GERRICK D. KENNEDY, the four remaining members have been open with each other and their label ever since about both their solo and group ambitions, and have been planning the split, mutually, for a while. Which is at least the right way to start. I've always loved this slinky single from their third and possibly last album. Comedian EMMY BLOTNICK thinks their song "SLEDGEHAMMER" might not be about the tool the group thinks it's about... Used SONIC YOUTH guitar pedals for sale on EBAY... RIP HAZEL SMITH, FRANK "KILLJOY" PUCCI and EMERY BECKER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The New Yorker |
| With artists like Rich Brian and Higher Brothers, Sean Miyashiro’s company is an authority on how to create pop-culture crossovers. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The New Zealand star is playing to arenas that are only a third full. But dropping out of pop’s upper echelons may give her the long future she deserves. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| How the guitarist's partnership with engineer Gary Kellgren gave rise to 'Electric Ladyland' - and one of rock's most legendary studios. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| In Spotify’s case, “self-driving” is just a flashy substitution for “automated” and “context-aware”: using advanced, always-on data analysis to mold the discovery experience autonomously to an individual user's tastes and behavior, across multiple devices and environments. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| After six years together, Fifth Harmony announced an indefinite hiatus as its members pursue solo interests. The group had been working together for the past year in preparation for such a move. | | |
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 | Daily Dot |
| The move will likely have little impact on the larger market for Spotify playlists. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The British musician is collaborating with other artists to create a high-tech, immersive experience that will tour Europe and America. | | |
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 | Talkhouse |
| "Now Only" is not a treatise on death, but one person's attempt at healing from personal tragedy. | | |
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 | WBUR |
| Geoff Edgers joins Billy Joe Shaver on the road to learn what still drives the man who invented outlaw country music. Listen to the podcast to hear Billy Joe Shaver on his quest to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, his memories of Waylon Jennings, and the time he shot a man in the face. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| For Tristand Blake Coopersmith, outing the man who sexually harassed her at work was only the first step. Now, she has to figure out what comes next. | | |
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 | GQ |
| For nearly three decades, no one has lived larger than Sean Combs—Puffy the world builder, the maximalist style guru, the impeccable spotter of talent. John Jeremiah Sullivan spent some time inside the beautiful bubble created by a hip-hop icon. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| A month after Parkland, NRA Country unveils a brand new website without its "Featured Artist" campaign. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| With a triumphant new Netflix biopic out this week, the teenage dynamo of the ’80s Queens scene reflects on all her battles along the way. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| CFO Barry McCarthy explains why Daniel Ek's company believes it will beat its rivals "like a drum." | | |
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 | A Nation of Billions |
| With so many producers literally taking on the world’s sounds when it comes to beat making, it’s no surprise traditional genre definitions are dead. | | |
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 | DJ Tech Tools |
| It's easy to forget about music that you already own. Sometimes that best track to add to your playlists might be something that's been just out of your thoughts, or never got added to a playlist, or just hasn't been played anytime recently. In today's article, we look at a few great ways to discover (or rediscover) great tracks that already live in your DJ collection. | | |
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 | Jalopnik |
| Last week, we featured Gary Zimet, who is is trying to sell the cars in which Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. were murdered. But it turns out there’s more of a dispute over who actually has the Tupac BMW than anyone expected. | | |
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 | DigBoston |
| Boston’s beloved ’90s blues rock duo played with the White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. So what took them so long to end their hiatus and record a new LP? | | |
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 | A.V. Club |
| Larry Norman was perhaps the most complex figure in 20th-century American music. He was a mess of contradictions, a singer with a message who grew more contradictory the more he tried to keep his message pure. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| The Daily Beast talks with rock’s resident public intellectual about his new album, ‘American Utopia,’ and how he wants to lift everyone’s spirits. And no, he’s not being ironic. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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