When you’re really disconnected from who you are and you’re ashamed of it, you can write and tell a story, but you can never really tell your story. That’s what separates a lot of artists from others—the connection. | | | | Pussy Riot at the Day for Night Festival, Houston, Dec. 16, 2017.
(Rick Kern/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “When you’re really disconnected from who you are and you’re ashamed of it, you can write and tell a story, but you can never really tell your story. That’s what separates a lot of artists from others—the connection.”
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| | rantnrave:// You know that feeling when you're strolling around a densely populated neighborhood with allegedly good cell service and you try to open INSTAGRAM because you just saw the cutest cat ever in a bodega and you need to post a photo right now but nothing works in the app and you can't figure out if Instagram is down or if there's something wrong with your phone or if it's AT&T's fault or if it has something to do with that overpass you just walked under or maybe it's not them, it's you? And you want to yell at someone but you can't figure out who and even if you do yell, whoever you yell at will blame someone else, so instead you reboot the phone, pray to a god you may or may not believe in and then get distracted by something else? I have a feeling that's what it's like to be a musician or composer who isn't DRAKE trying to figure out what exactly is up with the $27 that just got direct-deposited into your checking account for your Q3 2017 streaming plays. Does SPOTIFY or APPLE have the rest of the money? Did your label walk off with the rest of it? Did your publisher? Did someone mess up the accounting? Is it the government's fault? Which tier of which service were those 23,581 plays on? Were they on-demand or not? Is $27 all you really deserve, all you truly earned? Who do you need to yell at? Who will they tell you to yell at? Are they all conspiring against you? Or are they all happy not knowing exactly what everybody else is dong? And is that sort of the same thing?... Spotify predicts revenues will climb 30 percent this year, to $6.6 billion, and it will end the year with nearly 100 million subscribers. Which I offer as an FYI to the strawman musician or composer I was talking about in the previous item... Purple tears... Waaay early ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS winners... A live farewell to that 'NASHVILLE,' in this NASHVILLE... Digital music consolidation in INDIA... RIP SEO MINWOO. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| How people who have lived through horrific acts of terror at shows, festivals, and clubs hear music differently now. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Online distributions services have confusing and arbitrary rules about songs about punching Nazis, apparently. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| The music streaming company isn't getting a bargain. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The inescapable ditty and the fallout that followed seemingly christened the track as one of the more polarizing, conversation-starting pop songs in recent memory, and contributed to the derailment of a once promising R&B career. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| “Love, Simon” may be a celebration of young love in all forms, but the soundtrack of the coming-of-age story is an unabashed love letter to John Hughesand the youth-celebrating films of the 1980s. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Like the other aspects of his films, Wes Anderson's soundtracks are always quirky, eclectic, and lots of fun. In honor of his new film "Isle of Dogs," we aim to teach you how to make your own Wes Anderson movie soundtrack, while using only songs from a stock music library. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| "I'm probably the loneliest person ever," says the rising Americana star. | | |
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 | The Trichordist |
| Virtually every free digital app is spying on you and sharing that data with 3rd parties. This includes the music streaming service Spotify. | | |
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| Noisey |
| Relying on DIY methods and a "f*** the major labels" attitude, homegrown rappers are bringing a fresh, global sound to the Russian underground. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| It seems deeply hypocritical for a rapper who has steadfastly refused to align himself with organizations that he deems problematic to now brazenly stump for the N.R.A. | | |
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| Billboard |
| As major streaming platforms like Spotify wield ever stronger influence over the music industry's growth, churn and other metrics typically reserved for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies will inevitably come to the forefront for artists and labels alike. | | |
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 | Medium |
| And other changes wrought by music streaming. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| The No. 1 album in the country suggests that being accused of terrible things, even now, is no obstacle to fame. | | |
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| Vulture |
| “For three decades I was totally consumed with being in the band,” says Mike D, rail-thin in a leather jacket, sipping tea in the lobby of the Bowery Hotel. “Identifying what else I was comfortable doing with my life was a very gradual process.” | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| From their very own mouths, here’s everything important about "Twentytwo In Blue" - from writing it in Jake’s mum’s basement to the experience of growing up and Julia feeling really old. Get inside the weirdo brains of NYC’s coolest trio. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Composer Ed Newton-Rex shows just how similar their songs Get Free and Creep truly are. | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| The former Mixmag editor explains how British club culture exploded into the mainstream. | | |
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 | Village Voice |
| The brilliant Anthony Braxton makes an 11-disc homage to Charlie Parker an easy listen. | | |
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 | Kreative Kontrol |
| The Messthetics, featuring Fugazi‘s Brendan Canty and Joe Lally, and Anthony Pirog of Janel & Anthony, discuss their excellent, self-titled debut album, which is available via Dischord Records. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Surveying the devil’s work in songs by Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Eminem, and more to determine whether or not Lucifer would make for a fun companion. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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