You get a tape and you listen to the song and it sounds good, and you throw them at the bottom [of the bill] in a tent. Then later on they headline your festival and then every single thing in the world. It feels good to be part of that. | | | | Working the floor: AC/DC's Angus Young in Amsterdam, Nov. 12, 1979.
(Rob Verhorst/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “You get a tape and you listen to the song and it sounds good, and you throw them at the bottom [of the bill] in a tent. Then later on they headline your festival and then every single thing in the world. It feels good to be part of that.”
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| | rantnrave:// Item A: The "global value of music copyright" continued climbing, to $28 billion, in 2017, a year whose figures have just come into focus, which seems about right for an industry that likes to pay out next year for last year's work. The figure comes courtesy of SPOTIFY's chief economist, and depending on which side of the room you're sitting in, you could argue this is proof that songwriters and publishers are well served by the way the music biz works right now, or, conversely, that songwriters and publishers have more leverage than they've ever had to change the way things work right now. This is the chicken and the egg of good times in the music biz. The egg is made of drum machines and the chicken is learning how to dance. Item B: While Spotify and other streaming companies paid artists and labels more in 2018 than ever before, they did so while paying them a slightly lower percentage of revenues, which is to say, they kept more for themselves, according to some complicated calculations by TIM INGHAM of MUSIC BUSINESS WORLDWIDE and ROLLING STONE. No matter which side of the room you're sitting in, you'll disagree with some of those calculations and you'll be at least a little angry. Item C: In an open letter that's unusually personal in tone, several generations of songwriters, from NILE RODGERS and BABYFACE to MURDA BEATZ, FRANK DUKES and LUDWIG GÖRANSSON, say Spotify has "used us and tried to divide us" in its attempt to challenge increased royalties for songwriters in the US. This emotional plea comes on the heels of a #CancelSpotify hashtag that a group of songwriters has taken to social media, and it's another sign, says VARIETY, of "how badly the PR war is going" for Spotify. In the past couple of years, songwriters have united and mobilized in a very public way, and they've achieved some important victories, including the passage of the MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT last year. If you thought that was the end of a long battle, you may have underestimated the movement. It was the beginning. Does Spotify, whose leverage is more than 200 million users worldwide, at least some of whom think that app on their phone is where all music comes from, have an equally emotional response up its sleeve? Does it back down and save its leverage for a bigger fight? Is this fight bigger than we've given it credit for? How worrisome are the streaming company's current profit margins? How promising are its future ones? Sometimes, like the lawyer my mother wishes I had become, I ask these questions even though I already know the answers. Not this time. I'm sincerely asking... "OLD TOWN ROAD" has entered BILLBOARD's Country Airplay chart, thanks largely to BOBBY BONES' morning show. And the painted ponies, or horses if you will, go up and down... This duet between BEN HARPER and AMERICAN IDOL contestant ALEJANDRO ARANDA—a lifelong fan and regular customer of Harper's family's guitar shop in Claremont, Calif.—is palpably different from any performance I've seen on "Idol." I like it for a million reasons, but what immediately struck me is how Aranda, a gifted singer and guitarist, doesn't sound like he's competing for attention, for points, for notes, or for anything. He lets Harper take the lead for most of the song, and adds harmonies and guitar fillips where he can—like an actual duet partner. It's organic and beautiful. They could be busking. More like this, please... The most interesting thing about this story, if you ask me, isn't that SIMPSONS producers found the real-life NED FLANDERS metal band, but that there's a real-life Ned Flanders metal band. (Also, "Okilly Dokilly" is a terrible spelling. BART SIMPSON would be proud)... RIP WOWAKA. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Variety |
| By waging war against both Apple and songwriters, Spotify risks sending creatives into the arms of the opposition. Many songwriters are canceling Spotify subscriptions and doing so publicly on social media, where they make sure to note their subscription fees will now be going to Apple Music. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Artists like Pearl Jam and Duke Ellington once graced its stage. Now activists are trying to save it from demolition. | | |
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 | The Week |
| The return of "Game of Thrones" won't feel real until the cello drops. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Thirty-five years ago, R.E.M. released one of the great rock albums of the 1980s, sending the Athens, Georgia, quartet on the road toward global stardom. Here’s a track-by-track breakdown of the album, as well as conversations with Patterson Hood, Mitch Easter, and Scott McCaughey. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Fresh economic developments suggest that musicians may soon have new reasons to shake their fist in streaming’s direction (even if streaming is the main reason the industry is again printing money). | | |
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 | Vox |
| Heavy metal and Satan played a role in the introduction of the explicit lyrics sticker. | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| She overcame WWII and gender discrimination to become the best in her field. The resilient sound engineer behind one of the world’s greatest recording studios shares her story. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| Drake has delivered a decade of hits -- 192 to be precise -- but what is at the heart of his mass appeal? We re-streamed his back catalogue and found that ‘October’s Very Own’ owes a lot to everyone else. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Red Bull Music Academy is closing, alternative culture outlets are retrenching -- and big tech prefers pop. Experimental musicians need to stick together. | | |
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 | Hypebot |
| In this piece, Virginie Berger champions the need for music tech companies to bring about a major disruption to the music industry, siting long-unaddressed problems and an outdated distribution of power in desperate need of a shakeup. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| “I don’t know what the future holds, but currently electronic-based music, including hip-hop and pop, seems to be at the forefront,” says Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett, who expects to continue monitoring the changes ahead of next year’s festival. | | |
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 | Gizmodo |
| People have been complaining about iTunes for ages. The bloated and confusingly arcane piece of software has been updated and repurposed and jerry-rigged to handle new tasks for the past 18 years, and one developer says it won't live to see its 19th birthday. | | |
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 | Passion of the Weiss |
| Will Hagle explores what happens when a once-crucial platform for fledgling musicians cleans out the graveyard. | | |
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 | The Moment with Brian Koppelman |
| Singer, songwriter, musician, and author Amanda Palmer on allowing yourself to say what you have to say. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Whether or not Lil Nas X’s No. 1 hit is country music, it definitely shows the anarchic power of pop. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The documentary, about the legendary live gospel recording by Aretha Franklin, was as ambitious and as bungled as only Hollywood could manage. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Calls for venues to have better sexual assault policies as punk duo tweet about fan being groped. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| With over 500 releases available, we’ve picked out 20 you should buy on Saturday, April 13 | | |
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 | Brooklyn Vegan |
| Slipknot may have been considered ”uncool” during their initial reign, but they've emerged as a huge influence on a lot of today's heavy music, and 2019 is shaping up to be a big comeback year for them. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| From black metal murders to Charles Manson and the Beatles. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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