If I play a concert to 200 people, really I’m playing 200 concerts because everyone feels and experiences it their own way, and none of them are wrong. If someone thinks it’s crap, then too bad. But they’re not wrong. | | | | Kendrick Lamar drops "Damn." today, returns to Coachella Sunday.
(Kevin Winter/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “If I play a concert to 200 people, really I’m playing 200 concerts because everyone feels and experiences it their own way, and none of them are wrong. If someone thinks it’s crap, then too bad. But they’re not wrong.”
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| | rantnrave:// Welcome to Scare City. Where everything is scarce. Fans. Money. Melodies. Hip-hop royalty. You name it... Taking note of recent plagiarism disputes involving ED SHEERAN, MARK RONSON and others, the GUARDIAN's PETER ROBINSON asks if we've run out of melodies and if, therefore, "the chances of writing something brand new" are getting perilously small. You'll wonder about the expertise of some of the experts he consults, but it's a subject worth exploring and a fun read... At PITCHFORK, CHRIS MOLANPHY does some deep digging into the question "Will the Mainstream Support More Than One Rap Queen at a Time?" The results of his research are somewhat dispiriting, but also a useful history lesson... DAVE ALLEN, who has logged time at several major subscription services as well as a groundbreaking band or two, has some thoughts on "the battle for subscribers." He wonders when the pool of "non-consuming music fans"—his description of the ones the services are still fighting for—will run out. But he also notes the non-scarcity of artists themselves, and has some encouraging, even optimistic, thoughts for those outside the pop elite. Smaller companies are swooping in where bigger ones aren't quite looking... KENDRICK LAMAR, RADIOHEAD, NOT-BEYONCÉ, dozens of other acts and a good chunk of HOLLYWOOD get summer started for real in the CALIFORNIA desert this weekend. In the unlikely event you, too, aren't in INDIO, you can stream most of it here. And brush up on festival season with our new REDEF MusicSET, "The State of the Summer Music Festival"... Also, in the unlikely event you haven't heard, Kendrick Lamar literally gives a DAMN today (unless you are LEBRON JAMES, in which case today's biggest release is so, like, yesterday)... It's FRIDAY and that means there's also new music from SPOEK MATHAMBO, LITTLE DRAGON, LILLIE MAE, CHRIS SHIFLETT, JOHN MAYER, SPLASHH, TALIB KWELI & STYLES P, SAM OUTLAW, SEXMOB and singlea from CHRIS STAPLETON and LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM & CHRISTINE MCVIE... RIP MIKA VAINIO of PAN SONIC, TOBY SMITH of JAMIROQUAI and TENNESSEE THREE guitarist BOB WOOTTON... Because of EASTER, there will be no MusicREDEF newsletter Monday. We'll be back Tuesday. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Wired |
| Shapiro oversees a live-show mini-empire—including three Brooklyn Bowl venues and the regal Capitol Theatre in nearby Westchester County—as well as an ambitious concert-chronicling website called Fans.com. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Ed Sheeran has reached a £16m settlement over his song Photograph in the latest claim over pop plagiarism. So are songwriters out of ideas? Time to call in the musicologists. | | |
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 | LinkedIn |
| The battle for subscribers and the preservation of music culture. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| It’s tempting to attribute hip-hop’s recent surge of lyrical energy to current societal plagues. Yet these problems were never absent in the genre’s lifetime. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Seymour Stein, the veteran record executive who helped launch the careers of the Ramones, Madonna and Talking Heads, looks back as his label, Sire Records, celebrates its 50th anniversary. | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| With the 50th series of Later... with Jools Holland underway, TV is in dire need of more than just boogie woogie, says Michael Hann. | | |
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 | Vogue |
| At 32, Perry is recalibrating her life on many levels. “It’s a nice place to be,” she says of her age. “I love it! I wouldn’t give anything to go back to my 20s." | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| Read an extract from Rodigan's new book. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Guitarist Bill Kelliher and bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders on giving back to the Atlanta music scene, dealing with internet trolls, and their dark new album, 'Emperor of Sand' | | |
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 | Sonos |
| “My days of listening were connected to my father’s record store, where I began working when I was 12. My first job in the music world was advising people what records they should buy, so I had to know all the records in the store.” | | |
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| | | i won't be coming to dinner |
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 | Pitchfork |
| It’s no surprise Remy Ma continues to come for Nicki Minaj’s crown: the music industry has supported only a handful of platinum-level female rappers, their reigns rarely overlapping. | | |
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 | The New York Observer |
| “All of us are doing this because we’ve watched our friends struggle…it makes us much closer to the problem.” | | |
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| Noisey |
| 'Cornell '77: The Music, the Myth, and the Magnificence of the Grateful Dead's Concert at Barton Hall' explores the show's story. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The jazz dynamo Kamasi Washington made his fine art debut as part of this year’s Whitney Biennial with the six-part suite of music called "Harmony of Difference." He tells Billboard about his new deal with Young Turks, the power of diversity, and how the collaborative spirit of jazz informs his inclusive worldview. | | |
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 | Afropop Worldwide |
| This "Hip Deep" episode presents the stunning radio premiere of “Oh, David,” the traditional song of the annual Easter Rock in Winnsboro, Louisiana. The Easter Rock is in fact a surviving ringshout--the oldest known form of African American music--but it’s about 600 miles west of the ringshout’s heartland in Georgia. | | |
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| The New Yorker |
| This year, for the first time in the prize’s seventy-four year history, all three finalists in the music category were women. | | |
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 | SPIN |
| At one time, things happened quickly for Michelle Branch. She moved to Los Angeles and signed to Warner Bros. when she was 16. Her debut album, The Spirit Room, came out when she was 18. Almost immediately, she had massive radio hits: “Everywhere,” “All You Wanted,” “Goodbye to You.” She won a Grammy for “The Game of Love,” her song with the legendary Santana. | | |
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 | Scott Green |
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 | Genius |
| Wifisfuneral, Lil Pump, and more are racking up millions of plays overnight. | | |
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 | The New Statesman |
| At the end of the interview, the Kinks frontman says, "You haven't asked me anything." | | |
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 | YouTube |
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