This is such a crazy career path. If you have a plan B, your plan A will not work. Because the second it gets too hard, you will run for that plan B. | | | | Instruments for sales in Baghdad, where lockdown measures have recently been eased.
(Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “This is such a crazy career path. If you have a plan B, your plan A will not work. Because the second it gets too hard, you will run for that plan B.”
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| | rantnrave:// Credit where credit is due: I like SONGLAND, which debuted a year ago on NBC and is now in its second season, producing weekly masterclasses in commercial (for better or worse) songwriting from three A-list songwriter/producer/mentors with none of the high-strung competitiveness and occasional cruelty of other music reality shows, while offering viewers at least a small glimpse into how pop songs are made. But, for the love of liner notes, can someone explain why a show about songwriting, starring three working songwriters who mentor three hopefuls, ends every week with a throw to a YOUTUBE video premiere of the winning song that doesn't mention the songwriter's name anywhere? Here's this week's winner, HALIE WOOLDRIDGE's "GIRLS LIKE ME," as performed by MARTINA MCBRIDE. You'll find four links here to McBride's socials; another link pointing you to McBride's version of the song on seven online sites; the lyrics, and a note from McBride. The video has several shots of McBride penciling notes on a lyric sheet. What you won't find anywhere in the video or on the YouTube page is Wooldridge's name. Do some Googling and you'll find the song actually has nine credited songwriters, including three collaborators Wooldridge wrote with before she got to "Songland" and the entire cast of the show (speaking of how pop songs are in fact made). All of them deserve to be credited wherever they can but, come on, is an industry that complained for years about inadequate credits really not using the clout of a network show to give written credit to the very songwriters it's supposedly championing? The slight seems to be by design and I'm at a loss as to why. Here's last week's winning song, by the uncredited-on-the-page RAQUEL CASTRO, as performed by H.E.R. And, from the week before that, LUIS FONSI performing a winner by the uncredited FILIPPO "PIPOBEATS" GABELLA. Don't songwriters already have it hard enough? At least TV pays a nice performance royalty, which is hopefully putting a few dollars in Wooldridge's, Castro's and Gabella's pockets. The show is supportive and encouraging in so many other ways. Four songwriters pitch the same artist on each episode and only one is sent home, often with a promise of future collaboration. The other three work on their songs with the three songwriters-in-residence. Melodies are buffed up, lyrics tweaked, production added. Dean to Wooldridge: "We'll just change some I's or some Yous to Us and We." Fellow mentor SHANE MCANALLY to Dean: "[You] just hooked the hell out of this song." The artist picks a winner with little on-screen deliberation and drama, everyone hugs each other and no one ever looks sad. AMERICAN IDOL it isn't. In many ways, it's better. But can we add some liner notes? What say you, Ester Dean? Or you, Shane McAnally? Or you, RYAN TEDDER?... Long-running LA club the TROUBADOUR is fighting for its life and has launched a GOFUNDME page. Paging ELTON JOHN. Or JAMES TAYLOR. Or, well, you know who else you are. Gofundit... TEMPLELIVE in Fort Smith, Ark., has booked BISHOP GUNN frontman TRAVIS MCCREADY for a May 15 show, with socially distanced tickets on sale for an arrangement of seats it's calling "fan pods." Among other precautions, ticketholders' temperatures will be taken before they enter. Fort Smith is in Sebastian County, which has been mostly spared by Covid-19. But it's within an easy drive of areas that haven't... The BLUE NOTE in New York is posting videos of classic shows by the likes of SONNY ROLLINS, MCCOY TYNER and BETTY CARTER via subscription on PATREON... Long-running Boston club GREAT SCOTT has closed for good... Anyone need a virtual guitar tech?... RIP MILLIE SMALL, KIING SHOOTER and ROSALIND ELIAS. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Record labels are being forced to adapt — and to raise the bar on artist signings. “I’m really normally more of a ‘feeling’ guy, but this is forcing me to pay a lot more attention to the analytics,” says one A&R. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| The general manager of the Troubadour, which famously launched Elton John's career, says 'to survive, we're going to need all the help we can get.' | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| The demo days of music/tech accelerator Techstars Music are usually a big draw in the physical world, with music industry execs and tech investors convening in Los Angeles to watch its startups pitch. By necessity, its 2020 demo day was different: streamed online with pre-recorded pitches. Here are our notes on each of the 10 startups. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The company currently owns 71% of SiriusXM, 34% of Live Nation, all of Pandora and nearly 5% of iHeartMedia. | | |
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 | The Face |
| The artist, producer and ambient pioneer shares his big-thinking opinions on abstract art, David Bowie and the thrilling potential of gaming. | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| COVID-19 has ripped the touring industry open, putting hundreds of Black professionals out of work. Now Black creatives and professionals have to adapt. | | |
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 | Variety |
| A 30-year veteran of music rights and sample clearances, Deborah Mannis-Gardner has long been on the frontlines of negotiating complex licensing deals, whether it's clearing samples for songs by big-name artists (Eminem, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and beyond), film music for Oscar-winning directors (Martin Scorsese, the Coen Brothers) or Tony-winning Broadway scores (Lin Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton.") | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| Thanks to a byzantine benefits structure, many musicians who had a patchwork income are unable to get the unemployment checks they need. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| A pair of London youth workers have created a new video series that aims to enliven philosophical concepts with the energy of drill music. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Unlike the existential threat posed by the coronavirus outbreak, cultural life returned swiftly to normal after the flu. | | |
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| MusicAlly |
| Earlier this week, we covered the IFPI's latest figures for global recorded music revenues, which grew by 8.2% in 2019. It sparked a debate. | | |
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 | First Floor |
| Bandcamp is the kind of platform we ought to be cultivating. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| With COVID-19 putting a halt to the live music industry, tech companies are figuring out weird new ways to bring shows into the virtual realm. | | |
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 | Fast Company |
| The Asian-focused music label behind Rich Brian, Joji, and the Higher Brothers is building a bridge between East and West, one hip-hop artist at a time. | | |
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 | Level |
| I was 22 when ‘So Far Gone’ changed music. Now I’m 34, and my life feels different -- but Drake hasn’t changed at all. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| It might be a mistake, 14 years in, to expect an artist who built a very lucrative thing for himself to keep mucking with the formula. | | |
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 | Pollstar |
| Few clubs stick around for 50 years. Even fewer remain independent. And fewer still drive the national conversation for decades. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| A new generation of d'n'b stars are changing the game | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| Mark Lanegan has written one of the rawest, most talked about memoirs in years, and he has an album out that’s pretty great too. Jeremy Allen calls him in L.A. to find Silicon Valley and the machines conspiring against him in lockdown. | | |
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 | SF Classical Voice |
| Are you streaming a lot of music online now? Here’s an audiophile’s guide to the basics of greater sound. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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