Suing the government is a very punk rock thing to do. | | | | Siouxsie and the Banshees circa 1977.
(Ian Dickson/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Suing the government is a very punk rock thing to do.”
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| | rantnrave:// Is it a statistical fluke, a random cyclical thing or a strange homage to THE HANDMAID'S TALE that the pop charts sound so masculine these days? DJ KHALED's "WILD THOUGHTS," featuring RIHANNA, is the first song with a female voice to appear in the top five of BILLBOARD's HOT 100 in three months. Last time that happened? Forty-five years ago, when HELEN REDDY broke a string of similar male dominance with (you can't make this stuff up) "I AM WOMAN." On the albums chart, LORDE is the third straight female singer to debut at #1, but that was preceded by 31 weeks without a chart-topping woman. And Lorde and her immediate predecessor, KATY PERRY, aren't exactly tearing up the singles charts. So what gives? Do streaming metrics and the charts that depend on them discount women for some reason? Are radio programmers and playlist selectors giving them enough room? Do women need to be featured on men's records to be heard? Does TAYLOR SWIFT need to rush-release her next album? Are songs like this not good enough? What about songs like this? Does pop have a gender-gap problem like classical music does? Is it squeezing out women like jazz and country are? I don't have answers. I have questions... My friend PIOTR ORLOV has turned a recent trip to SOUTH AFRICA into MZANSI: NOW!, an eye-opening (and expansive, and wonderful) playlist of house/electronic/jazz/etc. fare, circa 2016-17, from artists including THANDISWA, SKYJACK and DZO(AUDIONICSOULS). Mix of the week... SIMON TAM on why it matters that his band, the SLANTS, won a SUPREME COURT case over the right to trademark the name. WEAR YOUR VOICE's LISA HOFMANN-KURODA on the dangers of that decision. (Not sure it's fair, though, to blame the Slants for setting a precedent that could work in favor of WASHINGTON's controversial football team. The court, not the band, set the precedent, and if the issues are the same, it seems safe to assume the outcome would be the same with or without that precedent.)... The story of tropicalia in 20 albums... The story of the summer of 1967 in 50 psychedelic-rock albums... The story of KRAFTWERK in seven pieces of gear. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Narratively |
| In a life bookended by tragedy, Prince Nico Mbarga poured joy into his music, including the most popular song in African history. But his own story has never been told -- until now. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| Ahead of the release of Christopher Nolan's latest blockbuster, "Dunkirk," or which Hans Zimmer penned the score, GQ remembers the time we interviewed Zimmer on his journey from punk producer to the composer of choice. | | |
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 | The Howard Stern Show |
| Jimmy Iovine talks about recording Elton John, making "Born to Run," his relationship with Stevie Nicks, how he predicted Gwen Stefani's success, his retirement dream, launching Beats Electronics, and more. | | |
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 | MTV News |
| Meredith Graves talks with Fifth Harmony about up coming music and the future of the group. | | |
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 | NPR |
| Meet the British teenagers behind one of last year's most startling pop albums. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The Songwriters of North America will hold its third annual invite-only Songwriters Summit just as the organization is preparing its oral arguments against the Department of Justice in its lawsuit concerning fair compensation. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| The four-disk boxed set points the way for future Prince deluxe editions. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The organization’s workshop, which has been influential since its founding in the early 1970s, has an opportunity to engage a broader audience. | | |
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 | The Conversation |
| Women are disturbingly under-represented in Australian jazz, with relatively few female composers and instrumentalists. What's holding them back? And what can be done about it? | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| As President Trump eyes abolishing federal arts funding in the U.S., a survey of tax-supported music from Australia to Iceland reveals a complex, shifting landscape. | | |
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 | NewMusicBox |
| My eye keeps moving back to the top of the page, try as I may to make headway into the story. The narrative is going in one direction, but my eye keeps looping back. This occurrence is natural, even intended. What I’m reading is a graphic novel, and the reader’s eye is expected to move around. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Celebrity-filled pop songs are rarely great songs, but they're always fun and set to dominate your summer. | | |
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 | Timeline |
| ‘Cold Sweat’ broke one genre and helped create another. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| The ‘Portlandia’ star and Sleater-Kinney rocker wants to become the next great Hollywood director. | | |
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 | Insomniac |
| Speaking from his home in Thailand, Goldie reflects on a lifetime of redemptive culture, music as mental rehab, and how to avoid chasing youth while embracing the inner child. | | |
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 | The Bitter Southerner |
| Trap music -- the subgenre that currently dominates Southern rap -- is misogynistic, but that doesn’t mean it can’t inspire women to go get theirs. | | |
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 | And The Writer Is... |
| From Brooklyn, this songwriter is one of the busiest creators in the game. Known for her work as a hit writer, singer and artist, she is the perfect example of a triple threat. Her repertoire includes credits like Eminem and Rhianna's "The Monster," G-Eazy's "Me, Myself & I," and Martin Garix's "In The Name of Love." | | |
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| The New Yorker |
| At fifty years old, the group’s eighth album may be familiar, but it has never lost its power to astonish, enlighten, and delight. | | |
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 | The Fader |
| Paying homage to our pioneers, fifty years later and three thousand miles away. | | |
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| NPR |
| Mobb Deep's unapologetic poetry rose from the blacked-out hallways of America's ongoing nightmare, Kevin Powell writes. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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