As a label, you’re at the mercy of infrastructure created by tech companies. | | | | Go ahead, jump: Tyler, the Creator at the Boston Calling Music Festival, May 26, 2018.
(Taylor Hill/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “As a label, you’re at the mercy of infrastructure created by tech companies.”
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| | rantnrave:// Welcome to the future, where you wake up feeling grumpy in your apartment in Uppsala, Sweden, ask ALEXA to make you a black coffee and play you some ambient metal, and she delivers one hot cup of locally brewed joe and the entirety of the new DRAKE album. Impossible, plausible or pretty much guaranteed? I've ruled out "impossible" after reading a million or so accounts of Drake's unprecedented dominance of the streaming universe over the weekend, another million about the programming blitz across SPOTIFY and APPLE MUSIC that helped make that possible, and one story about the battle between labels and tech companies for programming control of the smart-speaker market. Bottom line #1: No one should be shocked that Drake, the closest thing we have to a universal pop music idol, is on pace to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 billion streams of his double album SCORPION in its opening week, and no one outside the odd MICHAEL JACKSON relative has any reason to complain. But if you think the numbers are entirely organic, I have a playlist in Brooklyn to sell you. Bottom line #2: If ALEXA, SIRI and their A.I. counterparts don't know your song is either happy or sad or workout-friendly or heavily prioritized by the promo department of one of their partner labels, you're going to have an uphill battle getting them to recommend you to the typical user whose request is something like, "Alexa, play me some music." Inevitable question #3: If Drake's photo can be placed atop an official Spotify playlist he isn't even on, can Alexa be employed to play "EMOTIONLESS" when you ask for that ambient metal playlist? Or when you say you need some background music while you're working? Or when you're minding your own business and you don't ask for anything? Who will that smart speaker be taking orders from: You? Your favorite tech company? Somebody's record company? The radio programmers who appear to be in charge? Is the (possibly worthwhile) goal simply to create a smarter, more personalized radio station? Who will it be personalized for?.. P.S. Smart speakers make clean and thorough metadata that much more important than it's ever been... P.P.S. The first time I listened to SCORPION, I thought the first line of the first song was "I'm gonna weigh in on this," which would've been an all-time great album-opening lyric. Alas, I realized the next time around it's "I been waitin' on this." Which is not... P.P.P.S. Co-sign on the greatness of this track from "Scorpion" disc 2... Among our friends who industry execs think would make a good replacement for NEIL PORTNOW at the RECORDING ACADEMY are JUDY MCGRATH, SUSAN GENCO and TROY CARTER. All great candidates... RADICAL.FM shuts down... RIP SMOKE DAWG, BILL HAMEL and EUGENE PITT. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| With everyone from Amazon to will.i.am trying to get us to talk to their speakers, should listeners be excited, or worried? | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The old model of producer as crate digger, crafting melodies out of old soul records or on synths or keyboards, is history. The increase in volume has made it more difficult for sampled musicians to claim credit -- and payment -- for their work, creating an opportunity for businesses like BeatHustle. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Although fans imbibe copiously at concerts of every genre, all of which boast songs about drinking, it’s possible that no slice of American life has embraced alcohol with the enthusiasm of country music. The two have gone hand-in-hand for decades, thanks in part to the so-called “tear in your beer” songs that helped make the format famous. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| We polled artists, critics and industry insiders to create a list of the era's truly essential moments. | | |
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 | Slate |
| Some go for pennies, some for more than $1,000. But to some, CDs are still priceless. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Those making songs of resistance - Janelle Monáe, Beyoncé and more - are equally determined to establish a sense of community. And they’re relying on the flash and exuberance of great pop to do it. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| Of 117 scripted primetime network TV shows airing in the 2017-2018 season with an original score, a total of seven list a woman as their composer. That gives women authorship of only 6% of television scores. Things aren’t much better on cable, premium channels, or streaming services. | | |
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| Billboard |
| "When he tells his story from the stage, it's powerful. He makes everyone in the room feel like they can do anything." | | |
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 | Music Industry Blog |
| Friday's news that catalogue acquisition business Hipgnosis Songs Fund is set to float on the London Stock Exchange,having already raised around $260 million, reflects a booming market for music catalogues. However, the outlook for catalogue is not quite as straight forward as it at first appears. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| There is no black gay artist that opened up my imagination about who I can be while affirming who I am like Sylvester. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| Three decades after Parents Music Resource Center tried to scare America over sexualized lyrics, the pop songs they warned everyone about now serve to celebrate freedom. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Never have we had a president not just indifferent to the arts, but also combative toward artists. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Political art that outlasts its times needs more than just a powerful message. | | |
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 | Hypebeast |
| From Nas to Juice WRLD: The iconic guitar riff from Sting‘s 1993 song “Shape of My Heart,” co-written by his longstanding guitarist Dominic Miller, is one of rap’s most recognizable samples. | | |
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 | The Art and Science of Data |
| String lovers vs. poetics, or instrumentalness vs. speechiness. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| It doesn't take a film scholar to know that sound is absolutely essential to an effective horror movie. An exceptional score can help something suspenseful ascend to something brilliant and bone-chilling, and even turn something as mundane as walking into a nail-biting piece of exposition. | | |
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 | Toronto Star |
| Blue Rodeo’s Greg Keelor worries that a modern makeover will erase the magic of what has been “the best room in Canada for 124 years.” | | |
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 | Tedium |
| Pondering the surprising number of musical acts that have official members that don’t actually play an instrument or sing. You know, like Coldplay. | | |
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 | The Muse |
| "The secrecy, the enigma that he cloaked himself with, served his professional goals. It served his image. He needed it. But after he’s gone, there’s no need for that. So now we have a new mandate, and I firmly believe that the mandate is to understand him." | | |
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| The New York Times |
| Four leaders in five years. New initiatives that come and go. Financial pressures. The tumult that is challenging Lincoln Center and its future. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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