I can not stay silent. | | | | | Jay Z, getting spiritual and political. (Daniele Dalledonne) | | | | | rantnrave:// I've never bought the argument that musicians were more engaged, and music more political, in some mythical past that every baby boomer and gen-Xer is convinced really existed. There has always been political music and there has always been fluff. Every generation has its KENDRICK LAMARs and every generation has its CALVIN HARRISes. You just have to know where to look. And how to listen. Sometimes the so-called fluff is the most engaged, most implicitly political music of all... But this is a moment that calls for explicit engagement, and a number of artists have stepped up, and no doubt will continue to step up in the days and weeks ahead. MIGUEL's "HOW MANY," released on FRIDAY as a demo, is beautiful, and weary, call to "wake up" over a heavily processed guitar line. JAY Z's sounds weary too, but also angry, on "SPIRITUAL," which dropped the same day. "I am not poison, just a boy from the hood that/Got my hands in the air in despair, don’t shoot," he raps. VICTORIA MONÉT and ARIANA GRANDE team up for an R&B ballad, "BETTER DAYS," that seeks escape in love: "Baby, there's a war right outside our window/But it's gonna be all right/Long as I've got you and me/In your arms I find my shelter." The late ERIC GARNER's family has a single, too. "No matter how much money I receive, I can hear my brother crying ‘I can’t breathe,'" GARNER's brother STEVEN FLAGG raps on "I CAN'T BREATHE." The ATLANTIC's SPENCER KORNHABER checks in on a number of other new #BLACKLIVESMATTER tracks here... Classical musicians step up, too... And kudos to SPOTIFY, whose desktop homepage over the weekend led with "We Shall Overcome" and "#blacklivesmatter" playlists... A special shoutout to PLAY IT AGAIN RECORDS in BETHLEHEM, PA., which is going out of business next month after a 35-year-run. All music fans should have their own CHAMPIONSHIP VINYL, and PLAY IT AGAIN was mine. My post-graduate education in soul, country, R&B and punk. My home away from home in a city that was strange and not always welcoming to me. Owner JOE HANNA was a personal rock and roll concierge service to me and to countless other record collectors who passed through the LEHIGH VALLEY. A curator, if you will, though he'd probably kick me out of the store if I ever used a 10-dollar word like that to his face. And a friend. Fare thee well, JOE... I'm taking a day off today. JEN GUYRE will be the guest curator of tomorrow's MUSICREDEF. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| Jay Z releases a remarkable confession of psychic pain, while lesser-known rappers imagine radical action. | | |
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| Once chastised by Harry Belafonte for not being socially responsible, music’s power couple now raise concerns about police brutality in their songs. | | |
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| The "reclusive" pop star has pulled off an enviable trick-diverting misogynist media attention away from her looks. | | |
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| Almost everyone in the music-publishing business has expressed frustration with the Department of Justice’s recent decision. So far, though, they don’t seem to agree on how this decision will affect the music industry -- or even exactly what it means. | | |
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| From Bey to Prince to Mariah, Sylvia Patterson's quizzed them all and navigated some dicey waters. She talks frankly here, plus read an exclusive extract from her book. | | |
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| The Showtime documentary about Adam Goldstein argues that its subject’s musical brilliance was separate from his self-destructive tendencies. | | |
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| Banks and Steelz, a new project from Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and Interpol’s Paul Banks, drops August 26th. Marlow Stern sat down with the duo to discuss music, politics, and more. | | |
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| To breathe new life into its sales, the celebrated piano maker is promoting its instruments to China’s growing middle class both as a status symbol and an investment. | | |
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| In a lonely corner of a Kentucky mirror factory, the disco ball is alive and well. | | |
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| Uncovering how Ed Sheeran gave Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" unexpected complexity, using a little auditory trickery. | | |
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| In the run up to interviewing the Smashing Pumpkins Jimmy Chamberlin at Pandoland, I read up on a ton of past Rolling Stones interviews with him and his bandmates throughout the wild ride of iconic 1990s band the Smashing Pumpkins. | | |
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| A few weeks before Britain's historic Brexit referendum -- before John Oliver eviscerated the whole thing on "Last Week Tonight"; before Noel Gallagher broke his legendary silence on the matter; long before the results had been announced and countless Britons took to Google, asking, "What is the EU?" | | |
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| Syllart boss Binetou Sylla and British-Congolese rapper C Cane discuss the collaborative mixtape "Afrodias' Génération Enjaillement." | | |
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| In our latest episode of Musonomics: why are more and more music industry insiders looking to Blockchain technology as a solution to the metadata problem? What really is the Blockchain? And why is it so important? These are just some of the questions host Larry Miller of NYU Steinhardt, and co-host Carmen Cuesta Roca will unpack. | | |
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| On the 20th anniversary of the release of "Wannabe," the single that launched the girl power juggernaut on the world, the writer Laura Snapes recalls her pre-teen obsession with the Spice Girls. | | |
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| I feel bad for Billy Joel, and that’s why I continue to stand up for his brand of mawkish, self-aggrandizing schlock. | | |
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| The Australian mix-and-matchers are back with more vocalists, more tracks, and many, many more samples. | | |
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| We talk shop with the designer behind one of dance music's most recognisable record sleeves. | | |
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| A convoluted, draconian visa process impoverishes the U.S. music scene of worthwhile cultural exchange, and deters many artists from even applying—they just can’t afford the time and energy to go through it, and end up skipping the U.S. entirely. | | |
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| For National Piña Colada Day, Rupert Holmes reveals the secrets behind the writing of his 1979 hit song, "Escape." | | |
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