Fans are starting to get smarter and realize that people aren’t putting as much time into their craft. They want more quality. We don’t need 20-song tapes anymore. Give us 10 quality ones. | | | | Jazz hands: Brandee Younger at Central Park SummerStage, New York, June 15, 2019.
(Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Fans are starting to get smarter and realize that people aren’t putting as much time into their craft. They want more quality. We don’t need 20-song tapes anymore. Give us 10 quality ones.”
|
| |
| | rantnrave:// SCOOTER BRAUN's $300 million purchase of Nashville's BIG MACHINE will be the "biggest recorded music buyout" since WARNER took over PARLOPHONE for $765 million in 2013. That not-so-trivial bit of trivia comes from ROLLING STONE, which ventures to look past the deal's impact on Big Machine's most famous former artist with a pair of stories on how the deal could change the pop landscape and how it might affect country music and Nashville. It isn't just about who owns whose masters, it turns out. But it also sort of is. In an excellent piece on the Nashville angle, MARISSA R. MOSS notes that Big Machine is a radio-driven label that has perfected the art of building careers off radio hits while struggling to find a path for artists like DRAKE WHITE and LAUREN JENKINS who aren't quite suited for that route. A boutique label it is not. But Braun has long experience navigating other avenues to commercial success, including online campaigns, cross-promotions and international outreach, and he's in a position to bring new energy not only to Big Machine but to Nashville in general. The city, Moss writes, operates largely on one strategy: "release a single, do radio promo, drop the album (granted the single doesn’t tank), tour, repeat." How might Music City look when all sorts of new options come into play? How might it sound? In the other piece, TIM INGHAM drills into some strong financials for both the buyer and the seller. Braun's empire, through his ITHACA HOLDINGS, extends into publishing (VAN HALEN's catalog is in house), management and recording, with direct connections to fashion (specifically, SUPREME) and TV/film. Ithaca will be one of the world's largest indie music companies and the opportunities for synergy will be seemingly endless, without anyone having to leave the building. One caveat, though, on the metrics that make the record company itself so valuable: Its main source of income is six albums by the famous former artist whose interests might not be aligned with the company's anymore. In a bit of, let's call it, interesting timing, Big Machine on Wednesday announced a limited-edition vinyl reissue of her 2007 single "TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR" (her 2006 debut, "TIM MCGRAW," got the same treatment three weeks ago). Her fans had some thoughts. Will they keep buying the product?... Are they really *not* going to call this stretch of road in Detroit the Freeway of Love? Everyone else is no doubt going to call it that so maybe the state of Michigan should get out in front of the issue and make it official now... JAMILA WOODS breaks down "BALDWIN" for SONG EXPLODER... STING and SHAGGY at the TINY DESK... #TBT: Two STRANGER THINGS-inspired remembrances of the music of 1985, per the RINGER and the NEW YORK TIMES, and a review, courtesy MIXMAG, of how the show itself hears that year. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
|
|
 | Rolling Stone |
| Some predictions about the music mogul’s game plan in the wake of the Taylor Swift fallout. | | |
|
| Rolling Stone |
| From pop crossovers to breaking international markets, the new owner of Taylor Swift’s masters could expand Nashville’s reach. | | |
|
 | Attack Magazine |
| Social media is influencing how artists are booked and who gets the most bookings. It’s shaping how we listen to music, how we pay for music and how music reaches us. But is it also changing music itself? | | |
|
 | Dangerous Minds |
| Martin Rev discusses his life and work and the making of one of music’s greatest albums. | | |
|
 | Music Business Worldwide |
| TuneCore's Chris Dampier explains the measly rewards being passed to songwriters from sell-out concerts. | | |
|
 | Trapital |
| The Bronx rapper has made her money and built leverage from music festivals, residencies, and standalone shows. | | |
|
 | Los Angeles Times |
| Bridging the divide between old-school lyricism and Gen Z influencer culture, this 21-year-old is poised for stardom with his debut album. | | |
|
 | NPR |
| NPR's Audie Cornish speaks with Alyssa Bereznak of The Ringer about how the social media platform TikTok could serve as the future of music sharing. | | |
|
 | Penny Fractions |
| Why did anyone think it’d work?! | | |
|
 | OffBeat Magazine |
| There’s a business owner who is trying to make a living. There’s a brass band that wants to do the same thing. Does the bookstore have the right to ask the brass band to move away and not block its entrance? Yes, it does. Does the brass band have a right to play on the street? Yes it does. | | |
|
 | The New Yorker |
| As several new events come onto the scene, the genre’s increasing dominance will continue to attract brands thirsty to capitalize on its growing market power. | | |
|
 | Harvard Data Science Review |
| The songwriting duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the two founding members of the Beatles, composed some of the most popular and memorable songs of the last century. Despite having authored songs under the joint credit agreement of Lennon-McCartney, it is well-documented that most of their songs or portions of songs were primarily written by exactly one of the two. | | |
|
 | Consequence of Sound |
| Fever 333's Jason Aalon Butler and Stephen Harrison are interviewed for "Heavy Culture", a column focusing people of color in heavy music. | | |
|
| Los Angeles Times |
| The 17-year-old is on top of the world, a streaming leviathan reshaping pop in her own dark image. On Tuesday (Jul. 9), she kicked off a three-show hometown run. | | |
|
 | The New York Times |
| On her debut album, “Clarity,” the 26-year-old pop singer who works closely with the producer Dr. Luke transcends pastiche and embraces a fringe sound that’s utterly new. | | |
|
 | Loud And Quiet |
| Over the last few years there have been some big shifts in contemporary music. | | |
|
 | The Guardian |
| From Lizzo to André 3000, why is the instrument prevalent in pop culture? | | |
|
 | AL.com |
| Taime Downe talks Faster Pussycat, touring with Motley Crue, hooking Slash up with his first top-hat. | | |
|
 | Richmond Times-Dispatch |
| As a teenager, Tim Barry would hack a pay phone outside the ABC store on West Main Street and call strangers across the country, hoping for help booking tours for his then-unknown punk band, Avail. | | |
|
| NPR |
| Sudan's revolution ushered in an explosion of culture. But the military crackdown has nearly muted the most popular pop radio station. A once-vibrant cultural space is now struggling for survival. | | |
|
 | YouTube |
| | | | Brandee Younger ft. Sean Jones |
| | Epic. From her 2019 album "Soul Awakening." |
| | |
|
|
| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
|
|
