['Sorry to Bother You'] is just an extension of what I have always been doing, even form-wise. You think about the songs that we have done—'5 Million Ways to Kill a C.E.O.' had a 9/17 [time signature] count. But we were able to hide it with a 4/4 beat going through it. So nobody knew that. | | | | Bombino at the Biografilm Festival, Bologna, Italy, June 16, 2018.
(Roberto Serra/Iguana Press/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “['Sorry to Bother You'] is just an extension of what I have always been doing, even form-wise. You think about the songs that we have done—'5 Million Ways to Kill a C.E.O.' had a 9/17 [time signature] count. But we were able to hide it with a 4/4 beat going through it. So nobody knew that.”
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| | rantnrave:// Music bull market or music bubble? Veteran manager MERCK MERCURIADIS' publishing investment company, HIPGNOSIS SONGS FUND LTD, having already raised $262 million to acquire copyrights, went public on the LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE Wednesday in what is reportedly the exchange's biggest IPO of the year. And then and only then, if I'm reading the news reports correctly, it announced the acquisition of its first set of songs—75 percent of THE-DREAM's catalog. Remember when you used to believe there was no longer any money to be made in this music thing? Hipgnosis' IPO comes three months after SPOTIFY's blockbuster entrance into the public market, with SONOS and TENCENT MUSIC waiting in the wings. VIVENDI has been publicly flirting with the idea of spinning off UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP. Is the music biz ready to party like it's 1999 again? Is the optimism warranted? Will profits follow? MusicSET: "The Year of the Music IPO?"... BOOTS RILEY's surreal dystopian comedy SORRY TO BOTHER YOU is not in any literal way a "music movie," but it's a logical extension of the music and ideas of his hip-hop group the COUP, which tend to get called "radical," which is another way of saying "kind of makes a lot of sense." And it literally does have music, lots of it by the Coup to go along with a score by TUNE-YARDS' MERRILL GARBUS. And there's one wonderfully inappropriate freestyle by the film's protagonist, played by LAKEITH STANFIELD, delivered at the most nightmarish SILICON VALLEY bro party you'll ever witness, unless they're all like that, I don't know. Music movie of the year, then... A thorough investigation into the synth sounds of TOTO's "AFRICA"... In completely unrelated news, KENNY LOGGINS loves GRETA VAN FLEET almost as much as he loves MICHAEL MCDONALD, with whom he's taking over the HOLLYWOOD BOWL this weekend... Spotify diversity data, presented here without comment... BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN plays an encore... RIP trombonist BILL WATROUS and (no link yet) Boston rock producer MIKE DENNEEN. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Village Voice |
| ‘Siren Song: My Life in Music‘ explores Seymour Stein's wild ride through the record industry. | | |
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 | 1A |
| Musicians and music from South Asia have influenced contemporary music for generations. Norwegian Wood, anyone? But do the people from a specific culture own it? Who can and should use this music? And where is the line between appreciation and appropriation in art? | | |
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 | REDEF |
| For the first time in years, there's tangible optimism in the music business, and some leading companies are taking that optimism to Wall Street. Are we in a music bull market? | | |
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 | ELLE |
| To her millions of fans, Grande is a guiding light of unabashed femininity...and feminism. | | |
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 | Popula |
| I knew what it sounded like to be in there before I ever had a chance to go there myself. | | |
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 | Variety |
| There's a theory dubbed "nominative determinism," a fancy name to describe people who gravitate to jobs that fit their names. You could hardly find a better example than the man who has sat alongside a mixing console and vinyl lathe in one of the basement studios in the Capitol Records tower for more than three decades. | | |
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 | The Trichordist |
| This is directed at young musicians. I already made my money. Further I have recurrent rock radio hits that generate revenue if I just sit at home and do nothing. Seriously. In many ways I don't really have a dog in the fight so to speak. . | | |
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 | The Outline |
| When left unchecked, fan communities can be an oppressive force. | | |
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 | The Bay Bridged |
| There are plenty of reasons not to wear headphones while traversing San Francisco. Forget them all. | | |
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 | Star Tribune |
| Our critic visits the Boss, the hottest ticket on the Great White Way. | | |
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 | Lefsetz Letter |
| Troy Carter talks about growing up in Philadelphia, working with Lady Gaga, hip-hop's dominance, and Spotify's approach to working with artists. | | |
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 | The Conversation |
| Song by song streaming services may be hurting the album commercially, but its place in our cultural lexicon will be harder to shake. | | |
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 | The Line of Best Fit |
| The heat of the Danish sun, the haze of a hangover, the kick-up of dust, the smell of a hundred street food stalls and a thousand sweaty bodies. This is how it feels to be at Roskilde 2018. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| The legendary and beloved Foo Fighters’ leader fills us in on his latest passion: reviving the long-dormant SoCal event known as Cal Jam. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| As extreme metal ascends, bands like Seether, Wednesday 13, and Black Map are still out there playing turn-of-the-century hard rock to a hardcore faithful. | | |
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 | Complete Music Update |
| Record industry trade groups the BPI and UK Music have welcomed the appointment of Jeremy Wright as the new British Culture Secretary -- a post he suddenly found himself in earlier this week thanks to the latest stage of Brexit chaos in the government. | | |
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| The Conversation |
| While some other churches are losing attendees, Pentecostal membership is growing. Good branding may be the key to their success. | | |
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 | Salon |
| In today's politicized climate, the band's appeals to "unity" and "this is America" don't make a big impression. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The trend may not last forever and ever, amen, but traditional country music is on the rebound. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| With “Head Over Heels” in previews, we looked at how five Go-Go’s songs evolved into musical-theater numbers. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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