Jazz is... based on improvisation. When you take the stage you don’t know how it’s going to end—you just have to trust the musicians, but it’s risky. | | | | Demi Lovato at the O2 Arena, London, June 25, 2018.
(Simone Joyner/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Jazz is... based on improvisation. When you take the stage you don’t know how it’s going to end—you just have to trust the musicians, but it’s risky.”
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| | rantnrave:// My favorite protest song of the summer, the one I most needed to hear, starts with a bass riff, what might be a single pair of hands clapping in syncopation, and a track of wordless vocalizing that could be mistaken for a synthesizer, or maybe it is a synth, I'm not entirely sure. The song isn't explicitly political or explicitly about anything. It might be about a girl whose eyes have the singer "in the rush." It might be about a band regrouping after three years apart that still isn't sure "what we gon' do." It might be a response to an unseen figure whose lies have nothing on the singer's pride and her desire to live her life. As with many pop lyrics, the vaguely sketched verses invite you to insert your own subject, apply your own focus. But whatever or whomever the song is addressing, whether a lover's eyes or a president's lies, the uplifting, gospelly chorus of the INTERNET's "COME TOGETHER" assures us, "They gon' get us to come together." "They," we are now to understand, are not the subject of this song. They may or may not even matter. The subject of this song is us. Over the course of three and a half minutes, the group, singing in harmony, repeats the simple promise that they gon' get us to come together 14 or 15 times, which isn't enough; on this hot summer day in 2018, I want it to go on forever. It drops down to a whisper a couple minutes in before swelling back into a hopeful future the band seems to be trying to point to, our future, one where maybe it will finally be OK to hear the song fade itself out of existence, it's work having been done... "Come Together" is the opening track on the Internet's fourth album, HIVE MIND, a fantastic summer soul album which, as I suspected, has gotten better as the air outside as heated up over the past several days. I've sought comfort in the soft pillows of STEVE LACY's guitar chords on "IT GETS BETTER (WITH TIME)," a song that echoes the "Come Together" vibe in a darker setting. In the bass-like percussion of "NEXT TIME / HUMBLE PIE." And in the romantic hope in SYD's voice as she pleads with a straying lover to "STAY THE NIGHT." She will stay, I feel strongly about that... Addiction is a horrible disease. Some people fight it privately, some publicly. It takes strength, resolve and courage either way. Some people pay it forward, giving back all they can to the community, with interest. Some people relapse. Some people sing beautifully through all of that. All the MusicREDEF love in the world to DEMI LOVATO... A LIVE NATION/SIRIUSXM merger has entered the realm of the "inevitable," BTIG RESEARCH says... BLACK THOUGHT performs the theme song for the PARAMOUNT NETWORK's upcoming TRAYVON MARTIN documentary series, REST IN POWER... Churning down the house, SPOTIFY style... Add cannabis to the menu at SAN FRANCISO's OUTSIDE LANDS festival. Curated, of course.. That stereo in HBO's SHARP OBJECTS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Ringer |
| The former Disney star has battled personal demons throughout her entire career. And while nobody was looking, she suddenly became one of the great torch singers in contemporary pop. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| The pop star has chronicled her addictions in her music and in the press her entire career, including in a recent ballad about a relapse. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| It's Police vs the party in the capital. | | |
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 | Digiday |
| Red Bull frequently slaps its brand across extreme sports, but the energy drink brand is also deeply invested in music. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| In “Pose,” Angel and Stan’s love affair unfolds to a Kate Bush hit. Wesley Morris shows us why it’s an inspired choice. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Spotify's Director Of Economics, Will Page, explains how the music industry's size is accelerating | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| She pours fire and fury into powerful songs that target everything from police shootings to slavery. The musician reveals all about her mission to put the black back in bluegrass -- and Shakespeare. | | |
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 | Wax Poetics |
| Daymé Arocena is a burst of light energy. A million shattered pieces of Orion nebula in the form of singer-composer-star, spreading love, positivity and ancestral blessings-a interstellar body in the constellation of Afro-Cuban world music. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| As voice recognition advances, it’s leaving behind users with an accent. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| We can ask his label why he’s still on the roster. We can ask his concert promoter why they haven’t let him go. We can demand radio stations stop playing his music. | | |
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| Mixmag |
| A truly extraordinary visit to one of the seven wonders of the world. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Ahead of Spotify’s Q2 2018 earnings call this Thursday (July 26), more Wall Street investors are speaking up about their bullish stance on the streaming service’s stock performance, upgrading their rating to “buy” and raising end-of-year price targets to over $200 per share. | | |
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 | GHStrategic |
| The concept of "data" is often an abstract one for artists and musicians (and even labels). You know that you have data in the form of email addresses and perhaps access to insights from social media and your website. However, the applications of this data are not clear. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| The Nine Inch Nails frontman on his excellent new album, redirecting his rage, ‘The Twilight Zone’ and why he still thinks about Bowie all the time | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| “Up to this point, if you were to summarise the industry’s marketing message around hi-res music, it’s ‘will you pay more for better sound quality?’ That’s a losing marketing message.” This may not be a surprising thing to say, until you realise who’s saying it: Mike Jbara, chief executive of MQA. | | |
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 | Consequence of Sound |
| Discography takes on Janet's masterpieces: "Rhythm Nation," "janet," and "The Velvet Rope." | | |
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| The Daily Beast |
| A fan reflects on watching Britney Spears perform her greatest hits in Atlantic City two decades into her career--on age, legacy, divadom, and angst in a casino near the boardwalk. | | |
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 | MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY |
| If you read the current version of the Music Modernization Act, you may fine that it’s more about government mandates that entrench incumbents than a streamlined blanket compulsory license that helps startups climb the ladder. | | |
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| Music Business Worldwide |
| Joie Manda on a career in hip-hop, and why the genre's been 'having a moment for 40 years.' | | |
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 | Please Kill Me |
| Danny Rapp, the man who first sang “Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay” and “At The Hop” stumbled and fell after stardom faded. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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