I’m trying to make them cry, dude. I’m trying to be the rap Oprah. | | | | Nine Inch Nails at FYF Fest, Los Angeles, July 22, 2017.
(Christopher Polk/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I’m trying to make them cry, dude. I’m trying to be the rap Oprah.”
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| | rantnrave:// Are cassettes the new vinyl? The favorite tool of industry-killing home tapers in the 1980s has been bubbling under for the last few years on the revived-audio-format charts, but here's CARSON DALY trumpeting its full-on comeback on THE TODAY SHOW two weeks ago (sales up 74 percent last year in the US). JAY-Z's 4:44 isn't getting a SPOTIFY release (not yet anyway), but it is getting a cassette release. He's at least old enough to remember actual mixtapes and cassingles. TYLER, THE CREATOR, who is not, is releasing FLOWER BOY that way 'cause "yall asked." I'm guessing yall ain't old enough to remember either, and I salute you. Just remember: TDK >>> MAXELL... One thing that's cut through the noise in all the recent discussion about SOUNDCLOUD is how beloved the service is, by hip-hop fans (and artists), electronic fans (and artists) and a number of other music tribes. So why is the service in trouble? And what can be done about it? And why does it matter? MusicSET: "SoundCloudy Future"... Meetings at music companies aren't everything they're cracked up to be. TRENT REZNOR on what he learned from his years commuting from LA to CUPERTINO to help run APPLE MUSIC: "I’m a musician. I’m interested in these other things, but they’re hobbies." LIZZY GOODMAN profiles a man "in the prime of well-to-do rock-star middle age" who is still very much a rock star, even if he wouldn't mind an earlier set time this Sunday at the PANORAMA festival... No guns in the club, says the HOUSE OF BLUES. Then no gig, says JAMEY JOHNSON. I'm hoping more info comes about this Saturday night standoff in MYRTLE BEACH, S.C., because it's a little sketchy right now. But no guns sounds like a reasonable policy... Best responses so far to NPR MUSIC's excellent but incomplete "150 Greatest Albums by Women": NOISEY's KIM KELLY asks where the metal is and does something about it by tweeting 150 (plus) metal albums "made by people who happen to not be dudes" (starting with BOLT THROWER and ending with GARMONBOZIA). And the MUSE's JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD offers up a convincing list of "The 150 Worst Albums Made by Men." Worst response: RICKIE LEE JONES, whose PIRATES is #49 on NPR's list, goes on a tweetstorm to complain that 49 is too low and also why is her debut album missing?... Speaking of gender, it no longer exists at the VMA AWARDS. Here are the nominees, and here's my annual question for all my old MTV NETWORKS colleagues: Why is it the VMAs and not the MVAs?... RIP KITTY LUX. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Here’s a handy breakdown you can resell for a vastly inflated price (plus service fees). | | |
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 | Village Voice |
| With our political norms crumbling, our social fabric fraying, and our planet literally on fire, the Nine Inch Nails mastermind is back to make sense of it all. | | |
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 | REDEF |
| Is any music streaming service as beloved as SoundCloud is? So why is the revolutionary service in trouble? And what can be done about it, why does it matter and why does everyone love it so much in the first place? | | |
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 | Heavy Blog Is Heavy |
| We’ve all got that one friend who says and does dumb and sometimes really offensive s*** primarily due to the lack of an ability to think what they’re saying or doing all the way through to its logical conclusion. As we’ve seen recently, there are A LOT of those “dumb friends” in the aging punk and hard rock community. | | |
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 | Medium |
| Thankfully, those who forgot history are about to repeat it. | | |
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 | Columbia Journalism Review |
| "I got burned out, I just stopped doing everything. It was literally a meltdown, and the only thing I could do at the time was start blogging about my experiences in the music industry." | | |
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 | Variety |
| The live-entertainment business is a large but traditionally close-knit community, with relationships (and grudges) going back decades. Yet Oak View Group's recent acquisition of Pollstar strikes many - most notably giant promoter and venue operator AEG Presents - as too cozy. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Haggard’s torch is carried by roots rockers and old-school acts, but his place in mainstream country is less secure. | | |
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 | Lenny |
| Novelist Danzy Senna on her chance meeting with Doug E. Fresh after a 1985 concert. | | |
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 | The Vinyl Factory |
| A track-by-track sprint through the landmark album's most important samples. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Two companies are in a race to corner the market on T-shirts branded with celebrities of the moment, such as the Weeknd, Lady Gaga and ASAP Rocky. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| The history of Patrick Sullivan and Ben Cockerham suggests their music knowledge is in high demand. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Bachata star Romeo Santos discusses conquering the pop world without pandering to the English market, befriending Jay-Z and more. | | |
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 | The Fader |
| Jim DeRogatis is still waiting for more reporters to follow one of music’s most disturbing and unresolved scandals. | | |
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 | American Songwriter |
| Berry passed away earlier this year at age 90. But the rock and roll pioneer went out with a bang, with a new album of riveting songs. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| The film on one of the biggest bands in the world intends to omit its frontman’s personal struggle with the disease, when his dying wish was for us to unite in the face of stigma. | | |
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 | Adam Neely |
| The weird internet obsession with A=432 does bring up some interesting questions about the history of how we got to our current standard, A=440, and why some people might dabble in lower tuning systems. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Almost 30,000 licences to play songs in the workplace were granted last year -- up 8% on 2015. Are we set for a new era of employee productivity? | | |
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 | KEXP |
| KEXP.ORG presents Father John Misty performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded May 24, 2017. | | |
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 | VSB |
| Chester Bennington became my weapon against my darkness. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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