I remember the first time I had any sort of meeting with a label or management, I was 13. The only people that didn’t look at me like I was going to have a horrible career were the people that I ended up working with. Everyone was just like, 'Oh, you’re 13, yikes, you’re going to be used,' and this and that. And I am like, 'Yo, y’all are the people that would use me in the situation you are talking about.' So, I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. | | | | Billie Eilish in New York, June 12, 2019.
(Steven Ferdman/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I remember the first time I had any sort of meeting with a label or management, I was 13. The only people that didn’t look at me like I was going to have a horrible career were the people that I ended up working with. Everyone was just like, 'Oh, you’re 13, yikes, you’re going to be used,' and this and that. And I am like, 'Yo, y’all are the people that would use me in the situation you are talking about.' So, I don’t know what that is supposed to mean.”
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| | rantnrave:// For the first time since before Easter, there's a new #1 record in the US: BILLIE EILISH's minimalist, turn-the-tables pop song "BAD GUY." Eilish's song had spent nearly half of LIL NAS X's record-breaking 19-week "OLD TOWN ROAD" rein at #2, and she has just broken a longevity record of her own. "Bad Guy" is the longest-running #2 song to move up to #1, the bridesmaidiest bridesmaid ever to become the bride. It's decidedly not a song about a bridesmaid. I love both singles. They're both about resolve, self-determination and, perhaps, growing up, but get there in markedly different ways. "Old Town Road," which was already a hit on its own but got an extra boost, creatively and commercially, from BILLY RAY CYRUS, has a laid-back pace, a goofy sense of humor and a childlike sense of awe as Lil Nas X sets out to ride till he can't no more in search of what, exactly, he never says. In "Bad Guy," Eilish, who ditto with JUSTIN BIEBER, takes off on a propulsive, insistent four-on-the-floor beat as she sets out to explain to her bad-boy lover who's the real bad boy in their relationship. Her humor is toughy, earthy and dark, her attack sassy and snarky, her vocal alternately robotic and seductive. She punctuates her declaration of her own badness with a glorious "duh." She doesn't have to say exactly where she's going; it's clear she knows. A feminist anthem for summer 2019, and another very worthy #1... Lil Nas X used one tweet to congratulate Eilish, and followed up an hour later with the self-aware pop joke of the summer, winning TWITTER at least for the day... Do you remember the last chart-topper that wasn't "Old Town Road"? It seems like years, doesn't it? It was this much-debated single, which spent a healthy eight weeks of its own at #1... Lost and found: HOLE, one of the artists that sued UNIVERSAL MUSIC over master tapes destroyed in an infamous 2008 warehouse fire, has dropped out, "based upon UMG’s representations that none of Hole’s masters was destroyed (subject to confirmation)." UMG has been saying all along that not as much was lost as the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE and artists claim. Or, rather, UMG has been saying that for two months, which is how long it's been since the Times reported on the extent of a blaze that the record company had neglected to fully acknowledge for 11 years. If it had fully inventoried the losses a decade ago, we presumably wouldn't still be talking about this. But this is the first sign that at least some artists and their lawyers may buy the record company's argument—subject to confirmation, that is. SOUNDGARDEN, STEVE EARLE and the estates of TOM PETTY and TUPAC SHAKUR are still suing... The lead story below is about a new music documentary that's available only on rented VHS tapes, which can only be ordered via a phone number on flyers in random record stores and coffee shops. Which is, perhaps, the most ELEPHANT 6 thing ever. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Outline |
| A new movie about the Elephant 6 Recording Company, which housed bands like Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal, and the Olivia Tremor Control, receives an unconventional release. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Why a fan-fueled "equity crowdfunding" model may be ready to explode. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| A girl standing in line beside me was fishing around in a bag crammed with friendship bracelets. It was a steamy Saturday in July, and I had just arrived at KCON in New York, a newcomer to this annual mecca for stateside K-pop fans that started in 2012. | | |
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 | The Next Web |
| I think the root of my attachment to purchasing MP3s and CDs is that I want to hold onto the personal relationship with music I had as a kid, and that’s becoming increasingly difficult. | | |
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 | V Magazine |
| Billie Eilish and fellow maverick Pharrell Williams chat art, clairvoyance and sleep paralysis. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| The Country Music Assn. has a big reveal planned for this year's CMA Awards show in Nashville, Tenn.: Women make country music too. An exaggeration? Perhaps, but not a big one for anyone whose exposure to country music in 2019 comes chiefly from radio. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The country star is returning with her first album of original music in 17 years, aided by two younger musicians who feel her fire: Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. | | |
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 | Digital Trends |
| Most people would agree that if you were intent on redesigning Apple's mega-popular AirPods, you wouldn't make them more controversial-looking. And yet that's what the team from Frog Design has done - with a purpose. | | |
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 | Quartzy |
| Black artists are not successful on the Korean pop charts. | | |
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 | PopMatters |
| In 1969, the deeply strange musician known as Captain Beefheart released an album that is still ahead of its time a half-century later. PopMatters spoke with musicians and writers about this landmark work of art and why it continues to fascinate. | | |
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 | Tidal |
| Is she trying to subvert pop? Duh. | | |
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 | Sound on Sound |
| Innovative production can be made or broken by the mix - and in Rob Kinelski, Billie Eilish's team found the perfect foil. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Local market stats in Norway suggest risky move was a big success. | | |
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 | Spotify for Artists |
| What you need to know to avoid the potential landmines of borrowing a few sounds. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| She started her career in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and became a national star, but can she turn this momentum into global fame? | | |
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 | Red Bull Music Academy |
| Christina Lee takes a look at the origins of a singular institution. | | |
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 | Nerdist |
| We revisited the history of how the strange, surreal, and unique "Phantom of the Paradise" came to be and how its legacy lives on almost five decades later. | | |
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 | Global News |
| Ever buy a concert ticket only to find that it comes with a CD? If so, you've already been bundled. | | |
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 | FLOOD Magazine |
| On "Animated Violence Mild," Benjamin John Power praises drag and laments consumerism. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Palestine’s rich hip-hop heritage is born out of the tension in the region, but BLTNM don’t just want to make music inspired by conflict -- they want to have fun too | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | "They rob the souls of the girls like you." |
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| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
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