She was aspirational, once saying, 'I don’t only sing what I know, I sing what I want to know. I don’t only sing what is true, I sing what I want to be true, and maybe me singing it will make it be true.' | | | | Won't play Bond, will play records: DJ Idris Elba at Elrow Town London, Aug. 18, 2018.
(Ollie Millington/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “She was aspirational, once saying, 'I don’t only sing what I know, I sing what I want to know. I don’t only sing what is true, I sing what I want to be true, and maybe me singing it will make it be true.'”
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| | rantnrave:// POST MALONE collaborator AEROSMITH is all kinds of newly relevant this week, having jumped from the final segment of the VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS Monday night to the opening segment of PRESIDENT TRUMP's West Virginia rally on Tuesday. This is not the promotional bump frontman STEVEN TYLER was hoping for, and on Wednesday he asked the president to cease and desist, saying he has repeatedly made clear he does not consent to the use and adding, "NO is a complete sentence." The latter claim is airtight, grammatically speaking, but US law and precedent are notoriously unclear as to whether a politician has to pay heed to that sentence. Depending who you ask, blanket licenses from ASCAP and BMI, secured by either the venue or the political campaign, may well be sufficient legal cover for playing almost any song over the soundsystem during a rally. But others, citing the federal Lanham Act and a variety of state right-of-publicity laws, say artist and writer permission is needed to avoid the implication that they endorse the rally's host. Tyler's lawyer, DINA LAPOLT, went a step further, saying Tyler had directed both ASCAP and BMI to exempt his songs from any political use by Trump. Which sounds almost—airtight. But short of that, and short of any legal consensus, the common-sense question will always be: Why not simply ask? Why not respect an artist's wishes? Anyone, from Donald Trump to your local city councilperson, can play any song they want in their hotel lobby (with appropriate ASCAP/BMI licenses, that is) or at their annual barbecue. But a political rally is a different matter. While you're asking citizens for their vote, wouldn't it make sense to also ask artists for their blessing? If they respond with a two-letter complete sentence, there will always be tens of millions of other songs to choose from... A short counter-argument, sort of: Do fashion designers have the right to tell politicians not to wear their clothes in public? Would you want them to have that right? Discuss... Props to Tyler for using the occasion to plug the MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT... LA ROUX frontwoman ELLY JACKSON, meanwhile, is furious at FOX BUSINESS for using a bit of her love song "BULLETPROOF" as a lead-in to a news story on bulletproof gear for schoolkids. The usage was "abhorrent," she said. But the law is a lot clearer on that one. TV and radio stations have wide latitude, under fair use law, to use short music, film and TV clips in their news programing. Even if the usage is, in fact, abhorrent. Beyond the latter of the law, a little common decency would go a long way here, too... Common decency would also require NICKI MINAJ to ask BILLBOARD for a correction if she thinks its reporting is wrong, rather than asking her fans to (in the words of FADER) cyberbully the reporter. A sense of proportion would also probably require this... JOE BUDDEN is taking his talents to SPOTIFY, and BOB LEFSETZ is taking his to SIRIUSXM... KEVIN LYMAN rebrands... ASIA ARGENTO, facing allegations of sexual assault, has "chosen to withdraw from her curatorship" of the Dutch music festival LE GUESS WHO?, the fest says... Playing atonal music for all the wrong reasons... The most metal items from the 666-item RONNIE JAMES DIO estate sale. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| As a rapper, Joe Budden had a hit 15 years ago -- and then a string of bad luck and poor choices. Now he has emerged as a podcast star. | | |
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| Nowadays you can buy a copy of “Behold a Pale Horse” from Walmart for $17.34 with two-day shipping. But if you want to know how Bill Cooper’s book came to Harlem, the fastest way is still the A train to 125th Street. From there, walk east to between Frederick Douglass and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevards. | | |
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| In this saddening except from "Alice in Chains: The Untold Story," author David De Sola recounts the final gloomy days of Layne Staley as frontman for the Seattle grunge legends. | | |
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| In the wake of Aretha Franklin’s death from pancreatic cancer at age 76, Wynton Marsalis writes in an exclusive essay for Billboard about her love of jazz -- and her hilarious all-caps emails. | | |
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| Shows like ’Late Night With Conan O’Brien’ once spotlighted artists you couldn’t see anywhere else. Can that happen now? | | |
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| For more than a decade, a typical “work day” for Anthony Kovacs meant spending time on stage with loud guitars and drums, singing into a microphone as the lead vocalist for the Chicago punk band Shot Baker. Even when he wasn’t on stage, Kovacs said his daily life was pretty noisy. | | |
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| How the acclaimed Philadelphia band unlocked a brilliant new sound with a little help from magic mushrooms and Bob Dylan. | | |
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| Songwriters, producers, engineers, artists, sessions musicians and more deserve to be easily seen in the digital age so they can get the praise they have earned by creating the music we see every day. | | |
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| Into the cosmos with P-Funk and ELO. | | |
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| The first jazz album I bought was John Coltrane’s “Interstellar Space,” when I was a teen-ager; now I remain most enthralled by Standing on the Corner, a self-proclaimed “art ensemble” with a playful relationship to genre. | | |
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| Not content to let customers sit back and enjoy some light jazz, companies have turned hold music into a marketing exercise. | | |
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| “Companies now feel like they can invest in women, as opposed to just investing in men, men, men.” | | |
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| For decades, keeping it real meant everything in rap. Have things changed? | | |
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| The ultimate multihyphenate and VMAN40 cover star just might save the planet. | | |
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| Joe Budden Podcast comes exclusively to platform, as Ebb & Flow launches with vodka sponsor. | | |
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| The success of a booming video game industry, expected to generate $137.9bn in revenue this year, is music to the ears for bands, musicians, record labels and composers. | | |
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| For decades, Yoko Ono was not given her due as an icon. This look back at her groundbreaking song is the next step in rewriting her legacy. | | |
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| An up-and-coming baritone singer alleges he was drugged and violently raped in 2010 by two of opera/classical music’s shining stars, David Daniels and Scott Walters. | | |
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| Remastering a recording doesn't automatically create a new copyright, America's Ninth Circuit court of appeal has ruled. Which means that -- if it turns out there's been a general performing right for sound recordings hidden in Californian law all these years -- then golden oldie radio stations based there should have been paying royalties to recording artists and record companies. | | |
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| | | | | | | From "Live at Funkhaus Berlin, 10th May 2018," released Wednesday via Bandcamp. |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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