I personally am very discerning. I can tell if a female pop singer, for instance, has a generosity of spirit or a playful fire in her heart. With Billie [Eilish], she’s prodigious. I needed to hear one line of one melody and I just know. | | | | Piano woman: Lana Del Rey at the Latitude Festival, Southwold, England, July 21, 2019.
(Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I personally am very discerning. I can tell if a female pop singer, for instance, has a generosity of spirit or a playful fire in her heart. With Billie [Eilish], she’s prodigious. I needed to hear one line of one melody and I just know.”
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| | rantnrave:// As UNIVERSAL MUSIC and a group of disgruntled artists continue to work through the legal implications of a poorly documented warehouse fire from 11 years ago, and as the rest of us work through the cultural implications of all that may have been lost, Los Angeles writer SAM SWEET is here to tell the story of another poorly documented archival musical loss, this one from water not fire, and how all was not lost in the end, and how some long-forgotten New Orleans treasures made their way, improbably, to the garage of MIKE NISHITA, a DJ-turned-storage-wars-soldier (and brother of BEASTIE BOYS keyboardist MONEY MARK NISHITA) who found them at a swap meet in Southern California. This is the alternate-universe QUENTIN TARANTINO version of the Universal fire story, involving lesser-known American treasures (ALLEN TOUSSAINT! THE METERS! LEE DORSEY!), a biblical flood, reel-to-reel tape machines, an 80-year-old collector of music catalogs who owns "some valuable rights" and "a lot of not-so-valuable rights," and a travelogue's worth of plot points you wouldn't buy if someone had made them up. The ending, which will hopefully involve you, me and everyone else actually hearing this music, has yet to be written, because of what Sweet notes is a "jigsaw puzzle" of rights issues. So for now you'll just have to imagine the soundtrack to what, for my money, is the true musical tall tale of the year... "The ticketing industry is broken," write US senators AMY KLOBUCHAR and RICHARD BLUMENTHAL in asking the Justice Department to investigate competition in the ticketing business and to extend and more strictly enforce a consent agreement intended to restrict LIVE NATION and TICKETMASTER's dominance of the market. "The losers," the senators say, "are the American people." Live Nation says the senators have "a fundamental misunderstanding of our consent decree and general ticketing industry dynamics"... "OLD TOWN ROAD" isn't going to compete for Song or Single of the Year at the CMA AWARDS in November, but the song that Nashville told to go away did earn one nomination for one of the biggest nights on the country music calendar. LIL NAS X and BILLY RAY CYRUS are up for Musical Event of the Year. MAREN MORRIS leads all performers with six nominations including Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Song of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year, but isn't nominated for Entertainer of the Year because, um, does someone in Nashville want to explain that one? Can you do it without using the word "female" or "woman"? GARTH BROOKS, whose last studio album came out in 2016 but who did play a bunch of stadiums this year, is nominated and is a man... VARIETY's "Music Moguls of the Year" are JAY & BEY, NICK CANNON and—LOL—SCOOTER BRAUN and TAYLOR SWIFT... RIP DONNIE FRITTS... And a correction: In Wednesday's newsletter, I mentioned that a prosecutor in Switzerland will not appeal A$AP ROCKY's suspended sentence. A$AP Rocky was arrested and tried in Sweden, not Switzerland. They are different countries. With different court systems and different music. My apologies. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Hurricane Katrina displaced the invaluable archives from Allen Toussaint's Sea-Saint Studio. Today, much of it sits in the garage of a Gardena surfer. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Does a 10-minute song, like Tool's "Fear Inoculum," pay more than something short, like Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road"? | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| Advice from the people following The 1975, Dua Lipa and Rita Ora around the world | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Industry insiders suggest Spotify will eventually end up under the ownership of a larger corporation. Here are five that could make a play for the streaming giant. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The singer and songwriter’s fifth major-label album, “Norman ____ Rockwell!,” is a collaboration with Jack Antonoff packed with fiery lyrics. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| Twenty-five years after the Blue Album, Weezer’s past and present members look back at their origin story. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Is the luxury exercise company paying artists and songwriters enough for their work? | | |
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 | Variety |
| "Wu-Tang: An American Saga," a new series on Hulu assaying the rise of the Wu-Tang Clan as recollected by one of its members, joins a recent wave of art in which the subjects tell high-gloss versions of their own stories. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| The coat Anderson wore at her iconic 1939 Lincoln Memorial performance connects her with a legacy of black women performers, from Bessie Smith to Beyoncé, who have used fur to send a message. | | |
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 | Texas Monthly |
| An aggressively odd Instagram account both celebrates and pokes fun at the legendary Texas blues rocker. | | |
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 | HotNewHipHop |
| Ever wondered what 'album-equivalent' units and 'pure sales' were all about? We've got you covered. | | |
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 | A Journal of Musical Things |
| YouTube won't be helping musicians track down and demand payment from people who use tiny snippets of their music -- less than 10 seconds' worth -- any longer. | | |
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 | The Independent |
| The Chicago hip-hop legend speaks with Roisin O’Connor about his new album ‘Let Love’, racism, his relationships with women -- and how he came to terms with a forgotten childhood trauma. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| Sarathy Korwar mixes Indian classical music, jazz and hip-hop on political concept albums that take aim at cultural clichés. | | |
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 | Trapital |
| Politically-driven hip-hop music is everywhere, but it doesn't feel that way to mainstream fans. That disconnect is a reflection of hip-hop's progression and the ever-changing media landscape. | | |
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 | ADWEEK |
| The program is being beta-tested in East Asia right now, but is still a long way from making its American debut. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Her Video Vanguard Award this week caps off a four-year Missy reappreciation. | | |
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 | Post and Courier |
| The back patio at The Royal American, an uptown Charleston dive bar and music venue, serves as a hangout for those looking to sip a signature rum punch away from the bar, smoke an American Spirit between sets or play a round of cornhole. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| An interview with 100 gecs about their exhilarating debut record, a post-internet mishmash of genres and modern emotions. | | |
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 | Considerable |
| If your retirement paradise is sandy beach near clear blue water, with a frozen beverage in your hand, then Margaritaville is for you. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | "You like flowers / I pick flowers / You like milk / I have cows." One of the most stunning love songs I've heard this year. From "At the Party With My Brown Friends," out Friday on Saddle Creek. |
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