There is a piece of me that's hesitant to get too specific for fear that it's going to create some narrative that isn't really representative of the album... Something can become a divorce album within two sentences in an interview. | | | | Off Off Broadway: The Boss, Danny and Clarence at the Electric Ballroom, Atlanta, Aug. 21, 1975.
(Tom Hill/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “There is a piece of me that's hesitant to get too specific for fear that it's going to create some narrative that isn't really representative of the album... Something can become a divorce album within two sentences in an interview.”
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| | rantnrave:// Are we on the cusp of a new way of getting concert tickets into the hands of actual fans at a fair price? Or just a new way of ensuring their disappointment, and this time making them work for it? As BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN fans were getting their "You've Been Selected" or "You're on Standby" emails from TICKETMASTER for today's onsale for his BROADWAY run (I got the latter), the TAYLOR SWIFT TIX debate continued among economists and their optimal pricing models on one hand, and music fans and their optimal desires on the other. BLOOMBERG's SCOTT DUKE KOMINERS likened Swift's controversial twist on ticketing queues—you can potentially advance your place in her queue by buying CDs and merch—to an auction. That's a good thing he said, citing this study. But unlike in a standard auction, in this one you have to spend your money before you find out if you win the prize. "Not good," Kominers dryly noted, but still "a worthy experiment in pricing." The TORONTO STAR's BEN RAYNER noted the same flaw and suggested Swift and Ticketmaster are preying on her biggest fans, getting them to open their wallets with no promise of anything in return. Are we hurting fans in our effort to hurt scalpers? Are the fans collateral damage? Is that an acceptable short-run tradeoff for a long-run victory? Is there victory to be had at all in a world where scalpers somehow seem to always be a step ahead? MusicSET: "Can Concert Ticketing Be Fixed?"... A related question: While the Swift initiative is upfront in telling fans they can move up in her queue by posting about her on social media, Springsteen's "Verified Fan" program is using a vaguely defined algorithm, in advance of the onsale, to determine if you're more likely to use or resell the ticket. In either case, it feels like you're being stalked by the ticket merchant. Or at least by the merchant's bots. Are they the same bots that a year ago were grabbing the tickets you desperately wanted and re-selling them for $850, which is now Springsteen's top face value? Have the bots switched sides? Do you trust them more this time around?... Few band have done more to keep tickets cheap and accessible than FUGAZI. There is now, of course, an opera based on Fugazi stage banter... COLDPLAY performs a HOUSTON tribute song, vows never to play it again... LIL B offers free guest verses to Houston artists... Houston native BEYONCÉ pledges her philanthropy... THEON CROSS blowing fierce quarter notes on his tuba for, what, 15 straight minutes?, Monday night at NUBLU in NEW YORK was life-affirming. This is how LONDON is Re:freshing jazz... RIP MELISSA BELL. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The New Yorker |
| George R. R. Martin, the creator of “Game of Thrones,” may owe a few debts to the wizard of Bayreuth. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| The star will sell tickets first to fans who "boost" her work online. It's an auction, but the currency is not money. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| At two shows presented by the organization Jazz Re:freshed, British musicians showcased how a new generation is embracing fresh influences. | | |
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 | Interview Magazine |
| After a nearly five-year hiatus, the chamber pop foursome tell Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold why they felt the music landscape was bleak. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Goldman Sachs predicts worldwide revenues from streaming will reach a whopping $28 billion by 2030, a 16% jump from its previous estimates, in its just-released latest installment in its “Music in the Air” series. It also predicts paid streaming users worldwide to reach 847 million by 2030. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| 16 years after her tragic death, Aaliyah's music is still bringing kids together. We talk to Jimir Reece Davis -- a.k.a. Amorphous -- about his incredible new documentary on the Princess of R&B. | | |
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 | AALIYAH - The Inside Look |
| Created solely by upcoming producer and filmmaker, Amorphous (Jimir Reece Davis), "Aaliyah -- The Inside Look" delves into the short yet meaningful life of the entertainment legend Aaliyah. Through his eyes as a beloved fan, experience getting to fall in love with Aaliyah, once again, as we take a look at her life and everlasting legacy. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Meet the Colombian star who's poised to take over America in the wake of "Despacito." | | |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| On 'Saturation,' 'Saturation II,' and Brockhampton's special run. | | |
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 | Chicago Booth |
| Economists have long been puzzled by event-ticket underpricing: underpricing reduces revenue for the artist, and encourages socially wasteful rent-seeking by ticket brokers. Why not use an auction to set price correctly? This paper studies the introduction of auctions into this market by Ticketmaster. | | |
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 | V Magazine |
| I keep seeing this girl. It’s in a dream. In the dream I’m playing at an amphitheater, outdoors, and beyond the seats there’s a field in back--it’s the cheap tickets. That’s where the girl is sitting, dressed in a Hanes sweatshirt, wearing her mom’s rolled-up jeans. She has three babies, two are running around her. | | |
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 | Talkhouse |
| “Look What You Made Me Do” shows potential that "Reputation" could be Swift’s most thematically adventurous album. | | |
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 | LA Weekly |
| Though only 27, the rising star of Circle Talent Agency already boasts an enviable roster that includes Snails, Bro Safari, Ookay and Slander. | | |
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 | Asbury Park Press |
| Only Verified Fans can purchase tickets for 'Springsteen on Broadway.' | | |
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 | The Undefeated |
| Scenes, people and thoughts from last weekend’s celebration of black beauty and culture in Brooklyn, New York | | |
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 | Hypebeast |
| "You can hear the music, but it's really through the pictures you can see it." | | |
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| i-D Magazine |
| The collective discusses its new mixtape 'Cozy Tapes Vol. 2: Too Cozy,' featuring Frank Ocean, Jaden Smith, Playboi Carti, and 15-year-old prodigy Smooky MarGielaa. | | |
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 | WBUR |
| Barry Zito's parents met while working for Nat King Cole. But they didn't push Zito toward music. So he ended up in Major League Baseball -- and found his way to music on his own. | | |
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 | ESPN |
| Last month, the world celebrated the legacy of Michael Jordan with his 50th birthday. But perhaps the coolest off-the-court thing he did in his career, back in the spring of 1992, was forgotten. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| Pig-headed masculinity run amok? America in spiritual crisis? A dying Earth? This sounds like a job for Tori Amos! Since her 1992 debut album, "Little Earthquakes," Tori Amos has addressed big-picture issues with the same fearless empathy she once trained on heartbreak and self-actualization. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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