After just four plays of the song, we had several complaints from listeners. They weren’t complaining about the song—they were complaining about the Dixie Chicks. | | | | PJ Harvey telling "Stories" in Amsterdam, Feb. 28, 2001.
(Frans Schellekens/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “After just four plays of the song, we had several complaints from listeners. They weren’t complaining about the song—they were complaining about the Dixie Chicks.”
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| | rantnrave:// This is the first song I heard at the first concert I saw after 9/11. Maybe a month later. The KNITTING FACTORY on Leonard Street. Three-quarters of a mile from where the WORLD TRADE CENTER had stood. There was still dust everywhere. The power went out right before he was supposed to play. He came out with his nylon-string guitar and played anyway. No mic, no PA, just JONATHAN RICHMAN and his guitar, singing a brand new song ."Springtime in New York, when it's May and the leaves are on the trees," he sang. "When demolishing a building brings the smell of 1890 through the breeze." "SPRINGTIME IN NEW YORK" was from his album HER MYSTERY NOT OF HIGH HEELS AND EYE SHADOW, released that October into a world that was much darker, much more threatening, than the one in which he wrote and recorded it. Between springtime and autumn of that particular year, the meaning of those lines could have, should have, changed. But he sang them that night with no added emphasis, no outward acknowledgment of where or what or when or anything. The smell of 1890 hung in the air and he just kept going, because that's what Jonathan does. In the balcony I cried and I smiled and I understood that that's what New York does, too. Springtime would indeed come... There are a number of albums I associate with that moment in New York, including RADIOHEAD's AMNESIAC, released in June 2001. Seeing Radiohead that August in New Jersey's Liberty State Park is one of my last concrete memories—a blissful one—from before 9/11, and was, I believe, the last time I saw the Statue of Liberty before Americans stopped agreeing on what it was there for. There were also WILCO's YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT, widely leaked in the previous months (it's a war on war indeed); the COUP's politically incendiary and way ahead of its time PARTY MUSIC, which arrived amid turbulence and controversy a couple months afterward; and BOB DYLAN's LOVE AND THEFT and JAY-Z's THE BLUEPRINT, masterworks from two New York icons both released that horrible morning (as was SLAYER's on-the-nose GOD HATES US ALL). But the album that has stayed with me more than any other is PJ HARVEY's STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA, an album-length lullaby to New York City and to falling in love that had been out for a year at that point. It's an album about beautiful feelings and rooftops full of possibilities amid ominous clouds and long shadows. A pack of 21st century tarot cards, waiting to be interpreted (it won the prestigious MERCURY PRIZE on, of all days, Sept. 11, 2001). And a reminder, which I choose to never forget, that just as there can be darkness hidden in the beauty, there can also be beauty hidden in the darkness... RIP ROBERT FRANK. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | sky of blackness and sorrow |
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| Following Rolling Stone's previous investigation, several radio industry veterans reached out to report that over the last year, the number of indie promoters demanding pay-for-play is growing. | | |
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| Twenty-five years after its release, the iconic rap group’s biggest hit remains deeply misunderstood. | | |
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| It’s not your imagination: Concert ticket prices are going through the roof. And not just for the super wealthy who pay thousands of dollars to see the best acts from the front row. Fans of all types are paying more to see their favorite musicians. | | |
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| The Spanish singer is at the forefront of the potential-and controversy-behind the music industry’s globalization. | | |
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| Earlier this year, the United Nations named the Dave Matthews Band a Goodwill Ambassador for its Environment Program, and it's hard to imagine a group of more action-oriented musicians in terms of environmental advocacy and fan engagement. | | |
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| Thanks to Spotify and smartphones, the music video has found a new life-in a 9:16 format. | | |
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| Ken Burns’ latest marathon documentary for PBS, “Country Music,” tells America a plain truth: If your vision of country music is good old boys in pickup trucks, then your vision is way too shallow. Rob Rushin speaks to Burns and one of his film’s narrators, Rhiannon Giddens, about digging up the real roots of country music. | | |
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| “We’ll only use the word ‘indie’ if we’re criticizing our own work. Seriously. We would be, like, ‘This idea should work on paper, but we need to change it so it doesn’t sound quite as indie.’ ” | | |
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| Tom Morello, Speedy Ortiz, and other major acts are calling on concert promoters to end their use of face recognition before it becomes widespread. | | |
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| Feedback-worshiping drone, tranced-out occult rock, gamelan music played by elephants - Aquarius Records embodied the idea that you can always dig deeper for weirder, louder music. | | |
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| | | sky of love, sky of tears |
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| Andreas Gabalier’s folk-influenced songs praise Austrian traditions. But his critics say they are a vehicle for right-wing messages. | | |
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| The Bakersfield nu-metal band has overcome addiction, a loved one's death and its genre's fall from grace to find new life with an eager young audience. | | |
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| From “Star Wars” to “Game of Thrones,” fans have more power than ever to push back. But is fandom becoming as toxic as politics? | | |
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| Most country stations dropped the Dixie Chicks in 2003, but a few outlets are testing "Soon You'll Get Better," a Taylor Swift song that features the group. | | |
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| A debate has been raging in Nashville for the better part of this decade over what should be done about the dearth of female hit-makers on country radio and the corresponding lack of opportunities for women to build marquee careers in the format. | | |
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| It’s the major labels product that benefits from payola, so why would they chose to incriminate themselves or their proxies? | | |
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| For Black Coffee – DJ, producer and guiding light of the movement to broadcast the potential of South Africa’s future club stars – Africa Is Not A Jungle is more than the clubbing brand he drops into festivals in SA, and hopes to introduce to the world. It’s a reminder that stereotypes and ignorance of his home nation could obscure a glittering array of creative talent. | | |
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| The Buffalo rockers, who return this week with their sixth post-"Iris" album, have outlasted most of their contemporaries-and in some respects, their genre. | | |
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| Mastering engineer Heba Kadry on starting your own studio, and breaking the glass ceiling in a male-dominated field. | | |
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| Released in 1979, and expanded in 1980, the "Nurse With Wound List" has cast a long, indelible shadow for experimental music fans and record collectors. A jumble of 291 artist names, it is at once a broken primer, a shopping list, a scavenger hunt, a pre-internet listicle without context, a myth, some homework, a still-challenging wall of ideas. | | |
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