When I started using SoundCloud it was just becoming a thing. My manager put me on, he was like, 'We’re gonna put the album ['Nostalgic 64'] on SoundCloud.' I didn’t know what the f*** it was. | | | | Denzel Curry (right) at the Life Is Beautiful festival, Las Vegas, Sept. 21, 2018.
(Bryan Steffy/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “When I started using SoundCloud it was just becoming a thing. My manager put me on, he was like, 'We’re gonna put the album ['Nostalgic 64'] on SoundCloud.' I didn’t know what the f*** it was.”
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| | rantnrave:// Why would SPOTIFY ever want to be a label—as the company repeatedly makes clear it doesn't in fact want to be—when it's making it easier and easier to imagine a world where no one needs a label in the first place? At the beginning of the summer, it came out that Spotify was offering advances to select indie artists and managers for direct licenses; now, as autumn rolls in, the company has started offering artists a free tool to upload their music directly instead of going through a label or indie distributor. If you're a label, no matter how good your balance sheet is looking at the moment, perhaps you're looking at your calendar and taking note of the fact that winter is up next... At first glance, it might seem the companies most threatened by Spotify's most recent move are indie distributors like TUNECORE and CDBABY, who charge artists for the same service Spotify is providing for free. But artists want to be on APPLE MUSIC and TIDAL and YAHOO and AMAZON and dozens of other services around the world, too. Do they want to start managing their music across all those services, one by one, or will they continue to find it easier to hire someone to do it for them? Says LEE PARSONS of UK-based DITTO MUSIC: "So long as you want to be on all the services and get a level of expertise across all of them, as well as things like radio and press, you will always need a [third-party] partner." As for major labels, beyond any other worry, one wonders what happens when signed artists start uploading their own music directly without bothering to tell their label. I mean someone, somewhere, is surely going to try that one random day at 3 a.m., right? In the meantime, here's how the money reportedly will shake out for artists who take Spotify up on the offer... "How much fun is it to sing a song about CORONA, in Corona?!," PAUL SIMON wondered aloud on the final date of his farewell tour, Saturday night in QUEENS. How long before hologram Simon is on the road, perhaps with hologram GARFUNKEL? If ROY ORBISON can do it, if GLENN GOULD can do it, why not them? But until then: MusicSET: "Last Waltzes: Artists Say Goodbye"... In the wake of the explosive CBC and TORONTO STAR series alleging TICKETMASTER is way too cozy with ticket resellers, the company is now being threatened with class actions... As SHARON and OZZY OSBOURNE's antitrust suit against AEG is officially withdrawn, AEG takes one final shot against IRVING AZOFF, MSG and LIVE NATION... RIP DAVID DICHIERA and CHAS HODGES. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| The ULT rapper talks Raider Klan, SoundCloud, and his influence on South Florida’s rap scene. | | |
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 | Popula |
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 | BuzzFeed News |
| The days of “fauxmosexual” singers playing gay for the male gaze are (mostly) gone. But as more out queer woman pop stars rise, what kinds of representation do we want from them? | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Glenn Peoples on the fast-growing music subscription base -- and where it goes next. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| After enduring an emotional crash, a breakup and the death of a mentor, the Swedish star has her first album in eight years and the most transcendent song of her career. | | |
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 | Toronto Star |
| A Canadian law firm says it will expand a class action suit against Ticketmaster after a Star/CBC investigation revealed the company actively recruits scalpers to resell its tickets at inflated prices. A U.S. firm is also planning a class action suit against the ticket giant. | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| We break down the creation of Outkast's 'Speakerboxxx/The Love Below': one of the greatest albums of the 21st century. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| She plays her own music, gets distracted by her phone, shouts and intimidates guests - it’s no wonder why the rapper’s Beats 1 show is such fun. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Roughly 40 years ago, I showed up at a prominent music executive's office for an appointment that had been scheduled suspiciously late in the workday. But I wasn't suspicious. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Poetry by Leonard Cohen: “We cry for help, as humans do- / Before the truth, and after.” | | |
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| | | but i ain’t trippin' on it |
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| Pitchfork |
| The streaming service is cutting out the middleman for Noname and others who self-release. | | |
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 | SPIN |
| Ancestry has announced a new partnership with Spotify to create playlists based on your DNA, raising more than a few data privacy concerns in the process. | | |
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 | Afropunk |
| TV on the Radio exists not just on platforms and screens, but in front of an audience, and is emotionally available to them. Because one important thing that being a “community” “band” meant before people clicked on “follow” buttons, is the back and forth between those two entities. | | |
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 | Complex |
| YBN Nahmir, Almighty Jay, & Cordae, three friends with different personalities & styles, formed a rap crew & rose to fame. But what comes next? | | |
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 | Texas Monthly |
| This fall, Roy Orbison is back on tour. Sort of. Here's how the Vernon native returned to the stage nearly three decades after his death. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| There’s no way to sugarcoat it: MNEK’s long-awaited debut album Language underperformed in its first week, completely missing the Billboard 200 chart. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| The album of the year is... a film? | | |
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 | The Tennessean |
| Attendees at the Franklin, Tenn., fest have been sharing their stories of hours trapped in a muddy parking lot, thousands of dollars spent and hundreds of miles traveled. | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| LA-based composer and academic Sarah Davachi goes deep into her creative process, addressing how instruments sit at the center of her sound. | | |
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| The Washington Post |
| What a farewell tour from a pop superstar might tell us about his biggest superfan. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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