Everything was always possible. Nothing is impossible. That was always my theory. | | | | Sheck Wes at RapCaviar Live in Coney Island, N.Y., Sept. 29, 2018.
(Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Everything was always possible. Nothing is impossible. That was always my theory.”
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| | rantnrave:// In addition to everything else that made them special, the BEATLES, not unlike, say, MICHAEL JACKSON or DR. DRE, made records that sounded fantastic. The sonic details of all their recordings, from 1963 cradle to 1969 grave, are stunning, but it's hard not to notice an uptick smack in the middle, circa 1966, when GEOFF EMERICK was promoted to balance engineer at ABBEY ROAD and was assigned to the group. Which is not to suggest that Emerick, whose name I didn't know until many years after I had absorbed all those sounds, was one of the four or five most important people in the rooms where those albums were made. He wasn't. But as the Beatles' sixth-or-so man, he was instrumental in their move from live band to studio band, from black and white photographers to color artists. He was the guy who used a speaker as a bass microphone on "PAPERBACK WRITER" and who slowed down the backing track on "RAIN," imaginatively tweaking the low end on both songs to make the Beatles' records sound more like the MOTOWN records they loved. He was the guy who used a wool sweater and an especially close microphone to make RINGO sound like Ringo. He was the guy who ran interference so they could master their records hotter—louder—than the studio officially allowed. He was the guy who translated JOHN LENNON's desire to sound like the DALAI LAMA chanting on a mountaintop into a suitable vocal track for TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS. Nothing he did falls into the category of, say inventing multitracking or inventing sampling; his engineering legacy, rather, is a series of small everyday innovations that slowly and steadily expanded the notion of what was possible inside a studio. The Beatles, he said in a million different ways, didn't understand the word "can't," and his job, alongside producer GEORGE MARTIN, was to be their "can." His memoir, HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE: MY LIFE RECORDING THE MUSIC OF THE BEATLES, is a breezy, insightful and occasionally provocative account of life inside Abbey Road. He got some slack for seemingly minimizing Martin's role and for a few mean shots at GEORGE HARRISON's guitar abilities, among other things. His fellow Beatles engineer, KEN SCOTT, devoted part of his own memoir to refuting Emerick. But no one disputed Emerick's creative and technical contributions to some of the most treasured pop recordings of all. Or his skills with scissors and razor blades. RIP... Oh yeah, after the Beatles, there were BADFINGER, CHEAP TRICK, ROBIN TROWER, PAUL MCCARTNEY, KATE BUSH and ELVIS COSTELLO's IMPERIAL BEDROOM and all that, but you're all music geeks, too, and you already knew that... PANDORA takes over SOUNDCLOUD's ad sales... GIBSON BRANDS has court approval for its plan to exit bankruptcy, which includes replacing CEO HENRY JUSZKIEWICZ... Political update of the day: STORMY DANIELS dances to nothing but metal and spent time on the road with PANTERA, her second favorite band (after SLIPKNOT). | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Playboy |
| A queer kid from Chicago is dominating Top 40 radio. Now he's giving back & launching a music empire. | | |
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 | Hollywood Reporter |
| The Godfather of Soul married a woman who was married to another man, who in turn was married to three other women. Now it's up to a federal court to decide who gets millions in song royalties in a case with big implications for artists and families. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Tencent has grand, lucrative ambitions in shaping the future of entertainment and tech -- encompassing more flexible digital revenue streams beyond monthly subscriptions, more direct-to-fan opportunities for creators and tighter integration with existing social media platforms. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The crucial collaborator in the Beatles’ glory years helped them find endless new ways to change the way music sounded. | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| "Def Jam Vendetta" turned 15 this year and a new iteration of it has been teased. The creators and some of the rappers involved speak on the game's legacy. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Lady Gaga wants to wear every costume, live out every type of known stardom. ‘‘A Star Is Born’’ is just her latest reinvention. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| This weekend, "A Star Is Born" will AHHHH-HAAA-AHHHH its way into American cineplexes and a lot of people will praise Lady Gaga, who gives a stellar performance as the female lead, Ally. A lot of those people will express astonishment that she knocked it out of the park on her first go. | | |
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 | The Baffler |
| Spotify pushes an Uber-like model for independent artists. | | |
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 | Complex |
| Photographer Timothy White did a session with Jaz-O back in 1988 that, decades later, revealed some hidden treasures of a young Jay-Z. | | |
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 | Penny Fractions |
| Apple Music app makes a small assumption that Spotify never makes: Music fans already know what they want. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Record labels once backloaded their schedule with superstar releases targeting the holidays. Christmas 2018 paints a different picture. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
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 | Vox |
| A children’s media expert on what Kidz Bop censorship says about how sex and violence are perceived in America. | | |
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| Music Business Worldwide |
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 | The Fader |
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 | Touré Show |
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| The New York Times |
| Renegade broadcasters fostered styles from rave to grime. But competition from online and community FM stations means pirate radio is dying out. | | |
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| As a throng of third generation minimalist composers rides the movement’s most fashionable waves, an intrepid handful of the genre’s pioneers continue to sustain it in its original, unalloyed and uncompromising form. Phill Niblock, who turns 85 today, is one of those pioneers. | | |
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 | Gearslutz |
| Legendary recording engineer & producer Geoff Emerick (The Beatles, Paul McCartney, The Zombies, Elvis Costello, Badfinger, Art Garfunkel, Gino Vannelli, Supertramp, Cheap Trick, Trevor Rabin, Ultravox, Robin Trower, Stealers Wheel, Kate Bush and many, many more) - joins us for a special Q+A. | | |
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