We spent 43 years always finding a way to rise above our personal differences and our difficulties to pursue and articulate a higher truth. That is our legacy. That is what the songs are about. This is not the way you end something like this. | | | | They don't want your number: TLC in the Netherlands, 1992.
(Michel Linssen/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “We spent 43 years always finding a way to rise above our personal differences and our difficulties to pursue and articulate a higher truth. That is our legacy. That is what the songs are about. This is not the way you end something like this.”
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| | rantnrave:// Like job applicants forced to run in circles by heartless human resources departments, CARDI B and POST MALONE are the newest pop stars to be told they were underqualified for the GRAMMY for BEST NEW ARTIST a year ago and now they're overqualified. Sorry kids, your window of eligibility, which was roughly zero days long, has officially passed. Please don't apply again, and best of luck in your search. Officially, according to reporting by the ASSOCIATED PRESS and VARIETY, Cardi B's nomination is a nonstarter because she was nominated in two other categories a year ago and because her debut album was already out at the time, which, together, disqualify her. If she had been nominated a year ago but her full album wasn't out, or if her full album was out but she didn't get any nominations, she would have been in the running for Best New Artist this time around. Got it? Post Malone, on the other hand, is still eligible based on those criteria, but the Best New Artist screening committee reportedly decided he had "achieved a breakthrough into the public consciousness and impacted the musical landscape" before Oct. 1, 2017, which is another automatic disqualification, even though he apparently hadn't impacted the musical landscape so much that the Grammys actually noticed before Oct. 1, 2017. They appear to have retroactively awarded that impact. Which is some kind of consolation prize, I guess. Of course, the Recording Academy has a spotty history of getting this particular award right—among the non-winners are DRAKE, TAYLOR SWIFT, KENDRICK LAMAR, BRUNO MARS, ED SHEERAN and LADY GAGA—so maybe not getting nominated at all is the way to go. The award is famously subjective not only aesthetically but also definitionally (I swear I didn't make that word up). You can have three albums and/or 30 tracks out and still be considered a new artist, according to the actual rules, which I also didn't make up. ADELE has released exactly three albums, FYI, in case anyone's looking for someone to take Cardi B's slot... PRESIDENT TRUMP is scheduled to sign the MUSIC MODERNIZATION ACT, the most sweeping reform of music copyright law since long before Cardi B or Post Malone was born, into law this morning. It's a major win for artists, songwriters and publishers, affecting how digital royalties are tracked and paid and how royalty rates are set, and closing the loophole that allowed digital radio companies to play pre-1972 songs without paying artists and labels. The act is the result of years of work and remarkable bipartisan agreement across the aisles of Congress and a wide swath of the music industry. KANYE WEST and KID ROCK, who weren't prominent in the lobbying effort but who look good in MAGA hats, reportedly will be by the president's side at the signing ceremony... In another, perhaps smaller, win for songwriters, NBC has greenlit SONGLAND, an ADAM LEVINE-produced songwriting competition... TAYLOR SWIFT wasn't the first, and she won't be the last. Should musicians shut up and sing? Or should politicians and commentators shut up and let musicians have their say? MusicSET: "The Politics of Pop: When Musicians Speak Up"... Best wishes to CUCO... RIP GRETCHEN, M. WILLIAM KRASILOVSKY and ROBERT MATHEU. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| If there is one thing that’s been clear since the early major label fights with YouTube is that the music industry never quite bought into the idea of their entire industry should be supported by advertising. That’s not without good reason. | | |
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| The Ukraine-born billionaire owner of Warner Music is not only a backer of films who has looked at buying a Hollywood studio, he’s also reportedly on the fringe of the Mueller probe thanks to generous GOP giving and links to oligarchs with ties to Putin. | | |
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| Third Man Records' Ben Blackwell talks about how old cassettes have displaced old 45s for some crate-digging enthusiasts. | | |
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| As outdated assumptions about the market for instruments come to light, some guitar makers are finally starting to recognize that players come in all shapes, sizes and genders. | | |
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| Taylor Swift wasn't the first, and she won't be the last. Should musicians shut up and sing? Or should politicians and commentators shut up and let musicians have their say? | | |
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| As the audience for high-end opera productions has shrunk, declining revenue has pitted management at Lyric Opera of Chicago against its orchestra. The conflict over their contract led the Lyric Opera Orchestra to go on strike Tuesday, with musicians picketing and playing their instruments in front of the Civic Opera House. | | |
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| Sources say the screening committee basically decided that the rapper was "too big" to be considered for the category. | | |
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| The singer-guitarist on his new anthology, solo tour and getting fired from the band he helped make famous. | | |
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| I once took a class on light and color, where I learned about the receptors in the retina that let us see. There are two kinds, rods and cones. Cones are in charge of seeing color, but they're less sensitive to light, which is why a darkened room often appears desaturated. | | |
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| Jesse Bernard takes a look back on some of the most surprising samples grime has seen. | | |
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| Need another example of how America is becoming less equal and how classes of Americans are becoming literally and figuratively demarcated? Look no further than the music festival. | | |
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| In an ever-growing world of generic, commercial and mass-produced music festivals, Desert Daze has made a name for itself as more of the eclectic, small-batch and well-curated variety. | | |
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| Watching the biggest boy band in the world with the most devoted fandom. | | |
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| I first started listening to Lucinda Williams' "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" when I was 27 -- her age as of "Happy Woman Blues" -- after my partner of six years broke up with me in couples' therapy. I was living alone for the first time, in a New York studio apartment uncomfortably close to Columbia University, where I was beginning a doctoral degree in Comparative Literature. | | |
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| Secondary ticketing sites came under fire earlier this year after their tickets were banned from Ed Sheeran’s tour; they’re also providing a safe haven for touts and customers are being landed with huge additional fees. As the legal scrutiny mounts around the practice, we speak to the punters that have lost out. | | |
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| ‘Cabin Fever’ is the first of four classic Wiz tapes that could be commercially reissued this year. | | |
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| The Black, Brown, and Indigenous Crew connects underground music with radical politics to make a community with room for everyone. | | |
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| Sheeran’s single "Shape of You" is the music platform’s most-streamed song since it launched. | | |
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| Scooter Braun's Ithaca Management Holdings submitted a new court filing Tuesday (Oct. 9) , seeking an injunction in the company's multimillion dollar lawsuit against Troy Carter, Carter's wife and his Atom Factory company. | | |
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| Have you ever thought about how The Beatles got their logo? Well wonder no more, The Vinyl Geek did the research for you, enjoy! | | |
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