You’re talking to the woman who wrote 'Blame It on the Rain' for Milli Vanilli. I have nothing against a good pop song. | | | | DJ/producer Jeff Mills performing in Turin, Italy, Sept 22, 2018.
(Bruno Brizzi/LightRocket/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “You’re talking to the woman who wrote 'Blame It on the Rain' for Milli Vanilli. I have nothing against a good pop song.”
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| | rantnrave:// If we're being honest here, the world's reigning boy band, BTS, wasn't on my mind when I woke up Monday morning (disclosure: my cat, if I had one, probably would have aged out of BTS' target demo by now), and I was unaware, my profession notwithstanding, that RM, the group's leader and only English speaker, had a solo mixtape, his second, coming out that day. I do love pop though. Almost as much as I love commas. And on Tuesday morning, I'm here to try to convince you that RM's self-produced "MONO.," released with hardly any notice to SPOTIFY, SOUNDCLOUD and everywhere else (you can also download it, for free), is as good a seven-track album as anyone has released in this, the year of the seven-track album. The vibe of the album is sort of someone gives LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM a mid-priced laptop and no other tools and tells him to make a dark, romantic electro-pop album and he can't leave his bedroom until he's done. Also, he has to use the phrases scrawled on the edges of his diary as lyrics. "Wake up in Toyko." "I love you so, I hate you so." "Kill me, kill me softly." A lot of the rest is Korean, which I don't pretend to understand, but judging by mood and delivery, I'd guess they follow the same format. "EVERYTHINGOES" is a ginormous seven-minute power ballad condensed to half that length by not making you wait as long for the buildup and by ditching the usual instrumental interludes; instead, there's a rap interlude that serves as a dramatic bridge. It's a gorgeous, lush pop song. "SEOUL" is breezy bedroom soul that suggests RM might have some early FRANK OCEAN on his go-to playlist. The sub-two-minute "BADBYE" is the full-on Lindsey Buckingham/ELLIOTT SMITH moment, the one that makes old people like me play the whole mixtape again to rediscover what we might have missed in the first 11 or so minutes. A lot, it turns out. And we haven't even got to the single, "FOREVER RAIN," yet. Somewhere along the way, RM croons, "I feel so lonely when I'm with me," and I want to scream at him that it's OK. It's way more than OK, in fact... Music unites Republicans and Democrats. At least in Vermont it does... There's a TOWER RECORDS website where you can buy yellow-and red Tower-logo vinyl tote bags but you can't buy any vinyl to put in them. There's also an INSTAGRAM, which first posted on Sept 18. I have no idea who owns them or why. Also, probably don't buy one of those bags... Reminder: R. KELLY is still signed to RCA RECORDS... The WORLD SERIES of underground rock, team Boston. And team Los Angeles... Or is it that we're not spending enough time talking about how there were two, count 'em two, major 2017 singles called "DREW BARRYMORE"? | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Guardian |
| At an intimate listening party, the final album from the rapper who died last year was unveiled with family and friends explaining how they ensured it would honour his legacy. | | |
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 | The New York Observer |
| ‘I walked around the hot fields miserably, sucking on the tube of my CamelBak like a baby goat. For my 15-year-old son, who still has energy and enthusiasm for life, it was a different experi… | | |
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 | Longreads |
| In hip-hop and skateboarding, one young man finds an outlet for his aggression. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Louis Bloom has been a loyal servant of Island Records UK for 16 years. Now, he’s running the place. What’s his plan? | | |
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 | Global News |
| The advent of streaming was supposed to eliminate music piracy entirely. It hasn't turned out that way. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| How a reclusive Frenchman created some of the most radical, beautiful music of the modern era. | | |
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 | The Calvert Journal |
| Meet the Albanian singers carrying on an ancient choral tradition Set against a backdrop of the dreamy mountains of Labëria in southern Albania, Washed by the Moon, British/German filmmaker Dan Shutt's directorial debut, is a rich journey through the region's musical history. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Cloud Nothings began as a slapdash lo-fi pop project for Dylan Baldi in his parents’ Westlake, Ohio, basement, and the band churns out some of the most frenetic, head-smashing music in indie rock right now. | | |
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 | Quartz |
| A new study found that smoking is featured in over half of hip-hop videos. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| YouTube CEO Susan Wojicki says Article 13 limits creativity and poses ‘threat to livelihood.’ | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence make music composition easier than ever -- because a machine is doing half the work. Could computers soon go it alone? | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Two recent hip-hop controversies show how hard it can be to discuss substance abuse and other fatal trends without offending. | | |
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 | Refinery29 |
| All Hilary Williams wanted to do was sing. Country music turned her down over and over again. In her own words, here's how she got the career she wanted. | | |
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 | CBC Music |
| Music and cannabis - we explore the science behind one of culture's most pervasive pairings. | | |
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 | Indian Music Industry |
| A united vision to be among the top 10 ranked music markets globally in the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) rankings by 2022. | | |
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 | Hypebot |
| As Brexit proceedings move ominously forward, independent self-employed musicians who tour internationally are starting to worry about what sort of an impact the separation could have on their way of life. Here we look at what the negative outcomes could be. | | |
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 | Afropunk |
| Let's use ABC News' ridiclous headline that a French DJ brough the music to the U.S. as a teaching moment. Now, play Frankie Knuckles real loud. | | |
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 | Complex |
| The creator of 'Chicken Shop Date' is building her empire, one YouTube upload at a time. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| After a secret marriage and painful breakup, the singer-songwriter takes back her heart and soul on a great new album. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| Taking on all manner of "shouldn'ts" is a specialty of Lambert's, whose body of work knowingly disobeys the rules of feminine decorum. Who else has been more strong-willed and sisterly at once? | | |
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 | SoundCloud |
| | | | | | From "mono.," released Monday on BigHit Entertainment. |
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