I always go back to what 50 Cent said [about conscious rap]. He said, 'We all are conscious, whether you're doing gangsta rap, whether you're doing so-called conscious rap, whether you doing whatever genre you may in because you have a post, you alive and you're telling your true feelings... You are conscious, as simple as that.' | | | | Hit the piano Jack: Ray Charles in 1964.
(Tony Evans/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I always go back to what 50 Cent said [about conscious rap]. He said, 'We all are conscious, whether you're doing gangsta rap, whether you're doing so-called conscious rap, whether you doing whatever genre you may in because you have a post, you alive and you're telling your true feelings... You are conscious, as simple as that.'”
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| | rantnrave:// It took four days for TAYLOR SWIFT's REPUTATION to become the best-selling album of 2017. And the year's only million-seller. At #2 is ED SHEERAN's DIVIDE, which has sold 919,000 copies in the US in eight months. There's no use in crying, in 2017, over the death of the million-selling album, at least I don't think there is. That's a story about a fundamental change in commerce, not a story about music. Right? People still love, want and need music, I swear this to you. But here, for the record, is the entire list of people who have sold a million copies of a record in a week anytime in the past five years: Taylor Swift. ADELE. And that's it. So. Sign more women. Play more women on the radio. Book more women to play your festivals. Etc. Just a thought... Also: IT'S OK NOT TO MAKE YOUR BRAND NEW RECORD AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING. I mean I, as a consumer, will hate you for it. That's where I live, and I want you to make your music available to me where I live. That's where the market is. Blah blah blah. But you are an artist and a businessperson and I get it if you decide otherwise, and I get it even more if you can make it work, obvi... Still TBD: Will "Reputation" act like all its pre-release singles and chart high right away and drop fast, or will it have legs? I can't answer that any more than I can answer who's going to run for president in 2020. The pop-crit consensus is that it's better than a lot of people feared and not as good as a lot of people hoped. High-risk, medium-reward, pop sensibilities intact, hip-hop sensibilities still a work in progress. MusicSET: "Judging Taylor Swift's 'Reputation'"... In the but-everybody-eventually-comes-around department is classic jazz and experimental label ECM RECORDS. The longtime streaming holdout has begun adding albums by the likes of KEITH JARRETT, PAUL BLEY and STEVE REICH to all major services and says its entire catalog will be online by Friday. Inspirational quote from the label: "Although ECM’s preferred mediums remain the CD and LP, the first priority is that the music should be heard"... JEOPARDY's favorite commercial music supervisor, BUZZY COHEN, won his semifinal round in the Tournament of Champions Tuesday night and will compete for the $250,000 grand prize Thursday and Friday. His last words in the semifinal episode: "Who is AMY WINEHOUSE?"... RIP FRANK HOLDER. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | The Bitter Southerner |
| Three years ago, in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri, protests, Drive-By Truckers cofounder Patterson Hood wrote a song called “What It Means.” Ever since, the song has pulled him and his band into conversations they never thought they’d have. Hood tells us about the life and times of an American band on the cusp of a perilous night. | | |
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 | Highsnobiety |
| From 'Yeezus' to Vetements, we break down the modern history of metal fashion and hip-hop intersecting, and how it all came to permeate pop culture. | | |
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 | Forbes |
| Kendrick Lamar has cemented his status as hip-hop's poet laureate--and the voice of a generation. What's he going to do with that platform? He sat down with Forbes to explain. | | |
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 | The Verge |
| Spotify’s biggest Latin playlist is rolling out video internationally. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| New music from the city looks to the past for ways forward -- but the patina of artistic fertility around "New Detroit" isn't all-inclusive. | | |
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 | Bearded Gentlemen Music |
| Vaporwave as a genre is hard to define musically it would more fitting to link it to an ideology reflecting a rejection and satire of commercialism. | | |
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 | New Scientist |
| A US cassette firm is spooling up production again to meet demand. Do people really want to go back to the flimsy magnetic tape of the 1980s, asks Paul Marks. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| White Lung’s Mish Barber-Way reflects on the Hole drummer’s new memoir "Hit So Hard," and how being in a band can fuel addiction. | | |
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 | Advertising Age |
| The CMA aims to show advertisers it's got more sizzle than they think at a country music bootcamp. | | |
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 | LA Weekly |
| Andrew Bansal might be one of the hardest working metal heads in the L.A. scene, and he’s not even in a band. The 32-year-old proudly devotes his life to promoting heavy metal and hard rock through his website, Metal Assault. | | |
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 | Tero Parviainen |
| This presentation is about making music by designing systems that make music. | | |
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 | The Vinyl Factory |
| Rap's relationship with gospel is more complex than with its forebears in jazz, funk and RnB. Here are 10 hip-hop records that seek out the spiritual. | | |
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 | AListDaily |
| Steve Aoki is no stranger to building brands. His father Hiroaki Aoki is the founder of teppan chain Benihana, and as an understudy to the family business, Aoki learned the struggles of building a marque that resonates with the public firsthand with his own projects-beginning with Dim Mak, the record label he launched in his early twenties. | | |
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| NPR Music |
| Do your top ten lists stand the test of time? Hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are joined by NPR Music's Marissa Lorusso and Stephen Thompson to talk about why some records age better than others. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| The Celebration Rock Podcast discusses the life and career of the late Gord Downie, the north-of-the-border Bruce Springsteen. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Prince's estate and Comerica Bank & Trust, the company appointed to manage the late artist's assets, struck back aggressively against claims of mismanagement by three of the artist's heirs, according to a battery of documents made public Monday (Nov 13). | | |
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 | Quartz |
| Only 12% of Mali's 18 million have access to the Internet, and most music is spread through un-registered file sharing. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| Guitarist Ed O'Brien opens up about his new signature Fender Stratocaster, his solo album, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. | | |
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 | Hypebot |
| It's impossible to know just how widespread the practice of buying followers and plays on Spotify, Soundcloud, other music and social platforms is. But a Google search for "buy Spotify plays" yielded dozens of companies that promised to deliver. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| Nick Heyward of Haircut 100 has been around so long that he's watched his most famous music become the complete opposite of fashionable and then for pop to begin eerily sounding like him again. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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