Big Hit monetizes fandom. In some ways, it's not even the artist that is the product; it's the fan which is the product. It's almost like a crop: you keep harvesting and put in more fertilizer to see how much more you can grow. | | | | A million K-pop years ago: BTS at the 2017 American Music Awards in Los Angeles. "Be" is out Friday on Big Hit/Columbia.
(Kevin Winter/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Big Hit monetizes fandom. In some ways, it's not even the artist that is the product; it's the fan which is the product. It's almost like a crop: you keep harvesting and put in more fertilizer to see how much more you can grow.”
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| | rantnrave:// I've been trying to formulate a coherent, helpful set of thoughts since KING VON was murdered during a melee in Atlanta two weeks ago and MO3 was chased down and killed on a Dallas freeway a few days later and BOOSIE BADAZZ was shot in the leg while in Dallas for MO3's funeral and BENNY THE BUTCHER was shot in the leg in Houston, and I keep coming up empty. There's rage and resignation in my heart that get in each other's way, and there are complexities in cities and scenes that I don't know nearly enough about. So I'm thankful for this thoughtful, clear-eyed essay from COMPLEX writer (and Substacker) ANDRE GEE, which calls out hip-hop fans—especially but not exclusively white hip-hop fans—and labels for their complicity in encouraging and rooting for "authentic" street personas, and for ignoring the real trauma and pain that underlies some of the toughest stories rappers tell. He also calls out politicians for not addressing the pre-existing conditions behind those stories. "We all agree that no one wants to see anyone get hurt, and we carry sympathy for artists who have been victims of violence," Gee writes, "but too many rap fans then revere the next artist for being an 'official' aggressor of the same acts. It’s time to detonate that dissonance." Hear, hear. Detonating dissonance seems like one place to start. I'm sure there are others, and I'm sure it's well past time to start... By this point, reports about the state of the live music business in 2020 come as no surprise, and it's easy to be numb to the numbers. But here's a beyond sobering prediction from UK MUSIC on the wreckage of this awful year: "In aggregate over 65% of music creators’ income will be lost as a direct consequence of Covid-19 and this could extend to over 80% for those most reliant on live performance." Damn... (By contrast, here's always-astute blogger DAVID TURNER on the recorded music and streaming sectors: "The 'record industry' is more than capable of surviving and thriving without much of the live music industry during this period." That's not meant as an optimistic outlook, in case that isn't clear)... This album-art-centric digital music player seems utterly impractical and kind of cool... Harmony in your head: Headphones, minus the headphones... RIP DAVID ZOLLER. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | NPR Music |
| Together with his team, Bang Si-hyuk, a short, bespectacled man nearing his fifties, has made "K-pop" a global household name, particularly in the U.S. But now, they are faced with having to recreate the BTS "miracle." | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Contrary to their dismissive framing as manufactured robots, South Korea’s BTS use social media, documentary and storytelling to make themselves into profoundly human stars. | | |
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 | Complex |
| We all agree that no one wants to see anyone get hurt, and we carry sympathy for artists who have been victims of violence, but too many rap fans then revere the next artist for being an “official” aggressor of the same acts. It’s time to detonate that dissonance. | | |
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 | Listen to the Music |
| I asked Domino's director of A&R to talk to me about her career and everything *except* how she finds new music because if she told you it would make you want to curl up into a ball and die. | | |
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 | Water & Music |
| Better performance on metrics that users and product teams care about means poorer performance on one of the metrics musicians care most about: The per-stream royalty rate. | | |
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 | Song Exploder |
| Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas started writing “Everything I Wanted” when Billie was in a dark place, and they almost didn’t finish it. In this episode, they tell the story of how their relationship as siblings was key to seeing it through. | | |
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 | DJ TechTools |
| DJs around the world are becoming increasingly aware of copyright rules due to takedowns and mutings online - but the complex nature of music means that things aren't always as clear as they could be. Today, I hope to shed some light on this space that has been something of a gray area for many artists. | | |
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 | Highsnobiety |
| Lil Nas X insists that he’s mostly been winging it, but all the evidence proves that he’s clearly a natural-born social media savant with his finger on the pulse of pop culture. | | |
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 | The Forty-Five |
| In the mid 00s Pete Wentz was on a mission to create a family of misfits – bands with a certain energy but no obvious home. Marianne Eloise gets the story of this dorky-yet-definitive era. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| The Miami rap duo has survived prison and a pandemic to take its place alongside hip-hop peers Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| As Britney’s battle to reclaim her life and career from her conservatorship continues, remember that there’s an iconic artist behind it all. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| While her father remains the head of her estate for now, the pop star has signaled she’s ready for change. | | |
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 | Beatportal |
| With record sales remaining buoyant since March, record labels and distributors are a lone bright spot in an industry ravaged by COVID. | | |
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 | Hypebot |
| DiMA's members - Amazon, Apple Music, Google/YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify - sit at the center of the modern music ecosystem, connecting all facets of the industry. Garrett Levin has earned a reputation as one of the foremost copyright policy minds working in Washington today. | | |
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| NPR Music |
| Experience the mayhem of what it means to create something new. Three Southern rap experts revisit the 20-year-old classic. | | |
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| Los Angeles Times |
| The 1976 Philip Glass-Robert Wilson “Einstein on the Beach” changed how we think about opera, theater, time, the composer and even Einstein. | | |
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 | Leo Weekly |
| Throughout the pandemic, music shops have had an unpredictable mixture of highs and lows. | | |
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 | KCRW |
| Bruce Lemon Jr., who's directing LA Opera's production, talks about composer Joseph Bologne’s background, and how cast and crew members took up safety precautions to make this show possible, including regular Covid tests, wearing masks and face shields, and maintaining extra distance. | | |
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 | Tidal |
| An introduction to the crew and their essential recordings. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| He was nicknamed Bird and he soared in his music -- if not in his life. For the centenary of the saxophonist who redefined jazz, today’s players reveal how his dizzying speed and spirituality changed their lives. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| Putting the Wilco leader’s new book, a songwriting manual of sorts, to the test with the man himself. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | A 85-second anthem for a very different holiday season. |
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