I think it's unfair to say that the labels were hostile to technology, although they weren't very good at it. | | | | Taylor Swift handing Spotify stock profits directly to Bryan Adams. Toronto, Aug. 4, 2018.
(Jason Kempin/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “I think it's unfair to say that the labels were hostile to technology, although they weren't very good at it.”
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| | rantnrave:// The recording industry's 2018 hot-stove season has begun, and possibly ended. The headline from TAYLOR SWIFT's blockbuster signing with UMG and REPUBLIC RECORDS is that she demanded, and got, a most-favored-nation clause for *all other* UMG artists. Swift's new contract requires Universal to share proceeds from any future sale of its SPOTIFY stock not just with her but with all its artists and that the distribution be non-recoupable. That was the "one condition that meant more to me than any other deal point," she wrote in her INSTAGRAM announcement of the deal. I don't care what you think of Swift's music, her motives or her ability to generate press for herself—this is an act of superstar generosity and artist solidarity. Would BRYCE HARPER or KEVIN DURANT do something like that? The other Taylor Swift free-agent headline is that she signed a deal at all. In an era when artists like CHANCE THE RAPPER are taking DIY to the top of the charts and companies like AWAL and even Spotify are floating alternatives to traditional label deals, Swift had unprecedented leverage and seemingly unlimited options. She's 28, she's released only six albums and she's in her commercial prime. And she was free. This didn't happen in the record industry many of us grew up with. Hashtag PRINCE. But that leverage and the facts of a rapidly changing industry presumably helped Swift get what most of her idols only dreamed of—a major-label deal with full ownership of her masters. And, just as important, a precedent for future artists who idolize her... Also, props for the typewriter font she used for her Instagram post... Also also, in the maybe-everybody-gets-to-have-some-cake department, UMG reportedly remains a major player in the race to buy BIG MACHINE, which would come with six enormously valuable Taylor Swift masters... More on the changing industry: BILLBOARD's Q&A with RIAA chairman and CEO CARY SHERMAN, who will step down next month after 21 years at the organization, could easily supply me with a week's worth of quotes of the day. Worth a read for his thoughts on suing individual music downloaders ("it was a desperate situation and it called for desperate measures"), how the industry was able to secure a digital performance right in the long-ago 1990s ("there were no digital services to kill the legislation'), and much more. Sherman will be succeeded by MITCH GLAZIER... The RECORDING ACADEMY is tweaking its membership rules to try to increase diversity... Troubled rapper TEKASHI 6IX9INE is being held without bail after federal authorities charged him with being part of a violent drug-trafficking gang whose alleged crimes include attempted murder and armed robbery. If convicted, he faces a potential life sentence. His second album, DUMMY BOY, featuring collaborations with KANYE WEST and NICKI MINAJ, is due Friday.. RIP CODY BELGARD and AL JAMES. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | British GQ |
| We profile the men who inherited an industry in fade-out - thanks to iTunes, Spotify, piracy and scandal - and ask how the battle for our ears will be fought and won in 2019. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| The nation’s most vital orchestra celebrates its centennial by commissioning major new works and recharging the repertory. | | |
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 | Fast Company |
| Organization, strategy, and a tight group of trusted collaborators keep Janelle Monáe’s artistic world spinning. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| With a new album, Mariah continues one of the most successful yet underrated careers in pop music history. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Sweden is one of Europe’s least religious countries. Pastors there are using pop and rock music at Masses to try to attract a younger crowd. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| At his final hometown show with the band he fronted for 30 years, the vocalist showed why he’s one of the fiercest -- and most fun -- performers the genre has ever seen. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| "A Star Is Born," "Vox Lux" and "Bohemian Rhapsody" all offer up transcendent performances this awards season. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| Leikeli47 and Cakes da Killa headline an extravagant vogue ball in Atlanta -- where one of the last great American subcultures has been quietly thriving for decades. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Under the multi-year agreement, UMG will serve as the exclusive worldwide recorded music partner for Swift and UMG’s Republic Records will serve as her label partner in the U.S. | | |
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 | The Fader |
| Prolific Philly rock musician Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast talks work, death, dogs, anime, and wanting it all. | | |
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 | Longreads |
| In Detroit’s empty buildings and troubled streets, restless kids squatted, ran punk clubs, pressed their own records, and made their own magazine. They mostly stayed out of trouble. | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Even as Bad Bunny and J Balvin cozy up to English-language acts, there’s plenty of room for others to mine the darker, druggier corners of the genre. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| The residents of the nation’s largest women’s facility experienced joy and new hope, thanks to a Common performance. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| The new documentary is an essential bit of viewing for fans and detractors alike. | | |
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 | PopMatters |
| Pixies frontman Charles Thompson (a.k.a. Black Francis) recently revealed the genesis of the many incendiary tracks on the band's 1988 Surfer Rosa album, probably the most celebrated record to have come out of the whole alt-rock era. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| "I think it's unfair to say that the labels were hostile to technology, although they weren't very good at it." | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Merch is becoming a huge, and vital, component of artist careers. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| The artist may have won acclaim for “The Clock,” but at a festival in England his music is the object of attention. | | |
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 | It's Her Factory |
| Samsung’s washers play Schubert’s “Die Forelle”–a 19th c leid that’s nominally about the eponymous trout being caught by a fisherman; however, because Schubert took the lyrics from a poem by Christian Schubart that uses the fish tale as a metaphor for women getting caught in the snares of predatory men, it also, interestingly, alludes to some fairly traditional hetero/sexual politics. | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| With the far right in ascendence across the globe, there's never been a more necessary time to investigate fascist and racist infiltration, current and historical, into the underground culture we love. In an introductory essay to a new Quietus series, Dylan Miller explains why we're doing it. | | |
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 | YouTube |
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