Games are now part of the [artist] signing conversation. We ask what games do you play and what consoles do you like? | | | | Grammy hopeful Bad Bunny in Rihanna's Savage x Fenty Show, Los Angeles, October 2020.
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “Games are now part of the [artist] signing conversation. We ask what games do you play and what consoles do you like?”
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| | rantnrave:// The RECORDING ACADEMY starts rolling out the 2021 GRAMMY nominations around noon ET today and you'll hear the WEEKND's and TAYLOR SWIFT's names a few times, and MEGAN THEE STALLION's name but not CARDI B's name, and BAD BUNNY's and J BALVIN's names, and probably the late POP SMOKE's name, and hopefully FIONA APPLE's and BOB DYLAN's names, and then, after hearing 84 categories' worth of names in all, you may find yourself asking what exactly will the 2021 Grammy Awards be? What will they have to say about music in a year of protests and lockdowns and death and struggle and change? How will they respond to a year in which we streamed music in record numbers in our homes and in our apps and video games, and in which we heard it blasting in the air at protests and rallies but in which concerts and clubs and bars all but ceased to exist? Was the soundtrack of those protests, from Pop Smoke and YG and JOHNNIQUA CHARLES and MEEK MILL and H.E.R., the essential sound of a pop year that, for Grammy purposes, began on Sept. 1, 2019 and ended on Aug. 30, 2020? Was the intimate and personal Taylor Swift album recorded in isolation during the pandemic the sound of that Grammy year? Did the audacious clatter of a Fiona Apple album made in a different kind of isolation over several previous years resonate more? Does resonance matter? How will Grammy's confrontation with its own troubled past resonate and manifest in this climate? Did anyone inside a Recording Academy conference room hear the two astonishing neo-BLM-soul albums the mysterious UK band SAULT quietly released to loud critical acclaim during those 12 months? Is there any denying the pure swagger of a song like RODDY RICCH's "THE BOX," no matter what was going in the world in any given 12-month period? Is pop just pop and is hip-hop just hip-hop and is progressive R&B just progressive R&B, no matter what's happening on the streets and in FORTNITE? Might Bob Dylan, whose writing has earned him a Nobel Prize but who has never won a songwriting award in nearly 60 years of Grammy eligibility—he's never even been nominated for Song of the Year—have finally written something the Academy will appreciate in this exemplar of a murderous and foul year? Can the Grammys pretend everything is normal? Can an annual showcase for live—and only live—musicianship figure out a way to reflect a year like this? Will a showcase for live and only live musicianship be remotely possible a little over two months from now? Should that be an awards show's primary concern anymore? Random statistic of the day: The GUCCI MANE v. JEEZY episode of the INSTAGRAM/APPLE pandemic phenomenon VERZUZ drew more viewers than MTV's VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS. App killed the cable video star. Is network next?... The next secretary of state of the US is an actual dad-rocker who fronts an actual dad-rock band of Washington insiders, which, to quote Noisey's JOSH TERRY, is "actually not awful." But the bigger news, as far as this newsletter is concerned, is he's a lefty guitarist. Southpaw salute, TONY BLINKEN. (We'll talk some other time about wearing your watch on your left hand, which is a little confusing.) In other secretary of state news, he's also a former rock critic for the HARVARD CRIMSON. If a certain former mayor of South Bend scores a job in the administration, that could be two ex-Crimson rock critics in the cabinet, which may prove confusing in other ways; apologies to everyone else in the cabinet who'd have to sit through those arguments... In non-cabinet pop critic news: A music journalist who says she turned down an offer of one dollar from Pop Smoke's label, VICTOR VICTOR, to use audio from one of her interviews on the rapper's posthumous album is suing for $1.5 million and a piece of the publishing because, she says, the label went ahead and used it anyway... SOUNDCLOUD reports its first ever profitable quarter. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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 | GamesIndustry |
| The record label on the changing relationship between games and music. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| The biggest band in the world has ascended to the peak of pop, redefined fame, and challenged traditional masculinity. These are the twenty-somethings behind it all. And this is what they want now. | | |
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 | Scalawag |
| Chief Keef is the perfect soundtrack for a generation that’s through with empty promises. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The capital’s Latin American immigrant communities are growing, and with them comes a new hybrid music -- but will it be silenced by gentrification and narrow-mindedness? | | |
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 | Pollstar |
| Bob “Moz” Moczydlowsky is the managing director of Techstars Music, an accelerator dedicated to all manner of innovation in the music and live entertainment space. Every year he invests $1.2 million into 10 of the best music-related startups from around the world. | | |
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 | Global News |
| Money, for one. Lots of it. | | |
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 | Groove |
| Having endured draconian anti-virus measures, China’s club scene is now back on its feet. Jaime Chu follows the DJ Knopha around the country. | | |
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 | GQ |
| The veteran on his new album, past traumas, growing up alongside Biggie and Jay-Z, plus rare stories about 2Pac, Q-Tip and more. | | |
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 | Trapital |
| This week's Trapital Memo breaks down Verzuz, Nicki Minaj and hip-hop documentaries, and more. | | |
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 | VICE |
| Future cabinet member Antony Blinken calls his music, released under the moniker ABlinken, "wonk rock." | | |
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| The Guardian |
| A new documentary examines the life of a SoundCloud star turned convicted criminal and a culture that makes us ‘all complicit’ in the rise of dangerous attention-seekers. | | |
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 | Middle Class Artist |
| Women face extraordinary odds of success in the opera world, from the conservatory to young artist apprenticeships to the mainstage to leadership roles in administration. | | |
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 | Smithsonian Magazine |
| The fashionable garment conjures the guitarist's dazzling performance at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. | | |
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| GQ |
| With a hyped new album and Givenchy campaign on the way, the rapper reflects on the Atlanta scene that birthed his unusual style. | | |
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| Pollstar |
| Theaters and clubs keep the flame burning with livestreams. | | |
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 | NME |
| The MVT is urging the government to reconsider "specific challenges" to grassroots venues. | | |
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 | Medium |
| The story of John Lee Hooker's “Democrat Man” (and the album it appears on) includes a mid-century tussle over musical authenticity, the evolution of the blues form, and the emerging white woman voter demographic. Let’s get into this. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| Jemima Skala speaks to Shygirl about split personas, filthy diction and taking inspiration from Aphex Twin and Missy Elliott. | | |
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 | NPR |
| "The Last Shall Be First: The JCR Records Story, Vol. 1" is a collection of gospel music first recorded in 1970s Memphis and released for the first time after years spent tracking down master tapes. | | |
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 | SPIN |
| We’ve waited long enough. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | Let's make it two new "What's Goin' On" songs in two days. Hashtag 2020. From "What a Time to Be in Love," out now on SoNo. |
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