I really wanted to get a Lamborghini [in 2020]... [But] there were so many other things that were so much important. There’s more people to give that money to. There’s way, way more important things going on than the f***ing Lamborghini. | | | | No time for your silly games: Janet Kay recording the charity single "Let's Make Africa Green Again," Feb. 24, 1985.
(David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | | | “I really wanted to get a Lamborghini [in 2020]... [But] there were so many other things that were so much important. There’s more people to give that money to. There’s way, way more important things going on than the f***ing Lamborghini.”
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| | rantnrave:// A crew of DJs, cooks and assorted others set up a space for a house party, a woman sneaks out of her parents' house to meet a friend to go to the party, the party happens, the woman leaves on a bicycle with a man she met at the party, she sneaks back into her house just in time to wake up for church, and that's basically the plot, inasmuch as there's any plot at all, of what may be an all-time great scripted music movie. You can probably go ahead right now and add STEVE MCQUEEN's LOVERS ROCK, available on AMAZON PRIME as episode two of McQueen's anthology series SMALL AXE, to the canon. Wow. Just wow. On one level, it's literally a movie about that party, a "blues party" in London's West Indian community in 1980 whose soundtrack, as the title of the film suggests, is mostly lovers rock, a romantic, couples-friendly take on reggae. (This is more or less the soundtrack, and it's great.) The party, shot in an almost-documentary style that makes it easy to get lost in both the music and the scene—it seems to fall somewhere between film, dance piece and actual party—takes up nearly the entirety of the movie. Two extended set pieces, in turn, take up a good chunk of the party. The first is a sensual 10-minute sequence of couples slow dancing and making out to JANET KAY's pop reggae hit "SILLY GAMES," which the dancers extend by taking over the vocals long after the song has ended. The couples having paired off, a group of men eventually take over the dancefloor and release a very different, moshpit-like energy to the sound of the REVOLUTIONARIES' "KUNTA KINTE DUB," which they extend by convincing the selecter to play it several times in a row. The difference between the two scenes is jarring, and they're both breathtaking. (They also foreshadow a number of musical movements to come in the years ahead; the influence is hard to miss.) Gender dynamics and sexual tension are ever-present in the movie—and in the milieu in which the film is set—and nearly all you need to know is contained in those two scenes. Racial dynamics and class tension are very much in play, too, largely unspoken because they don't need to be spoken. They exist somewhere beneath the grooves of the 7-inch singles the DJs are continuously dropping onto the turntable, in the spaces of the conversations the party's protective bouncer, played by MARCUS FRASER, has with various shady characters who cross his path, and on the streets of the city that surrounds that house. But you can return to the dancefloor anytime you want and escape into love, into rage, or whatever you need to escape into... BAD BUNNY was the most-streamed artist on SPOTIFY in 2020 (don't ask how Spotify already knew this on Nov. 30; just go with it), and his YHLQMDLG was (is?) the service's most-streamed album. The WEEKND's "BLINDING LIGHTS" was the year's top single. The service also tells us, in its annual "Wrapped" promotion, that a lot of people made, and played, Black Lives Matter playlists this year. Also, duh: JOE ROGAN... Spotify, which in the past has promoted its year-end numbers with billboard ad campaigns, this year is taking over the marquees of indie clubs across the US in exchange for a $500,000 donation to the NATIONAL INDEPENDENT VENUE ASSOCIATION, which is a good use of streaming money... NIVA's Emergency Relief Fund is also one of many good music industry options for #GIVINGTUESDAY. SCOTT SCOVILL, a board member of the ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC, makes a pitch for the ACM's LIFTING LIVES fund. MUSICARES is using the day to help out struggling live music workers with e-cards... Two months after scoring its first US #1 single with the English-language "DYNAMITE," BTS returns with the first primarily Korean-language song to top the chart. And gets a hell of a gift from the South Korean government... VANITY FAIR asks BILLIE EILISH the same questions for a fourth year in a row... ARIA AWARDS winners... SOUL TRAIN AWARDS winners... RIP LIL YASE, TRIPPLE BEANZ—please please stop the violence—FLOR SILVESTRE, CAMILLA WICKS, USTAD SHAHADAT HOSSAIN KHAN, JERRY DEMARA and SARAH BRYAN MILLER. | | | - Matty Karas (@troubledoll), curator |
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| Steve McQueen’s new “Small Axe” anthology includes a film that centers on an offshoot of reggae that represented big shifts in the music, and in Black British culture. | | |
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| The women of the Lovers Rock generation spill their night-time dance party secrets, from sneaking out of bedroom windows to sexy dancing. | | |
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| The Grammy-nominated pop septet’s newest single became the first Korean song to top the Billboard Hot 100--with virtually no radio play. | | |
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| Uplifting melodies, massive breakdowns, a thousands arms raised aloft waiting for the drop — these tropes have ensured trance has remained popular for nearly 30 years. Harold Heath investigates a recent AI experiment to discover the science behind why fans just can’t get enough. | | |
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| It was tough being a punk or metal obsessive in a small town. Seven fans who sought love or friendship via music mag ‘lonely hearts’ ads tell us if they found what they were looking for. | | |
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| CAA partner and music division head Rob Light spoke with Variety as part of the cover story on the 25th anniversary of the changeover at the top of the agency. Light was there when those seismic shifts of the mid-'90s happened; his tenure with CAA goes back 36 years. | | |
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| I never feel very confident that my year-end list actually represents the best records released in a given period—whatever that even means—but this year, I found myself especially uninterested in indulging anything other than what immediately sounded meaningful to me. | | |
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| Our writers considered hundreds of contenders -- and here are their picks of the year. | | |
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| A new breed of production tools and services, often subscription-based, are reinventing the creative process and will reshape the long-term view of what a music company is. | | |
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| CreateSafe co-founder and CEO Daouda Leonard came on the Trapital Podcast to break down his company’s goals in the music industry. | | |
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| Exploring the comment-section emotion of music as served by a mysterious algorithm. | | |
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| The unlikely alliance between emo and rap became a commercial juggernaut this year. | | |
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| Young Thug’s Young Stoner Life Records doesn’t operate like any other label in the music industry. This is the full story behind the rise of YSL. | | |
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| Straight outta Nipsey Hussle's old Crenshaw stomping grounds, Chosin Few sound like students who learned to rap in a gothic classroom taught by Bones and Bone Thugs. | | |
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| While the focus of UK policymakers is understandably on how to ‘fix’ streaming, it might be that efforts would be better placed building a complementary alternative. | | |
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| At 76, she is the embodiment of success, the personification of warmth and an artist who changed the landscape of American music. | | |
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| The Smashing Pumpkins front man on his new double LP, CYR, Mellon Collie’s unexpected legacy, and what the hipsters still get wrong about his band. | | |
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| How a maligned format became magical again, encouraging collaboration in lockdown and reminding acts like Aluna and Kero Kero Bonito of the remix’s power. | | |
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| Perhaps more than any other viral artist, the energetic 19-year-old rapper is an omnipresent force on TikTok — especially if your FYP falls on the alt or queer side. With her explicit lesbian anthems, inimitable raspy vocal delivery and cult status among fans (AKA trap bunnies), ppcocaine is the brat rap princess of TikTok music trends. | | |
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| Marilyn Manson was a new type of metal hero: an articulate spokesman, fearless in expressing himself. But as the discourse in music changes, are #MeToo and ‘cancel culture’ too close to home? | | |
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| When COVID-19 shut down the opera stage, John Holiday turned to NBC's singing competition. How the guy with a super-high voice became a surprise frontrunner. | | |
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| This February, I began obsessively making lists. Songs with cellos. Every book I read or every documentary I watched this year. Different things that you can eat with ginger-scallion sauce. Stories involving balloons. I don't usually make lists, although I will generally risk malware or worse to read other people's rankings. | | |
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