I had completely planned to take the next year, or possibly 18 months, completely off... But it might be a good idea to go play some shows again, I don’t know, given how many millions of people are saying, ‘Who the [expletive] is Sturgill Simpson?’ as of this morning. | | | | | Un-Bey-lievable: Nominated for pop, rock, urban contemporary and rap Grammys. (Kristopher Harris/Flickr) | | | | |  | “I had completely planned to take the next year, or possibly 18 months, completely off... But it might be a good idea to go play some shows again, I don’t know, given how many millions of people are saying, ‘Who the [expletive] is Sturgill Simpson?’ as of this morning.”
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| | rantnrave:// It's a given that, unless you are STURGILL SIMPSON, JUSTIN BIEBER or NEIL PORTNOW, you are probably confused by, or angry at, the GRAMMY nominations. (Check that; even Sturgill is a little confused.) That's the way things are, and the way things have always been. It's also science. Consensus has a way of surfacing the obvious, like the ongoing popularity of the password 123456, which doesn't mean that anyone you know uses that password, it just means that chances are pretty good that more people use that one than use your actual cat's actual middle name with a semicolon thrown in somewhere. Likewise, ADELE. (I *like* Adele. She has an amazing voice and is, by all accounts, an amazing human being. But she is 123456, and CAR SEAT HEADREST is your cat's middle name. That's all.) But the Grammys in recent years have trained their ears to hear and absorb pop music in a way they weren't always able to do, and while they continue to select some curious winners, and while they continue to not worry too much about DAVID BOWIE, their nominations of late have done a pretty good job of representing the current popular music landscape. Which this year means BEYONCÉ, Bieber, RIHANNA's sublime "WORK," the juggernaut that is DRAKE, and several top-shelf new (or at least new-ish) artists who will all get important exposure on TV next February before losing to the juggernaut that is the CHAINSMOKERS. The nominees are less reliable in some of the down-ballot specialty categories like dance/electronic, rock, reggae and world, but ear-training, like almost anything worthwhile, takes time... Beyoncé is the first artist ever nominated in four genres in the same year... CHANCE THE RAPPER is the first artist ever nominated for a streaming-only album... KIP WINGER released a classical album this year... Sturgill Simpson is not the only person gobsmacked by Sturgill Simpson's album-of-the-year nomination. His A SAILOR'S GUIDE TO EARTH is a moderate-selling, somewhat-acclaimed, "real music" prestige project, which usually puts you in line for multiple Grammy nominations five or 10 years later. Getting the nominations in real time is the surprise here... Our year-end roundup, "Best of 2016: The Year in Lists," continues to grow, and it's hard not to notice how much overlap there is between critics' lists and the Grammy nominations this year... A different kind of take on the current pop landscape: DJ EARWORM's annual "United State of Pop" mashup... APPLE MUSIC hits 20 million subs; still loves exclusives... PANDORA unveils on-demand PANDORA PREMIUM service; still doesn't actually like on-demand model... MP3 compression increases the "negative emotional characteristics" of musical instruments while decreasing positive characteristics, according to science (this goes out to you, @COOKIEMARENCO)... God bless you, makers of literal "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY"... PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND police apologize to NICKELBACK... RIP BIG SKYE. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Local politicians clamber for scapegoats: leaseholder, inspector, or gig organizers? But it’s bigger than that. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| In a time of political uncertainty, the Grammy nominations offered a clear mandate: innovation over tradition, the future over the past. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| It was Liberace’s favorite LP and gained a cult following, but the collection of love songs was released at a time when those behind it had to stay in the shadows. | | |
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 | Bloomberg |
| YouTube, defending itself from attacks by record labels and artists, said it passed on more than $1 billion in sales to the music business in the past 12 months. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| His monk’s name was Jikan, which means “noble silence.” That’s what we hear from him now. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| A primer on Beyoncé vs. Adele vs. Drake vs. Bieber vs. Sturgill Simpson | | |
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 | Cuepoint |
| No Sleep is a visual history of the halcyon days of New York City club life as told through flyer art-gathered in a new volume by myself and Evan Auerbach. I asked some (famous) friends to write about these iconic pieces of art and the nightlife scenes they represent—including Mark Ronson, Moby, and Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Eddy Cue and Zane Lowe on exclusives and why their service rules hip-hop. | | |
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 | Thump |
| As a music promoter and a travel operator, Harris is adept at finding music in "difficult places." | | |
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 | The Conversation |
| T in the Park is on the rocks. So what else is new? | | |
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 | Crack Magazine |
| Dean Blunt and Gaika discuss Trump’s victory, the restrictive expectations for black music and the post-apocalyptic essence of modern England | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| From Drake and Rihanna to Mixpak and Swing Ting, Marvin Sparks reflects on a breakthrough year for the dancehall - and don't call it "tropical house". | | |
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 | Medium |
| Spotify offer some great tools to analyse and present your artist presence on their platform, but as Darren might have mentioned once or twice; tools for artists to market themselves seem to still be severely lacking compared to other platforms like Pandora, YouTube and Deezer. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| "[My publicist] woke me up. My wife said, 'Who the [expletive] is calling you at 7:30?' She told me the news and we just kind of stayed in bed for a while. I was trying to wrap my head around what this even means and looking back on everything." | | |
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 | The Stranger |
| I don't know why, without fail, every teen boy music nerd has to love the Doors for a minute. It's built into their DNA, like sleeping on blue plaid sheets and playing Call of Duty. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Small retailers everywhere are struggling to compete with online competition. But one classical music store in north London is surviving -- and even thriving. | | |
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 | Bandcamp Daily |
| In the early 2000s electronic music was viewed as something for the wealthy elites until netlabels emerged to take back to the people. | | |
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 | Orlando Sentinel |
| Owner Barbara Poma said she decided "can't just walk away" from the club, which "means so very much to my family and to our community." She said she plans to create "a space for everyone, a sanctuary of hope, and a welcoming area to remember all those affected by the tragedy," | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Ahead of Nobel Prize ceremony, former vice president shares favorite memories of singer-songwriter, including the time Dylan gave him a harmonica. | | |
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| Cuepoint |
| How ‘Surrealistic Pillow’ transformed a generation. | | |
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 | nominated for Record but not Song of the Year |
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