[Rick Rubin told me], 'I don’t really consider myself smart enough to know what everybody’s going to think, so I just do what feels right to me.' | | | | Murdered 37 years ago today: John Lennon during the filming of "A Hard Day's Night" in 1964.
(Max Scheler - K & K/Redferns/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “[Rick Rubin told me], 'I don’t really consider myself smart enough to know what everybody’s going to think, so I just do what feels right to me.'”
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| | rantnrave:// The problem with GOOGLE/YOUTUBE's last two attempts at a subscription music service (if you can name either of them, you're a smarter person than I) is that they seemed design to answer record companies' demands for monetization but not to answer any particular needs or desires that music fans might have had. I tried them both, might have interviewed for a job at one of them (Google NDAs are even more fun than Google buses), and was rewarded with all sorts of confusion fog. Will the third time be the charm? Where is the opening in the subscription market? Where is the, um, key that might unlock it? Here's my particular need, not that anyone's asking: I used to keep 40 to 50 random CDs on my desk, my current-listening pile, things I couldn't bear not to have within arm's reach any given week or month, organized exactly the way I wanted to organize them on any given day. Re-create that experience and you will have my subscription dollars forever... December in the music biz means holiday parties, MARIAH CAREY, JINGLE BALL and critics reminding you what you've been listening to for the past 12 months and badgering you about what you maybe should've been listening to. Our MusicSET "Best Music of 2017: The Year in Lists" is expanding rapidly and a few things are already clear (if you're looking for clarity, which is not necessarily recommended in these matters): The year's most officially critically lauded™ album is KENDRICK LAMAR's DAMN, with LORDE, SZA and SAMPHA getting lots of (well deserved) love, and with the Americana assembly waving the flag for JASON ISBELL and LEE ANN WOMACK, the metal massive banging their heads for PITTSBURGH's CODE ORANGE and DALLAS' POWER TRIP, and indie interest groups politely suggesting PERFUME GENIUS and KELLY LEE OWENS. I'll take the easy way out and say they're all correct. Because they are. I mean, listen. Song-wise, we are getting confirmation, not surprisingly, that 2017 belonged to "HUMBLE" and "BODAK YELLOW," and that critics appreciated "DESPACITO" maybe 10 percentage points less than everybody else did... CHUCK BERRY. TOM PETTY. CHRIS CORNELL. FATS DOMINO. LIL PEEP. PRODIGY. Another year of too many obituaries. We pour one out for them and for many more musicians, as well as notable figures across media, fashion, sports, film/TV and other industries, from MARY TYLER MOORE to HUGH HEFNER, from JEANNE MOREAU to ANITA PALLENBERG, in our MediaSET "Fell on Black Days: In Memoriam 2017"... Five techno documentaries available for free on YouTube. (There are many more, actually. But here's a nicely organized starting program)... BON JOVI tops the fan balloting for the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME. Not sure this is Bon Jovi's year for the more decisive part of the balloting, though... Mic drop: BTS is the highest-ever charting K-pop group in the US... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from BIG SEAN & METRO BOOMIN, LUKE BRYAN, TOM ROGERSON WITH BRIAN ENO, STATIK SELEKTAH, K. MICHELLE, CHRIS THILE, JUICY J, BELLE AND SEBASTIAN, WALKER HAYES, SHOVELS & ROPE, JIM JAMES, KIPP STONE, KIDZ IN THE HALL and ALEX BLOOM. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Consequence of Sound |
| Most of the year’s socially conscious music has been far more personal than political. | | |
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 | Pigeons & Planes |
| Richard Russell has shaped the music industry as founder and owner of XL Recordings. In 2018, he'll finally release his own album. | | |
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 | Lefsetz Letter |
| Bob speaks with the former CEO of Ticketmaster Nathan Hubbard. They talk about Nathan’s background as a musician, his rise through the tech industry, and the evolution of the ticketing business in the digital age. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| Marshall Mathers became a megastar by partly tapping into the same disaffected white rage later mobilised by the ‘alt-right’. But the rapper has made it clear he doesn’t want to share fans with the president. With a new album out soon, can he prosper in an age of conscious protest? | | |
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 | Interview Magazine |
| Ahem, excuse me. Can we have the attention of the class for a second? The recalcitrant bad boy of rap is back after a few years away from the spotlight. And this time, he's coming straight for the administration. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| As Jackmaster alludes in his post, the sin of laziness hangs heavy over ID culture. And many people who have put in the hours rooting through dusty crates past hordes of Rod Stewart albums to take a flyer on a record that just happens to contain their new favourite track, will agree with him. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
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 | Billboard |
| Billboard looks at how the anti-harassment movement took shape in the music business in 2017. | | |
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 | Vulture |
| For more than a decade, Chris Stapleton, like so many aspiring artists, was a cog in the Nashville machine. Signed to a publishing deal as a songwriter shortly after moving to town in 2001, Stapleton wrote songs for whatever artist might cut them. Kenny Chesney. Darius Rucker. Lee Ann Womack. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| The year through the lens of our favorite artists’ pens | | |
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 | Vox |
| J Dilla made his MPC3000 musical. | | |
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 | Ari's Take |
| I love podcasts. More specifically, educational podcasts. Even more specifically, educational podcasts about music, business and thinking differently. Oftentimes, though, I'm at a loss when I'm caught up on a podcast I love or just in the mood for something different. I don't listen to music at the gym or in the car, I listen to podcasts. | | |
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| Vulture |
| There's a curse involved in a being an innovator; present audiences are often unprepared to greet the future. Few understand this better than Chief Keef, the human catalyst who changed rap in 2012 with a single video. "I Don't Like" didn't put Chicago drill music on the map so much as it burned the map and signed its name in the ashes. | | |
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 | Esquire |
| Future, Girlpool, Grace Sings Sludge, Laurel Halo, Jlin... | | |
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 | Slate |
| Covering the song successfully is an art unto itself. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Cale is a reluctant nostalgist, but our collective love for his early work is intense, and sometimes he consents to play it for us. | | |
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 | No Jumper |
| Roy Woods is an extremely talented Canadian singer signed to OVO. I was lucky enough to get him in the studio for an interview and we had a great conversation. | | |
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 | SPIN |
| The Neil Young Archives, a digital library released last week purporting to contain everything the legendary songwriter and guitarist ever recorded and released, is a tremendous resource for both longtime fans and anyone who's curious about approaching his prodigious five-decade catalog for the first time. | | |
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 | Afropop Worldwide |
| We dig into the Afropop archives to retrieve some of our favorite vinyl from the Congo, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Brazil and Cote d'Ivoire. | | |
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 | The National UAE |
| Fonsi says he is continuing to lay the path that was paved for him by the likes of Spanish crooner Julio Iglesias and his pop star son Enrique, Puerto Rican heartthrob Ricky Martin and Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Tom Rogerson with Brian Eno |
| | From "Finding Shore," out today on Dead Oceans. |
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