We need to think about how we handle [ownership of] master recordings, because this isn’t it. | | | | Louis Jordan (center, on sax) and his expanded Tympani Five, circa 1950.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “We need to think about how we handle [ownership of] master recordings, because this isn’t it.”
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| | rantnrave:// "Every week," TAYLOR SWIFT tells BILLBOARD, "we get a dozen sync requests to use 'SHAKE IT OFF' in some advertisement or 'BLANK SPACE' in some movie trailer, and we say no to every single one of them." Move over, CHRIS MATTHEWS. Let a pop singer who's currently moonlighting as a cat show you how to play hardball. It's becoming increasingly clear with each passing week that Swift isn't bluffing when she says she plans to rerecord her first six albums in an effort to blunt any and all ownership interest her old label, BIG MACHINE, and its new owner, SCOOTER BRAUN, have in her music. She wants her songs in both commercials and movies, but only "if I own it." And as the writer or co-writer of every song on all her albums, she has the leverage to say no until she gets what she wants, which is either ownership of her old masters or a drawerful of replacement masters. Her other leverage, judging by all her public comments, is that she's completely out of f***s. In a decade in which songwriters and artists have been fighting, with varying degrees of success, for digital royalties, radio royalties, profit sharing, representation, credit and control of their work, is there any leverage more powerful than that? She's Billboard's Woman of the Decade. The honor is partly for "using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights," and she mentions to the magazine that " the girls in pop... all have each other’s numbers and text each other," which, if I was one of the suits in pop, might have me worrying a little about the decade to come. But KEWSONG LEE, co-CEO of CARLYLE GROUP, the private equity firm that helped finance Braun's purchase of Big Machine, told CNBC's SQUAWK BOX that Swift is a "wonderful artist" and "I’ve got every confidence in the world that it’s going to turn out to be a successful investment." So there's that, too... In other artists-fighting-for-their-rights news, Billboard reports in a lengthy paywalled piece that NETFLIX, while making eight-figure deals with Hollywood showrunners and filmmakers, is attempting to shortchange composers by seeking buyouts that require them to give up "all or most of the rights to their work, precluding them from receiving any backend royalties in the future," in exchange for a single upfront fee. Those backend royalties are where TV composers tend to make most of their money; upfront fees for scores and theme songs are largely eaten up by recording and other production costs, which composers pay for themselves. Netflix denies it's seeking buyouts. Billboard's KATHRYN KRANHOLD says more than three dozen composers, agents and lawyers told her otherwise, and composers CARTER BURWELL, JOHN POWELL and MIRIAM CUTLER are spearheading an initiative to help their peers fight back... Labels spending $600 million and up... because startups are spending $600 million and up... LIZZO is TIME's Entertainer of the Year... PURPLE RAIN, THE LAST WALTZ and AMADEUS have been added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry... WEYES BLOOD at the TINY DESK... LIFETIME will air SURVIVING R. KELLY PART II: THE RECKONING in early January and a scripted series about the creation of SPOTIFY, based on the book SPOTIFY UNTOLD, is in development at Netflix, and what composer wouldn't want the gig of scoring a series, for which she'll be asked to give up her royalties, about a company that's already underpaying her? The mind reels.
| | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Complex |
| Lorem quietly emerged earlier this year and has become one of Spotify's most unique new playlists. Lorem's curator tells us about how (and why) it works. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| In the 2010s, she went from country superstar to pop titan and broke records with her chart-topping albums and blockbuster tours. Now Swift is using her industry clout to fight for artists’ rights and foster the musical community she wished she had coming up. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The price of music streaming has stayed flat for a decade, but not because tech companies are generous | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| From reggaeton to rock and country to classical, these were the songs we couldn't stop playing in 2019. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| How rap got weird, then took over the world, in 30 tunes. | | |
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 | Musonomics |
| "I have a business job, and I have a strategy job, and I work for a big corporation, but the art is everything for me." Rob Stringer, Chairman of Sony Music Group and CEO of Sony Music Entertainment, talks with Larry Miller about his 30-year journey from lower east side punk to the head of one of the world's largest music companies. | | |
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 | Trapital |
| Juice WRLD's death is another reminder of the hip-hop's prescription drug culture, but the dependency is deeper rooted than most realize. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Noise-rock duo 100 gecs traded tapes long-distance to make one of the year's most acclaimed albums, "1000 gecs." | | |
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 | Saving Country Music |
| Ryman Hospitality Properties, which owns The Grand Ole Opry, The Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, as well as numerous other important music properties in Nashville and beyond, has struck a deal to purchase the 37-story, full city block-sized mixed-use complex in downtown Austin along second street known as Block 21. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| More than a year before the rapper’s death, the woman at the center of his domestic battery case granted a rare interview for a documentary about his life. Will the footage ever see the light of day? | | |
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| | | ain't nobody here but us chickens |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| Lizzo, who has now crossed into mainstream hyper-visibility, has to deal with the hypercritical gaze that both her fatness and black female identity draw onto her image. | | |
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 | Time Magazine |
| Lizzo is the defining star of 2019-not just for the music she makes, but for what she represents. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Fund says that it now co-owns over 11,000 songs. | | |
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 | Stereogum |
| If you’re looking for the stories behind your favorite songs, but don’t have time to read, say, Flea’s 400-page memoir or even all the liner notes on the latest Numero Group release, podcasts can be the answer for the music fan in need. | | |
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 | Afropunk |
| Though there is a great deal of overlap in dance music, electronic music and Black music - there is also a great deal of separation between those spaces as well. And the mutating tension between the social, sonic and historical layers of information that surround and propagate this Venn diagram are core to DeForrest Brown Jr.’s various creative practices. | | |
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 | Level |
| There’s only one predominantly Black art form left on the American cultural landscape. Here’s why. | | |
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| NPR Music |
| These Nashville stars helped change the conversation in country music and steer its industry toward a more equitable future. | | |
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| Billboard |
| "We proved to the world that pop wasn’t dead and there was a massive appetite for what we were playing." | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| New forms of protest song, fresh strains of fusion, and more. Our look at the currents that shaped the genre this year, and the must-hear releases that exemplified them. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| Juliet Litman asks some questions. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Kaytranada ft. Kali Uchis |
| | From "Bubba," out Friday on RCA. |
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| © Copyright 2019, The REDEF Group |
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