If I am predominantly handling an artist on my roster, then don’t refer to me as a 'day-to-day' manager. I am an artist manager. If you are working at a record label and participating in a conversation about an artist, don’t assume that the man in the room is the manager; it could very well be the woman sitting next to him. | | | | Stormzy in London, Dec. 7, 2019. His second album, "Heavy Is the Head," is out today on #Merky/Atlantic UK.
(Isabel Infantes/PA Images/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “If I am predominantly handling an artist on my roster, then don’t refer to me as a 'day-to-day' manager. I am an artist manager. If you are working at a record label and participating in a conversation about an artist, don’t assume that the man in the room is the manager; it could very well be the woman sitting next to him.”
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| | rantnrave:// On a day in which BILLBOARD devoted a magazine issue and a Los Angeles gala to "Women in Music" and TAYLOR SWIFT called out SCOOTER BRAUN and "toxic male privilege in our industry" in front of everyone who was there and KESHA released a gorgeous, dark ballad called "RESENTMENT" about being taken for granted by a lover who could easily treat her better but chooses not to, a task force led by the CEO of TIME'S UP delivered a 47-page report with 18 recommendations to the RECORDING ACADEMY, which has some glaring women's issues of its own. The Academy, which has spent two years trying to dig its way out of a public mess that began with some unfortunate bookings, some unfortunate results and one infamously unfortunate comment at the 2018 GRAMMY AWARDS, immediately said yes to most of those recommendations—with two notable exceptions—and said it's already implemented several of them. It's committed to doubling the number of female voting members in the next five years. It's working with outside groups to promote the hiring of female producers and engineers—an arm of the industry that's overwhelmingly male and that accounts for a staggering 40 percent of the Academy's voting membership. "The fundamental problem" of Grammy voting diversity, the task force said, "cannot be solved until more women go into producing and engineering," which in turn can't happen until men start hiring them. The Academy says it will continue working toward to gender and racial balance on the committees that oversee Grammy nominations (from 2015 to 2017, the committees were 74 percent male on average) as well as the national governance committee, which sets policy for the Academy. But is there still some resistance to change at the top? The Academy's Awards and Nominations Committee said no for now to a suggestion that it switch to ranked-choice voting in the Grammys' big four categories—the task force says it would increase diversity and decrease the chance for "polarizing" winners—and the Academy rejected a radical change to the structure of its board of trustees, which is currently two-thirds male and two-thirds white, in favor of a more moderate one. The 38 trustees are chosen by the Academy's local chapters, which the task force says have been historically resistant to change. It suggested dividing the board seats equally among the chapters, the full membership and a new diversity and inclusion committee. Instead the Academy will give the chapters electoral power over 30 seats and the full membership a voice in the other eight. Will a smaller change at the top inhibit bigger changes everywhere else, or is change inevitable no matter what the board looks like? Time will tell. One other thing the Academy has promised: More transparency... In a second part of the report that addressed wider issues across the music business, the Academy's task force zeroed in on the lack of airplay for female artists at country radio and offered a bold, simple plan of action: "The 'unwritten rule' limiting women’s airtime on country music radio stations must be abolished, and... key stakeholders with national force (such as labels) can insist upon it by withholding business unless there is meaningful change." Yes, please... A day after Billboard reported that NETFLIX is asking composers on many of its shows to give up their backend royalties, VARIETY says DISCOVERY NETWORKS, which includes DISCOVERY CHANNEL, ANIMAL PLANET and HGTV, is flat-out demanding such buyouts of its composers, not only for current shows but for "all past shows on its networks," too. Variety's JON BURLINGAME reports that Discovery has told composers if they don't sign away their U.S. royalties by Dec. 31, it will strip their music out of existing shows and replace it with library music. And in exchange? "There was no financial component," one composer told Burlingame, "to compensate me for any domestic royalties they are asking me to sign away." So, speaking of withholding business: You, dear reader and music lover, probably have access to hundreds and hundreds of channels of televised comments. May I suggest you choose with this in mind?... It's FRIDAY (the 13th) and that means news music from STORMZY, HARRY STYLES, KAYTRANADA, BLAKE SHELTON, DUSTER, FREE NATIONALS, SMOKEPURPP, ANNIE HART, WARREN STORM, SKULLCRUSH, EDDY CURRENT SUPPRESSION RING, ATMOSPHERE, the UNCUT GEMS score by ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER's DANIEL LOPATIN, and ST. VINCENT and FEVER RAY remix albums. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Grammy.com |
| Part I of the Report sets forth specific proposed reforms and recommendations for the Academy. Part II of the Report addresses our observations for the broader music industry. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Billboard’s annual celebration of more than 150 female industry leaders, veterans and next-gen talents. | | |
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 | Highsnobiety |
| The growing hunger for exaltation and explanation is not much of a surprise considering that 2019 has been riddled with reminders of our mortality – Dictionary.com dubbed “existential” as the word of the year. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| The rapper’s show in Stockholm on Wednesday came just months after his trial for assault in the country drew international attention. | | |
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 | Resident Advisor |
| RA staff select some of the year's best mixes. | | |
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 | VICE |
| It was a great year for throwback hip hop, sex-positive R&B, ice-cold dance music, ambitious metal, and downright weird pop. | | |
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 | Complex |
| We spent time with Pharrell in the studio at Miami’s Hit Factory. He discussed his career and how hearing songs on SoundCloud helped shift his approach to music | | |
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 | Paper |
| Blondie's front woman Debbie Harry is countless people's idol (including yours truly), across generations, and now the seminal rock n'roll figure, incandescent songstress, and on-the-whole multifaceted global force is making her mark on the music-memoir genre with her tell-all, "Face It," out now from Dey Street Books. | | |
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 | Electronic Beats |
| We asked innovative companies like Elektron, Arturia, Novation, Erica Synths, Bastl Instruments and Verbos Electronics as well as artists and notable thinkers like Richie Hawtin, Stimming, Henrik Schwarz, Tim Exile and CDM’s Peter Kirn for their thoughts on how we’ll make electronic music in the future, and if there might be something revolutionary on the horizon when it comes to sound. | | |
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| Billboard |
| I have been working on the music management side for 13 years and am now the CEO of my own management company, Arketek. But not too long ago, a venue doorman assumed I was a makeup artist and asked me to wait outside, while allowing the man next to me to walk inside without a problem. | | |
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| | | she's got the hottest trike in town |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| In a decade defined by loss, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and others made transcendent art in their last days. | | |
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 | Metal Insider |
| This past summer, a story hit the news cycle about the legal journey of Iranian metal band Confess. | | |
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 | On An Overgrown Path |
| The current Munich production of Die tote Stadt is quite rightly drawing attention to the prodigious musical talent of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. But recent self-serving narratives suggesting that the 'discovery' of Korngold is a recent phenomena need to be put into perspective. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| With the Ronettes, Spector helped invent rock’n’roll and made Christmas songs soar -- but lived in the shadow of her abusive husband Phil. Now 76, she is still touring and recording -- between painting and jams with Keith Richards. | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| Rosalía has been one of pop's standouts in recent years and, says Ben Cardew, her music provides a way for outsiders to understand the complexities of contemporary Spanish politics. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Music makers for shows like "Deadliest Catch" decry the new contract provisions as “evil." | | |
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 | Song Exploder |
| In creating “Trauma,” Meek Mill took inspiration from his experiences in prison, and his early life in Philadelphia. In this episode, Meek Mill and Don Cannon, who produced the track, break down how the whole thing came together. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| America’s most underrated band has been cranking out great records for 12 years. With the reissue of their 2007 debut, ‘A Celebration of Hunger,’ will Spider Bags finally get their due? | | |
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 | MusicAlly |
| YouTube announced its latest measures to deal with harassment on its platform, including within content as well as comments. | | |
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 | Texas Monthly |
| The life of Willie Nelson's guitar. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Fine Line," out today on Columbia. |
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