As an artist, albums are my everything. When I’m not here, that’s what lives on. | | | | Chance the Rapper at Rolling Loud Los Angeles, Dec. 14, 2019.
(Jerod Harris/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “As an artist, albums are my everything. When I’m not here, that’s what lives on.”
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| | rantnrave:// Four things currently on the US Justice Department's radar: 1) Allegations that LIVE NATION is forcing venues that book its artists to use TICKETMASTER as their primary ticket seller, which would violate the antitrust agreement under which the two companies were allowed to merge nine years ago. CEO MICHAEL RAPINO denies his company is violating the agreement. He's also, in the words of the WALL STREET JOURNAL, said that "booking a Live Nation tour date at a venue that uses a ticketing provider other than Ticketmaster may not make economic sense." Justice, presumably, will explore the space between those two sentences. 2) Accusations that Ticketmaster is using its market power to squeeze rivals SEATGEEK and STUBHUB out of the secondary ticket market. This is at least partly connected to Ticketmaster's high-tech, scalper-resistant SafeTix, which gives artists and promoters new powers to keep tickets off secondary ticketing sites. With Ticketmaster also competing in the secondary ticketing business and its rival secondary ticketers sometimes functioning as primary sellers, the competitive issues at play here are, let's say, complicated. 3) Live Nation's interest in buying former Ticketmaster CEO NATHAN HUBBARD's rival ticketing startup, which is called RIVAL. Guess who else reportedly wants to buy Rival? SeatGeek. Question of the day: Is the US government more interested in Ticketmaster having rivals or literally owning them? 4) LIBERTY MEDIA, Live Nation's largest shareholder, is seeking to upgrade its small share of IHEARTMEDIA to what could be a controlling stake. This one isn't strictly about ticketing except that it's possible everything is about ticketing. It would put the largest radio broadcaster in the US under the same roof as dominant satellite broadcaster SIRIUSXM and streaming radio giant PANDORA, which would all be tied to the country's largest concert promoter. That would require an awful lot of rope, at the very least... In January, BILLBOARD will start counting YOUTUBE streams, which already affect the HOT 100 singles chart, on the Billboard 200 albums chart as well. Only videos officially uploaded by rights holders will count on the albums chart, as opposed to the singles chart, where user-generated videos count, too. Billboard-Hollywood Reporter president DEANNA BROWN tells the NY TIMES' BEN SISARIO not to expect "dramatic changes" on the chart as a result. But Sisario notes that YouTube's enormous user base will give an extra advantage to albums that rely mostly on streaming versus albums that rely on CD sales for their chart placement... After a wave of protests from victims' families, plans for a CBS-produced scripted TV series on the 2016 GHOST SHIP fire have been scrapped... Electronic music pioneer and MOOG proselytizer GERSHON KINGSLEY's music is almost certainly more well known than he is. He wrote the Moog standard "POP CORN" (a major pop hit when covered by HOT BUTTER). He wrote the music that Boston public TV station WGBH has used as its theme for nearly 50 years. The music in DISNEY's MAIN STREET ELECTRIC PARADE? Him, too (with partner JEAN-JACQUES PERREY). The BEASTIE BOYS worshipped him, with good reason. He was years if not decades ahead of his time, which means it's not too late for the rest of the world to catch up with him now. RIP... RIP also FLAMIN' GROOVIES co-founder ROY LONEY, music and arts journalist SCOTT TIMBERG, graffiti artist PHASE 2, French actress/singer ANNA KARINA and DANNY AIELLO, whose starring roles in DO THE RIGHT THING and MADONNA's "PAPA DON'T PREACH" video are enough to warrant a place on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot if you ask me. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Water and Music |
| The “celestial jukebox” that captured our imagination in the early 2000s has since been pinned down to earth and winnowed by a combination of market control and technological control. We need a new metaphor for understanding music streaming in 2020 | | |
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 | Billboard |
| The U.S. Department of Justice is examining whether concert promoter Live Nation -- owner of Ticketmaster -- should be allowed to buy a competing ticketing company called Rival. It's part of a wider DOJ probe into Live Nation's compliance with a consent decree governing its decade-old merger with Ticketmaster, sources said. | | |
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 | Quartz |
| Fender is betting on machine learning and apps for the future of the storied guitar company. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| A track-by-track breakdown of the singer’s joyous, expansive new album. | | |
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 | The Outline |
| We spent the day with the insanely popular Grammy-nominated rapper in his North Carolina hometown. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Starting Jan. 3, official video plays will count toward the tallies on the trade publication’s flagship weekly chart, the Billboard 200. | | |
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 | The Verge |
| Customers’ physical music collections may be lost forever. | | |
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 | Variety |
| As controversy builds around "Richard Jewell" and its depiction of female journalists, it's nothing new for women music writers on the silver screen. | | |
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 | Broken Record |
| Justin Vernon and producer Chris Messina from Bon Iver, discuss the new album "i,i" with Rick Rubin. Listen as they bond over their love for remote recording spaces, the importance of self care while making music, Justin’s love for the Indigo Girls, and how the ‘90s cult classic TV show Northern Exposure helped inspire the creation of Bon Iver. | | |
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 | Slate |
| Sometimes, the most influential songs didn’t hit No. 1. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| Death and retirement claimed some of our most cherished musical icons in the 2010s. But just as many sprang back to life through biopics, holograms, and the countless other manifestations of what one insider calls “legacy mode.” | | |
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| Billboard |
| With his second album, Stormzy is U.K. rap’s best bet for a global star -- that fellow Brits say is poised to take grime “where we couldn’t.” | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| The city tried for years to suppress the sound from the streets but in 2020 will finally give it official recognition. | | |
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| Variety |
| Bay Area rapper Saweetie didn't intend for "My Type" to come out as a single. But when a clip of the bouncy anthem about desirable (and slightly vulgar) attributes in a partner started to take off on TikTok as part of a social media challenge, it became clear the song would be her defining hit. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Marathon Artists co-founder Paul-René Albertini tells us about some of his career highlights and shares his vision for how a record label should treat artists in 2019 and beyond. | | |
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| The New York Times |
| Success is coming faster than ever for a new generation of musicians. But at what price? | | |
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 | Complex |
| Matty Healy of The 1975, No Rome, and Beabadoobee, and Jamie Oborne explain how Dirty hit became a creative haven for new artists and established stars. | | |
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 | JazzTimes |
| JazzTimes' critics chose the top 40 new albums and top 10 historical releases of the year 2019. | | |
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 | Genius |
| Read an excerpt from the new book ‘Switched On Pop: How Popular Music Works, and Why It Matters.’ | | |
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 | Lefsetz Letter |
| The only money is in the ticketing. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | "Tranq-rock," says the band, accurately. From "Duster," out now on Muddguts. |
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