You want to bring songwriters into the free market. | | | | Can't live without my radio: LL Cool J circa 1986.
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “You want to bring songwriters into the free market.”
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| | rantnrave:// We're up to about 150 year-end lists on MusicREDEF's annual list of lists, and it seems like 135 of them mention KENDRICK LAMAR somewhere near the top; the rest mention either MARGO PRICE or CODE ORANGE instead. There are lists of K-pop, psych-rock, Americana, jazz, local music from various cities and countries, overlooked albums, videos, etc., etc., all with worthwhile points of view, all worth exploring, But the year-end roundup that might best reflect how so many people interact with music these days may be one from THE DOWSERS, an online magazine about playlists, titled simply "10 Playlists That Mattered in 2017." It showcases the curators who music-supervised 2017 for so many people, from TUMA BASA to FRANK OCEAN to FOUR TET to SPOTIFY's DISCOVER WEEKLY algorithm—the curators, both human and machine, both artist and bizzer, who allowed so many of us to lay back and listen with confidence. Four Tet's nearly 700-song (and continually growing) Spotify megamix, a borderless and timeless expression of a single artist's aesthetic, was a regular source of discovery, pleasure and escape for me this year. DRAKE's is-it-an-album-or-is-it-a-playlist-or-is-it-a-what MORE LIFE was a helluva thesis statement about how music might be created and packaged in the (very near) future. As for Basa's massively influential RAPCAVIAR playlist, the Dowsers give it its props while noting it has its critics—such as TRACKRECORD's DAVID TURNER, who argues here that, while it's controlled by a single, whipsmart curator, RapCaviar heavily reflects major-label promotional priorities and it's "next to impossible" for truly indie acts to get added. It may well be, in other words, the top-down tastemaker that Basa has long sworn he doesn't want it to be. Is it possible to have 8 million followers and still be a grass-roots phenomenon? Does someone else maybe want to give it a try? (The Dowsers' own list has a similar top-heavy bent, focusing entirely on Spotify playlists. There's good work being done at both TIDAL and APPLE MUSIC, for obvious starters, even if fewer people are paying attention)... "He sat me down at 15 and made me listen to the SHAGGS. We all need an uncle like that." That's the BLACK KEYS' PATRICK CARNEY on the great saxophonist (and many-other-things-ist) RALPH CARNEY, who died suddenly over the weekend from injuries sustained in a fall. He got his start in the AKRON, OHIO band TIN HUEY and went on to play with a hundred thousand rock, jazz and experimental bands and artists, most famously TOM WAITS. He and his nephew wrote the theme song to BOJACK HORSEMAN. RIP... Another rough weekend: RIP also: Z'EV, KEELY SMITH, WILLIE PICKENS, RICHARD DOBSON and JACK BOYLE. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Analog Planet |
| 2017 has been an amazing year for vinyl and an equally amazing one for AnalogPlanet editor Michael Fremer. | | |
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 | TrackRecord |
| A gatekeeper if there ever was one. | | |
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 | The Dowsers |
| It may still feel strange to think a playlist could change the world, but in 2017, the act of dragging-and-dropping reached new levels of artistry, activitism, and influence. | | |
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 | The Line of Best Fit |
| Phoebe Bridgers' Strangers in the Alps is our record of the year and one of the strongest debut albums this decade. Tom Johnson gets under the skin of why Bridgers own brand of melancholy is so appealing in 2017. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Revisiting the Def Jam co-founder’s career in the years surrounding his 12 alleged incidents of sexual assault and harassment. | | |
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 | ADWEEK |
| Ask your doctor about Revival. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Even now, eight months after I first heard it, the 10-second stretch of music gets me every time. It comes at the end of the second verse of "Love," a song from Kendrick Lamar 's album "Damn," and the thing that's so gripping is the way the Compton rapper suddenly shrinks a vast, roiling world down to the psychic space between two people. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| Someone recently asked Bjork about the ideas that animate her new album, and the visionary singer gave a visionary answer. | | |
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 | The Tennessean |
| In a rare interview, the hip-hop mogul — joined by country singer and fellow Grammy nominee Thomas Rhett and Rhett's frequent co-writer/co-producer Jesse Frasure — shared thoughts on the pain and importance of telling the truth in songwriting. | | |
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 | Broadly |
| While the rest of the world burned, Beyonce stunned us at the Grammy's, Nicki Minaj and Remy Ma captivated us with their beef, and SZA and Cardi B made us cheer for their meteoric rises. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Rep. Doug Collins is looking to reinvent streaming royalties, calling it a '"fight for the soul of ownership." | | |
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 | Medium |
| Smart speakers are going to change the game for music. Without a visual interface, how are you going to get your music to people? | | |
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 | Okayplayer |
| It’s hard not to notice the lack of newer culturally defining projects featured on Dattpiff. The reason: Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and Soundcloud offer payout streaming royalties, while Datpiff and other independent mixtape sites do not. | | |
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 | Loud And Quiet |
| King Gizzard explain why they hatched this ridiculous plan and how they’ve managed to execute it with such wildly different LPs. | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| SoundCloud needs to adapt if it’s going to make it in 2018. | | |
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 | Variety |
| A company-wide memo sent out by the head of human resources at the Warner Music Group on Friday warned employees of impending media articles about allegations against WMG employees - and confirmed that "some of the allegations were found to be true," leading to "appropriate disciplinary actions against the relevant employees." | | |
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| Billboard |
| As listeners were encountering Daniel Hernandez's music for the first time, many were also learning that, in 2015, the Brooklyn rapper known for his face tattoos and infamous WorldStar videos pled guilty to three felony counts in New York Supreme Court for use of a child in a sexual performance. | | |
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 | Salon |
| Now on tour, the band's new album "The Knowledge" roundly contradicts the theory that veteran bands lose the plot when they tackle new material. | | |
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 | NPR |
| Eminem joins Michel Martin to talk taking on President Trump, racial disparity and his own maturing career on his ninth studio album. | | |
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 | Very Smart Brothas |
| I was part of a conversation last week with two writers of color where the concept of genius in art was discussed - specifically, how white men have anointed themselves both the sole possessors and the arbiters of it, and how reluctant they can be to consider works created by people of color to be worthy of this distinction. | | |
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