So much [pop and rock] is just about youthful feelings of infatuation, and really temporary things... I’m more interested in how messy and complicated and just kind of muddy long relationships are, or life gets as you keep living. That’s much more interesting to me right now than something that’s effervescent. | | | | Janelle Monáe's got a guitar pick and she's gonna use it. Central Park, New York, Sept. 29, 2018.
(Michael Kovac/FilmMagic/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “So much [pop and rock] is just about youthful feelings of infatuation, and really temporary things... I’m more interested in how messy and complicated and just kind of muddy long relationships are, or life gets as you keep living. That’s much more interesting to me right now than something that’s effervescent.”
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| | rantnrave:// Random headlines we've shared in the past year from various corners of the musicverse: "Inside Country Radio's Dark, Secret History of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct." "I Talked to 54 Women at COACHELLA. They All Said They Had Been Sexually Harassed." "How the music industry overlooked R. KELLY’s alleged abuse of young women." "The Music Industry Doesn't Know What To Do With Men Like TEKASHI69 & XXXTENTACION." "KOOL A.D. and DAHVIE VANITY Have Been Accused of Sexual Assault, But They Were Outed On TUMBLR Years Ago." Open secrets all. The first of those was from Jan.16. The last, from Wednesday. Every week in between, someone somewhere has asked when #MeToo will hit the music biz. In numerous ways, it has. There have been several high-profile allegations, admissions and punishments in 2018, from corner offices to corners of stages. There have been apologies and promises. But the stories are almost always individual ones, not systematic ones. Country radio tours still go on. Festivals haven't suddenly become grope-free (and try staging a women-only festival and you may find you've run afoul of the law). R. Kelly is still signed to RCA RECORDS. A WEINSTEIN- or MOONVES-type reckoning has yet to happen. It needs to happen, even if there's no Weinstein- or Moonves-type figure to attach it to. A proactive attack, not on individual actors but on system-wide behaviors. A change in decision-making structures to encourage better behavior and discourage worse behavior. An elevation of women's voices, not just on the radio, but in the rooms that profit from those voices. A wish for 2019... For the first time since 1984, there are GRAMMY Album of the Year nominees that don't exist on CD... Why the music biz should pay attention to China and the Middle East... The year in mixes (per MIXMAG)... The year in mixes (per RESIDENT ADVISOR)... The year in mixes (per the GUARDIAN)... The FLUXBLOG mix... Blurred lines for dances... Robots taking piano lessons... RIP ANCA POP. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Though many artists, producers, and executives were accused of misconduct this year, the consequences for such actions often remained unclear. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
| The conversation around mental health in electronic music has moved forward this year - but bad habits still remain. | | |
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 | The Baffler |
| The emergence of a total Spotify genre. | | |
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 | Music Tech Solutions |
| Spotify is a particularly interesting stock for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with the nature of the initial offering. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| On the eve of the 2019 Grammy nominations, four industry leaders gathered for a conversation about what The Recording Academy can do better, respecting the history of hip-hop and whether Cardi will win it all. | | |
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 | Variety |
| Monique Chavez founded Her Music Club to advocate for increased presence of women in the industry. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| One secret of the singer-songwriter’s artistry is that she has never feared the ludicrous-she tries things that other musicians would be too careful or cool to go near. | | |
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 | Genius |
| “In order to have a long, storied career, you got to be able to say something.” | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| How a blockbuster video game (which sold nearly 20 million copies in its first weeks on sale) is introducing players around the world to rootsy Americana sounds. | | |
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 | Please Kill Me |
| Lost in the shadows of the Watergate hearings and disco fever, four grisly murders riveted and terrified Music City USA, rekindling a wave of paranoia reminiscent of the Manson Family killings | | |
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| | | drip drip dripped in gold |
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| The New Yorker |
| It is becoming increasingly impossible to untangle the political from the personal or, in this case, the recreational. | | |
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 | Slate |
| Substantive reform cannot happen without radical transparency regarding hiring, promotion, and pay. | | |
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 | The FADER |
| An interview with self-proclaimed King of R&B Jacquees about his breakout year, his "Trip" cover, and what comes next. | | |
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| Billboard |
| The music industry has historically turned a blind eye on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) because the vast majority of the region's consumers still listen to music for free -- either through legal ad-supported channels, or through physical or online piracy. | | |
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 | Passion of the Weiss |
| Jack Riedy presents an oral history of the watershed 1998 album. | | |
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| Rolling Stone |
| A lawsuit against the company behind the enormously popular video game raises questions about what, exactly, it takes to own a dance move. | | |
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 | Motherboard |
| TikTok, which is mega popular with children and teens, has a problem with blatant, violent white supremacy and Nazism. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| Six Grammy nominations cap an impressive year for beloved Americana star Brandi Carlile, who is the most nominated female artist going into February's Grammy Awards. | | |
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 | TechCrunch |
| The iPod Classic still looms larger as my favorite gadget of all time. Sure, plenty have lapped the device in terms of technology, while any lingering concerns about not owning the music I listen to have faded for the ubiquity of Spotify, but the iPod lives on in the perfect sweet spot for my own musical obsessions. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Of the three jukebox bio-musicals about female pop stars now on Broadway, it’s the latest that best understands its audience. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Janelle Monáe (ft. Zoë Kravitz) |
| | A message for 2018: "You f***ed the world up now, we'll f*** it all back down." |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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