| | | | Pusha-T had a surgical summer in 2018.
(Neilson Barnard/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “[Jay] didn't go 0-8. They went 0-8. They got it wrong.”
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| | rantnrave:// Political considerations aside, why does any musician want to play the SUPER BOWL? It seems like a worse gig than hosting the OSCARS. You don't get paid a dime. You do get heavily scrutinized, questioned and second-guessed. The fact that you're being asked means you almost certainly don't need either the work or the exposure, no matter how many quadrillion people in Texas and India are watching. I mean, no one's asking BOYGENIUS or TIERRA WHACK to headline. (Exception that proves the rule: BRUNO MARS probably got a material boost from his unusually early-in-his-career 2014 halftime, which was a good booking and a good show.) For all the build-up, rehearsal and sweat, you get a maximum 13 minutes on stage, which will end, for most viewers, not in the sound of thunderous applause but in an immediate cut to an announcement of who sponsored those 13 minutes. Those sponsors aren't paying you a dime either. You will have been, at best, the third most important element of the show, behind the game and the commercials. Unless your performance is transcendent or spectacular or involves a shark, it will largely be forgotten by the time they start playing exhibition baseball a few weeks later. (Quick quiz: Who was the halftime performer at this year's Super Bowl? How long did it take you to answer?) You can count on one hand the number of acts who have truly risen to the moment, and they were all performers who had little to gain but lots to give. BEYONCÉ had cultural news to share in her first of two halftime appearances and political news to share in her second (when she was one of COLDPLAY's two featured guests). Speaking to a billion people at a time is simply what U2 does. And PRINCE understood, as few performers do, that he was bigger not only than the game but the entire sport. He played with that conviction and won SUPER BOWL XLI easily over PEYTON MANNING's COLTS and REX GROSSMAN's BEARS. In 2019, in Atlanta, it will be MAROON 5, even though neither the band nor the NFL has actually announced this. The pop-rock band has spent the past three months either listening to or ignoring (what are the other options?) loud calls and petitions for it to back out because, well, there *are* political and cultural considerations. A) KAEPERNICK. B) How best to represent the ATL, especially now, in the age of Kaepernick. ADAM LEVINE's band also, apparently, has been listening to numerous acts turn down guest slots, but on Thursday came reports that TRAVIS SCOTT has agreed to play, and discussions reportedly are ongoing with CARDI B and BIG BOI. They can look forward to blowback, too. JAY-Z and MEEK MILL are already on Travis Scott's case. Scott will come to the game with serious hip-hop credibility and one of 2018's most acclaimed albums. But in this moment, at this Super Bowl, those aren't the metrics anymore. The question this time, for both him and M5, is: What will you do the moment? What will you make of those 13 minutes? What do you have to give?... Speaking of sharks... Is it possible that every track on CARDI B's INVASION OF PRIVACY is certified gold (or better)? Is this the new normal?... Former RUNAWAYS bassist JACKIE FUCHS' four-day run as a JEOPARDY! champion came to an end Thursday night. She tells PITCHFORK why she waited until day three to mention her rock and roll past, and why she wishes there had been more classical music and opera questions and fewer pop questions... BREXIT to working-class touring musicians: Go away... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from 21 SAVAGE, A BOOGIE WIT DA HOODIE, THE-DREAM, THE CIA, MIKE, CHEWING, CEREBRUM, REEL BIG FISH and, from JOJO, a re-recorded album that we can totally get behind... MusicREDEF is taking a few days off for the holidays. We'll return late next week with a series of year-end editions. We'll recap the year in business on Dec. 27, look back on the artists of the year on Dec. 28 and pay tribute to those we lost on Dec. 31... Here are a few music docs to watch in the meantime... Or watch some newer ones: NETFLIX has released three episodes so far of its investigative series REMASTERED, on JAM MASTER JAY, BOB MARLEY and JOHNNY CASH. And the newest installments of MIKE JUDGE's animated CINEMAX series, TALES FROM THE TOUR BUS, chronicle the purple ups and down of MORRIS DAY AND THE TIME and, premiering tonight, the revolutionary and controversial funk of BETTY DAVIS... Wishing you a merry Christmas filled with songs of joy and peace. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| | | santa claus go straight to the ghetto |
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 | Passion of the Weiss |
| 2018 saw a great deal of excellent rap full-lengths with EP running times. Colin Gannon investigates. | | |
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 | Complex |
| A conversation with one of the music industry's leading innovators on the state of the culture, and how he plans to upend it again. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| Pizza with Kylie Jenner, love from the mayor, and quality time with Grandma Sealie: A Lamborghini tour of Houston with hip-hop’s newest superstar. | | |
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 | DownBeat |
| When bassist Anna Butterss moved to Los Angeles in 2014, her plan was to stay for no more than a year. Her main draw to the city was her boyfriend, saxophonist Josh Johnson, who had arrived a couple of years before her to study at the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at UCLA. | | |
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 | The Atlantic |
| Kanye West is wrong about mental-health treatment being an obstacle to great art. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| From the murder of XXXTentacion to the arrest of 6ix9ine, 2018 has seen ‘SoundCloud rap’ embroiled in more controversy than ever. Is a moral outcry now justified? | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| This new series from WQXR and the Metropolitan Opera feels immediately accessible and wonderfully focussed, with a hint of narrative to encourage the curious. | | |
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 | Motherboard |
| Image: Wikipedia There's no denying that holiday music is somewhat formulaic. You'd think it would be easy for a computer to generate something indistinguishable from the typical carols piped through department stores this time of year. Turns out, it's not that easy. | | |
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 | The Verge |
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 | The New York Times |
| This documentary portrays an artist who loved making music but hated the stresses of performing. | | |
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| | | tell 'em james brown sent you |
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 | The Moment with Brian Koppelman |
| Rock icon Geddy Lee on being Geddy Lee. | | |
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 | Revolver |
| Musician Kyle Felter on life-and-death fight for identity, Navajo Nation heavy metal, recording with Flemming Rasmussen | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| A ranking covering everything in between ‘Grease’ and ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ | | |
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 | Noisey |
| Nicki Minaj reminded us why rap personalities thrive on-air. The identity of black radio and its oral tradition dates back further than the airwaves. | | |
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 | The Washington Post |
| The Public Theater production makes Bob Dylan’s iconic songs its own. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Decca Vice President Tom Lewis on the past, present and future of the iconic label. | | |
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 | She Shreds |
| Fans with disabilities face enormous difficulties navigating concert venues, but these women-led organizations are changing that. | | |
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 | Highsnobiety |
| Pusha-T's 'DAYTONA' was alive with the sense of a master craftsman doing what they do best -- dig in to why we named it album of the year. | | |
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| The New Yorker |
| A list of wintery pop that encourages feeling good, here and now, in the snow or by the fire, with or without fa-la-la-la-las. | | |
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 | i-D Magazine |
| 'This person doesn't even know that Mariah loves them. Is this person in another relationship? Why can't they be together?' | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | Pusha-T demolishes Drake with one of the dissiest diss tracks of a dizzily dissy year. |
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| © Copyright 2018, The REDEF Group |
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