Prince’s next album “HITNRUN” will be a TIDAL exclusive, released September 7th
Prince says:
“After one meeting, it was obvious that Jay Z and the team he has assembled at TIDAL recognize and applaud the effort that real musicians put in2 their craft 2 achieve the very best they can at this pivotal time in the music industry. Secondly, TIDAL have honored Us with a non-restrictive arrangement that once again allows Us to continue making art in the fashion We’ve grown accustomed 2 and We’re Extremely grateful 4 their generous support. And lastly, in the tech-savvy, real-time world We all live in 2day, everything is faster. From its conception and that one & only meeting, HITNRUN took about 90 days 2 prepare its release. If that’s what freedom feels like, HITNRUN is what it sounds like.”
Anwen Crawford On Why The World Needs Female Rock Critics
“The problem for women is that our role in popular music was codified long ago. And it was codified, in part, by the early music press. In the effort to prove the burgeoning rock scene of the sixties a worthy subject of critical inquiry, rock needed to be established as both serious and authentic. One result of these arguments—the Rolling Stones vs. Muddy Waters, Motown vs. Stax, Bob Dylan vs. the world—was that women came out on the losing side, as frivolous and phony.
Perhaps fiction and memoir, more than criticism, provide space for female writers to dissect all that is maddening and wonderful about popular music: the spectacle, the chicanery, the beautiful lies it tells us. But there is plenty of need for female music critics yet. “Take it easy, babe,” Mick Jagger sang in “Under My Thumb,” still as glistering a slice of unrepentant misogyny as ever it was, unredeemed by time or by the million screaming girls who wriggled beneath Jagger’s commands. In a 1971 essay, Ellen Willis argued that Jagger’s “crude exhibitions of virility” were less sexist than the “condescending” pose of a bohemian like Cat Stevens; insofar as rock, she wrote, “pitted teenage girls’ inchoate energies against all their conscious and unconscious frustrations, it spoke implicitly for female liberation.” I don’t entirely agree with Willis’s defense of the Stones, but I do recognize the difficult trade-off she describes, between the freedom that rock can feel like, for a woman, and the subjugation that it might celebrate. It’s between these boundaries that the female critic works, hoping to clear a path.”
– Anwen Crawford, “The World Needs Female Rock Critics”
Duran Duran On Why They Think They’re Still So Influential
Every generation gets into Duran Duran. What do you think it is that makes this band still so influential?
Nick Rhodes: I think the approach we took has certainly become more popular with a lot of artists now. But we took it from everything we’d heard and seen and put it together. We liked Chic and Sister Sledge, and we liked David Bowie. We liked the Sex Pistols and Kraftwerk. Along the line we got into James Brown and electronic music and house music. It all goes into the mix, and that’s the way music’s always developed.
The world keeps catching up to where Duran Duran started.
Simon Le Bon: We’re still here. And we’ll wait forever if we have to.
Via Rolling Stone
What is ‘vocal fry,’ and why is this a new thing? Oh, it’s not?
You sound like a Kardashian or many actresses these days? Speech therapists “vocal fry” the call is low, throaty-up of young women are gaining importance. “Sunday Morning” Faith Salie contribute girls should be encouraged to find their voices, however, say that there should be creaky uncomfortable.
Watch A Breakup Happen In Real Time In Harrison’s Amazing “How Can It Be” Video
Oh, Harrison, we feel your pain…
Harrison – How Can It Be (feat. Maddee) from Last Gang Records on Vimeo.
You can pick up Harrison’s EP, ‘Colors’ on Last Gang / Jet Jam.
MusicOntario joins forces with Bell Media’s Canadian Songwriter Challenge for the 2015 Ontario Installment
MusicOntario is launching its chapter of the Canadian Songwriter Challenge, in partnership with the Bell Media National Songwriting Initiative and Canadian Council of Music Industry Associations (CCMIA). This event will be hosted by Canada’s Music Incubator at Coalition Music (Studios), and will take place from August 6-10, 2015.
From just under 200 applicants, five Ontario-based emerging songwriters have been selected to participate in the challenge, where they will have the opportunity to receive songwriting and music business mentorship, co-writing and demo time with an established industry heavy-hitter. The Challenge will facilitate collaboration sessions between the five emerging songwriters and five established songwriting professionals, challenging the pair to co-write and lay down a demo for a song in one day. Each participant will receive one-on-one business and creative mentorship in relation to their own current projects from mentors at Canada’s Music Incubator and ole publishing.
They five emerging songwriters are Maddy Rodruigez, Julian Taylor, Graydon James, Kat Burns (KASHKA), and Myles Castello, each of whom will be paired with one of their five mentors: Gavin Brown, Mike Wise, Liz Rodrigues, Donovan Woods, and Nathan Ferraro.
The Canadian Songwriter Challenge is MusicOntario’s first songwriting development initiative in a multi-year partnership with the CCMIA and Bell Media, and with the help of SOCAN and ole publishing. The CCMIA has held similar events in partnership with other Music Industry Associations across Canada this year.
The Two Greatest Segments Of The Daily Show Are Not What You Think
…or maybe they are. Jon Stewart is signing off as host of “The Daily Show” tonight, and I’m going to miss him terribly. While I’ve spent many a nights taughing at him “sitting in the back of the country and making jokes,” he was spot-on more times in a week than most hosts are in a year. You can always, always have time for Jon Stewart.
“They said get back to work, but there were no jobs available for a man in a fetal position under his desk crying.”
“I have one job and it’s a pretty simple job. I come in the morning and I look at the news and I make jokes about it — but I didn’t do my job today. I got nothing for you.”