Hip-Hop is Dead, The Laugh Track is Dead, and John Updike Lives: Link Drop
A new feature rounding up links to recent music news, along with podcasts, albums, and stories that I've been enjoying.
I usually reserve Sundays for interviews and answering reader questions. This week, I want to try something new. I want to highlight interesting stories around the music world, along with some oddball links and digital ephemera. Though Sunday newsletters are typically only available for paid subscribers, today’s will be available to everyone to see if this link-fest is worth doing each month. Let me know by responding to the poll at the end.
Links, Links, Link
Musical Trends to Keep an Eye On
“Hip-Hop is Declining in Popularity” by Shannon Power (Newsweek)
When looking back at what happened in 2023, I speculated about how hip-hop’s popularity might be stagnating. In that piece, I made it clear that hip-hop wasn’t going away. And it clearly hasn’t. Over the last month, the Kendrick Lamar-Drake beef dominated popular music. That said, there are still signs that music’s dominant genre might be shifting. Shannon Power explores that here.
“The Curious Case Of The Underselling Arena Tours” by Zach Schonfeld (Stereogum)
Over the last six months, we’ve seen big stars cancel tours because of poor ticket sales. In a long investigation for Stereogum, Zach Schonfeld explores what’s going on and why Live Nation is at least partially to blame. Shocker.
“Can Coca-Cola Crack the Charts with Its Ambitious New Plan?” by Katie Bain (Billboard)
This story isn’t directly about music industry trends in the same way the previous two are. It’s about how Coca-Cola, in conjunction with Universal Music Group, is trying to release hit songs with prominent artists via their new venture, Coke Studio. While that’s interesting in its own right, I think it’s an example of a larger trend we will see play out in the coming years, namely big brands trying their hand at music.
Listen & Learn
“The Laff Box” by Decoder Ring
The laugh track once dominated sitcom television. Now, it’s a thing of the past. Slate’s culture critic Willa Paskin explores what happened on her fantastic podcast Decoder Ring.
“A Sociopath’s Guide to Death, Sex, and Money” by Death, Sex & Money
Most people don’t talk about death, sex, and money in polite conversation. Anna Sale’s podcast seeks to talk about those very topics with the most interesting guests around. In this episode, she does so with a diagnosed sociopath.
Listen & Enjoy
Happy Trails by Quicksilver Messenger Service
Though he’s a legendary rock musician, Bo Diddley still feels underrated to me. The man played the guitar like a drum, pushing rhythm guitar further in a matter of years than most people do in decades. When San Francisco rockers Quicksilver Messenger Service recorded a live album in the late-1960s, they decided to take Bo Diddley’s eponymous rhythm and stretch it out into an entire album. It’s an experiment that shouldn’t work. Song-after-song built on the same rhythm should get redundant, right? It should. But the magic of Happy Trails is that it doesn’t.
All Born Screaming by St. Vincent
I was obsessed with St. Vincent’s 2017 album MASSEDUCTION when it came out. In fact, I recommended one of the songs from that album a few weeks ago. But after that, I was very cold on her follow-up. When she released All Born Screaming a few weeks ago, I was expecting much the same. I was happily surprised to find my expectations upended. All Born Streaming saw the Texas guitarist dive deep into industrial rock (à la Nine Inch Nails) that will leave your soul with a slight tremor.
Theory & Criticism
“The bottom number in time signatures has always confused me” by Ethan Hein (Ethan teaches you Music)
Ethan Hein is one of today’s great communicators of how music works. In this piece, he explores a question that has puzzled me for a long time: What does the bottom number of a time signature mean on a piece of sheet music? That answer is … strange.
“Charli XCX Recalibrates the Pop Game With Career-Best ‘Brat’ LP (Critic’s Take)” by Kyle Denis (Billboard)
Charli XCX recently dropped the thrilling electronic LP BRAT. It’s worth a spin, if you haven’t listened to it. This review caught my eye because it starts with a long paragraph that seems to insult Taylor Swift without ever naming her. I don’t necessarily disagree with the criticism, but I was shocked that it was used to open the review.
Musical History to Write Home About
“The Musical History Lesson Buried Beneath the Song of the Summer” by Dan Charnas (Slate)
It’s looking like Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” is going to dominate airwaves this summer. (Then again, she just dropped “Please Please Please”, another song that is looking to be a smash.) Dan Charnas, one of the most thought-provoking music journalists around today, uses “Espresso” as an excuse to explore a style of music that never really got a name.
“The Strangest Hit Songwriter in History” by Ted Gioia (The Honest Broker)
Ted Gioia, one of today’s great musical historians, tells the story of Eden Ahbez, the mystical musician who ended up writing the hit song “Nature Boy” for Nat King Cole. Ahbez would soon disappear, but his hit would live on.
Assorted Art
“A&P” by John Updike
I’d hardly call myself a fan of John Updike. I had to give up on his famous novel Rabbit, Run because the whole thing felt pointless. Nevertheless, I’ll sometimes stumble upon some of his shorter works and find myself blown away. The two that always come to mind are “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”, his 1960 reflection in The New Yorker about Ted Williams’ last game, and “A&P”, a short story about a confused teenager working in his local supermarket. I reread the latter last week. If you’ve never read it, take it for a spin. It’s only a few pages.
News from the Music World
“Sony, Universal, Warner and Merlin Strike Music Licensing Deals with Twitch for DJ Livestreams” by Murray Stassen (Music Business Worldwide)
Twitch, the Amazon-owned live streaming platform, should be one of the most influential platforms in music. I say that because live streaming is dominated by video games, and video games have an intimate relationship with music. The problem is that Twitch does not have licenses for most music. That’s why this new deal is so important. Though it is focused on DJ livestreams, it might open the door for gamers to have music playing in their streams.
“Spotify to Introduce More Expensive Subscription Tier for Music Lovers” by Ashley Carman and Lucas Shaw (Bloomberg)
News has been circulating about Spotify’s “supremium” tier for a while now. While the details remain scant, it is said to cost 40% more and come with both higher-quality audio and advanced curation tools. I’m going back-and-forth on if listeners will pay for this. On one hand, people have not batted an eye at video streaming services increasing prices. On the other, I don’t know how much your average listener cares about higher-quality audio.
News from the Tech World
“It’s time to BeAcquired for €500 million” by Emma Roth (The Verge)
BeReal, the anti-social social media app that only allowed users to post once a day, was the hottest app a few years ago. Like many buzzy apps, users tanked as fast as they rose. With growth allegedly stalling, the team looked to sell or raise more money. They recently succeeded at the former by offloading the app to the French app developer Voodoo. Voodoo, a company that seems to make a lot of mind-numbing apps, claims BeReal still has “more than 40 million monthly active users, half of whom use the app at least six days a week.” I don’t buy that, but I hope the BeReal founders got to go on a nice vacation.
Wikipedia Worship
It’s always nice to read a Wikipedia page to get reminded that there are people out there who are really smart. Brahmagupta is one of those people. Before the year 700, he was describing gravity and finding solutions to the quadratic equation.
“Athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon”
A Wikipedia article so wild that you have to read a quote from the introduction to properly understand it:
While Frederick Lorz was greeted as the apparent winner, he was later disqualified as he had hitched a ride in a car for part of the race. The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was near collapse and hallucinating by the end of the race, a side effect of being administered brandy, raw eggs, and strychnine by his trainers. The fourth-place finisher, Andarín Carvajal, took a nap during the race after eating spoiled apples.
Fun & Games
Despite the fact that the popular cover song has been dead for a long time, I’m a sucker for an inventive cover. That’s why I was thrilled when a friend shared Gender Swap with me. Though it was built to catalog women covering songs by men, it’s grown into a nifty tool to help locate covers according to specific metadata. Want to hear a sad cover of Kiss’s “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”? Want to hear a group of men cover Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time”? Want to hear an acoustic cover of “Pour Some Sugar On Me”? Gender Swap has you covered for covers.
Love the links. Especially the one about the Gender Swap cover songs project. I’m going to add some of my own to the mix!
did you see the Billboard news about Strait breaking the US concert attendance record yesterday? Previous record was the Dead in Englishtown NJ, ‘77.