Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul, voice of the civil rights movement and feminist icon has died at the age of 76 of pancreatic cancer according to her family. Franklin not only defined her times with her powerful voice, but transcended them to become a key figure for social justice. With more than one hundred singles on the Billboard chart over the course of her career, she become the most charted female in history. She also had a large collection of purses that made many public appearances, with Franklin even taking them on stage on with her.
What happened to Azealia Banks last weekend?
According to now deleted Instagram stories, Banks spent the weekend waiting for Grimes at Elon Musk’s LA home, describing the scene as a real live version of Get Out. Banks and Grimes were supposed to collaborate on a single for Banks’ forthcoming album, but when Grimes never showed, Banks went on a Musk-bashing tirade, claiming he tweets while on acid, that he is only dating Grimes because he needed a date to the Met Gala, and that she overheard Musk on the phone scrambling to find investors for his projects. Elon Musk responded by saying he has never met Azealia Banks and that her story is “complete nonsense.”
The New New
Nicki Minaj dropped her fourth album Queen this week and although she is not the main artist listed on 6ix9ine’s “Fefe,” she added the song as track 20, most likely to boost album sales. Cat Power has a new song called “Woman” featuring Lana Del Rey. Paul McCartney released a “raunchy” new song called “Fuh You.”
Gunshots were fired on the set of 6ix9ine and 50 Cent’s music video. Police found 11 bullet casings and two handguns in the Greenpoint, Brooklyn filming location, but have not named anyone connected with the incident. No one was injured.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]Prince would’ve turned 60 on 6/7; his estate will release Piano and a Microphone 1983 in September.
No More Hate…Policy, New Releases & More
By Jasmine Williams
Spotify Says “JK!”
In a continuation of last week’s story, Spotify has completely walked back their recently introduced “hateful content and conduct” policy. The streaming giant announced their decision via a blog post stating that they “don’t aim to play judge and jury” and citing “vague” language that created “confusion and concern” as the reason for abandoning the policy. Critics of the policy accused the platform of censorship and racism; the first and only three artists singled out by the rule were R. Kelly, Tay-K, and XXXTentacion – black males, not yet convicted of their accused crimes.
Spotify’s decision to rescind their policy has also been met with criticism. While only a half measure – the “hate conduct” rule seemed like a step in the right direction for many involved in the #MeToo movement. While Spotify cites ethical reasons for cancelling its new rule, the action could also be seen as yet another example of the music industry pandering to money over the fight against misogyny and sexual harassment. Spofity’s decision to reverse the policy came only days after it was reported that Top Dawg Entertainment (Kendrick Lamar’s label) threatened to remove their artists’ music from the app, while Pitchfork’s Jillian Mapes points out that Sony (R. Kelly’s record label) is a Spotify shareholder.
YouTube Vs. Copyright Infringement
In a preliminary ruling with potentially big implications, the Vienna Commercial Court found that YouTube is at least partly liable for copyright infringement in videos uploaded by the streaming platform’s independent users. YouTube says that it does what it can to prevent copyright-infringing videos from remaining on the site, but that as a “neutral platform” it can’t completely control its users or the content they upload. The court disagrees, thanks to that innocuous little “Up Next” sidebar to the right of the main video that suggests additional content based on whatever the viewer happens to be watching, or has watched in the past. Because the courts see this as helping to determine what viewers watch, they say it nullifies YouTube’s neutrality.
What does all of this mean? It means YouTube could be forced to ramp up its monitoring efforts or face strict fines. Though the hearing in question revolved around Austrian TV channel Puls4, this could change what users see (and upload) on the streaming site the world over.
Meanwhile, the infamous “Dancing Baby” case has been settled after eleven years of back-and-forth between Universal Music and a mom who uploaded a video of her toddler getting his groove on while Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” played in their kitchen. With the kid in question about to enter middle school, the Vienna ruling might’ve put blame on the shoulders of YouTube itself.
Oldies but Goodies?
A recent survey in Britain came to the conclusion that most people stop listening to new music after the age of thirty. Music streaming service, Deezer, surveyed 1,000 people and found that more than sixty percent of them mainly listened to music they discovered before the big 3-0.
Break out of the mold and check out brand new music below!
That New New
Shannon and the Clams vocalist and namesake Shannon Shaw released her solo album, Shannon in Nashville, today. She’ll play some solo shows before reconnecting with her band for live shows this summer.
Yesterday Prince would have turned 60. Perhaps in memory of the occasion, his estate announced the upcoming release of Piano & A Microphone 1983, an album of stripped back, previously unheard music.
You remember it. You know you do. Every morning, at 9am sharp. Standing. Hat off. Left arm, stiff at your side. Right hand resting on heart – reluctantly. All together now:
“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
There came a time in my elementary school life, when this routine incantation became unbearable to perform. Naturally, this sudden sourness coincided with the election of George W. Bush, and his subsequent invasions and monstrosities. As we approach our first President’s Day under Donald Trump, I imagine school kids everywhere are experiencing a similar sourness during the assemblies leading up to the national holiday, the songs and pageantries one has to perform in public school, K-12.
During these morning customs, I mainly recall feeling so disillusioned with what felt like a national disease; I couldn’t bring myself to touch my heart and recite the Pledge – let alone stand up. The religious overtones of the poem always made me uncomfortable anyway, so I remained seated instead, fixing my gaze on the floor.
This did not go over well.
I lived in a small Republican lumber town – a town of many Carhart jumpsuits, many pickup trucks and several conservative teachers. What were the latter to do with their blue-haired, straight-A student who, by pleading the First Amendment, wasn’t actually breaking any rules? I relished in their visible frustration when they were unable punish me. They couldn’t even win outside of the classroom, as they knew calling my parents would amount to jack shit.
I was lucky enough to have parents who intrinsically distrusted institutional authority – or any authority for that matter. These were parents who routinely arranged “hookie” days to take me to the zoo, or on a ferry ride, or any of the multitudinous activities more educational and interesting than grade school. My political idealism was the least of their concerns; my dad admired it, and my mom was just happy I wasn’t injecting drugs. It was a win-win situation.
Years on, I can sift through all of the mornings, all of the assemblies and pep rallies I sat through, firmly planted on bleachers during the Pledge, the National Anthem, and that cruel excuse for a song, “God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood. Perhaps you were of the lucky lot whose school did not require its students to stand and, hand on heart, sing the putrid, nationalistic, country-crossover, garbage heap of a “song” that is “God Bless the USA.” I suspect that everyone in my graduating year could deliver its lyrics with rapid snaps of deeply ingrained memory at its opening chords.
“If tomorrow all the things were gone/I’d worked for all my life/And I had to start again/With just my children and my wife”
Ok, this is already getting problematic for a crowd of school children to be singing.
“I’d thank my lucky stars/To be living here today/Cause the flag still stands for freedom/And they can’t take that away.”
Who the fuck are they? This song was written in 1992. Somehow within seconds Lee Greenwood had married off and impregnated an entire gymnasium full of children, and put the paranoid words “they can’t take that away” into our tiny mouths. That’s creepy. It was a song that sounded born of wartime – where any one of us could be shipped off to the battlefield to fight “them,” and we would never see our Beanie Babies again. Looking back, it was absurd to make a school full of elementary students sing this. A rhyme reciting the Constitution or the Bill of Rights might have proven more useful.
What strikes me most when revisiting these memories isn’t the immense satisfaction I felt while refusing to stand, or the disgust with singing Lee Greenwood’s song…especially that chorus:
“I’m proud to be an American/Where at least I know I’m free/And I won’t forget the men who died/Who gave that right to me/And I gladly stand up/Next to you and defend her still today/Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land/God bless the USA.”
What really bugs me is that despite my efforts to resist, despite my repulsion with these mandatory rituals, these songs and pledges and poems have been effectively lodged into my psyche forever. I will never be able to reclaim the chunk of brain tissue “God Bless the USA” has set up camp on forever. This is the beauty and the beast of music, however; the bad can be just as memorable as the good… like sex.
But what if, in light of our current President, we could sing different songs at our assemblies? There are dozens of songs that have been written about Presidents over the years, and while Mr. Greenwood was one of the chosen musical failures to play Trump’s inauguration, doesn’t a President in 2017 deserve an update? Here are a handful of President-related songs one could modify for public school assemblies nationwide. Or, if you homeschool or pay for private school, use the originals! You’re kids are going to learn the word “fuck” no matter what. I promise.
Lily Allen, “Fuck You”
There’s nothing I love more than a catchy pop song with cruel lyrics. Lily Allen wrote this for George W. Bush (as she confirmed at a concert in Brazil in 2009), but it works remarkably well as an anti-Trump number.
“Look inside/Look inside your tiny mind,” chimes Allen. “Now look a bit harder/Cause we’re so uninspired/So sick and tired of all the hatred you harbor.”
It’s perfect!
Grade school modification: Change “fuck you” to “fudge you.”
Radiohead, “2+2=5”
Also written in the Bush/Cheney era, “2+2=5” nods at George Orwell’s 1984 – which is currently enjoying an upswing in sales as the public turns to it again for answers. The equation is brilliant for its simple and effective message, which connotes the intentional peddling of misinformation. The song also includes Radiohead’s album title of that year (2003) Hail To The Thief – a spoof on the traditional, President-praising anthem, “Hail To The Chief.” You couldn’t ask for a better President’s Day song this year!
Grade school modification: make sure the children do not walk away thinking that 2+2 actually =5.
YG and Nipsey Hussle, “FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)”
Kids love rap, so this will be an easy assembly sell. With a few modifications, you can Martha Stewart this shit up and have a catchy fight song for your little resisters.
“Yeah, fuck Donald Trump/Yeah nigga, fuck Donald Trump/This is for my grandma!/Yeah, yeah, fuck Donald Trump, yeah.”
Grade school modification: change “fuck” to “funk,” don’t say the “N” word. Ever. Keep that “grandma” bit in. Someone is getting extra dessert for that.
Bright Eyes, “When The President Talks To God”
This one’s great for kids. They will learn about xenophobia, the prison industrial complex, and consonants. There is a line about “dirty coke” but you can just pretend it is the cola variety. This song may have also been written about G. W. Bush, but as you can hear, it is still relevant – unfortunately.
“When the President talks to God/Do they drink near-beer and go play golf/While they pick which countries to invade?/Which Muslim souls still can be saved?/I guess God just calls a spade a spade/When the President talks to God.”
Grade school modification: change “bullshit” to “doodie.”
The Honey Drippers, “Impeach The President”
Simple, funky, and more relevant than ever. This will be a fan favorite. Kids will learn all about the impeachment process and the transformative power of funk. Pretty much the only words are “impeach the president,” which can be easily integrated into preschool programs as well.
Grade school modification: none.
Happy President’s Day y’all. And don’t forget, #Fuck/Funk/FudgeDonaldTrump.
Last night Missy Elliott released “I’m Better,” a new song and video featuring the song’s producer, Lamb. The sparse, downtempo track creeps along with clinks of keys and surges of bass, while the video is vintage Missy, depicting backup dancers in stunning outfits suspended by ropes, underwater, and on exercise balls. Along with the track comes an announcement of a soon-to-be-released Missy documentary; watch the trailer here and listen to Missy and other artists discussing her ground-breaking work – some describe her as “a creative genius” and “extraterrestrial.”
Madonna Gives Speech Women’s March In D.C.
“Good did not win this election, but good will win in the end,” she began. The speech resulted in Madonna’s songs being banned from the radio station Texarkana’s Hits 105. Apparently they weren’t happy with the speech’s profanity, and that she said she had thought about blowing up the White House. Hey, we’ve all been there. Watch the speech below:
“I’m going to a town that’s already been burnt down.” Lily Allen turned Rufus Wainwright’s “Going to a Town” into a political protest, singing its poignant lyrics over Mark Ronson’s subtle string arrangements. The accompanying black and white video shows footage from the London Women’s March, where she also performed the song. Check out the video, which was directed by Bafic:
Arcade Fire, Lorde, Miley Cyrus, Lily Allen, Beyonce, and also everyone who has negative thoughts about Beyonce: you are racist. Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake, Action Bronson, James Brooks, Chris Ott, Beyonce, and also everyone who has negative thoughts about Beyonce: you’re sexist. And R. Kelly? You are criminally sick, and it’s sad it took us all this long to come to terms with that.
While the internet has been known to work itself into a tizzy and sometimes misses the point, all this goes beyond the “haters gon’ hate” anachronism. This year certainly wasn’t the first time anyone examined culture through a progressive lens, but it feels refreshing to read about privilege in relation to pop music. There will be those that will roll their eyes and some whose eyes will be opened. Whether you are more upset over Arcade Fire’s appropriation of Haitian culture in the making and promoting of Reflektoror that they asked fans to dress in formal wear for their shows doesn’t exactly matter because the conversations are still happening.
And sometimes, just the conversation is the positive thing, the thing that shows real sea change. Best case in point: the roundtable of eight female journalists that Spin assembled to discuss the work of James Brooks, an artist who’d been discussed up to that point mainly on message boards and on his girlfriend Grimes’ tumblr. As a song, “On Fraternity” was not especially memorable, but the discussion that followed its release – about whether it was appropriate for Brooks as a man to “explain” rape culture to women, or to name his project Dead Girlfriends, kind of was. Because it compiled the opinions of eight amazing writers who, because of their gender, are still a minority in their industry (even in 2013).
It’s the same industry that produced a guy like Chris Ott, who has some very valid points about the ethics of advertisers appropriating “cool” as interpreted by young writers. But because he singled out the Pelly twins (and dug himself a deeper hole in trying to explain why) his arguments got lost in the (equally valid) debate about whether his comments were sexist. In the end, he may have looked more curmudgeonly than anything else, but it raises an interesting question about the very blurry lines between free speech, hate speech, and sponsored content.
Which brings me to everyone’s favorite Marvin Gaye rip-off. Robin Thicke’s video, the MTV VMA performance, and the date-rapey overtones of “Blurred Lines” were among the most discussed stories of the year. In one of the more interesting examinations of the song’s politics, a feminist writer talked about how she was able to compartmentalize the its content because she just really, really loved the song. There are a lot of women who share her ability to do that. Agree or not, you have to admire that admission, because there were plenty of people who just shrugged and kept dancing without bothering to point out that women have to do this all the time, because so much of music portrays them as less than human.
There have always been controversial characters and questionable lyrics. That piece also named R. Kelly as one of them (the writer, again, was able to set aside Kelly’s “alleged” crimes to enjoy “Remix to Ignition”). But that was before Jess Hopper interviewed Jim DeRogatis, the reporter who broke Kelly’s sex scandal. For fifteen years, juries and fans alike ignored his crimes, made jokes. But because of that piece there are a lot of people who are now unable, or straight up refuse, to compartmentalize that reality to get through Black Panties without wanting to barf. Why did it take fifteen years to come to terms with the fact that R. Kelly is a predator? We knew it all along.
The difference, really, is the internet. Most of DeRogatis’ reporting on the subject was done in print; Hopper is in a distinct position as music editor of Rookie, contributor to Spin, Village Voice, etc. etc. etc. to reach an audience that DeRogatis could not. There are a lot of people writing think-pieces and open letters and retweeting important writing these days, and while they may not do it as eloquently as the professionals, they are no longer just screaming into a void. Will that give artists in 2014 pause while they consider more deeply how their works and actions will be perceived? Even if it takes us until 2050, let’s keep thinking.
Ticket Giveaways
Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.
