Amy Ray released her new video for Tear It Down which follows the activism and actions of Project Say Something, Florence, AL. Elliott BROOD released the video for their acoustic gem, Stay Out. In what looks like a video constrained by a pandemic, Austra released Mountain Baby (feat. Cecile Believe).
Bonus: ANOHNI with a poignant cover of Gloria Gaynor’s classic, I will survive. Read the whole story here.
A great article that really carves out the different approaches as to how we support music.
"Spotify and Bandcamp could not be more opposite. Where Spotify highlights playlists, most often of its own creation, Bandcamp sticks to the album (or any other format, as determined by the artist). Where Spotify pays royalties according to little-understood formulas that can only be analyzed by reverse calculation, Bandcamp lets artists and labels choose their own prices. Where Spotify requires working through a limited number of distributors to access their services, Bandcamp is open to anyone. Where Spotify has revenue streams dependent on ads and data, Bandcamp operates on a simple revenue share with artists and collects no information on its users.
Spotify is now worth an estimated $54 billion on the stock market, despite having never shown an annual profit. Bandcamp is privately owned, has been in the black since 2012, and continues to grow... slowly. You might be tempted to say that one is a 21st-century business, and the other belongs to an earlier age. But neither could exist at any other time."
A fun little trip down memory lane.
"'It definitely started as a digital platform,' says Diamond. 'In 2007, when we started the company, streaming didn't exist in the United States and our competition essentially was piracy. And the idea in 2007 primarily was that nobody was going to pay for music anymore. And it just seemed very obvious to me that if you like some music from one of your favorite artists, you should be able to support them directly. And so we built the platform to do that. My reference point for this was blogging services. In 2007, you had Blogger, Typepad, Movable Type, services that were essentially like white label services for writers – you could set up a site within minutes and tap this direct relationship with your readers. And it seemed crazy to me that if your artistic output happened to be music instead of words, you were just out of luck.'
'And the most promising thing that happened in the early days,' Diamond continues, 'was we immediately saw people start to actually buy music, which was very exciting. I wasn't sure that was going to happen! And then, one of the fun things that happened was we started to look at the search terms people were using that brought them to a Bandcamp artist's site that led to a purchase. And several times per hour, we were seeing search terms like the name of an album or name of a track plus the word 'torrent,' or plus the word 'Limewire' or 'Kazaa.' You know, this was somebody whose intent initially was just to get the music – I don't know if they were thinking 'I'm pirating the music' – but they were trying to get it for free. But when they saw that they could make a direct purchase to the artist, they wanted to do that. And that just warmed my heart. So that's really what we were trying to do from the beginning, was just make it clear that this was a way to show your direct support for an artist.'"
While I’m definitely on team Bandcamp, I’m also a subscriber to Apple Music. For me there’s room for both, as I use Apple Music to explore new music, and Bandcamp to support the artists I like.
(Via A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future : NPR.)
You may already know I’m not big on Christmas, but every year there are videos - and some aren’t so bad. Here are a couple that are worth a mention: U.S. Girls released my kind of Christmas song, Santa Stay Home ft. Rich Morel. Kacey Musgraves goes Glittery in her video from The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show ft. Troye Sivan. Out of the blue, for better or worse, Meghan Trainor is back with this single Holidays, which honestly I’m only posting because it features Earth, Wind & Fire!
Bonus: Big Freedia is feeling festive with their new single and video for Better Be.
I want to live in MARINA’s world after hearing her new single for Man’s World! Hot Chip just released this hyper-fun new video / single for Straight to the Morning feat. Jarvis Cocker. Troye Sivan’s Easy got a second life with Kacey Musgraves and Mark Ronson in this re-worked song & video.
Bonus: I’m just catching up with this fabulous/fantasy video from Aluna & KAYTRANDA for The Recipe (feat. Rema).
Another rare live performance during COVID - on a rare warm evening in November. I can’t think of a better place to see live music on a Fall evening, during a pandemic, than the patio at Forest City Brewery. I can’t think of much better music to listen to than the Ben Gage Trio, who you may remember I recently saw at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. What a fabulous night of music, beer, and friends (outside, at a distance).
Side Note: While Ben Gage is an excellent singer-songwriter, incidentally this is now the 2nd Gillian Welch song he’s covered that I’ve recorded!
I’m sure we’ve all seen a streaming performance by this point, right? Mostly it’s been an artist in front of a camera in their living room (I’m thinking Ben Gibbard here). There have been a few others that have a been a little more planned/produced as well (I’m thinking like Robyn’s DJ Set and the Pitchfork Listening Club with Perfume Genius.) What’s expected with all these performances is that they're all free (though tipping is always encouraged). Something we come to expect with content on the internet.
These past couple (many) months, I’ve been supporting Bandcamp Fridays, buying artists merch, contributing to Kickstarters, etc. etc. However, I’ve not yet purchased a ticket for a live streaming show. It looks like that is about to change. Here are two upcoming performances, by artists that I respect and enjoy, that are putting together online performances that I’m happy to pay for (and feel like I’m getting my money’s worth). You should check them both out, as they’re both artists you’ve seen on TZA before.
"The Little Red Barn Show premiers November 12th with two special screenings that include a LIVE Q&A session with Kristian at 20:00 Central European Time and 8:00PM US Central Time. The film will be available beginning November 12th through November 21st
Tickets to view are on a sliding 'pay what you want' pricing scale, beginning at $5.00 USD."
(Via (9) The Tallest Man On Earth: The Little Red Barn Show (Trailer) - YouTube.)
"Lipa is finally taking the stage on November 27 — exactly eight months after Future Nostalgia's release — for a virtual concert. She's taking the 'future' and 'nostalgia' part of her disco-inspired album seriously and is dubbing the event 'Studio 2054,' a clear nod to the legendary New York City disco nightclub Studio 54.
The virtual concert will feature tracks from the record, as well as the remix album, Club Future Nostalgia, and promises to turn the warehouse location where it'll be filmed into a bonafide disco heaven. ‘Dua will move through custom built sets; surreal tv shows, roller discos, ecstatic raves, trashy rocker hang outs, voguing ballrooms and diva style dressing rooms,' teases the press release.
Tickets for 'Studio 2054' go on sale October 30, with ticket bundles offering options for exclusive pre-show behind the scenes footage as well as After Show Party access — though it's unclear what the 'party' portion will look like."
(Via Dua Lipa Announces "Studio 2054," A Disco-Themed Virtual Concert.)
PS: Before I put this post together, Ezra Furman had her pay-to-play performance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Here’s a clip of that performance.
Sarah Jarosz takes us to her Hometown on her new single, with this new video. Shilpa Ray recently released this scathingly good song & video for Heteronormative Horseshit Blues. Finally, I don’t know where Small Black got this vintage content for their new video for Tampa, but it’s gold.
Bonus. alexmaax is one part of MS MR and has a solo project out. I find his voice, and this video compelling… as well as his inspiration. "It’s about trying to shake off the residual damage from a bad relationship – I wrote it a year after a traumatizing breakup, and it came from the frustration that I couldn’t seem to recover, even after all that time."
If you search TZA, you’ll see that I’ve only ever posted videos by Róisín Murphy. I’ve never had the chance to see her perform live! I won’t get into her bio (check her out on Wikipedia), but I have been following her since the mid 2000’s, and with every album I've become even more infatuated. Her music (and style) is always a step ahead of others, showing that she’s only improving with age. This new album just takes it to a new level. Check out some clips of articles, a video (repeat), and listen to the full album below!
"Over the course of the last 30 years, Róisín Murphy has made enough classics to fill up the Top 40 of a more fabulous world. To paraphrase the one-time announcer of this awful world’s pop countdown, Murphy has kept her couture-shod feet on the ground and kept reaching for the stars—though her idea of a star is more Cosey Fanni Tutti dancing to Sylvester than your average pop idol. The Irish singer-songwriter’s fifth solo album, Róisín Machine, might seem in some ways like the same old song and dance. But it’s done with such impeccable elan that she has turned the old nightlife songbook into a book of revelations."
(Via Róisín Murphy: Róisín Machine Album Review | Pitchfork.)
"A grimy and glamorous pastiche of self-mythologising disco, nostalgic British club music, post-punk iconography and Murphy’s ever-sharp hooks, Róisín Machine — which was started over a decade ago, after the release of 2007’s Gaga blueprint Overpowered, but was pre-empted by the torch-singer techno of 2015’s Hairless Toys and 2016’s Take Her Up To Monto — is relentless and brilliant, serving as both a document of Murphy’s youth exploring the underground clubs of Manchester and Sheffield and a love letter to the transformative power of a dancefloor.
Made largely in collaboration with Murphy’s long-time friend and collaborator Richard Barratt, aka DJ Parrot, Róisín Machine feels like the defining document of Murphy’s solo career so far, casting the 47-year-old as a mysterious, magnetic club denizen, the kind of person you might whisper about obsessively over the course of a lifetime without ever meeting. She switches guises constantly, and yet the record is in thrall of her, obsessed with Murphy as both a musician and a mythological figure almost to a fault. Occasionally an underappreciated or overlooked figure, Róisín Machine fits 20-plus years of overdue idol worship into an hour of tight, bone-rattling club music."
"What do you think of the disco revival that’s been happening this year, with the new albums from Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware?
‘Lovely, good for them – but I’m back to snatch their wigs! To me, disco can be anything. It is a disco record I’ve made, but my idea of it is very broad. I can easily think of Depeche Mode and Sylvester as disco.’"
(Via Róisín Murphy on the disco revival: “I’m back to snatch Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware’s wigs!”.)
Just some bonus, gay Q&A for ya:
"I’d like to get very gay right off the top. I was wondering if you tend to get more interest from Queer publications like this one, or are you finding you’re talking to more mainstream publications as your career evolves? Do you notice a shift in demographics with each release?
Well, I guess I have different kinds of demographics in different countries. I do have a very strong gay following across the board. But in some places it’s really gay, like in America, for example. When I played there, it was like wall to wall, lads with their tops off in their underwear. Everywhere. Hardcore! I love it, mate.
You know, the thing about the last tour that I did in America – I didn’t do big venues or anything, but it really made me aware of having to be on top of my game with the singing and all that! Róisín Murphy by Adrian Samson
Why? You mean because with the Gays you have all those other divas to compete with?
Well, just being in a completely gay environment, you know, completely mad people hanging out and sweaty bodies everywhere, and they’re loving it. It’s such a beautiful thing and it becomes a full circle for me, because I was always brought up to understand that the music I was into had been created by gay and marginalized cultures.
So, to then be embraced in that same kind of culture, I mean, maybe I’m not mainstream gay culture in America, I’m not sure if I even have the possibility to be, but certainly the, the parties that I’ve played there have been pretty full on!"
Fascinating. 🤓
Look Inside the World's Largest Collection of Pop Music: THE ARCHIVE
What do you do with one of the largest record collections in the world? You put the three million items in a building in lower manhattan. That is, until you're thrown out...VNT goes to see the dressing of the dead at the ARChive of Contemporary Music-- and a look at its next iteration, wherever that might be.
Channel Tres announced his new mixtape (date tbd) with this easy breezy video for Skate Depot. KAYTRANADA & Tinashe kill it - literally - in their new video for The Worst In Me.Mdou Moctar is back (!!) with this new single and video for Chismiten, also announcing a new album sometime next year.
Bonus: This new single and video from Dua Lipa for Levitating (feat. DaBaby) is pop confection.
