music

Vanity Fair

“This is not the first time that Ye has tried to apologize. In December 2023, he posted a brief apology on Instagram, written in Hebrew and directed to “the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions.” People questioned the timing; his album Vultures 1 was about to be released in February. “I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change,” he wrote, asserting that he is “not antisemitic.””

I used to be one of the biggest Kanye fans growing up outside of Chicago just as he started to take off with The Workout Plan and Jesus Walks. I still think MBDTF is probably the greatest hip-hop album ever made, but I haven’t listened to a single song from him since 2019. An apology right before a new album drops means absolutely nothing to me. I’ll check back in in three years and see if he’s actually putting his money where his mouth is or if he goes off the rails again. And I get the brain trauma stuff, but the shit he did—and the people around him who enabled him—does not deserve anyone’s forgiveness. Not a chance in hell I’m putting a penny in his pocket.

Birchtree

I’ve come to the conclusion that streaming music platforms are a shared lie we all agree to that suggests we’re paying for music when we’re actually may as well be pirating it, we just pay $10 a month to keep the cops away.

It’s been fun to see Matt’s evolution of thought here, going from not thinking Spotify’s rates are an issue, To realizing all music streaming is a bit of a sham… I think the one point that keeps getting glossed over is it’s Spotify’s choice to do free ad-supported tier, which is the worst part of it all and why rates are cheap per listen. Should artists want to give that up and lose potential revenue? That’s not a question for me to answer, but I do think it’s something to reckon with. But yes, buy music. Bandcamp is great.

Pitchfork

King Gizzard frontperson Stu Mackenzie said in a statement to the Music that he was “trying to see the irony in this situation.” He added, “But seriously wtf we are truly doomed.”

Continuing the conversation about “ethical streaming services…” I’m not going to say this wouldn’t ever happen on Apple Music (just look at their spotty App Store track record), but these types of stories of AI music making it to Spotify—and being promoted on the platform—seem to happen quite a bit. Again, the music loving ethos that brought Apple back from the dead with the iPod and iTunes no longer exists, but Spotify seems like they are pushing a lot harder for “responsible AI” in music today.

Bandcamp

H/t to Crucial Tracks for this incredible find. So much fun listening through the demos that led to the creation of the best album of the year.