Tim Anderson muses on Apple Music providing a walled garden of goods that, though they could not have imagined it to be successful, sounds great and has nothing revolutionary about it.
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Music
Walling the Garden and Putting the App into Apple Music
The Cultural Significance of Booty Music
On the racial and gendered aspects of booty music, and how they remind us that the derriere is complex, ambivalent, and socially constructed.
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Bad Blood: “Taylor Swift” vs. Spotify
The removal of the artist's songs from the streaming service represents the latest development in an ongoing distribution struggle in the music industry.
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Casey Kasem Signs Off (1932-2014)
Casey Kasem helped put pop music in a context. In so doing, he provided a resource for listeners to recontextualize that music for themselves.
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On Radio: Live Music Festivals as Satellite Radio’s Premium Content?
Sirius XM's recent live broadcast of the Governors Ball highlights the persistence of place, of musical “hotspots,” within the satellite radio universe.
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Everybody’s Doing Molly? Dance Music Cultures and Drugs
What happens when the forces of unchecked capitalism associated with the mainstreaming of dance music cultures prevent those cultures from protecting or regulating their own?
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What Are You Missing? Apr 28 – May 11
Ten (or more) media industry news items you might have missed recently.
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The Power of Women’s Voices in The Great Gatsby
The female voices on The Great Gatsby's soundtrack channel the hard-won feminist power of past generations.
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E-distribution gets “Weird” in Canada
Distribution remains a challenge for many artists and labels, and this initiative creates a much-needed resource that can allow artists to more easily sustain creative autonomy.
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The 2012 BET Awards as [Black] Family Reunion
Its the pairing of disrepute with respectability that makes the BET Awards akin to a Black Family reunion.
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Imported by Justin Bieber: Carly Rae Jepsen and Transnational Stardom
Carly Rae Jepsen's Justin Bieber-supported breakthrough offers a case study for how difficult it is for stardom to remain transnational when moving into the U.S. market.
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SOPA: Just Say NOPA
Whatever you’ve been doing on the internet in the last few weeks, chances are you ran across something about SOPA. And for good reason—SOPA might just be the most dangerous internet legislation the US government has ever considered.
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Playing Like a Girl: Feminist Praxis as Feminist Pragmatics
June Millington may not be as well known as some other rock figures, but her music and activism have made - and continue to make - a significant impact on the lives of girls and women who aspire to play music and participate in the music industry.
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R.E.M 1980-2011
By the time they announced their breakup, R.E.M. had become so taken for granted that it was easy to poke fun. Yet, as the effusive post-mortems everywhere suggest, they became an institution for a reason
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You Have Friends That Want You Back Home
Treme’s focus on how its culture and cultural economies are created and presented through music and cuisine has meant a majority of its almost 22 narrative hours watching musicians struggle with bar owners, the recording business, the law and each other.
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