It’s been a long decade for Mickey Guyton, but nothing has ever felt quite as long as the past two weeks. As one of very few black voices in mainstream country music, Guyton has spent the days following George Floyd‘s death in Minneapolis carrying an unthinkable burden as she leads …
Read More »U.S. States Have Been Trying to Criminalize Protests for the Past Five Years
This article was originally published by Grist and is republished here as part of an ongoing collaboration. The Minnesota legislature has spent the last five years preparing for the kind of protests that have rocked the city over the past week in the wake of the police killing of George …
Read More »Fox News Edits Video to Remove Police With Guns Drawn, Cuffing Innocent Black People
A local Fox affiliate ran a story about a family flagging down law enforcement to protect a business from looters, but when police arrived on the scene, the officers handcuffed them. Fox News, however, when broadcasting the affiliate’s report, removed the part of the footage where police drew their guns …
Read More »Meet CISAC's New President: Hit Songwriter Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA
Björn Ulvaeus has written more than 150 hit songs and shows, co-founded one of the most commercially successful acts the music business has ever seen, and been recognized as one of the greatest songwriters in history — but one role the Swedish hitmaker never expected to be in was that …
Read More »Music at Home: Lonely Nights
Loneliness has always had a place in pop music, from “Are you lonesome tonight?” to “My loneliness is killing me.”What else are songs, if not a way for artists to reach out across the vast stretches of space and time that separate them from their listeners? A great song can …
Read More »Inside a Pennsylvania Prison's Hunger Strike
Every day, Donnie Caldwell gets out of his Franklin County Jail cell briefly to grab his food and bring it back to his bunk — right next to his toilet — to eat. On Saturday, April 4th, while standing in line in the jail’s cafeteria and waiting for his food …
Read More »The Eagles, CSN, Linda Ronstadt Appear in 'Laurel Canyon' Docuseries Teaser
The Eagles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Linda Ronstadt, and others appear in the new trailer for Laurel Canyon, a docuseries airing in two parts on Epix, May 31st and June 7th at 9 p.m. ET. Directed by Allison Ellwood — who recently worked on The Go-Go’s and the 2013 critically …
Read More »How Madonna Blurred the Lines Between Personal and Persona on 'I'm Breathless'
Thirty years ago this month, Madonna released one of the most fascinating records in her catalogue, I’m Breathless. Attached to her role as the nightclub singer/femme fatale in Warren Beatty’s 1990 film Dick Tracy, I’m Breathless wasn’t necessarily a proper solo album, but one of those “Music From and Inspired …
Read More »Angélique Kidjo Brings Fresh Funk to Cover of Midnight Oil's 'Beds Are Burning'
Beninese singer-songwriter Angélique Kidjo performed a cover of Midnight Oil’s 1987 song “Beds Are Burning” for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert‘s #PlayAtHome music series. For their rendition, Kidjo and her socially distanced band offered up a decisively funky take on the synth-tinged Eighties rocker. While the song is about …
Read More »Cody Jinks Braces for the Apocalypse in New Song 'Watch the World Die'
Many new quarantine-themed songs have come with a message of resilience or hope for better days, but Cody Jinks has taken a very different tack with his new tune “Watch the World Die.” The brooding number is the Texas singer-songwriter’s first release since he put out the pair of albums …
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