Month: July 2017

While Some Cry ‘Fake,’ Spotify Sees No Need to Apologize

Jason Tate

The New York Times:

For the last week, the music industry has been buzzing over the accusation that Spotify’s playlists are dotted with hundreds of supposedly “fake” artists, with names like Amity Cadet and Lo Mimieux, who are racking up tens of millions of streams yet have no public profile — no Facebook page, no Twitter feed, not even a face.

And:

Peter Sandberg, a 27-year-old composer in Sweden who has created a number of tracks on these playlists, called the term unfair.

“I’m a composer trying to find a way to grow and spread my work,” Mr. Sandberg wrote in an email relayed through an intermediary, “and to be called fake is not something I appreciate.” (Mr. Sandberg, who records music under his own name as well, does have a social media presence, making him a less anonymous figure than many of the other creators of this music.)

This entire story is strange, but when companies like Spotify can get computers to produce hits for their playlists with minimal human involvement, that’s when it gets really weird.

R. Kelly Is Holding Women Against Their Will In A “Cult,” Parents Told Police

BuzzFeed
Jason Tate

Jim DeRogatis, writing at Buzzfeed:

Three former members of Kelly’s inner circle — Cheryl Mack, Kitti Jones, and Asante McGee — provided details supporting the parents’ worst fears. They said six women live in properties rented by Kelly in Chicago and the Atlanta suburbs, and he controls every aspect of their lives: dictating what they eat, how they dress, when they bathe, when they sleep, and how they engage in sexual encounters that he records.

The last time J. saw her daughter was Dec. 1, 2016.

Hayley Williams Talks with I-D

Jason Tate

Hayley Williams of Paramore recently sat down with I-D:

I found myself in a really weird headspace in the last few years where I was going through these things in my personal life, but we had just come off of this successful album. People would come up to me in my hometown and have pictures of me in these very superhero type poses across their shirts, and [they’d say], “Oh you’re perfect, I’ve looked up to you for so long.” I never discounted anything that they said because that’s the truth for them and I appreciate that, but what I couldn’t shake was how much that contrasted with the way that I viewed myself. I was crumbling. I was losing friendships, I was going through things with my family, my relationship. I just felt like, “Wow, this person that I’m standing right in front of, has no idea that I’m probably doing worse than they’re doing. And they’re asking for advice, and they’re telling me that I’m perfect.” It made me very angry at myself that I wasn’t at that level, and I never could be.