Jagger vs. Trump, An RTJ Protest Playlist, & Arcade Fire - Music News 1/20/2017
Curated Music News
So, this is the place I talk about the music news that is interesting to me every Monday through Friday.
Yesterday I included news on the death of Nigeria's great William Onyeabor, some information about Bob Odenkirk's new movie, and the return of the great 90's band Chavez. You can read it HERE.
Also, don't forget to check out my weekly Spotify playlist. This week I did a tribute to four decades of electronic music; You can listen to it HERE.
Mick Jagger Explains Why Trump Keeps Using His Music
It happened again today, Trump walked out for the Inaugural concert to the strains of the classic Stones tune "Heart of Stone" (and if you know the lyrics you have to be amazed at how this dude gives two damns about looking like an a-hole). By the way, this is a great Stones song and DJT may have just ruined it for me :(.
As you probably know by now, the Stones asked Trump to stop using their music, but despite this "You Can't Always Get What You Want" became Trump's campaign theme song. How did this happen? Well, don't blame the Stones, as Mick explained a few months ago:
“So, the thing is, when you appear in America...if you're in a public place like Madison Square Garden or a theater, you can play any music you want, and you can't be stopped. So, if you write a song and someone plays it in a restaurant that you go to, you can't stop them. They can play what they want.”
Look, I love the Stones, Keith (despite his occasional North Korea style insane rants about Punk and Hip-Hop) is a Rock God to me. In other words, If this is affecting you as much as it is me...It might be time for someone to come to our:
Run The Jewels Know Their Stuff
As you probably know, Killer Mike and El-P released their new album RTJ 3 a few weeks ago. I think it is a good album (not as good as RTJ 2 but good)...I dunno, check it out for yourself and let me know if you are like me on this one (the popular music press is drooling all over it like it was Fear of a Black Planet rolled up in an Eric B. & Rakim blunt):
That is not to say that I don't like it, I do.
Don't get this wrong, I love RTJ...Just not sure I "Love" RTJ 3 (I am deeply "In Like" with it).
Anyway, I noticed that RTJ put out a Spotify playlist full of their favorite protest songs for the NYT yesterday, pretty great selections if you ask me: Can't tell you how much I love that it has Fugazi and Gang of Four (and Killer Mike's great song "Reagan" from one of his solo albums) included.
I Invoked Eric B. and Rakim...So, here is the GOAT on the MIC:
Arcade Fire Release New Single w/Mavis Staples
A few weeks ago I was pushing the band Pinegrove a great deal because they are donating all of the proceeds from sales of their albums on Bandcamp to Planned Parenthood (which is already under attack).
Well, all of the proceeds from this new Arcade Fire single go to the ACLU. I spend a decent amount of time in meetings with people from Michigan's ACLU and let me tell you, they work hard for Civil Liberties at a time when they are likely to really be at risk. So, support the work of the ACLU!
Pitchfork says that nobody knows if a new album is forthcoming, so this could be a one-off.
Closing Time
Covered a ton of good music this week, check below to check out the other Music News pieces from the week.
Hope everyone is having a great week! And if you like it, please share it (help a brother out).
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