Faith Hahn
@onefaithlove
Faith Hahn
The unabated “creative destruction” of one kind of capital after another has only further increased the wealth of a few and done nothing to emancipate the overall collective creative spirit, which has remained stagnant. Today, almost every artistic effort inevitably (perhaps unknowingly) reinscribes the values of the ruling capitalist class.
GD Dess • Cultural Dopes
culture and
In 1926, the year before The Jazz Singer popularized pre-recorded sound to cinema, theater pits employed 22,000 musicians in the United States; by 1934, there were only 4,100. Fewer musicians’ salaries meant lower ticket prices and more daily showings, and attendance almost doubled. New York City’s Local 802 organized picket lines outside theaters... See more
Worker’s Song | Franz Nicolay
music streaming and
Just a moment...
crsreports.congress.gov“Because over-the-air transmission by broadcast radio stations falls outside the definition of ‘digital audio transmission,’ radio stations do not need to pay royalties to the performers, record labels, or other owners of the sound-recording copyright to publicly perform a sound recording.”
The most prominent recent victory for organized musicians was 2018’s Music Modernization Act, which, among other things, established mechanical royalties for streaming, based on a “grand bargain” offering streaming services indemnity from infringement lawsuits in exchange for royalties. The MMA was sponsored by conservative Republicans Bob... See more
Worker’s Song | Franz Nicolay
music streaming and
Philosophy and Essays
"Silence is the artist's ultimate other-worldly gesture; by silence, he frees himself from servile bondage to the world, which appears as patron, client, consumer, antagonist, arbiter, and distorter of his work." The Aesthetic of Silence, Susan Sontag.
What makes a Shor work identifiable? According to some musicians, it is the mismatch between the rudimentary craftsmanship of the compositions and the skill with which those same compositions have been performed.
Andrew Trovato, an American composer who uses elements of tonality in his works, said that “the high level of playing masks the... See more
Andrew Trovato, an American composer who uses elements of tonality in his works, said that “the high level of playing masks the... See more
Welcome to Shorworld
Music Criticism and
Although late to the party, this year Universal, through Virgin Music Group, acquired Downtown Music Holdings for $775 million in cash in December 2024. Downtown Music Holdings includes a number of companies, most notably CD Baby, Fuga, AdRev, SongTrust, and Downtown. Through these companies, Universal now owns independent music recordings,... See more
Kristin Westcott Grant • Catalogs, Indies, And Emerging Markets: The Strategic Acquisitions Of 2024
music streaming and
“We have to overcome some legal hurdles, but we could unionize musicians tomorrow,” DeFrancesco said. “SAG is like an alternate history for musicians. We’ve done all this before and won, just not within recent memory.”
Some musicians are in fact unionized. The American Federation of Musicians, with 80,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, collectively... See more
Some musicians are in fact unionized. The American Federation of Musicians, with 80,000 members in the U.S. and Canada, collectively... See more
August Brown • Musicians deal with stingy streamers and AI threats, too. So why aren't they on strike?
Music Industry and
It’s hard to talk about “masterpieces” because the concept trades on a theory of aesthetics that is controversial when spelled out (aesthetic value realism; maybe even a kind of Platonism about beauty) and difficult to defend, but which we all nevertheless subscribe to intuitively.
The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction
culture and