This Week In Music - 14th April 2022
A weekly update on all things music, advertising, and technology coming straight to you from Anthony Vanger at MassiveMusic. #TWIM
ARTIST OF THE WEEK: ROSALIA
Is there a more seductive artist out there at the moment? Rosalia burst onto the scene in Spain back in 2018 with her debut "El Mal Querer", and has charted a meteoric rise since then, becoming a household name in the US and appearing on all the late-night TV shows with her stilted English. This dance hall hit, Chicken Teriyaki, off her latest album, Motomami, was released alongside a video primed for TikTok dances – fitting, as the single was?initially teased on Rosalía’s personal account. With this cultural earworm, Rosalia is now officially a megastar with high-production videos and red carpet appearances. But it is the music that fascinates. In a radio interview, Rosalia explains that she builds the tracks by sampling beats and chopping them up into segments, like Lego building blocks. Underneath her vocals is barely any music, just a single sample or a distant chord that repeats, becoming part of the rhythm. It is a fascinating exercise in minimalism, but Rosalia pulls it off. It almost becomes a question of how far can she go? Is she looking for the electronic equivalent of a hand clap and a voice, the essence of her roots when she graduated with honors from the Catalonia College of Music? Only she knows, but the 29-year-old Catalan is proving herself to be not just a global superstar, but also one of the most innovative music producers working today.
#rosalia #checkenteriyaki #motomami ?#elmalquerer #sonymusic #columbiarecords #universalmusic #raülrefree #elguincho
Listen & Download ‘MOTOMAMI’ out now: https://rosalia.lnk.to/MOTOMAMI
AD OF THE WEEK: VEUVE CLIQUOT
Spring has sprung and the sun is shining. A nice ad from the iconic French champagne brand Veuve Clicquot that uses the simple idea of its yellow label to connect the viewer to all kinds of objects in life that share the same colour. The visuals are nice, but what really elevates the ad is the soundtrack which is a cover of the Beatle's Good Day Sunshine. Originally released in 1966, the hippy-infused track makes a welcome return, and like so much of what the Fab Four wrote, it sounds as fresh as ever with a subtle, jazzy vibe. The ad was created by BETC Etoile Rouge, France for Veuve Clicquot.
ZELENSKYY INTRODUCES JOHN LEGEND–LED UKRAINE TRIBUTE PERFORMANCE AT 2022 GRAMMYS
John Legend?performed a tribute to the people of Ukraine during?the 2022 Grammy Awards. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, introduced the segment with a personalized, pre-recorded speech about the importance of speaking up about the ongoing war. Legend played “Free ,” a brand new song that he released today (April 3), on piano and was joined by Ukrainian musician Siuzanna Iglidan, Ukrainian singer Mika Newton, and Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk. At the end, viewers were directed to?a donation page for Ukraine . Watch below.
“It can be paralyzing to see war being waged by big nation-states with expensive weapons,” Legend said in?a statement?following the performance. “I wrote FREE after a week of seeing the horrific images of the senseless, brutal invasion of Ukraine by a regime with no moral justification no moral justification -- no right to kill, dominate and subjugate the Ukrainian people, no right to silence the will of the people in a democratic nation.”
Legend is a 33-time Grammy nominee and 12-time winner, but did not receive any 2022 nominations. At a Grammy week event, however, he received the Recording Academy’s first-ever Global Impact Award—an honor presented by the Black Music Collective.?
ED SHEERAN WINS UK COPYRIGHT CASE OVER ‘SHAPE OF?YOU’
Ed Sheeran?has won a copyright battle in a UK court over his chart-topping 2017 hit “Shape of You,” after a judge ruled Wednesday (April 6) that the star did not copy the song from a little-known track.
The judge ruled that Sheeran’s mega-hit, which spent 12 weeks atop the Hot 100, did not infringe a 2015 song called “Oh Why” released by an artist named?Sami Chokri, who performs as Sami Switch, and music producer?Ross O’Donoghue.
Sheeran quickly celebrated the ruling in a video posted to social media – and blasted what he called “baseless” lawsuits and the harm they’re doing to the music industry.
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In his decision,?Judge Antony Zacaroli?ruled there was no evidence that Sheeran had intentionally or “subconsciously” copied from “Oh Why” when he wrote “Shape of You.” He said that “while there are similarities” between the two songs, “there are also significant differences.”
“While we’re obviously happy with the result, I feel like claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court. Even if there’s no base for the claim,” Sheeran said. “It’s really damaging to the songwriting industry. There’s only so many notes and very few chords used in?pop?music. Coincidence is bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released every day on Spotify.”
An attorney for Chokri and O’Donoghue did not immediately return a request for comment on the decision.?
DISCLOSURE AND MASTERSOUNDS COLLAB ON NEW ACCESSORIES
Dance music duo Disclosure has teamed up with UK audiophile hardware company MasterSounds to create some new branded vinyl accessories. The new kit includes MasterSounds famed vinyl weights featuring the Disclosure faces logo and some new slipmats with the same recognisable Disclosure branding.
The weights are used to both stabilise the weight of a record and make it easier to make adjustments to the tempo if a record is drifting out of time.?
The slipmats are also double-sided, with one side featuring a ‘Party Mode’, with a colourful version of the famous face.?
There’s a limited run of 50 of each of the collabs, so be quick if you want to add some to your setup. Disclosure recently set themselves up with a full MasterSounds setup for their DJ streams, which kickstarted the relationship.?
TECHNICS ANNOUNCES 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE SL-1200
Technics is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of a new turntable based on their classic DJ player, the SL-1200. The 1200 is the most iconic DJing turntable ever made, and is still the go-to for the majority of vinyl DJs today, despite being half a century old in 2022.?
The new version –?the SL-1200M7L has the same design as the 1200, but with a golden tonearm and a range of colours to choose from. They’re also engraved with a unique number and a gold-coloured slipmat with the Technics logo. It comes in seven different colours: black, red, blue, white, green, yellow and beige.?
Like the MK7, it also features a high-rigidity cabinet and high-damping insulation to avoid vibrations in even the loudest and most challenging of environments. You can adjust the torque of the starting and stopping brake speed, accurate and stable pitch adjustments, reverse play functionality and much more.?
The SL-1200M7L costs ￡899 and is available now.?Visit the Technics website for more info .?
Written by?Anthony Vanger
Additional research and reporting by?Adam "Badger" Woolf
Visit TWIM's?Official Website