Music Biz Headlines, Feb. 17, 2022

By Kerry Doole

How do you beat the winter blahs? Listen to sad music, neuroscientists say

Perhaps you’re there right now, deep into a pandemic and awash in the winter greys. Cabin fever is in season, Prozac needs a pill, and seasonal affective disorder is the order of the day. The experts say music can help, but they will tell you the prescription to beat the blahs is not cheery music – which makes sense. – Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail 

Love lights the way as Measha Brueggergosman-Lee takes the stage for Opera Atelier’s ‘All Is Love’

A year into her marriage to jazz guitarist Steve Lee, Brueggergosman-Lee talks about her love of artistic collaboration and of Toronto’s Opera Atelier. – Robyn Grant-Moran, Toronto Star

Justin Bieber's Timbiebs collab fattens Tim Hortons' wallet

Tim Hortons has lots to sing about after its recent collaboration with pop star Justin Bieber led to “notable growth” for the coffee chain’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International. – Mark Daniell, Canoe

Review: DAMN (Hip-Hop Beat) by Canadian hip-hop producer Tea Vee Beats 

Hailing from New Maryland, New Brunswick, the Canadian hip hop producer Tea Vee Beats is attracting music enthusiasts from around the world with some amazing productions. – Michael Schott The Magazine

Moxy guitarist finds a soulful groove with Long Black Cadillacs

Earl Johnson’s new band is ready to release its first single ‘True Love.' Those of us of a certain age, may remember Earl as the Hamilton-born guitar slinger for the hard rock/metal band Moxy. – Graham Rockingham, Hamilton Spectator

He could be gruff and brusque but nothing hid John Lawson’s love of the arts

Lawson was named to the Order of Canada in 2014, and he’d presided over the boards of Toronto’s Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall – in fact, he was part of the team that got the latter concert venue built. Then there were his key roles in starting up the Glenn Gould Foundation and the Toronto Summer Music Festival, and his volunteer service on the boards of many other music and arts organizations. – Martin Morrow, Globe and Mail

Hiring a publicist, going viral and a death threat: Singing councillor ‘overwhelmed’ by response to Crybabies Caravan

'We also live in a culture where people seem to feel the freedom of social media to say things that they might not say to you in person.' – Richard Vivian, Guelph Today

Canadian composer launches software to track TV airings

After years of not knowing when his TV shows were playing around the world, Canadian composer Shawn Pierce (Private Eyes, Slasher, Haven) has cofounded an entertainment tech startup to track such stats. – Victoria Ahearn, Playback

SOCAN Town Hall allows composers to better navigate the digital landscape

Contemporary composers learned how to better navigate the digital landscape, and had many questions answered, as SOCAN partnered with The Canadian League of Composers (CLC) and the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) to present a free online town hall presentation and meeting, “Classical and Art Music in the Digital Landscape,” on Feb. 9.  – Howard Druckman, Words & Music

Jean Norman Iadeluca has been playing timpani with the HPO since 1971

Timpani roll, please ... it’s Jean’s 50th season with the HPO, Leonard Turnevicius writes. – Hamilton Spectator

International

SoundCloud's annual revenues topped $218m in 2020 – and it's been making bold moves ever since

SoundCloud's last 12 months have been nothing short of transformative. While SoundCloud remains best-known as a consumer-facing streaming service (with over 265 million tracks and counting), it's also been building a significant Creator Services operation, offering artists digital distribution (to multiple platforms), plus other tools to boost their careers. – MBW

The Super Bowl’s first hip-hop Halftime Show was an exercise in easy nostalgia

Featuring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J. Blige, and 50 Cent, the feel-good performance largely glossed over the genre’s combustible core. – Clover Hope, Pitchfork

Music streaming really does pay, you just aren't doing the math right

For the record, Neil Young’s catalogue earns about 13M streams per month on Spotify alone, which is a little under $45,000 per month. When you take this into account, his stance against Spotify actually becomes quite admirable. Of course, the irony is that far too many people don’t understand how music streaming economics work to actually appreciate his point. – Anthony Manker, Hypebot

Artists reallly have to see Web3 as more than just a glorified fan club for the 21st Century

Analysts at investment bank Jefferies predict that the NFT market will hit a $35 billion valuation in 2022. By 2025, they forecast that figure will top $80 billion. In music, NFTs have rapidly evolved from relative obscurity over the past year-and-a-half to become part of the business’s everyday lexicon – and an increasingly serious revenue stream for artists.” – Murray Stassen, MBW

​​Morgan Wallen is not on an apology tour

The singer was banished from radio stations after he used the N-word, but his album was still, by one count, the most popular of 2021, and he has now taken his show back on the road. – Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker

Songs for a South underwater

Deep Blues: The music that carried folks through the Great Flood of 1927 to today. – Sergio Lopez, Scalawag

Stevie Nicks is still living her dreams

The rock-and-roll icon talks about style, spirits, and writing one of her best songs ever. – Tavi Gevinson, New Yorker

Behind the “Sleng Teng” riddim that revolutionized reggae

The “Sleng Teng” riddim revolutionized reggae music in the mid-1980s, and has spawned hundreds of versions in the decades since then. Less well known is the story of how the distinctive bassline originated in a preset sample included on a Casio electronic keyboard and the work of a young developer fresh out of college. – Hashino Yukinori, Nippon.com

Darryl Jones remembers Charlie Watts

The bassist honors his former Rolling Stones bandmate (6/2/41 – 8/24/21). – JazzTimes

Police in New Zealand blast Barry Manilow music to disperse anti-vaccine protesters 

Hundreds of protesters descended upon New Zealand's parliament building to fight against vaccine mandates – and they were met with the smooth sounds of Barry Manilow. Police blasted a 15-minute loop of Manilow's upbeat pop songs, as well as the Macarena and other music, to try and disperse the protesters. – Caitlin O'Kane,  CBS News

‘He made sure that she got nothing’: The sad story of Astrud Gilberto, the face of bossa nova

Without the 22-year-old’s voice, ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ would not have become the phenomenon it did – but mistreatment, misogyny and lack of compensation wore her down, writes Martin Chilton. – The Independent

The new “Music Man” confuses America with Americana 

The Broadway revival of Meredith Willson’s classic, starring Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, strives simply to be a nostalgia machine. – Alexandra Schwartz, New Yorker

Sharon Van Etten sends a message that you are anything but alone with powerful new "Porta" video

If you’ve struggled at all during the past seemingly endless 24 months of screaming uncertainty, you’re going to get the underlying message: She wants to make it clear that you are not alone. – Mike Usinger, Georgia Straight