Tag: politics
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How to delete your music from Spotify if you used CD Baby
In case you hadn’t heard, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is investing the millions of dollars he has leeched from artists into weapons manufacturing. For myself and many other musicians, this is the last straw with Spotify, who has continually devalued our work. Boss makes a dollar, we make literal fractions of a cent. I’ve previously…
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Disidentification and Christianity in Queer Art
I learned a new word recently: disidentification. The word comes from José Esteban Muñoz’s foundational work Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. I learned this from a book on James Baldwin by Christoper Hunt called Jimmy’s Faith. Disidentification, in Muñoz’s theory, according to Hunt, is a way of repurposing cultural texts that…
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When Everybody’s Needs are Met
Trump has recently pushed a bill to criminalize homelessness. The news reminded me of this poem I had written last year, imagining such a future.
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My Wish for Pride this Year is Solidarity with Immigrants
In this Pride blog, I’m speaking primarily to a queer audience, an audience that is, unfortunately, as is normative, mostly white, calling us in to greater solidarity and away from white supremacy. My wish for Pride is: I wish every white, US trans person who was crying “trans genocide” several months ago were just as…
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Spotify is a Digital Landlord
Spotify, Apple Music, etc. are rent-seekers. A rent-seeker capitalizes on something freely available, that could have been freely given, and charges a premium for it. Spotify et al are digital music landlords over their vassals, big record companies, and the rest of us serfs, in this new age under an emergent system of oppression which…
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AI Music Cannot Replace the Joy of Making Music
Mikey Shulman, CEO of AI music generation startup Suno, actually thinks people don’t enjoy making music anymore. “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” according to him. “It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, you need to get really good at an instrument or really good at a piece…
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Imperfection Makes Radical Creativity
Imperfection makes radical creativity. It takes the creativity and makes it radical. The world of “good taste” is riddled with classism. Stodgy vocal pedagogues, early detractors from recorded popular and folk music would say (and still do), “You shouldn’t sing like that. You can’t.” They would rather people learn the “right” way to make music.…