LOS ANGELES , June 16, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Openlake( https://www.openlake.io ) is the first NFT marketplace which is deeply integrated with AI, IoT and Blockchain technologies. Openlake focuses on Music, Film, Game and Art, and has partnered with top entertainment companies worldwide. With AI and IoT, Openlake supports the streaming of Music NFT s to hardware players and wearable devices which can provide unprecedented experiences. One of the main objectives of Openlake is to reshape the distribution of the pop music songs with the new technologies.
Openlake supports ERC721 and ERC1155 with ETH, MATIC, BSC and Flow. It provides exclusive smart contracts for music artists. It also supports cover tree of a song through smart contracts. All the secondary creations surrounding the work, including covers, adaptations, etc., are automatically generated through smart contracts to facilitate the search and traceability of the cover tree. Any music reproduction not in the cover tree is considered piracy.
NFT's involvement is a brave innovation for the music industry, and will provide a wider arena for new musicians entering the field. Openlake believes that with the aids of NFT and other technologies such as IoT, the mandarin music industry will be revived and even pushed to a fresh high level.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/OpenlakeNFT
Telegram: https://t.me/openlakenft
Discord: https://discord.gg/y2uYDW9tEe
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzUoSu4bdP83rabB4jbberQ
'Troubled Paradise' cements Slayyyter as a pop music force to be reckoned with
Slayyyter's 2019 self-titled album made waves throughout the realm of popular music. Filled with unapologetically sexual, undeniably catchy tracks, all eyes (and ears) fell onto Slayyyter, and for good reason. Since then, the experimental pop princess has amassed an incredible cult following, with numerous songs reaching virality on TikTok and her unique musical perspective becoming cemented within the hyperpop scene.
Troubled Paradise plays in two acts: It opens with familiar sounds of distorted synths and sexually empowered talk-rap and then merges into songs with lyrics far more emotional and stripped-down than Slayyyter's past works, featuring two acoustic guitar-led tracks about heartbreak and deceit. Slayyyter perfectly balances the album by infusing the club bangers which her fanbase has come to demand with intimate, heartfelt lyrics about her own pains and triumphs. Because of this, Troubled Paradise contains something for everyone, whether it be those who only want to dance or those who want to dissect the true meaning below the surface of Slayyyter's incredible vocals and instrumentals.
On "Cowboys," a country-inspired, distorted lead guitar shines through atypical hyperpop beat as Slayyyter sings, "Cowboys tryna break my heart/ But this is not my first time at the rodeo," blending genres seamlessly for a strikingly fun listen. Another standout track is "Throatzillaaa," which contains an incredibly abrasive beat, Slayyyter's classically charming vocals, and hilarious wordplay about … well … being a throatzilla. Her humor and charm truly shine throughout the track, bringing a lighthearted twist to the otherwise emotionally intense content presented throughout the album.
She Founded A Label In Her Dorm Room—Now, She's Helping Redefine Pop Music: A Conversation With
Then, in 2011, Plapinger jumped into the music-making ring herself, founding the indie-pop duo MS MR alongside producer Max Hershenow. With this outlet, she not only cut her teeth on what being an artist is like, but also made several meaningful contributions to the worlds of "pop," "indie" and everything in between.
She then used this experience to start her solo endeavor, LPX, in 2017 (right as MS MR began an ongoing hiatus). This past May, she put out the project's newest release: a genre-bending and refreshingly honest EP entitled Go The Other Way, Called The Echo .
In addition, Neon Gold is still going strong. Last week, the label helped put out Marina's newest record, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land , and in the coming months, they're set to release even more from their wildly creative roster. So, with countless projects in the works, Plapinger hopped on a Zoom call with American Songwriter last week to talk about it all. Touching on everything from the early days of founding and operating a record label, the artists she's gotten to help, the changes she's seen in the industry, the future of pop music and so much more. The discussion was wide-ranging, offering a fascinating peek into the point-of-view of one of pop's most accomplished trend-setters. Read the conversation below:
Lizzy Plapinger: It felt so amazing. It was like "sonic archaeological digging" or something. Everyone knew the music that was presented through conventional channels like MTV and the radio, obviously (and those are still the institutions we get our music tastes from, really), but it was cool to sorta crack into this place that felt under the surface. There were pockets of music being made all over the world. I always thought I had good taste (maybe arrogantly at times)—when I fell in love with a band, I really just wanted to be the greatest cheerleader for whatever song or release or what. I loved those artists.
AS: All of that exploration eventually led to you and Davies founding a record label in your sophomore year of college—named Neon Gold Records, the operation originally ran out of your dorm room. What were those early days like?
LP: We were absolutely learning and flying by the seat of our pants. Luckily Derek and I had had a number of internships within the industry—I interned at Vice Records and AAM, which was like this college music promotion company. I also had worked at venues and even had a radio show on campus. Plus, I was booking shows on campus with, like, Girl Talk and TV On The Radio. So, I felt like I already had a pulse on the industry, but up to that point, I was working from an "intern" mentality.
But Derek and I always felt like we had something special and we both fell in love with the project. So, when we decided to start the label, we luckily had a lot of friendships and relationships from the internships that we had. That built us somewhat of a networking community within the music scene already. But, I think because Derek and I came to it mostly as fans, bands were just excited to help us go out and be there. That's what happened with Passion Pit, who was the first artist we signed. They absolutely didn’t have to take a chance on us, but we fell in love with their music and we got it over to Syd at Frenchkiss Records. We were friends with a lawyer there because Derek had previously worked with them, so it was sorta a favor for them to allow us to release the first single. It was an amazing way to start the journey of Neon Gold.
Film Review: "Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road" - Getting Close to a Legend of Pop
What comes across most clearly to the viewer is that every single day — practically every single hour — is a struggle for Brian Wilson.
What comes across most clearly to the viewer is that every single day — practically every single hour — is a struggle for Brian Wilson. It takes every ounce of courage, every fiber of strength within him to get through a day. He seems happiest and most comfortable when he's playing piano and when he's eating. Nothing else comes easily for him, yet he maintains a productive and creative solo career, which includes 2004's Grammy-winning Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE , the heroic completion of a work he abandoned in 1967 when the voices—both those inside his head and from confused fellow band members—became too much to bear.
This explains why Wilson is a notoriously bad interview. He simply isn't comfortable being asked questions from people he doesn't know and trust about things he either can't remember or chooses not to recall. And yet Long Promised Road succeeds because of Fine's gentle and assuring presence. The friendship between Fine and Wilson is not some fake industry connection; it's very clear that Brian loves and trusts Fine and it's easy to see why: Fine relates to Wilson with genuine kindness, empathy, and acceptance. He doesn't want anything from Wilson. He doesn't force any situations onto him. Fine offers support and friendship with no strings attached. He holds Wilson's hand when he needs to be steadied, whether physically or emotionally. As a result, Brian opens up to him in a way he does with few others.
Which is not to say that Wilson — who is always keenly aware he is being filmed — suddenly becomes talkative and insightful. But Fine helps keep him on an even keel, which gives Brian the confidence to momentarily show his true personality. One funny scene has the two riding around and admiring an antique Cadillac being driven in another lane. Brian is curious what year model it is and asks Fine to yell out to the driver to find out. Fine demurs, saying he's too far away. Unsatisfied, Wilson yells out to the driver through Fine's window to ask for himself. (It was a 1941, the year before Brian was born.)
All The Best New Pop Music From This Week: Lorde, Doja Cat, Ava Max
This week in the best new pop music saw the return of several major pop stars. Lorde shared her first new single in four years, Doja Cat ushered in her Planet Her era, and Ava Max dropped her first track of 2021.
Four years following the release of her previous album, Lorde made a comeback with “ Solar Power .” The semi-acoustic track is Lorde’s ode to the carefree sunny summer days, filled with sand, warm rays, and your best friends. It kicks off with a playfully strummed guitar before building up to a euphoric crescendo at the bridge, which features background vocals from Clairo and Phoebe Bridgers.
Following up on her silky SZA collaboration “Kiss Me More,” Doja Cat gives her fans a look at the universe she built around her Planet Her album. With her new single “Need To Know,” Doja Cat fires off sultry lyrics which detail her fantasies about a crush over a skittering beat.
It’s been less than a year since Ava Max released her anticipated debut album Heaven & Hell , and the singer is still giving fans some more music from the era. Sharing her electrifying “Everytime I Cry” track, the singer finds power in tears and vulnerability. "After every struggle you go through you become a little bit stronger," Max says of the song. "And every tear you shed is not wasted, but becomes your river of hope."
Following up on her breakout Rostam-produced debut album Immunity , Clairo finally issues an update about the status of new music. Introducing her sophomore album, the singer shared the tender acoustic ballad “Blouse,” a gleaming track that showcases the singers moving vocals. About the song, Clairo says she was heavily inspired by the domesticity that came with taking care of her dog, Joanie.
Bebe Rexha is on the heels of releasing her vulnerable album Better Mistakes , but she’s not done sharing new music. This week, the renowned singer teamed up with producer Topic for “Chain My Heart,” a vibrant effort featuring biting synths and a thumping, quick-tempoed beat. On the track, Bebe Rexha sings of the euphoric feeling of finally surrendering to love and Topic provides perfectly-timed beat drops.
This week, Marina officially released her highly anticipated album Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land . The album is an ode to womanhood and the pitfalls of climate change, but it also features the self-love anthem “Venus Fly Trap.” The empowering single speaks to the importance of putting yourself out there over dizzying instrumentals. “Why be a wallflower when you could be a venus fly trap?” Marina belts.
Daily Trojan | Asian American pop duo redefines artistic freedom
For Christopher Ahn and Kalliyan Davis, a chance encounter on a 2017 film set in Hawaii sparked the beginning of a friendship that would eventually lead to the formation of their alternative pop duo in 2018, aptly named "Your Crush."
"London Eyes," a single from their debut EP, will be available on all platforms starting Wednesday, June 16.
Both Hawaii locals, Ahn and Davis found themselves to be musical outliers in their home state where habitants tended to prefer Jawaiian (Jamaican and Hawaiian) and general reggae over pop.
"I think the kind of music we like was not too common in Hawaii," Ahn said. "We talked a bit about music, and we were like 'Wait, we kind of like the same things.' Especially coming from Hawaii, … it's kind of harder to find that group of people that share your interests in [such a] small state."
Ahn moved to Los Angeles to pursue music in 2017. Growing up, he picked up his love for music from his older brother, who played the drums and guitar.
When Davis moved to L.A. a year later to pursue a bachelor's degree in acting at the USC School of Dramatic Arts, the artists found themselves together again, only this time making music.
Although she trained in classical music growing up and was even briefly part of two bands — the Chaotic Five in middle school and 85 Decibels in high school — Davis turned to acting after feeling trapped within a music genre she didn't have a real passion for.
MARINA on 'Ancient Dreams,' Pop Career, Best, Gayest Songs
MARINA 's more than 15-year journey across pop music, ranging from The Family Jewels (2010) and Electra Heart (2012) to 2015's Froot and then Love + Fear (2019), has never stuck to one thing. Consider the euphonious contrast between a fast and chaotic banger like "Radioactive" and a more subtler pop, slow-burning experience like "Orange Trees" — each, while worlds apart in sound, assist well in their depiction of the MARINA period during which they were released. Yet, amid her evolution, the message of Marina Diamandis's (f.m.a. Marina and the Diamonds) work has been consistent and synonymous with who MARINA is (in her own words: a "sassy bitch"). Belying these sometimes-exaggerated personae, though, is an emotional wellspring; an ally (see the bubblegum bliss of "Primadonna," clutched in the hearts of the gays); a mystic ("Purge the Poison," she says, is her "witchiest" song to date); and an uncompromisingly vulnerable and honest singer.
That is a complex question. Sonically, I would probably say "Venus Fly Trap" blends that very sassy, lyrical energy with quite bombastic, bouncy, and energetic production [that] has been something that I've always done at least once on every album. Like, "Oh No," [or] "Primadonna." It's kind of like a trade of my songwriting now at this point.
[ Laughs ] I don't want to be obvious, but I was going to say "Primadonna." [That] or "[How to Be a] Heartbreaker." Those songs really helped me establish a huge gay, LGBTQ fan base. They really changed my career because I've been able to have the freedom I have as an artist because of the loyalty of my fan base and that's not something that I've ever taken for granted.
After Electra Heart, even though I love the record, I found actually marketing and campaigning it quite difficult because people weren't really taking it with context. I was still relatively new as an artist at that point. And they thought that I was singing those songs unironically. So, it was quite hard. Froot was a liberating album to make because I made it on my own. That's probably [the album] closest to my heart.
How Joni Mitchell's Blue became pop music's ultimate expression of loving and leaving
SEB: LA's viral hitmaker talks Harry Styles' mashup TikTok video
His scrappy mashup with Harry Styles' 'Watermelon Sugar' went viral on TikTok – now SEB wants to bring that inspired, laid-back approach to the mainstream
Now, SEB's 'Watermelon Sugar/Seaside' hybrid TikTok anthem fuses Harry Styles ' chart-topping single with his own prospective hit 'seaside_demo', with good vibes aplenty; a lo-fi bedroom-produced indie backing bolsters Styles' more forthright pop songwriting. He never expected that the mashup would go viral, he just thought his regular way of covering songs was overdone: "Honestly, there wasn't a lot of thought put behind it. It was just one of those things I'd done," he tells NME nonchalantly on Zoom from Downtown LA.
The 24-year-old has been making music a lot longer than TikTok has been around; moving to LA from Chicago via New York, SEB first started writing music after being gifted a $15 iTunes card by his friend. "He told me to go listen to the Lil Wayne 'The Carter III' album. And that blew my mind. I just told him we needed to start a rap group and figure this out," he says. Like those mashups, he toyed with making hip hop, indie/alternative, bedroom pop, and his influences include The Beatles, James Brown and Gudda Gudda; his music is an electrifying mix of it all.
'seaside_demo' was the track that put SEB on everyone's map. The self-produced love letter to insouciant sunsets by the beach epitomises the global sense of anticipation to get back out in the world; it quickly became the soundtrack to countless videos on TikTok, propelling SEB's record to viral fame across the app. That too was a surprise for the songwriter, seeing how an "imperfect" track with missed melodies and occasionally out-of-tune guitar can resonate with so many people, SEB wants to keep bringing imperfection into the mainstream.
Now, SEB is preparing to release his upcoming EP and if a demo can shoehorn his music into a crowded music landscape, then his first full collection will surely stand out.
"When I had first started to really put out songs it was last year, then I had a couple of my songs get on [Spotify's] New Music Friday and stuff like that but I quickly learnt that wasn't the way to start building fans and to start making connections. I mean it was still awesome to get on there. But after I turned to TikTok as a way of displaying myself. I like to say it's like the scent of a bakery: that brings people in and when you get inside you're like 'look at the cakes, the croissants!'"
How has it felt gaining significant traction as an artist when you can't fully reap the rewards due to the pandemic?
"I don't even think I was the first one to see that. I had posted 'seaside' back in February and then I was going about the rest of my days and getting ready to put out this EP that we're still in the middle of putting out. Then all of a sudden, friends started to send me big videos using that sound. Until eventually we started seeing it was going up by like thousands of videos a day. I had the demo up on YouTube and that was starting to go crazy. And that was when we were like damn we should put this song out."
Will the success of Olivia Rodrigo's Good 4 U be good for rock music? — Kerrang!
Olivia's first hit, the huge Drivers License, was a more traditional pop ballad, but her love for rock seems absolutely genuine (and her co-writer is Dan Nigro, formerly of indie rock act As Tall As Lions). Certainly, Good 4 U is not alone as a guitar anthem on her brilliant debut album, Sour: opener Brutal is a hard-hitting grunge track that recently topped the U.S. Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
So what gets a Disney star into making rowdy rock music? And, more importantly, can her unparalleled success inspire a new generation of fans to embrace guitar music – and help your favourite band access the radio and streaming playlists that are so often off limits to heavier artists?
Hayley Codd is head of national radio and TV at Public City PR . It's her job to secure airplay for her roster of top rock acts, which ranges from Enter Shikari and Wargasm to Nova Twins and Waterparks .
" Good 4 U potentially opens a door to people that have only have ever been exposed to out-and-out pop music, and I'm all for that," she says. " And it's nice to be able to say [to radio stations], ' If you're playing that track and it's reacting well with your audience, why wouldn't you play Wargasm? They're slightly heavier but they've still got a big pop chorus…' "
Outside of the specialist rock stations, few guitar records cross over to heavy rotation in the way that Good 4 U has, with the hit playlisted at pop networks such as Capital. And while BBC Radio 1 always supports rock ( Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes and Architects are on its current playlist), the station's head of music Chris Price says that Good 4 U could make others pay attention to rock.
" It was a bit unusual to hear this gnarly guitar pop song," he says. " But, more to the point, it was unusual that it was so successful so quickly. It probably sounds a lot stranger on commercial pop radio [than on Radio 1 ] – it does stick out in the mix of everything else they play. But young people don't necessarily care about genres – and that is as true of artists as it is of fans…"
If radio is tough for rock, however, streaming is even harder – especially for new artists. There are still numerous success stories on the albums chart but, last year, Official Charts Company data showed that the growth in rock streaming lagged well behind that of other genres, while it remains very rare for rock tracks to be added to major playlists such as Spotify's Hot Hits UK or Apple Music's Today's Hits. Good 4 U features prominently on both – and has smashed streaming records around the world. In the UK , it's the first song in history to be streamed more than 11 million times for three consecutive weeks.
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