Pitchfork April 2020 | Vol. 6 How Long Does It Take To Make A Classic Album PAGE 8 How TikTok Gets Rich Without Paying Artists PAGE 4 How Artist Imposters and Fake Songs Sneak Onto Streaming Services PAGE 6 Jockstrap Interview PAGE 12 The Record Industry Expects A Windfall, Where Will the Money Go? PAGE 14 Briefs Remembering Bill Withers For several decades, perplexed interviewers had been asking Bill Withers, the great, reclusive soul singer, variations of the same questions: Did he miss the musical life he’d once had and did he ever imagine returning to it? In 1985, having already built an impressive legacy—Gold plaques, Hot 100 hits, Grammy wins—he left the industry and never looked back. The answer was always firm, unsentimental, and unambiguous: No. We aren’t Bill Withers photo via Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images used to seeing those who step out of the spotlight never yearn virus at the hospital and remains albums due to the global coronavi- such a hectic and scary time for for it, but Withers found freedom there as she recovers from pneu- rus pandemic. all of us, and while I believe art is in retirement. For him, there was monia. Penny Arcade also posted Wes Anderson’s previous one the strongest things we have nothing to do but enjoy a quiet life, an update to Facebook about film was the animated Isle of Dogs. to provide joy and healing to each unbothered. The thrall of celebrity her friend’s health, relaying that Read Pitchfork’s feature “How other during times like this, it just didn’t have any hold on him. “I’m Faithfull is isolated from visitors. Wes Anderson Perfected the doesn’t feel right to me to release not motivated to wanna draw Music-Nerd Soundtrack.” this album with all that is going on attention to myself or travel all during this global pandemic.” over the place,” he said in 2010. Wes Anderson’s “There was a time for that. When New Movie The Lady Gaga it was done it was done. Now it’s Reveals New King Gizzard & something else.” French The Lizard Dispatch Album Marianne Chromatica Wizard An- Faithfull Delayed nounce New There is a new release date Artwork Hospitalized for Wes Anderson’s forthcoming Concert Film with COVID-19 film The French Dispatch. The and Album movie was scheduled to arrive July Marianne Faithfull has been 24, but will now hit theaters on King Gizzard & The Lizard hospitalized in London due to October 16. The French Dispatch Wizard have announced a new coronavirus (COVID-19). She stars Frances McDormand, Bill concert film. Chunky Shrapnel was is “stable and responding to treat- Murray, Tilda Swinton, Benicio recorded on the band’s 2019 tour ment,” according to her manager del Toro, Owen Wilson, Elisabeth of Europe. It arrives April 17 with a François Ravard. Moss, Adrien Brody, Timothée live-streamed premiere, accompa- Faithfull’s longtime friend Chalamet, and more. Chromatica is the follow-up nied by a double-LP release of the Penny Arcade told Rolling Stone Tours, concerts, and festivals to Joanne and her A Star Is Born live album. Check out the trailer that Faithfull had checked herself have been postponed or canceled soundtrack. The record includes below. into a hospital on Monday (March en masse due to COVID-19. In her single “Stupid Love.” Gaga “Chunky Shrapnel was 30) following a few days of addition, many musicians— explained that she decided made for the cinema but as both symptoms. She told the outlet that including HAIM, Lady Gaga, and to delay the album due to the concerts and films are currently Faithfull had tested positive for the Kelly Lee Owens—have delayed COVID-19 pandemic. “This is outlawed, it feels poetic to release. 2 Pitchfork News How TikTok Gets Rich While Paying Artists Pennies The company behind lip-sync app TikTok is reportedly worth three times as much as Spotify, but the artists whose music powers the platform are seeing very little of that money. BY DUNCAN COOPER What is TikTok? goes by Smokehijabi, hitting one year later, people pay awed February, Smokehijabi is at her a blunt in a hijab and making tribute in that post’s comments absolute brattiest: “Hit or miss, I • An app, mostly used by unsparing use of the N-word. section. “BRO,” says one, “YOU guess they never miss, huh?/You young people Problematic in a half-dozen ways, CREATED AN EMPIRE.” got a boyfriend, I bet he doesn’t • Create and share short videos the video was a minor sensation The image was quickly kiss yaaaa!” Though Smokehijabi • Can add filters, effects, online, particularly among the copied and re-posted on dozens lives in Atlanta, her delivery has and sounds edgy sort of joker with a meme of other meme pages. There’s some an almost Midwestern whine to • Emphasizes user account on Instagram. In January debate whether iLOVEFRiDAY it; her melodies are straight and interaction 2018, one such user posted initially understood it was a joke, piercing, catchy to an obnoxious FROM NY TIMES a fake tweet that looked to be but they say it doesn’t really degree. According to Xeno Carr, written by the retired porn actress matter. “All of our fans were like, her partner in the group, in its first iLOVEFRiDAY’s first Mia Khalifa that paired a screen- ‘Screw Mia Khalifa, we don’t like few months on YouTube, the song song was a troll. The music shot of Smokehijabi from the clip her, diss her!’ So we dropped amassed five million views, , an video for “Hate Me” saw one with the caption, “She’s so disre- a diss track,” Smokehijabi tells inspiring number for an unsigned half of the duo, a 21-year-old spectful to all Muslim women and me. On that song, dubbed act. Then it hit TikTok, and people’s Pakistani-American rapper who gives us a bad image smh.” Now, “Mia Khalifa” and released last lives changed. Priscilla Ermel: Origens Da Luz Album Review Following Music From Memory’s Outro Tempo, a collection of Brazilian obscuri- ties, the label turns the spotlight on a forgotten composer who fused cello and guitar with the sounds of the rainforest. BY ANDY BETA Even the most committed end of the country’s military soundworlds glimpsed in Origens students of Brazilian music might regime. Ermel described that era Da Luz, a crucial compendium not have been familiar with the as not just “another time” but of Ermel’s singular work, drawn work of composer Priscilla Ermel “another tempo,” inspiring from the four albums she released until 2017. That was when Music compiler John Gómez to title the between 1986 and 1992. Born From Memory released Outro anthology after her phrase. and raised in São Paulo, Ermel, Tempo: Electronic and Ermel has called recordings who studied cello and guitar, was Contemporary Music From Brazil, from that period “portals through reared on Brazilian composer 1978-1992, introducing a which stories, people, and cultures Heitor Villa-Lobos and number of obscure Brazilian artists can be revealed.” It’s an apt bossa-nova master Tom Jobim, who were making music at the tail metaphor for the uncanny and both sensibilities filter down. 4 Pitchfork Illustration by Drew Litowitz, Playboi Carti photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images How Artist Imposters and Fake Songs Sneak Onto Streaming Services When songs leak on Spotify and Apple Music, illegal uploads can generate substantial royalty payments—but for whom? BY NOAH YOO Last December, new music In the most troubling of these released officially because of The related artists on Lil from Beyoncé and SZA appeared scenarios, fake releases have sample clearance issues involving Kambo’s page revealed even out of nowhere on Spotify and actually crept up the streaming Mai Yamane, whose 1980 song more Playboi Carti leakers, as Apple Music. Released under charts. In March 2019, when a “Tasogare” serves as the basis well as “artists” who were mas- the names “Queen Carter” and fake Rihanna album called Angel for its beat. None of the involved querading as Juice WRLD and Lil “Sister Solana” respectively, these was uploaded to iTunes and Apple artists—Yamane, Carti, Nudy—ul- Uzi Vert. Given the prevalence full-length projects initially seemed Music under the name “Fenty Fan- timately saw a dime from streams of such impersonators, it came as like surprise drops with a twist. tasia,” it made it as far as No. 67 of the song. no surprise when “Pissy Pamper Soon fans realized that something on the iTunes worldwide albums / Kid Cudi” made its way up the wasn’t right: Many of the Beyoncé chart before being yanked off the In the most Spotify Viral chart again, under a recordings came from old sessions, platform. Then, in May, a leak of “ different name, a month after the and the SZA songs sounded like Playboi Carti and Young Nudy’s troubling of these first fake was removed. Before the unfinished demos, which the singer “Pissy Pamper / Kid Cudi” was scenarios, fake end of June, five more unreleased later confirmed. Neither Beyoncé uploaded to Spotify as “Kid Playboi Carti tracks appeared on nor SZA had anything to do with Carti,” under the artist name “Lil releases have the rapper’s official Apple Music the releases, in fact. It wasn’t the Kambo.” Two million-plus streams actually crept page. Fans celebrated the leaks, first time a big artist’s music had later, “Kid Carti” topped the ser- up the streaming which made headlines on Genius been uploaded illegally to Spotify vice’s U.S.