Music

It's tough at the top

One year after the release of her self-titled album, Beyoncé’s music is being closely analyzed yet again — and not, this time, from her Beyhive.

The singer is one of many who’s been accused of sampling without permission throughout her career. Questions of authorship and of sampling are particularly pernicious and difficult to solve in the recording industry; just this month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Beyoncé’s husband Jay Z for his sampling of a single syllable from a funk song. A new lawsuit filed by Hungarian singer Mitsou alleges that Beyoncé, Jay Z, and producer Timbaland used her song “Bajba, Bajba Pelem” at the start of “Drunk in Love.”

While musicians of all stripes can get hit with lawsuits given the unclear standards around sampling and the ephemeral nature of authorship, Beyoncé’s been hit more frequently than many of her contemporaries. Being queen, it’d seem, has a headache-inducing cost — as several of her songs and videos have come in for criticism.

• “Baby Boy”: One of Beyoncé’s first solo singles was alleged by songwriter Jennifer Armour to bear substantial similarities to her “Got a Little Bit of Love for You,” which had been submitted as a demo to Beyoncé’s label. “Armour cannot prove Beyoncé had access to Armour’s demo tape before composing the allegedly infringing elements of her own song,” the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a decision declining even to address the songs’ similarity.
• “If I Were a Boy”: The lead-off single for Beyoncé’s album I Am… Sasha Fierce was penned by songwriter BC Jean, whose own version of the song was rejected by her record label. After Beyoncé discovered the song and recorded it, a Fox News gossip columnist wrote that Jean had been “strong-armed by Beyoncé’s people.” That seems a bit overzealous: For her part, Jean told an interviewer that she’d been surprised her first-ever song had been recorded by another artist, but that the Beyoncé version had “opened so many doors, it’s amazing.”
• “Countdown”: Beyoncé took inspiration from contemporary ballet in her “Countdown” video, but one of her muses was far from flattered. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker claimed “plagiarism”; though it’s difficult to cite a source in a music video, Beyoncé took it upon herself to credit De Keersmaeker in a statement after the choreographer spoke out. “I’ve always been fascinated by the way contemporary art uses different elements and references to produce something unique,” Beyoncé said.
• “Run the World (Girls)”: The apocalyptic, disturbing clip for this 2011 single was specifically compared to the work of photographer Pieter Hugo, down to imagery of pet hyenas on chains. And her performance of the song at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards was compared to the similar work of choreographer Lorella Cuccarini. “Thank god for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring,” Beyoncé later said.

Actively learning to play an instrument can help a child's academic achievement

There’s little doubt that learning to play a musical instrument is great for developing brains.

Science has shown that when children learn to play music, their brains begin to hear and process sounds that they couldn’t otherwise hear. This helps them develop “neurophysiological distinction” between certain sounds that can aid in literacy, which can translate into improved academic results for kids.

Many parents probably read the above sentence and started mentally Google-ing child music classes in their local area. But if your kid doesn’t like learning an instrument or doesn’t actively engage in the class–opting to stare at the wall or doodle in a notebook instead of participating–he or she may not be getting all the benefits of those classes anyway.

A new study from Northwestern University revealed that in order to fully reap the cognitive benefits of a music class, kids can’t just sit there and let the sound of music wash over them. They have to be actively engaged in the music and participate in the class. “Even in a group of highly motivated students, small variations in music engagement — attendance and class participation — predicted the strength of neural processing after music training,” said Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, in an email to TIME. She co-authored the study with Jane Hornickel, Dana L. Strait, Jessica Slater and Elaine Thompson of Northwestern University.

Additionally, the study showed that students who played instruments in class had more improved neural processing than the children who attended the music appreciation group. “We like to say that ‘making music matters,'” said Kraus. “Because it is only through the active generation and manipulation of sound that music can rewire the brain.”

Kraus, whose research appeared today in Frontiers in Psychology, continued: “Our results support the importance of active experience and meaningful engagement with sound to stimulate changes in the brain.” Active participation and meaningful engagement translate into children being highly involved in their musical training–these are the kids who had good attendance, who paid close attention in class, “and were the most on-task during their lesson,” said Kraus.

To find these results, Kraus’s team went straight to the source, hooking up strategically placed electrode wires on the students’ heads to capture the brain’s responses.

Kraus’s team at Northwestern has teamed up with The Harmony Project, a community music program serving low-income children in Los Angeles, after Harmony’s founder approached Kraus to provide scientific evidence behind the program’s success with students.

According to The Harmony Project’s website, since 2008, 93 percent of Harmony Project seniors have gone on to college, despite a dropout rate of 50 percent or more in their neighborhoods. It’s a pretty impressive achievement and the Northwestern team designed a study to explore those striking numbers. That research, published in September in the Journal of Neuroscience, showed direct evidence that music training has a biological effect on children’s developing nervous systems.

As a follow up, the team decided to test whether the level of engagement in that music training actually matters. Turns out, it really does. Researchers found that after two years, children who not only regularly attended music classes, but also actively participated in the class, showed larger improvements in how the brain processes speech and reading scores than their less-involved peers.

“It turns out that playing a musical instrument is important,” Kraus said, differentiating her group’s findings from the now- debunked myth that just listening to certain types of music improves intelligence, the so-called “Mozart effect.” “We don’t see these kinds of biological changes in people who are just listening to music, who are not playing an instrument,” said Kraus. “I like to give the analogy that you’re not going to become physically fit just by watching sports.” It’s important to engage with the sound in order to reap the benefits and see changes in the central nervous system.

As to how to keep children interested in playing instruments, that’s up to the parents. “I think parents should follow their intuitions with respect to keeping their children engaged,” said Kraus. “Find the kind of music they love, good teachers, an instrument they’ll like. Making music should be something that children enjoy and will want to keep doing for many years!”

With that in mind, it’s not too late to trade in those Minecraft Legos, Frozen paraphernalia, XBox games, and GoldieBlox presents that you may have purchased, and swap them out for music lessons for the kids in your life.

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Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce

Their new album, Strangers To Ourselves, is out March 3

Seven years later, Modest Mouse has finally released a new song.

The track — called “Lampshades On Fire” — sounds like classic Modest Mouse, all complex layering, staccato vocals and Johnny Marr’s jangly guitar riffs. It will certainly appeal to fans of the band’s 2000 release, The Moon and Antarctica, and will fit in nicely next to “Float On” on any college rock playlist.

The track is the lead single to Modest Mouse’s new album Strangers To Ourselves, which is due out March 3 on Epic Records. It will be the band’s first release since 2009’s B-side collection No One’s First and You’re Next EP and their first full-length album since 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. While fans had to wait a long time for new music, the 15 songs on this new double LP should compensate.

“Lampshades On Fire” has already made its radio debut, but if it sounds vaguely familiar, some ardent fans may have heard it before. While the song was just released, as Stereogum pointed out, the band has been performing it live for at least three years.

Strangers to Ourselves is available for pre-order via Modest Mouse’s website.

Sorry, N.W.A., Chic, The Smiths and Sting. Maybe next year!

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced that its Class of 2015 will include Joan Jett & the Blackhearts and the late Lou Reed, whose band The Velvet Underground was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 by Patti Smith.

Other inductees for 2015 include first-time nominee Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble; “Lean on Me” singer Bill Withers, who hasn’t released new music in nearly three decades; The Paul Butterfield Blues Band; and Green Day, whose debut EP, 1,000 Hours, came out in 1989. They are entering the Rock Hall in their first year of eligibility.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is also honoring Ringo Starr this year; he will be given the Award For Musical Excellence. Starr — the former drummer for The Beatles who were inducted in 1988 — is the last of his bandmates to receive the honor. Also being inducted is 1950s R&B group the “5” Royales, who will receive the Early Influence Award.

Joan Jett has been eligible for the Rock Hall for years — and should have been inducted ages ago. Her nomination gained traction after she joined Nirvana on stage last year for a ferocious performance of “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It has become tradition for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies to end with a massive cross-genre jam session between the inductees — one can only hope that this year they wrap the ceremony with all the artists playing their hearts out to Jett’s “I Love Rock n’ Roll.”

Congratulations to this year’s inductees, and better luck next year to nominees The Smiths, N.W.A., Nine Inch Nails, The Spinners, The Marvellettes, Kraftwerk, Sting, War, and American disco outfit Chic, who have been nominated for the Rock Hall nine times since 2003. While many speculated that 2014 would be their year, thanks to the work of member Nile Rodgers with Daft Punk, the band has been overlooked yet again.

A moratorium on specialized takes on the hit song

The R&B star released his first album since 2000, Black Messiah, at midnight last night

There are artists whose careers are plagued by album delays, and then there is D’Angelo.

The critically acclaimed R&B superstar — once dubbed “R&B Jesus” by prominent rock critic Robert Christgau — made his long-awaited return last night with Black Messiah, his first album since 2000’s Voodoo (and only his third studio album ever in his near-20 year career).

Despite the excitement and social media chatter around the surprisingly timely album, which dropped at midnight, one question still loomed: Where has D’Angelo been for the past 14 years, anyway? At Sunday night’s New York City listening session for the album, only one semblance of answer was provided: D’Angelo has been working on his guitar, and while it shows on Black Messiah, that’s hardly satisfying.

The truth is, there really isn’t a good answer. D’Angelo does work slowly, partially evident by the five-year gap between his debut, Brown Sugar, and Voodoo. The Roots’ drummer Questlove, who worked on a handful of album tracks, leaked one song, “Really Love” — now the album’s official first single — to an Australian radio station way back in 2007. Another album cut, “1000 Deaths,” first hit the Internet in some form in 2010, the same year engineer Russell Elevado, who worked on Black Messiah and Voodoo, announced they were going back into the studio to “to complete overdubs and do final mixing on a few songs.” These songs have been in the works for years, and after hearing the album, it almost makes sense: Black Messiah is a busy, dense album that’s obsessed with the intricate details, so it’s not hard to imagine D’Angelo studying every single guitar note and harmony, tweaking and re-recording it to his satisfaction (and to everyone else’s frustration). D’Angelo fans have been burned by false promises in the past, but while his collaborators spent the past few years making statements about the record being “97% done,” for example, they don’t appear to have been lying lying.

That said, there hasn’t been a complete D’Angelo drought since Voodoo. The singer collaborated with a handful for their records in mid-2000s, such as Raphael Saadiq (“Be Here,” 2005); Common and J Dilla (“So Far to Go,” 2006); Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre (“Imagine,” 2007); and Q-Tip (“Believe,” 2008). And he hasn’t entirely been holed up in a studio, either, embarking on a short European tour in 2012, at that point his first string of live shows (barring performances at church) in more than a 10 years.

Much of absence however, involves his personal struggles, which are extensively chronicled in a 2012 GQ feature about D’Angelo. In the piece, writer Amy Wallance explores how the attention D’Angelo attracted as a sex symbol for his steamy “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” music video “tortured” the singer. “‘Yo, man, I cannot wait until this fucking tour is over,'” Questlove remembers D’Angelo telling him after the Voodoo tour. “‘I’m going to go in the woods, drink some hooch, grow a beard, and get fat.’ … I was like, ‘You’re a funny guy.’ And then it started to happen. That’s how much he wanted to distance himself.”

A few deaths in his family rocked his personal life after the tour — “I just kind of sunk into this thing [after that],” he told GQ. He then spiraled into substance abuse: D’Angelo was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated and possession of marijuana and cocaine in 2005. By the time he survived a near-fatal car accident in September of that year, he had already done two unsuccessful stints in rehab. But D’Angelo says his wake-up call occurred in 2006, following the death of raper-producer J Dilla. He was shook by the loss, so he reached out to the man who first signed him, Gary Harris, to get in touch with Eric Clapton, who knew D’Angelo and told him he was welcome at the Crossroads treatment center in Antigua, if he could pay $40,000. According to Harris, the bill was footed by his former boss and one of the most powerful managers in the industry, Irving Azoff, who didn’t even know D’Angelo personally.

D’Angelo wouldn’t be totally clear from personal troubles after that — in 2010, he was arrested and charged with solicitation after offering a female undercover cop $40 for a sexual favor — but he was able to land a new record deal 18 months after his monthlong rehab stint at Crossroads. “But even then, in D’s world,” Wallace writes, “nothing happens quickly.”

Sucker contains a dressing room’s worth of new styles and a Top 40 playlist’s worth of pop moves

To those who know Charli XCX from “Boom Clap” — the sugary, besotten cut from The Fault in Our Stars turned breakout hit — she’s a newcomer: another bratty new face from a pop machine that stamps out bratty new faces. In reality, Charlotte Aitchison is already a pop lifer at 22, on about her fourth reinvention. First, she was a Myspace DIYer, then a gothy ‘80s maximalist, then a crushed-out chillwave purveyor, and now an unlikely teenpop starlet. Madonna would be dizzied by reinvention at this pace: Sucker is not Charli XCX’s debut album but her third.

It’s also the normal pace pop runs at in 2014, where artists’ A&R reinventions – the retoolings upon retoolings that precede artists’ debut – take place not behind label doors but on SoundCloud, across blogs and otherwise in public, allowing each successive style to sweep in a new microdemographic of followers and fans. “Tweenage spitfire” might seem a stretch for someone whose prior demographic was mostly pop nerds and indie fans, but you could hear it coming. You could hear it on one-off “SuperLove”; you could definitely hear it on radio smash “I Love It” (which Charli gave to Icona Pop thinking it didn’t fit her sound — so much has changed in so little time); and you could infer it from her entry into the major-label songwriters’ gallery, penning tracks for up-and-comers like Ryn Weaver and Bella Thorne, her Disney doppelganger. Even her earliest shows in smallish venues, pulsed with bumping-and-grinding star charisma, made for huge arenas.

“Boom Clap” is a songwriter’s pop song, a smart song – drunk as much on love as it is on form and onomatopoeia, and full of enough Charli touches to sound like hers. Still, it’s far more saccharine than career highlights “Stay Away” or “You’re the One.” It suggests a worst-case scenario of polishing away everything that made Charli XCX compelling, turning her into a could’ve-been story like X Factor personality bomb Cher Lloyd (homogenized by Simon Cowell’s Syco) or British musical polyglot A*M*E (by Max Martin’s proteges).

Fortunately, Sucker is not that album; it only resembles a traditional teenpop debut during its draggy final stretch. It’s also not True Romance. That album was great for its deathly serious melodrama, but Sucker is great because it takes nothing seriously. Credit Aitchison, who’s proven herself adept both at musical reinvention and at industry politics. “I proved a point to my record label that I wasn’t f-cking around,” she recently told TIME. “I can write big pop songs, but I can A&R myself as well.” What she’s A&Red herself into this time is something like a late-‘90s movie soundtrack, down to a Republica homage: lead track “Sucker.” The rhythms and sass come directly from “Ready to Go,” but the bridge — “Sitting on a plastic speedboat in the ultraviolet ocean, playing cool songs, trying to show off,” shouted singsong — is pure Charli, both in acid-trip surrealism and in attitude. Single “Break the Rules,” paced like an EDM stomper, takes ‘90s Shampoo and Garbage and turns them into ‘10s treasure. Icona Pop drove pop off this particular bridge years ago, and it’s thrilling to hear an artist revive these pleasures without the guilt.

Even the bad ideas work. “London Queen” is like the Ramones as interpreted by Mary-Kate and Ashley, punctuated with Britishisms “Oi!” and “Wank!” like emoji. When she chirps things like, “When I’m driving on the wrong side of the road, I feel like J! F! K!” it’s embarrassing on the first listen. But on subsequent plays it’s exuberant, and great fun.

Elsewhere, Charli XCX easily outdoes her peers. “Gold Coins” is Lorde’s “Royals” with the saturation and satire cranked up, and the broke bitterness even more acute. Throwbacks “Need Ur Luv” and “Breaking Up” (on the former, shades of The Chalets) should render would-be doo-wopper Meghan Trainor entirely irrelevant. Given her younger fanbase, “Body of My Own” can’t go past PG-13, but smartly, it reserves its best euphemisms for the music – the “Turning Japanese” quotes, the effervescent bridge-as-climax. “Doing It” is pastiche worthy of last year’s Haim album, and fans of early Madonna will get much from “Dress You Up” pings and eerily reproduced vocal shimmer. And while Rivers Cuomo cowrite “Hanging Around” sounds exactly like early Weezer, its spoken-word bridge is as much a throwback to – again – Aitchison’s own “Stay Away.”

Sucker is full of callbacks like these: “Doing It” is like a sequel to “Take My Hand,” and “Body of My Own” outsulks anything on True Romance. It’s fitting. While Sucker contains a dressing room’s worth of new styles and a Top 40 playlist’s worth of pop moves, Charli XCX is a smart enough songwriter to make them her own, and magnetic enough a presence to make that a winning prospect.