NEWS
Taylor swift
TAS Rights Management*When the Grammy nominations were announced on Nov. 23, Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent were listed as album of the year nominees for their role as songwriters on Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour. That raised some eyebrows because those three songwriters weren’t actively involved in the creation of Sour. It’s simply a case that Rodrigo and her producer and frequent collaborator, Daniel Nigro, interpolated an old song of theirs.
The Recording Academy made an update on its site on Sunday (Dec. 5) which indicates that it has withdrawn the nominations for Sour for Swift, Antonoff and St. Vincent (Annie Clark).
Swift and Antonoff are still listed as album of the year nominees for their work on Swift’s evermore. Antonoff also remains a nominee for producer of the year, non-classical. St. Vincent remains a nominee for best alternative music album for Daddy’s Home.
Here’s an Academy statement on the subject: “During the submission process, the Academy received credits from the label for the track ‘deju vu.’ Last week, we received the correct credits from the label that recognize Annie Clark, Jack Antonoff and Taylor Swift as songwriters of an interpolation on the track, ‘deja vu.’ In keeping with current Grammy guidelines, as songwriters of an interpolated track, Clark, Antonoff and Swift are not nominees in the album of the year category for Sour. Antonoff and Swift are nominated in the category for Swift’s album, evermore.”
This year, the Academy announced that all songwriters on album of the year nominees will receive nominations. But the Academy is wisely drawing a distinction between songwriters who are actively involved in the creation of a new song and those whose old work was merely interpolated.
“deja vu,” one of the biggest hits on Sour, includes an interpolation of “Cruel Summer,” a song that Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent co-wrote for Swift’s 2019 album, Lover. Another track on Rodrigo’s album, “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” contains an interpolation of “New Year’s Day,” a song Swift and Antonoff co-wrote for Swift’s 2017 album, reputation. (That one was listed correctly when the label submitted Rodrigo’s entry, according to the Academy.)
This Grammy ruling simplifies things for Swift loyalists who are voting members of the Academy. Previously, Grammy voters who really wanted Swift to win her 12th Grammy had a hard choice to make in album of the year voting. Should they vote for Swift’s album or for Rodrigo’s album, which presumably has a better chance of winning? (Rodrigo has seven nominations this year, compared to just one for Swift.) Now, Swifties in the Academy no longer have to make that tough choice. They will be presumably be voting for Swift.
This is one of several refinements the Academy has made in the nominations list since it was first made public. The nominations list contains thousands of names and data points; some changes and adjustments are inevitable.
Here is an official Academy list of those changes.
NEWS
No matter what you thought of the Kendrick Lamar and Drake battle, there was only one undisputed winner by the end of it all: the reaction community in the worlds of streaming and YouTube. Your favorite content creators broke down the bars, reacted to all the most shocking moments, and helped this showdown become one of hip-hop's most culturally significant and resonant moments in a long time... For better or worse. See, the battle's technically not over yet, but only because the 6ix God's idea of victory is clearly quite different. In his federal defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group – his label – for releasing K.Dot's "Not Like Us," he named various content creators who allegedly helped boost the track's widespread popularity and, as a result, its supposedly defamatory nature.
Furthermore, the specific allegation that Drake brings up in this highly controversial lawsuit is that UMG "whitelisted" copyright claims for YouTubers, streamers, etc. concerning "Not Like Us." This means that they would be able to monetize their content without facing a copyright claim from UMG over "Not Like Us," and this isn't really an allegation because various creators have backed this up. But a few important (alleged) caveats that people are talking about online need to be clear. First, "whitelisting" supposedly happens on behalf of a record label behind a song like the West Coast banger, and UMG is instead the distributor of that track. Secondly, as rapper and online personality ScruFaceJean brings up as seen in the post below, tracks like "Push Ups" were also "whitelisted" by its team.
Along with Jean, many other of your favorite content creators spoke out against this Drake lawsuit. Zias! and B.Lou, for example, spoke with their lawyer about the possibility of countersuing for emotional distress, as they found the Toronto superstar's accusations and his implication of them very disturbing and misguided. NoLifeShaq also dragged The Boy through the mud, calling him "soft" and positing that, whether "whitelisting" happened or not, they would react to "Not Like Us" accordingly as they did to his own tracks.
In addition, it's important to bring up that many others fans have pointed to how Drake excitedly used streamers to generate hype and reaction clips for his own diss tracks against Kendrick Lamar. The most direct example is with Kai Cenat, whom he texted to "stay on stream" before dropping "Family Matters." Ironically, the Twitch giant appears in this clowned-upon defamation lawsuit as an example of what the OVO mogul's accusations and implications are. And one more thing: there is no direct link between monetization and algorithmic boosting on sites like YouTube. With all this in mind, content creators seem to feel almost insulted at the idea that they only reacted to the two biggest rappers in the world beefing with each other because one of them would allow them to make money. If Drizzy knew the first thing about the reaction community, maybe he wouldn't have included this...
