Whether pronounced "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh," "oh-oh-whoa-oh-whoa" or "wha-ah-ah-ah-oh," there's a two-note melodic phrase that's been running rampant through pop music in recent years, and a writer and musician named PATRICK METZGER gives it a name (the "millennial whoop") and investigates where it comes from and what it means in this wonderful piece for his blog THE PATTERNING. The notes are sol and mi, and they are rooted in songs like "NANNY NANNY BOO BOO" that are all but written into our collective DNA. They evoke "a kind of primordial sense that everything will be alright," which, Metzger suggests, may be especially comforting in an age of violence, disruption and uncertainty. There are a million reasons why music matters, and it can be difficult to articulate what exactly any of them are. Which is why pieces like this are so welcome. Especially in times like these... PITCHFORK reports on the potential prison sentence BIG FREEDIA faces today for defrauding the public housing system in NEW ORLEANS. The crime is straightforward; the life and culture and economic context from which it sprang is anything but. If the music industry wants to defend one of its own, maybe start here... WEDNESDAY was day two of the news cycle of the year's weirdest music story: UNIVERSAL's alleged decision to stop doing streaming exclusives, which has gone viral across the mainstream press without a single outlet appearing to have confirmed it. BILLBOARD's explainer on the topic accepts it as a given, but the key paragraph, the one that describes the news the rest of the piece is explaining, contains no attribution. Read at your own risk and act, or don't act, accordingly... It does seem to be an accepted truth that FRANK OCEAN, who may or may not be at the center of that story, is no longer a UNIVERSAL artist. The reactions to his two new albums (one released through Universal and one, much to the company's chagrin, not) continue to pour in, and we're still collecting them in our REDEF MusicSET BLOND OR BLONDE: REVIEWING FRANK OCEAN... RIP GILLI SMYTH.