With closures and cutbacks spreading across the music media—and media in general—like some kind of internet flu, have record companies decided they have to fill in the gap themselves? UNIVERSAL MUSIC recently hired ex-WAX POETICS and GENIUS editor ANDRE TORRES to oversee its urban catalog, and he's created a hip-hop and R&B website, URBAN LEGENDS, to market the catalog but also, why not, to be an actual hip-hop and R&B website. "I want to build a strong community of super-hardcore fans of urban music," Torres tells THE ROOT. And ATLANTIC RECORDS this week launched ATLANTIC PODCASTS, with a full slate of current and archival programming planned. Part of me wants to congratulate labels for finding a business with an even worse financial future than music, and part of me wants to hug them for each and every writer, editor and producer they give a full-time job to... Bonus reading for previous item: AMOS BARSHAD's great NY TIMES MAGAZINE piece on DEREK JETER's THE PLAYERS' TRIBUNE, in which athletes swap out pesky reporters and pesky questions in favor of ghostwriters who help them tell their stories in the first person. Some of the content is riveting, some is legitimately top-notch and a lot of it is exactly what you think would happen after you kill all the reporters. The question I've been asking myself since it launched in 2014 is why isn't someone doing this for music?... Fun question. My answer today: "JAMES JOINT," "KISS IT BETTER," "WORK" (my answer yesterday: "I WISH," "KNOCKS ME OFF MY FEET," "PASTIME PARADISE")... Why are the track listings all the way down there on WIKIPEDIA album pages? Isn't that the first thing anyone wants to know?... MetalPass, anyone? What would you pay to see all 34 shows on METALLICA's 2018-19 tour—or even, say, five or 10 of 'em? How about $598, which is the price of the Wherever I May Roam Black Ticket, and which seems like a reasonable fee for the chance to see as many shows as you want between Sept. 2, 2018, in Madison, Wis., and March 13, 2019, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Caveat: Airfare and hotels not included.) "Did PHISH or any other band with tour followers ever try this?," the WALL STREET JOURNAL's JOHN JURGENSEN wonders. How about a MADISON SQUARE GARDEN pass?, I wonder. What would you pay for an entire year of entry to MSG shows? How would that work? Would there be a market?