Sometimes—not always, but sometimes—mo' money means few'r problems. That's the unequivocal message of CARDI B's fantastic single "MONEY," which she surprise-dropped Monday morning. Over a minimalist piano line spiced with digital handclaps, Cardi, who knows a thing or two about money moves, informs us there's "nothing in this world that I like more than checks"—not diamonds, not jets, not "morning sex." (It's up to you decide if afternoon or evening sex might in fact be preferable to those checks; Cardi offers no guidance on that point.) She's quite clear that her preferred format for receiving those dollars is via check, a format that's traceable and accountable and better for doing business than the cash that Cardi has been known to throw around onstage. Of course, if the business you happen to be in is music, it's never been easy to trace or account for that money; it sometimes seems as if the entire business was designed specifically to prevent you from ever being able to account for a single dollar, even if you're the person to whom that dollar is owed. Kudos, therefore, to IMOGEN HEAP, whose just-launched LIFE OF A SONG website is an attempt to break down every dollar earned in the past decade and a half by her influential 2005 vocoder hit "HIDE AND SEEK." The interactive site allows you to separate out and compare recording and publishing income from such sources as physical sales, broadcast, sync and, least but not last, sheet music (the source of 2,126 British pounds' worth of publishing income in the song's best year). It's a beautifully designed site and fun to play with even if, I confess, some of the math didn't quite make sense to me. Heap is missing some info, whose absence she details. A project diary chronicles the enormous effort her team put into collecting and organizing the data over the past 20 months. It took a team of nine people nearly two years to do this. For a single song. Heap is a vocal proponent of using blockchain technology to make this a little easier for everyone, and perhaps to make those checks arrive a little bit sooner, with a little more confidence on the part of the recipient... GIBSON, the guitar company, has had money problems of its own in recent years, and on Tuesday it announced the appointment of a new CEO, JAMES CURLEIGH. He'll take over on Nov. 1, the day the company is scheduled to emerge from bankruptcy protection. Curleigh, currently at LEVI STRAUSS, another iconic American brand that lost its way for a while, tells ROLLING STONE he plans to focus on fretted instruments in the near term. The company's wandering eye for other kinds of music-making tools is widely seen as a significant contributor to Gibson's financial woes... Classic rock beef of the week: TED NUGENT vs. many inhabitants of the ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME vs. DAVID CROSBY... ASMR content creator of the week: Cardi B... RIP NICK BREED and JON JAMES MCMURRAY.