"What I do is try to amplify many voices in a world that often crushes them." That's DEBORAH DUGAN talking to reporters shortly after she was named the next president and CEO of the RECORDING ACADEMY. She's the first woman to hold the titles, and for reasons that have been widely reported and discussed over the past year, she'll have ample opportunity to amplify a range of crushed voices. In her first press conference, she did a ninja-like job of not directly addressing her new employer's contribution to that crushing. "I plan to approach it with a Buddhist beginners’ mind," she said of her new job, "which is really just to listen and learn in the beginning and look at the organization and say, 'Is [the matter at hand] relevant and reflective of the artists’ community which it serves.'" It's hard to argue with that philosophy. Listen. Learn. Dugan's hiring comes on the heels of a USC study documenting the music industry's poor track record of hiring female songwriters and producers and nominating them for awards, and follows a year of work by the Academy's Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion, formed after the disastrous 2018 GRAMMY AWARDS, which the Academy runs. A lawyer with long experience in both music and publishing, and currently the CEO of (RED), she appears to have wide support in the industry and an implicit understanding of one of the things that music from hip-hop to rock to country to jazz has always done—amplify voices in a world that continues to crush them. Dugan takes over for longtime Academy boss NEIL PORTNOW on Aug. 1. Her first Grammy Awards will take place just under six months later and, as the NEW YORK TIMES notes, she "may also be under pressure" to figure out a way to get more people to watch. Details... More comings and goings, by which I mostly mean goings: PLEDGEMUSIC will not be sold and will go into administration—which is British for bankruptcy—co-founder BENJI ROGERS says. The troubled crowd-funding company's creditors include numerous artists owed an estimated total of $1 million to $3 million. If the company's assets are sold off in administration, "it seems unlikely that there will be enough money to cover the entire amount owed," VARIETY reports... After half a century, the call letters WPLJ will disappear from the New York radio dial when its new owner switches to a Christian format in three weeks. WPLJ will be fondly remembered as a New York rock and new-wave staple in the 1970s and early '80s and as a "morning zoo" pioneer in later years; I'll leave the "fondly" qualifier on the second half of that sentence up to you... ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL is leaving Miami after a two-decade run. This year's festival, held on the barrier island of Virginia Key for the first time, caused issues for both festivalgoers and nearby residents. Fish weren't happy either. But the festival itself appears far from done. The MIAMI HERALD reports festival organizers are considering moving southward to Homestead, Fla, next year... MICHAEL JACKSON album titles have disappeared from advertising for an upcoming QUINCY JONES concert in London. MADONNA is not responsible for this... Thirty-eight (!) discs of the original WOODSTOCK... RIP DARRELL WOODSON... And finally, a correction: On Monday I threw out 0.004 cents as the amount artists typically get paid for a single stream on a subscription service. That was based on a mis-reading on my part. While payout numbers aren't exact and vary from month to month and service to service, a more accurate average would be about 0.4 cents per stream. My apologies.