It's FRIDAY and that means two MusicREDEF thumbs up to JASON ISBELL, whose seventh album, REUNIONS, is being released seven days early as an exclusive to indie record stores in the US and Canada. Everyone else, including streaming sites, gets it next Friday, which is the official release day for anyone who still believes in such things. I've never been a big fan of windowing, which can be confusing and costly for fans, but hell yes to this pane of glass. More artists should do this. Record stores are being clobbered by the pandemic and this is an easy and potentially profitable way to give back. It's a win-win-win. The retailers get badly needed business and Isbell gets an opening week where every transaction is either a vinyl or CD sale or a digital download (those will go through recordstoreday.com), which is good for both his chart position and his wallet. So simple even I understand it. It helps that Isbell is his own label and it helps, too, that this dovetails with a moment where complaints about streaming service royalties are gaining new traction. With other sources of income, especially touring, having disappeared, there's been a surge in both streaming usage and in conversations about how artists are, or aren't, benefiting from that usage. Are SPOTIFY and other services charging enough for subscriptions, and are they returning enough of that revenue to the musicians who supply almost all of their content? Is the way those payouts are split between artists, labels and publishers fair? Is the way they're divvied up between artists and songwriters fair? Should subscribers' money go the artists they actually listen to instead of into a shared pot that favors the richest, most popular artists at the expense of music's middle class? Is it time to renegotiate everything? These are the questions being raised anew by ANNABELLA COLDRICK of the UK's MUSIC MANAGERS FORUM, by musician and PRS director TOM GRAY, by analyst MARK MULLIGAN, by CHARLATANS frontman and TWITTER album-listening guru TIM BURGESS and by sundry others feeling newly emboldened to just come out and say "Pull Your Music Off Spotify." MUSICALLY's STUART DREDGE writes a long piece about whether "Spotify Should Pay Musicians More" and gets a retweet from DANIEL EK. So we're at one of those moments. The floor is open. And one of the items on today's agenda is the elegantly simple "Buy Jason Isbell's album at your local record shop." The motion is approved... As for that flatlining touring industry, you didn't need to be on LIVE NATION's Q1 earnings call Thursday to know that revenues and everything else is down. But if you were on the call, you were served a few side dishes of optimism, too. The company says it has enough cash to survive the rest of this bleak year "without any concern," it will be testing a number of alternatives to traditional concerts this summer and, with the help of professional sports, it expects large-scale ticket sales to return in Q4. And CEO MICHAEL RAPINO said 90 percent of fans with tickets to postponed concerts have held onto their tickets rather than seek refunds. Rapino said a Live Nation survey found that the same percentage of fans "can't wait to get back to the show," but on that point, other surveys may agree to disagree... Speaking of alternatives, FORTNITE is following up its mega-successful TRAVIS SCOTT in-game event with a virtual show featuring STEVE AOKI and DEADMAU5 tonight... And ERYKAH BADU and JILL SCOTT will square off Saturday in the next edition of INSTAGRAM LIVE's VERZUZ battle series. It will be the first time women have entered the Verzuz ring... Oh, and remember a week ago when Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund bought a 5.7 percent stake in Live Nation on the open market, a sale of shares that the company said it didn't know about in advance and would have been powerless to stop? Now the Saudis are offering to buy WARNER MUSIC GROUP, according to the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. A "source close to WMG owner LEN BLAVATNIK" tells the magazine there's one other bid and "and it will come down to a number"—presumably not the number of journalists dismembered on Saudi diplomatic property, but I guess we'll see... Anyway, as previously mentioned, it's Friday and, besides Jason Isbell, that means new music HAYLEY WILLIAMS, KEHLANI, LIL DURK, NAV, HAILEE STEINFELD, MARK LANEGAN, BUTCH WALKER, NATALIA LAFOURCADE, RAC, BISHOP NEHRU, LIL TJAY, GREEN CARNATION, WINTERFYLLETH, FAKE NAMES, the HIRSCH EFFEKT, NAGLFAR, MILTON NASCIMENTO & CRIOLO, BUSCABULLA, BLAKE MILLS, I BREAK HORSES, EVE OWEN, KURT ROSENWINKEL TRIO, E-40, TAKAYUKI SHIRAISHI, JAI UTTAL, LETTUCE, STEVE FORBERT, CHOIR BOY and MAJETIC... RIP TY, JOHN ERHARDT, BRIAN HOWE and İBRAHIM GÖKÇEK.