To Lose and to Pretend

So here's the lawyer for the Artist Formerly Known as the NIRVANA Album Cover Baby explaining why he actually, legally believes that album cover was child pornography, and here are a bunch of other lawyers, one of whom couldn't summon the courage to put his own name to his own words (why, Hollywood Reporter, why?), explaining why the child porn lawsuit against everyone who had anything to do with that album is going to be laughed out of court, and blah blah this and blah blah that, and here, if you ask me, is the only thing you actually need to read about a lawsuit that predictably, but also strangely, has gone viral this week and turned a bunch of adult internet pundits, including people I know, into infants themselves, as if they've switched roles with the cover model. ANNE HIGONNET, writing for Slate, has empathy for NEVERMIND cover baby SPENCER ELDEN ("I don’t doubt that the 'Nevermind' album cover, which has been a background image in our visual culture since 1991, has had an impact on Spencer Elden's life") while also being sympathetic to what KURT COBAIN was trying to say with an image featuring a full frontal shot of Elden, naked as the day he was born, which was four months earlier. And she understands that "the album cover resonates very differently today than it did back then." The lenses we look through have changed. And two lenses, one marked 1991 and one marked 2021, are needed to make any sense of the actual story being told here, which isn't, at the end of the day, a story about a lawsuit. It's a story about lenses and vision. "We desperately want to alter the past according to what we sincerely believe right now," Higonnet writes. But we can't. Spencer Elden can't. Nirvana can't. So: "Let’s change the future instead."

It's Friday

And that means new music from HALSEY, a pop star who has stopped giving a f*** about anything but their own muse, which they follow to a logical conclusion on IF I CAN'T HAVE LOVE, I WANT POWER, an album-length collaboration with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It's a pop album designed to drown you in sound, feeling and beats lurking just below the surface. "If there’s an organizing framework to the album," Pitchfork's DANI BLUM writes, "it’s dissonance"... TURNSTILE, a Baltimore hardcore band with an ever-expanding worldview, enlists the services of Dev Hynes, aka Blood Orange, on the ambitious GLOW ON... Palestinian-Canadian rapper BELLY returns from a short career break with SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY, an album he describes as a revenge story—against his old self. The Weeknd, Young Thug and Lil Uzi Vert lend a hand... BIG RED MACHINE is Aaron Dessner, formerly known as a founding member of the National but more recently known as a member of Taylor Swift Inc., and Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, who's found a few external avenues of his own to explore. Their second album, HOW LONG DO YOU THINK IT'S GONNA LAST, features "almost everyone I've made a record with," Dessner says... TOYAH, the internet's favorite 63-year-old YouTube rock star, breaks out of her Sunday Lunch routine to release her first album in 13 years.

Plus new music from INDIGO DE SOUZA, NITE JEWEL, SPACE AFRIKA, LIL TECCA, GRIP, CHVRCHES, JADEN, ONEREPUBLIC, DIANE WARREN (her debut album, somehow), maybe but probably not KANYE WEST (I doubt even he knows), OHGEESY, TRACE ADKINS, NIKO MOON, NELLY (goes country with help from Kane Brown, Jimmie Allen, Florida Georgia Line, etc.), KENNY GARRETT, TERENCE BLANCHARD (tribute to Wayne Shorter), WEB MAX & MAX HERRE, ANDREW CYRILLE QUARTET, the BUG (aka producer Kevin Martin, with guests including Moor Mother, Flowdan and Roger Robinson), MARISA ANDERSON & WILLIAM TYLER, SCARYPOOLPARTY, NICKY JAM, MARIA BECERRA, KIEFER, EYEDRESS, STEVE GUNN, DANKO JONES, FILTH IS ETERNAL, MEN I TRUST, MACY RODMAN, MADI DIAZ, MAISIE PETERS, BLK ODYSSY, G PERICO, CURREN$Y, WATER FROM YOUR EYES, the BRONX, TEENAGE BOTTLEROCKET, CHUBBY AND THE GANG, BRIAN SETZER, FOTOCRIME, YANN TIERSEN, FIELD WORKS, TYSHAWN SOREY & ALARM WILL SOUND, SPEKTRAL QUARTET/ANNA THORVALDSDOTTIR, SUMMER DEAN, DELLA MAE, BOB SCHNEIDER, JASON EADY, SOUTHERN AVENUE, the FAUX PAWS... And the awesome debut album from MOUSE RAT, the most awesome band ever to emerge, awesomely, from Pawnee, Indiana.

Etc Etc Etc

The ROLLING STONES will go ahead with their fall American tour, with drummer STEVE JORDAN filling in for the late CHARLIE WATTS... Classical composer from Austin decides there should be better "hold" music while navigating unemployment claims on the phone; the TEXAS WORKFORCE COMMISSION, who processes those claims, agrees... The TALIBAN wants the world to think it's modernized but a spokesman tells the New York Times there will be no music in public in Afghanistan because "music is forbidden in Islam" (fact check)... Congrats to my friend JOSEPH PATEL, who's directing the film adaptation of the book CONTACT HIGH: A VISUAL HISTORY OF HIP-HOP... VICE and REFINERY29 laid off around 20 editorial staffers Thursday, including music writer JOSH TERRY and culture writer JELISA CASTRODALE (whose final piece was an interview with people who have BILLY JOEL tattoos).

Rest in Peace

Mastering engineer GEORGE HORN, who put the finishing touches on thousands of jazz, rock and punk albums during a three-decade run at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, Calif. "He saw everything as a challenge, and he wanted to translate what people wanted," said Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys... Nashville session drummer and percussionist KENNY MALONE, who can be heard on records by Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard, Garth Brooks, Dobie Gray and countless others... Memphis playwright, theater director and songwriter ERMA L. CLANTON... Frankie & the Heartstrings drummer DAVE HARPER... Holocaust survivor INGE GINSBERG, who in her 90s became the "Death Metal Grandma"... Wichita, Kan., venue owner and promoter KENNY BALLINGER.