#2019 international tour

[junkyard-gifs]

Four years later, and Gavin Eden's Skimbleshanks still loves a Bomba cuddle.

First with Sally Frith in the 2019 international tour; second with Petra Ilse Dam in the 2022 leg of the same production (21 February 2023).

[white-cat-of-doom]

Amy Louise Whittle posted a video of herself as Jennyanydots performing the Gumbie Tap back when she was in the UK/International Tour 2019.

(Source)

[caleblandrybones]

so do you guys own a signed item that means a lot to you? I'll start, I have a signed ninja sex party poster that I carried by hand from stockholm to paris with the utmost reverence

[diluc33rpm]

3/3 When was the last time you travelled somewhere new?

as we speak i'm currently in australia. pulling around the bend of this suburb and the funny thing is, i'm seeing this house with a flag hung up in the window? wonder why they put it there surely it's just to block out the sun

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Burna Boy featuring 21 Savage - Sittin' on Top of the World 2023

Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, known professionally as Burna Boy, is a Nigerian singer, songwriter and record producer. He rose to stardom in 2012 after releasing "Like to Party", the lead single from his debut studio album L.I.F.E (2013). In 2019, he won Best International Act at the BET Awards, and was named an Apple Music Up Next artist. He also released his fourth studio album, African Giant, which went on to win Album of the Year at the All Africa Music Awards and was nominated for Best World Music Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards. He was awarded African Artist of the Year at the 2020 Ghana Music Awards. Burna Boy released his fifth studio album, Twice as Tall, in August 2020. It won Best World Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards. He again won Best International Act at the 2021 BET Awards.

Burna Boy's sixth studio album Love, Damini was released in 2022 and became the highest debut of a Nigerian album on the Billboard 200 chart. It also became the highest-charting African album in France, the Netherlands and the UK. Burna Boy was awarded the Member of the Order of the Federal Republic plaque for his achievements in music. He won his fourth Best International Act at the BET Awards in 2023. He won The Headies Afrobeats Single of the Year category and also the Song of the Year for "Last Last". In support of his album Love, Damini, Burna Boy embarked on a global tour starting in May 2022, with dates in North America, Europe and Africa. On 3 June 2023, he performed in front of a sold-out 60,000 crowd at the London Stadium, becoming the first African artist to headline a stadium tour in the UK. Reacting to this achievement, he first alluded to the album title, saying, "I told them that I'm a genius".

"Sittin' on Top of the World" was released on 1 June 2023 as the lead single from Burna Boy's seventh studio album I Told Them… (2023). Produced by Skread, it contains a sample of "Top of the World" by Brandy featuring Mase. The official remix of the song, featuring Atlanta-based rapper 21 Savage, received a nomination for Best Melodic Rap Performance at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards. Burna Boy performed the song at the ceremony alongside Brandy and 21 Savage.

"Sittin' on Top of the World" received a total of 47,3% yes votes.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon’s financial shell game let it create an “impossible” monopoly

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then San Francisco (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

For the pro-monopoly crowd that absolutely dominated antitrust law from the Carter administration until 2020, Amazon presents a genuinely puzzling paradox: the company's monopoly power was never supposed to emerge, and if it did, it should have crumbled immediately.

Pro-monopoly economists embody Ely Devons's famous aphorism that "If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Rather than using the way the world actually works as their starting point for how to think about it, they build elaborate models out of abstract principles like "rational actors." The resulting mathematical models are so abstractly elegant that it's easy to forget that they're just imaginative exercises, disconnected from reality:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/03/all-models-are-wrong/#some-are-useful

These models predicted that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power. Even if they became a monopoly – in the sense of dominating sales of various kinds of goods – the company still wouldn't get monopoly power.

For example, if Amazon tried to take over a category by selling goods below cost ("predatory pricing"), then rivals could just wait until the company got tired of losing money and put prices back up, and then those rivals could go back to competing. And if Amazon tried to keep the loss-leader going indefinitely by "cross-subsidizing" the losses with high-margin profits from some other part of its business, rivals could sell those high margin goods at a lower margin, which would lure away Amazon customers and cut the supply lines for the price war it was fighting with its discounted products.

That's what the model predicted, but it's not what happened in the real world. In the real world, Amazon was able use its access to the capital markets to embark on scorched-earth predatory pricing campaigns. When diapers.com refused to sell out to Amazon, the company casually committed $100m to selling diapers below cost. Diapers.com went bust, Amazon bought it for pennies on the dollar and shut it down:

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/13/18563379/amazon-predatory-pricing-antitrust-law

Investors got the message: don't compete with Amazon. They can remain predatory longer than you can remain solvent.

Now, not everyone shared the antitrust establishment's confidence that Amazon couldn't create a durable monopoly with market power. In 2017, Lina Khan – then a third year law student – published "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox," a landmark paper arguing that Amazon had all the tools it needed to amass monopoly power:

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox

Today, Khan is chair of the FTC, and has brought a case against Amazon that builds on some of the theories from that paper. One outcome of that suit is an unprecedented look at Amazon's internal operations. But, as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance's Stacy Mitchell describes in a piece for The Atlantic, key pieces of information have been totally redacted in the court exhibits:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/02/amazon-profits-antitrust-ftc/677580/

The most important missing datum: how much money Amazon makes from each of its lines of business. Amazon's own story is that it basically breaks even on its retail operation, and keeps the whole business afloat with profits from its AWS cloud computing division. This is an important narrative, because if it's true, then Amazon can't be forcing up retail prices, which is the crux of the FTC's case against the company.

Here's what we know for sure about Amazon's retail business. First: merchants can't live without Amazon. The majority of US households have Prime, and 90% of Prime households start their ecommerce searches on Amazon; if they find what they're looking for, they buy it and stop. Thus, merchants who don't sell on Amazon just don't sell. This is called "monopsony power" and it's a lot easier to maintain than monopoly power. For most manufacturers, a 10% overnight drop in sales is a catastrophe, so a retailer that commands even a 10% market-share can extract huge concessions from its suppliers. Amazon's share of most categories of goods is a lot higher than 10%!

What kind of monopsony power does Amazon wield? Well, for one thing, it is able to levy a huge tax on its sellers. Add up all the junk-fees Amazon charges its platform sellers and it comes out to 45-51%:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/25/greedflation/#commissar-bezos

Competitive businesses just don't have 45% margins! No one can afford to kick that much back to Amazon. What is a merchant to do? Sell on Amazon and you lose money on every sale. Don't sell on Amazon and you don't get any business.

The only answer: raise prices on Amazon. After all, Prime customers – the majority of Amazon's retail business – don't shop for competitive prices. If Amazon wants a 45% vig, you can raise your Amazon prices by a third and just about break even.

But Amazon is wise to that: they have a "most favored nation" rule that punishes suppliers who sell goods more cheaply in rival stores, or even on their own site. The punishments vary, from banishing your products to page ten million of search-results to simply kicking you off the platform. With publishers, Amazon reserves the right to lower the prices they set when listing their books, to match the lowest price on the web, and paying publishers less for each sale.

That means that suppliers who sell on Amazon (which is anyone who wants to stay in business) have to dramatically hike their prices on Amazon, and when they do, they also have to hike their prices everywhere else (no wonder Prime customers don't bother to search elsewhere for a better deal!).

Now, Amazon says this is all wrong. That 45-51% vig they claim from business customers is barely enough to break even. The company's profits – they insist – come from selling AWS cloud service. The retail operation is just a public service they provide to us with cross-subsidy from those fat AWS margins.

This is a hell of a claim. Last year, Amazon raked in $130 billion in seller fees. In other words: they booked more revenue from junk fees than Bank of America made through its whole operation. Amazon's junk fees add up to more than all of Meta's revenues:

https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q4/AMZN-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release.pdf

Amazon claims that none of this is profit – it's just covering their operating expenses. According to Amazon, its non-AWS units combined have a one percent profit margin.

Now, this is an eye-popping claim indeed. Amazon is a public company, which means that it has to make thorough quarterly and annual financial disclosures breaking down its profit and loss. You'd think that somewhere in those disclosures, we'd find some details.

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Amazon's disclosures do not break out profits and losses by segment. SEC rules actually require the company to make these per-segment disclosures:

https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3524&context=lawreview#:~:text=If%20a%20company%20has%20more,income%20taxes%20and%20extraordinary%20items.

That rule was enacted in 1966, out of concern that companies could use cross-subsidies to fund predatory pricing and other anticompetitive practices. But over the years, the SEC just…stopped enforcing the rule. Companies have "near total managerial discretion" to lump business units together and group their profits and losses in bloated, undifferentiated balance-sheet items:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/publications/2021/dec/crouching-tiger-hidden-dragons

As Mitchell points you, it's not just Amazon that flouts this rule. We don't know how much money Google makes on Youtube, or how much Apple makes from the App Store (Apple told a federal judge that this number doesn't exist). Warren Buffett – with significant interest in hundreds of companies across dozens of markets – only breaks out seven segments of profit-and-loss for Berkshire Hathaway.

Recall that there is one category of data from the FTC's antitrust case against Amazon that has been completely redacted. One guess which category that is! Yup, the profit-and-loss for its retail operation and other lines of business.

These redactions are the judge's fault, but the real fault lies with the SEC. Amazon is a public company. In exchange for access to the capital markets, it owes the public certain disclosures, which are set out in the SEC's rulebook. The SEC lets Amazon – and other gigantic companies – get away with a degree of secrecy that should disqualify it from offering stock to the public. As Mitchell says, SEC chairman Gary Gensler should adopt "new rules that more concretely define what qualifies as a segment and remove the discretion given to executives."

Amazon is the poster-child for monopoly run amok. As Yanis Varoufakis writes in Technofeudalism, Amazon has actually become a post-capitalist enterprise. Amazon doesn't make profits (money derived from selling goods); it makes rents (money charged to people who are seeking to make a profit):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Profits are the defining characteristic of a capitalist economy; rents are the defining characteristic of feudalism. Amazon looks like a bazaar where thousands of merchants offer goods for sale to the public, but look harder and you discover that all those stallholders are totally controlled by Amazon. Amazon decides what goods they can sell, how much they cost, and whether a customer ever sees them. And then Amazon takes $0.45-51 out of every dollar. Amazon's "marketplace" isn't like a flea market, it's more like the interconnected shops on Disneyland's Main Street, USA: the sign over the door might say "20th Century Music Company" or "Emporium," but they're all just one store, run by one company.

And because Amazon has so much control over its sellers, it is able to exercise power over its buyers. Amazon's search results push down the best deals on the platform and promote results from more expensive, lower-quality items whose sellers have paid a fortune for an "ad" (not really an ad, but rather the top spot in search listings):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/29/aethelred-the-unready/#not-one-penny-for-tribute

This is "Amazon's pricing paradox." Amazon can claim that it offers low-priced, high-quality goods on the platform, but it makes $38b/year pushing those good deals way, way down in its search results. The top result for your Amazon search averages 29% more expensive than the best deal Amazon offers. Buy something from those first four spots and you'll pay a 25% premium. On average, you need to pick the seventeenth item on the search results page to get the best deal:

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/3645/

For 40 years, pro-monopoly economists claimed that it would be impossible for Amazon to attain monopoly power over buyers and sellers. Today, Amazon exercises that power so thoroughly that its junk-fee revenues alone exceed the total revenues of Bank of America. Amazon's story – that these fees barely stretch to covering its costs – assumes a nearly inconceivable level of credulity in its audience. Regrettably – for the human race – there is a cohort of senior, highly respected economists who possess this degree of credulity and more.

Of course, there's an easy way to settle the argument: Amazon could just comply with SEC regs and break out its P&L for its e-commerce operation. I assure you, they're not hiding this data because they think you'll be pleasantly surprised when they do and they don't want to spoil the moment.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/01/managerial-discretion/#junk-fees

Image: Doc Searls (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/4863121221/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[piosplayhouse]

I too watched the hbomberguy video and went straight to Twitter, whereupon I found that James Somerton had mentioned danmei in one of his videos and it made everyone mad, so I went looking and. yeah here's a full transcription of his just completely incorrect coverage of cql and mdzs from "Hollywood's (Gay) China Problem" so you don't have to watch it and give him views:

"The 2019 fantasy series The Untamed, featuring an unlikely bond between a man with magic powers and a stoic prince, started an online craze over the pair's implicit romance, but the show's promotion focused on its portrayal of Chinese traditional culture, a push consistent with Chinese communist party propaganda.

The show was... Queerbait-y. But the novel on which it was based [shows a picture of the fanmade cover for The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation made by fan translator team Exiled Rebels] certainly was not. That featured a very explicit love story between the two main characters, but was self-censored when adapted to meet the censorship guidelines of the Xi Jinping government. But it didn't matter. Like so much queerbaiting before, people saw through the weak veneer of heterosexuality. They "took the bait", so to speak. The series has accumulated a total of 9.5 billion views in China as of this summer, and had also received an international release via Netflix. It was described as a global phenomenon, taking off like no BL series before it, making its way all around Asia and with the Netflix deal, all across Europe and North America as well.

Tencent, the Chinese streaming platform it originated on, saw 2.6 million new subscribers to the service when it was released. And WeTV, an app that lets you watch BL content anywhere in the world, saw growth of 250% while the show was airing. In January of 2020, the cast members planned to embark on a multi-city, worldwide fan meeting tour. Cities included Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Macau, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto, Los Angeles, New York... But it was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Even the Chinese government has endorsed it. The overseas popularity of these romantic sword-wielding heroes is often highlighted in Chinese media coverage focusing on the massive overseas streaming numbers and its ability to build a growing appreciation of the charm of Chinese culture."

[enfinizatics]

okay i’ve got to vent about the nicki minaj situation bc yeah. i used to be a hardcore barb for almost 10 years (2010-2019). and when i say a HARDCORE stan i truly mean it, i had a twitter account dedicated to nicki, she was even following me and often interacted with my tweets when she was online. i was absolutely in love with her and her work. i met my best friend, who’s like family to me, because of her. the pinkprint helped me survive middle school bullying. i followed her through europe when she went on tours. i supported every project, stayed chronically online for her and engaged in petty arguments with people on stan twitter to defend her. i fell out around late 2019 because i felt like most of her lyrics had sounded the same for a while but mostly because she started seeing her current husband, a confirmed rapist. seeing nicki pick up a beef after beef with every young female rapper gives me a huge ick and internalized misogyny vibes. but the beef with megan? it’s been years since i last followed news on nicki, but now i find myself losing my mind every time i see something on here or tiktok. not to mention her twitter omg. it truly feels like i’m witnessing her downfall caused by no one but nicki herself. she’s literally destroying her legacy, a legacy tied to so many memories i made during those 10 years while being her fan, and it just sucksssss. it feels like she no longer has a pr team capable of damage control or persuading her to take a break from social media. she seems to be spiraling with everything she posts. not to mention that ben shapiro tweet, congratulating a white, homophobic supremacist. and the barbz who let her remain in her perfect little bubble, shielding her from any criticism, constructive or otherwise (perhaps out of intimidation – i know, i've been there) and doxing people in the name of what? a millionaire to whom you’re a literal stranger?

[architectureandfilmblog]

MHA House, 1947, A Quincy Jones, Jim Charlton

MHA: SITE OFFICE (2019)

Four friends, returning from WWII, pooled their money and bought an acre of land. They hired a pre-Eichler A Quincy Jones, along with Whitney R. Smith, and engineer Edgardo Contin, and built four homes. The group formed the non profit Mutual Housing Association, and through this many more homes were then built in the area, several by renowned mid century architects.

This video takes us on a short tour of MHA's site office and studio, which was converted to a residence in 1956, and more recently restored by architect-owner Cory Buckner. The site was planned so that the houses sat on its corners, at angles to the street and each other, with a central communal pool and play area, which diminishes the sense of internal boundaries, and allows uninterrupted views of the greenery.

[stars-and-the-min]

☆ the wrong way to hard launch | band profile

the band :

empty bottles AKA EB are an australian pop-rock band based in california, usa. they released their debut album 'overtime' in july of 2019 signed under UMG. their first international tour, the overtime world tour began from november of 2019 but was later cancelled due to the covid-19 pandemic; the tour was supposed to end in august of 2020. they released their second full-length album 'twelve more days' in september of 2022. their second world tour, the twelve more days world tour opened in melbourne on march 21, 2024 and has a current closing show set in los angeles on january 17, 2025.

official accounts: ↳ instagram: emptybottles_official ↳ twitter: EmptyBottles

management accounts: ↳ instagram: emptybottlesbar ↳ twitter: theemptybottlesbar

the members :

SELINA 'LINA' BUI 🩷

frontwoman of the band

plays lead guitar, also knows how to play drums and piano

main songwriter/composer

born 24 september, 2001

oscar's gf and zhou guanyu's cousin

main face claim: cheng xiao

usernames: ↳ instagram: selinabui ↳ twitter: EB_selina

LUKAS 'KAS' ZHANG ❤️

lead guitar of the band

also can play bass

secondary songwriter

grew up next door to lina

gets shipped a lot with lina but they mostly have a sibling relationship

born 28 march, 2001

main face claim: wang yibo

usernames: ↳ instagram: lukaszhang ↳ twitter: EB_KAZ

CAMELIA 'CAMI' YANG 💜

drummer of the band

also subvocal/backing vocals

graduated a year after her cohort bc of family stuff when she was still a kid

born 9 october, 2001

main face claim: n/a

usernames: ↳ instagram: cameliazzz ↳ twitter: EB_Cami

JONATHAN 'JONNY' SU 💚

keyboard of the band

can also rap but literally none of their songs need him to rap

secondary songwriter

met kas through school and soccer

born 13 may, 2001

main face claim: xu kai

usernames: ↳ instagram: eb_jonno ↳ twitter: EB_Jonny

AIDAN 'AID' PARK 🩵

bassist of the band

also knows guitar but prefers staying near the back of the stage

the second 'pull' of the band; he's the pretty boy bassist people come to watch

graduated a grade above the rest of the band (excluding cami)

born 7 june, 2000

main face claim: n/a

usernames: ↳ instagram: aidan_ebass ↳ twitter: EB_Aidan

[misskattylashes]

My controversial Milex theory

So, common lore is that Miles has always been this free and easy, liberated rocker, and Alex was the repressed, closeted one, holding Miles back from coming out. But recent events have made me think differently. There was the Miles at church thing, the realisation from Knee Socks that that is possibly about Miles and his religious guilt (the ghost in your room etc), and now the Suki Waterhouse thing. He has deliberately posted her song, congratulating her on her hit. It is an unusual move for him, but there won’t be any speculation about them because she is settled with Robert Pattison and they have recently had a baby. It is like Miles is making an effort to show there is no bad blood between them.

Why? Well I am thinking that maybe he is gearing up to come out, and seeing as Suki was his biggest publicised romance and she was supposed to have left him for Bradley Cooper (who it is rumoured also gay/bi) then Miles is now saying between the lines that it is no big deal what happened between them.

Alex always gets the bad rap because he is the one who has had long term girlfriends, but I think we have to look closer at Miles. He too has been in situations where he was sticking his tongue down the throat of a Page Three Girl or some model, and his lyrics in the early days were full of ‘she’ and ‘girl’ much more than FWN or Humbug. Even his videos always had females in them, just as much as AM’s videos (and let’s not forget, Alex has never fully interacted with a woman in an MV).

Personally, I think from 2008 – 2015 Miles and Alex had a casual thing going, but listening to Alex’s lyrics from this period, I would say that he realised early on that he was in love with Miles, and it was an open secret. See any clip of the Monkeys being interviewed around this time and the other boys pull faces when he talks about Miles. Whereas I think Miles was still convincing himself he could ‘go straight’ if he wanted to. I say this because in between DWYA and CDG we have EYCTE, and twice Alex has made reference to them ‘falling in love’ during this time, and by the end of the tour, Miles looks as lovesick and smitten with Alex as Alex has with him since 2008. Miles could no longer fight his feelings and had to come to terms with his sexuality, but by then he had mucked Alex around too much, and Alex had to go back to being CEO of Arctic Monkeys, so Alex wouldn’t commit to him. Hence you get CDG (but you also get the Ultracheese). This led to their breakdown around 2017 -2018. But instead of what everyone thinks, that La Cigale was the beginning of the end, I think it was the opposite.

By NYE 2018/2019 they are in their local in Bethnal Green, celebrating (Louise is there but Alex is trying to ignore her) and by Change the Show, Miles’ lyrics are no longer gender specific (apart from Caroline) and he sounds more annoyed at Alex rather than full of angst and hurt like CDG.

Then we get to OMB/The Car.  OMB is full of songs where Miles is reflecting upon his own behaviour, and on The Car we have Jet Skis and Hello You that hint at their reconciliation.

So in summary, I think Alex’s closet is very public but in their inner circle everyone knew the truth, but Miles’ struggles were far more internal and it took for him to realise he was in love with Alex for him to come to terms with who he really was and he had to become comfortable with that before they had any future.

[junkyard-gifs]

A spot of saucy Tumblestrap with Mukeni Nel and Luke Fraser Yates!

(Sorry Rhys, ilu, you'll get your turn.)

From this video; international tour, c. 26 July 2019.

[pal1cam]

Support Palestinian Musicians & Artists :

Here is a list of Palestinian musical artists, musical groups & bands, to make it easier for you to stop supporting musicians and artists who support genocide and occupation…

Faraj Sulieman : a solo musician who makes musical works that are very piano & jazz infused with a hint of rock n’ roll. He has performed in many countries in Europe and the Middle East. He has released 10 albums in the last 10 years, one of them being a children’s musical album called “Faheem” that found major success with the voices of the 2 kids, Faheem Abu Hilu and Hala Qassis, that were very dominant in the album alongside the sound of classical piano played by Faraj Sulieman himself. He also made the soundtrack for the Palestinian movie “200 meters” directed by Ameen Nayfeh. (Recommended Works : Better Than Berlin / Second Verse / Upright Piano)

DAM : a rap band founded in 1999 by the 2 brothers Tamer and Suhel Nafar along with their friend Mahmoud Jrere, the 3 rappers who came out of the city Lod [a mixed city that has indigenous Palestinian citizens & zionist Israeli settlers] make songs mostly about the inequality in the authorities’ treatment towards Palestinians, and songs criticizing the Palestinian society living in occupied territory under the Israeli Government… They primarily rap in Arabic, yet they sometimes use English & Hebrew as well. In recent years the female artist Maysa Daw has joined the band replacing Suhel Nafar and adding a feminine perspective to the band’s niche. It’s also important to mention that DAM was the first ever hip-hop band in the entirety of the Middle East. (Recommended Works : Ben Haana Wa Maana / i don’t have freedom)

Tamer Nafar : as mentioned before, he is a Palestinian rapper and actor and one of the founding members of DAM. Besides his works with DAM he also produces music under his own name, sometimes collaborating with various Palestinian & international artists. He also participated in making the soundtrack for the film ‘Junction 48’. (Recommended Works : The Beat Never Goes Off / Johnnie Mashi)

Maysa Daw : a solo musician, singer & songwriter, and as mentioned before the freshest and newest member of the band DAM, and a member of the newly formed female group called Kallemi, She was featured in Vogue Arabia 2019 as one of 5 Arab stars setting the world of art, culture and entertainment. She is also the daughter of the actor and director Salim Daw. (Recommended Works : Asli Barri / Between City Walls)

47SOUL : a group of four men who are all originally from Palestine that have created a new music genre called “Shamstep” which is an electronic dance movement mixed with the sound of Palestinian & Middle Eastern folklore. The musical group was formed back in 2013, and since then they’ve become pioneers in that unique style of theirs and have been on tours all over the world from the US to the UK and of course the Middle East. They’ve performed in NPR’s tiny desk in 2019 which helped them gain even more international recognition. (Recommended Works : Shamstep / Semitics / Shireen)

El far3i : he is a Palestinian-Jordanian rapper, singer, songwriter, and percussionist. He is currently a member of the Shamstep band 47Soul, and was formerly a member of the Arabic rock band El Morabba3. He started his career in 2012, and has since released six solo albums. (Recommended Works : Tghayarti)

Shabjdeed : Straight out of the restless town of Kufr Aqab, Palestine, emerged a talent by the name of Abu Othaina. With his controversial takes and raw skills Shabjdeed was an instant addition to the Palestinian rap scene. After gaining traction from his self-titled track, he caught the attention of Al Nather, a local producer, and worked with him to create the alter-ego Shabjdeed; an act that can easily be considered one of the most influential and popular in the region. The duo developed their own niche dark hip-hop and trap style combining Shabjdeed’s nihilistic and daringly personal delivery style with Al Nather’s colourful and rhythmic instrumentals. From the beginning they have been able to build a dedicated fanbase, grossing over 1.5 million total streams on Soundcloud across two years whilst only relying on word-of-mouth advertisement. The duo have created together a record label and named it BLTNM Records which was brought to it’s biggest success with the release of Shabjdeed’s first full length album called “Sindibad el Ward”. And today Shabjdeed’s music is the modern voice for not only the Palestinian revolution, yet for the entire revolution in the Middle East caused by youth that dream of a better future and go against their capitalist and money hungry governments. (Recommended Works : Fi Harb / Aadi / inn ann / Ko7ol w 3atme)

Daboor : A Jerusalemite rapper to the bone, Daboor’s debut single “Liter Black'' was released in 2020 to much fanfare and critical acclaim. His unique style and raw talent cemented his status in the rap scene and he was soon signed to BLTNM Records. Daboor’s words touch on the violence of the occupation, and his delivery mimics it with brutal bursts of staccato. (Recommended Works : Inn Ann / Dolab)

Lina Makhoul : an independent American-born Palestinian singer-songwriter & producer. She was raised in the city of Acre in occupied Palestine since the age of 4 and according to her she has showed interest in music and dance since a young age. She started her career in 2012 and has since released 1 full length album as well as a number of hit singles, She also opened for Queen+ Adam Lambert in 2016 and toured with Little Mix in 2017. (Recommended Works : Shway Shway / Fish Masari / 3 sneen)

Elyanna : a Palestinian-Chilean singer-songwriter who started her career in 2018 and has since released 1 full length album and a number of singles, and she has collaborated with artists with significant recognition such as Massari. She performed in Coachella 2023 to become the 1st ever Middle Eastern & Palestinian artist to perform in Coachella in Arabic. (Recommended Works : Ana Lahale / Ghareeb Alay)

Noel Kharman : She is best known for doing mashup covers where she mixes Middle Eastern and Western music, creating a unique bridge between these two worlds through her powerful and angelic voice. She started her career on Youtube with covers of viral songs, but her big breakthrough happened in 2015 when she published her first mash-up cover which was a mix of ‘Hello’ by Adele with Fairuz. The cover went viral overnight and since then, she became an instant internet sensation. The cover has gained over 30 million views on YouTube. Today she has released many songs of her own after being signed to a record label and has collaborated with various artists and went on tour in many cities in the Middle Eastern region. (Recommended Works : Ya Lali)

The Synaptik : This Palestinian-Jordanian artist based in Palestine started making music at the age of 17. The Synaptik studied medicine for 7 years and graduated. His stage name is derived from his fascination with the nervous system, neurotransmitters and his personal experience with ADHD, which led to calling himself The Synaptik: “…because that’s where things happen.” The Synaptik has pioneered a new wave of sound for the Arab youth. His honest and potent lyrics are highlighted by his songwriting style that merges singing and rapping effortlessly. With a tsunami of a first album under his belt, dozens of local, regional, and international shows and a much-anticipated second album, The Synaptik has cemented his status as one of the pillars in the Hip Hop scene in the region. The Synaptik has collaborated with numerous artists from all over the Middle East such as rap superstars Abyusif, Wegz, Marwan Mousa, Chyno with a Why?, Shabjdeed and more. (Recommended Works : Sabelek)

Apo & The Apostles : Apo & the Apostles started out late 2013 in Jerusalem-Bethlehem with their first release in March 2014. Since then, they've been taking their music to whoever and wherever they are welcomed. The band is known for their energetic performances that turn to parties and after-parties. (Recommended Works : Baji Wenek)

[hooked-on-elvis]

[BEHIND THE RECORD - Elvis onstage from 1969 to 1977] "I Can't Stop Loving You"

Written by country singer Don Gibson, who first recorded it in 1957, RCA Victor released "I Can't Stop Loving You" in 1958, and it became a country hit single. The song was covered by many artists over the years, most notable one being Ray Charles, in 1962, due to how he turned the tune into a No. 1 single on the Billboard chart.

Elvis Presley performed the song in many iconic concerts of his career - from 1969 into the 70s.

The first time Elvis Presley was recorded singing "I CAN'T STOP LOVING YOU" was during one of the American Sound Studio sessions, on February 1969. It wasn't an official recording tho. A jam version of the tune was recorded while EP was warming up with his musicians so they could cut the songs that would be released in his LPs for the times following — "From Elvis In Memphis" being the album this recording session was intending to create at first.

Not long after this recording session, "I Can't Stop Loving You" was worked up as a number to Elvis' concerts. Rearranged, the song gained a more dramatic tone than we can listen to from how it originally sounded in Elvis' voice at the recording taped at the American Sound Studio previously, so from this moment on Elvis would perform the tune in quite a few iconic concerts of the latter era of his career, the very start being during his comeback to live performances on July/August 1969, onstage at the International Hotel's showroom in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Soundboard audios with "I Can't Stop Loving You" recorded during his concerts, including in 1969, were released on some his live albums throughout the years, such as "FROM MEMPHIS TO VEGAS (IN PERSON)" [recorded in 1969], "ELVIS AS RECORDED AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN" (recorded in 1972) and "ELVIS: RECORDED LIVE ON STAGE IN MEMPHIS" (recorded in 1974).

Live performances of Elvis singing the song were also officially taped, and they are very known to the fans for obvious reasons because they are part of some of the most notable moments of Elvis' history as a performer.

First official taping of EP performing "I Can't Stop Loving You" live took place during one of his engagement seasons at the International Hotel on August, 1970, as released on "Elvis: That's The Way It Is" documentary, then again on April 1972, filmed for "Elvis On Tour" documentary, and not long after that another performance of this tune was filmed during the "Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite" concert, on January 1973.

BUT, BEFORE WE CAN GO TO THOSE FOOTAGES, HAVE YOU LISTENED TO THE JAM VERSION RECORDED IN STUDIO IN 1969?

— NOTE FROM AUTHOR I love sharing Elvis' performances of the same song over the years, but what I would really love you to listen to now is the 1969 jam version of the song we're talking about, for it sounds so different from the live performances the fans are already very familiar with. I didn't knew about this recording until a few days ago and I loved it so much that this track is the reason why I needed to talk about this song. You will read about the moment EP was recording this song soon after.

Elvis Presley in the waiting room of the American Sound Studio, early 1969.

▼ FEBRUARY, 1969: "I CAN'T STOP LOVING YOU", RECORDED AT THE AMERICAN SOUND STUDIO, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE.

Song starts at 0:35

Album: American Sound 1969 (2019)

It was an American Studio tradition: paying tribute to the chief with a rendition of “This Time,” a Chips Moman-penned hit for Troy Shondell in 1961. Elvis had heard about the rite, and he serenaded his producer at the start of the February session with the few lines that he knew, segueing into Don Gibson’s “It’s My Way,” a song he had asked Freddy to check out the year before. Plunking along on his acoustic guitar, laughing at his own mistakes but singing his heart out, he drew the band into another Don Gibson number, “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” which he would transform into a dramatic show-stopper six month later in Las Vegas. Excerpt from "Elvis Presley: A Life In Music" by Ernst Jorgensen and Peter Guralnick.

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— NOTE FROM AUTHOR COOL, ISN'T IT? 😍 Have you heard the 1969 jam session version before? Don't know about you but I just can't stop loving it. So, now let's hear how that baby sound onstage.

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[FOOTAGE]

LIVE PERFORMANCES OVER THE YEARS

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REHEARSAL ▼

July, 1970.

LIVE ONSTAGE ▼

"Elvis: That's The Way It Is" (August 1970) "Elvis On Tour" (April 1972)

"Aloha From Hawaii via Satellite" (January 14, 1973)

RECORDED LIVE ▼

Live at Convention Center Arena, San Antonio, TX (April 18, 1972)

Live at Madison Square Garden (June 10, 1972)

High Sierra Theatre at the Sahara Tahoe Hotel, Nevada (May 13, 1973)

Live at Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, TN - March 1974

Song starts at 0:38:

I can never get enough of how Elvis' history is so amazing. ♥

What are your thoughts about the jam version of "I Can't Stop Loving You" by EP? I'd love to hear from you.

By the way, do you like this track-to-track-history posts? I've written some so far but I have some others I'd like to share too. If you have any requests, any Elvis Presley songs you'd like to know more about the recording sessions or comparisons of the times a same tune was performed live by Elvis over the years, feel free to hit me with it. I sure will have great fun researching it for you.

[spade-riddles]

The turn of the decade befalls the facade?!

The literal facade just fell, we saw it!

Of course it means ten years since the girls got together and this whole thing started, of course it does!

♠️ The turn of the decade befalls the facade. - 11/09/2019

2024 is the 10th year since Big Sur, which is commonly assumed to be the beginnings of their relationship. They met in late 2023 at the Victoria Secret show. Taylor then went back on tour for the international leg of the Red Tour. So they are their tenth year together.

[millenari]

Have you seen them? Now you have

[International Tour, April 2019]