Skip to main content
 
  • Recording Academy
  • GRAMMYs
  • Membership
  • Advocacy
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
  • Advocacy
  • Awards
  • Membership
  • GRAMMYs
  • News
  • Governance
  • Jobs
  • Press Room
  • Events
  • Login
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
  • More
    • Governance
    • Jobs
    • Press Room
    • Events
    • MusiCares
    • GRAMMY Museum
    • Latin GRAMMYs

The GRAMMYs

  • Awards
  • News
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • Awards
    • News
    • Recording Academy

Latin GRAMMYs

MusiCares

Advocacy

  • About
  • News
  • Issues & Policy
  • Act
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • About
    • News
    • Issues & Policy
    • Act
    • Recording Academy

Membership

  • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
  • SONGWRITERS & COMPOSERS WING
  • GRAMMY U
  • More
    • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
    • SONGWRITERS & COMPOSERS WING
    • GRAMMY U
Log In Join
  • SUBSCRIBE

See All Results
Modal Open
Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Newsletters

Be the first to find out about GRAMMY nominees, winners, important news, and events. Privacy Policy
GRAMMY Museum
Membership

Join us on Social

  • Recording Academy
    • The Recording Academy: Facebook
    • The Recording Academy: Twitter
    • The Recording Academy: Instagram
    • The Recording Academy: YouTube
  • GRAMMYs
    • GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • Latin GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • GRAMMY Museum: Facebook
    • GRAMMY Museum: Twitter
    • GRAMMY Museum: Instagram
    • GRAMMY Museum: YouTube
  • MusiCares
    • MusiCares: Facebook
    • MusiCares: Twitter
    • MusiCares: Instagram
  • Advocacy
    • Advocacy: Facebook
    • Advocacy: Twitter
  • Membership
    • Membership: Facebook
    • Membership: Twitter
    • Membership: Instagram
    • Membership: Youtube

GRAMMYs

GRAMMYs

  • Awards
GRAMMYs
News
musics-television-empire

Music's Television Empire

Facebook Twitter Email
Netflix's "The Get Down" is the latest in a string of musical shows proving the new golden age of television is golden for music too
Steve Baltin
GRAMMYs
Aug 13, 2016 - 9:24 am

Television series about musicians and the music industry are almost as old as TV. The first network television season was broadcast in the U.S. seven decades ago and within a few years musicians were a central part of the story. When "I Love Lucy" debuted in 1951 Lucille Ball's husband, Desi Arnaz, played a bandleader, with plenty of music performance segments on the show. In the 1960s the Monkees parlayed a hit show into pop stardom and the '70s found "The Partridge Family" telling everyone to "come on, get happy."

Reality TV hit the scene in the '00s, and the small-screen focus was on a few unscripted series that took fans into homes of their favorite artists, from Ozzy Osbourne to Snoop Dogg.

But television is always evolving. The latest resurgence of music on TV arguably started in 2009 with Fox's "Glee" and has been further punctuated by the more recent success of "Empire" — the network's latest bona fide hit, which debuted in 2015.

Last year also saw the debut of Denis Leary's FX comedy "Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll." The introduction of two acclaimed music-centric series was just a warmup for 2016, which has seen some of the biggest names in film bring stories of musicians to the small screen.

The shift coincides with what critics are dubbing the new golden age of television, a period of increased production of critically acclaimed television shows beginning in the mid-2000s. While television used to be dominated by broadcast networks CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox, scripted shows have found success on cable networks such as HBO and Showtime and, more recently, streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon.

Two Oscar winners, Martin Scorsese and Cameron Crowe, and Oscar nominee Baz Luhrmann, have all come to TV this year. Although short-lived, Scorsese, along with Mick Jagger, brought "Vinyl" to HBO in February while Crowe's "Roadies" premiered on Showtime in June. Luhrmann might be taking on his most ambitious project yet, bringing "The Get Down," his much-anticipated musical drama, to Netflix. Part one of the 12-episode first season premieres Aug. 12. 

Working with everyone from hip-hop artists Nas and Grandmaster Flash to author Nelson George, Luhrmann is recreating New York circa 1977, specifically the South Bronx neighborhood, where residents witnessed the birth of hip-hop and the decline of disco all while salsa and punk infiltrated other areas of the city.   

Luhrmann — the man behind films such as The Great Gatsby, Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet — believes TV, or what we used to think of as TV, is currently the perfect home for shows about music.

"Television no longer describes what we're discussing here," says Luhrmann. "The streaming services are more in the nature of broadcast. It's so great. There needs to be a new word because television used to be the place where you were super constrained — you were constrained by the times and morally, the rules. Now those two things are almost reversed."

"[Today] you have much more creative freedom. When you're dealing with music, a story about music culture, the ability to do it in segments really suits that because it's a way and space to tell the story laterally, but also horizontally. You can explore in a way you simply couldn't within a two-hour sitting."

For Crowe, who won an Oscar for writing 2000's Almost Famous, a film about a young reporter covering the fictional rock band Stillwater, the new wave of TV shows centered around music validates his belief that music is as important as ever.

"I was just hearing all this stuff about music is dead as a meaningful art form. 'It's too available, there's too many formats, nobody's paying for it, nobody values it,' and I'm just thinking, 'Bull****, that's just not true,'" said Crowe in a June interview with Forbes. "And that's kind of the thesis of ["Roadies"], music matters more than ever."

The value of music in 2016 — in the age of streaming and YouTube — is a topic of frequent debate, but the current omnipotence of music as well as the massive success of touring and festivals lends credence to Crowe's belief that even if people are not spending as much they still love music as much, if not more, than ever.

Fandom is exactly what inspired Luhrmann's vision for "The Get Down" back in 2006.

"I started this concept with a question 10 years ago, which was, 'How did a totally new idea [hip-hop] get born from a borough in a time where there was little care for that borough or the people [there]?" says Luhrmann. "How did they come up with a brand-new, pure creative idea? I realized when we started to look at 1977, disco was the reigning music form, but there's something going on downtown called punk, you have salsa and the Latin influence and then you have this invention going on by a bunch of kids, which is essentially a kind of folk music in a way."

It was on that journey of discovery when Luhrmann started to realize the story he wanted to tell wouldn't fit within the two-hour confines typically reserved for film, which was exactly what the executives at Netflix wanted to hear.

"I started thinking of it as a movie, and as I did I thought, 'How do you tell all of that? The very nature of it is that it's unwieldy, the very nature of it has to be sprawling.' And sprawling and unwieldy are not words executives who make movies want to hear," he says. "But sprawling and unwieldy are exactly what Netflix wanted to hear because they want to hear something that has an ongoing life and cannot just be linear. The evolution of television caught up with me, and at the right moment the two things met." 

Unlike a movie, in which stories tend to be neatly wrapped, television allows Luhrmann to think of the future. He is optimistic "The Get Down" will be renewed for a second season potentially exploring 1979, when disco was symbolically destroyed in July at famed Comiskey Park in Chicago by Disco Demolition Night, a promotional stunt that saw disco records blown up on the field following a White Sox versus Detroit Tigers game. Two months later, in September, Sugarhill Gang released "Rapper's Delight," the song widely credited with bringing hip-hop to the masses, and one of the first hip-hop songs inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame.  

For Luhrmann, as a fan of the music and the era, success is not his motivation. He is content to be the conduit to tell a story he loves.

"I care about [the story and] so many others care about it, I'm kind of the grand conductor. But it's a profound collaboration. That's also what drew me — it's a living history. In the past I've done things that were involved in the past. But this is a living history, the people are actually alive. And so I worked with them to help [tell their] story. And that's really enriching."

(Steve Baltin has written about music for Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Mojo, Chicago Tribune, AOL, LA Weekly, Philadelphia Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter, and dozens more publications.)

Beatles on vinyl

Photo: Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images

News
Feeling Physical? Brits Love CDs, Vinyl, Books uk-music-consumers-gravitate-toward-media-you-can-touch

UK Music Consumers Gravitate Toward Media You Can Touch

Facebook Twitter Email
Research by eBay U.K. reveals a special status for physical media among young people
Philip Merrill
GRAMMYs
Nov 13, 2017 - 2:42 pm

In August a representative sample of British consumers were polled by eBay U.K. and ICM Unlimited to produce "A Guide To Physical Media," a report exploring the meaning of buying physical products in a world transformed by digital. Trends such as Instagram book "shelfies" or "phygital" sales bundles that combine physical with digital instigated this closer look at how traditional "goods" retain special appeal while entertainment is increasingly available on streaming services.

Surprisingly, the report found that young people are responsible for the resurgence in the sales of physical goods. Among U.K. buyers between the ages of 18 and 24, 47 percent bought a CD and 25 percent bought a vinyl record. The Beatles, David Bowie and Pink Floyd have done especially well among collectors, representing buyers' desire to own some of the most meaningful music they listen to.

Whether gift-giving, showing off at home to guests or sharing digital pix of tangible purchases online, young U.K. consumers are proving that real-world things have not outgrown their appeal. This is certainly good news for e-tailers like eBay, but it also raises the thought heading toward the holidays that digital convenience hasn't made the sentimental satisfaction of ownership obsolete.

RIAA Reports: Music Industry Revenue Up In Early 2017

News
journey-through-evolution-recorded-music

Journey Through The Evolution Of Recorded Music

Facebook Twitter Email
From Edison's phonograph to vinyl, cassettes and the iPod, take a guided tour through the "Evolution Of Recorded Music"
THE GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

The Recording Academy has debuted "Evolution Of Recorded Music," a new three-part video series exploring generations of music formats. The virtual tour takes viewers on a guided journey of how the process of playing back recorded music has evolved, from Edison's phonograph, Berliner's gramophone and vinyl records to reel-to-reel tape, cassettes, the 8-track, compact discs, and MP3 files.

B5CRUPlS52s

GRAMMYs

Content Not Available

B5CRUPlS52s

B5CRUPlS52s

A Rolling Stones vinyl LP

Photo: Paul Kane/Getty Images

News
Vinyl's resurgence stoked by millennials why-vinyls-popularity-continuing-rise

Why is vinyl's popularity continuing to rise?

Facebook Twitter Email
A legion of music fans will be coming out in droves for Record Store Day on April 22, but you might be surprised by the age group that is driving the continued resurgence of the vinyl LP
THE GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

Be honest. You've been eyeing up your parents' vinyl collection in the basement, craving the feel of a physical record in your hand, gently dropping the needle on the turntable as vinyl's classic, rich and arguably superior sound emanates into the room. We're right there with you, and so are the millions of vinyl fans who will celebrate Record Store Day on April 22.

Independent retailers participating in the 10th annual Record Store Day are expecting a surge in vinyl sales by as much as 321 percent. This tracks with Nielsen Music's year-end report that showed vinyl finishing out 2016 with 13 million in sales, the format's highest tally since 1991. The majority of those adding to their vinyl collections — an estimated 72 percent, according to Music Watch — are under the age of 35.

Why is vinyl making a resurgence in the middle of the digital age of streaming?

"Millennials, a/k/a 'kids these days' are who we were back when we, or any generation, was spurred into a mania for records," Miriam Linna, president of independent label Norton Records, told CNBC. "Now with the internet and instant gratification, the younger record fans still love the feel and sound of a physical artifact. It's highly personal."

"It's a tangible form," Clement Perry, the publisher of The Stereo Times, told CNBC. "It's a little personal contact with the music that no other format can really match. It's really special in that regard."

Clearly, vinyl isn't a generationally bound format anymore. Kayla Greygor, a senior communication and philosophy major at the University of Pittsburgh, is one of the many millennials embracing their parent's preferred music medium.

"I started my own record collection separate from my parents' in my senior year of high school," Greygor told The Pitt News. "I liked the idea of being able to pass records around. It's totally different and more special to me, rather than just listening to the new stuff on Spotify."

And high-profile vinyl releases from modern-day and legacy artists alike are spurring on the trend. The vinyl version of GRAMMY winner Kendrick Lamar's new album, DAMN., is available as a pre-order ahead of Record Store Day, offering those who order by April 20 a signed copy accompanied by a digital download.

The Oscar-nominated film La La Land also got in on the action, with the vinyl version of the soundtrack clocking in at No. 1 for 2017 vinyl releases thus far. GRAMMY winner Ed Sheeran also made Nielsen Music's Top 10 vinyl list for his recently released Divide, along with releases from Bob Marley, Ryan Adams, Amy Winehouse, the Beatles, and Twenty One Pilots.

Monthly Music Roundup: What was new in music in March 2017

Following 11 years of year-over-year growth in sales, now comprising 26 percent of total physical music shipments, vinyl's popularity seems to show no signs of waning.

"Vinyl is huge across all age groups," Jim Johnson, a sales and marketing employee for music distributor Alliance Entertainment in Florida told The Pitt News. "But with popular events like Record Store Day and many younger, hip bands releasing their music on records, it has really allowed vinyl to take off once again."

Check out the Record Store Day exclusives coming your way on April 22

2017 GRAMMY Nominees album vinyl record

Order the '2017 GRAMMY Nominees' album on vinyl

News
Order '2017 GRAMMY Nominees' album on vinyl 2017-grammy-nominees-album-now-available-vinyl

'2017 GRAMMY Nominees' album now available on vinyl

Facebook Twitter Email
Add the best-selling '2017 GRAMMY Nominees' album to your vinyl collection; double LP features hits by Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Drake, and Demi Lovato
Tim McPhate
GRAMMYs
May 15, 2017 - 2:36 am

Vinyl aficionados who were unable to score that Record Store Day exclusive they were eyeing can set their sights on a new prize.

The Recording  Academy and Atlantic Records have announced the double vinyl release of the 2017 GRAMMY Nominees album, marking the first time the GRAMMY nominees album has been made available via the format in its 23-year history.

The vinyl release features 21 GRAMMY-nominated artists and hit songs from a selection of 59th GRAMMY winners and nominees, including Album Of The Year nominees Adele, Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Drake, and Sturgill Simpson, and Best New Artist nominees Kelsea Ballerini, the Chainsmokers, Maren Morris, and Anderson .Paak, among others. The album also includes tracks from Sia, Demi Lovato and Kelly Clarkson that are available for the first time on vinyl as well.

A portion of the proceeds from album sales will benefit the year-round efforts of the GRAMMY Museum Foundation and MusiCares — The Recording Academy-affiliated charitable organizations focused on music education programs and critical assistance for music people in need, respectively.

Order the 2017 GRAMMY Nominees album on vinyl today at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Warner Music Store 
 

Top
Logo
  • Recording Academy
    • About
    • DEI
    • Governance
    • Press Room
    • Jobs
  • GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Store
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Cultural Foundation
    • Members
    • Press
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • COLLECTION:live
    • Museum Tickets
    • Exhibits
    • Education
    • Support
    • Programs
    • Donate
  • MusiCares
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Support
    • News
    • Events
  • Advocacy
    • About
    • News
    • Issues & Policy
    • Act
  • Membership
    • Chapters
    • Producers & Engineers Wing
    • Songwriters & Composers Wing
    • GRAMMY U
    • Events
    • Join
Logo

© 2022 - Recording Academy. All rights reserved.

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Contact Us

Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy and its Affiliates. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy and its Affiliates lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy and its Affiliates.