can’t make money, we can’t have
music.” Hollywood’s outlook is only
slightly less dire, said Richard Brody
in NewYorker.com. Cinemas lose
when crowds can’t gather, but the
studios have options that can help
them mitigate their losses. Universal
announced this week that it will
make four current or upcoming wide
releases, including The Hunt, The
Invisible Man, Emma, and the kid-
friendly Trolls World Tour available
at $20 each for streaming. Streaming,
of course, is where the action will be.
Indeed, “grim jokes have been flying
around that the coronavirus is sponsored by Netflix.”“Amid all of this upheaval, TV can feel like a rare pillar of cer-
tainty,” said Alison Herman in TheRinger.com. Almost all taped
series will launch their spring seasons on schedule, and the suspen-
sion of production of other shows won’t affect viewers for months.
There will be other ways to pass the time, said Tyler Cowen in
Bloomberg.com. We might rewatch favorite movies; we might even
play around with Google Arts & Culture, which offers virtual
tours of more than 1,200 art museums. But that won’t be enough.
During World War II, the federal government found creative ways
to support industries that provided the nation with spirit-boosting
diversions. We need such thinking now. “The very worst scenario
is that the coronavirus itself becomes our main entertainment. It
could become an ongoing horror show that drives us crazy.”“A new kind of cancel culture is tak-
ing hold. And it is growing,” said
Christi Carras and Christie D’Zurilla
in LATimes.com. All across the U.S.
media and entertainment industry,
the coronavirus pandemic and related
bans on public gathering are trigger-
ing postponements and cancellations.
The snuffing of South by Southwest
and last week’s six-month postpone-
ment of Coachella foreshadowed a
virtual blackout of the spring concert
tour season. Last weekend, movie
box office returns fell to a 20-year
low, while studios began delaying
major spring releases, including the latest James Bond film. Last
Thursday, Stephen Colbert played to an empty house before his
Late Show joined other late-night staples in suspending produc-
tion. Broadway will be dark until at least April 12, and last week’s
closure of the Metropolitan Museum of Art prompted dozens of
museums to follow suit. Such blows “may seem to pale in com-
parison with the clear threat the virus poses to human life,” said
Alissa Wilkinson in Vox.com. But the impact on artists and others
employed in these fields will be seismic.
For musicians, this is a nightmare scenario, said Craig Jenkins
in NYMag.com. Ever since streaming replaced CDs and artists’
already meager share of earnings fell, performers have survived
by touring. But now home listeners may discover the flaw in forc-
ing musicians to depend on such a shaky business model. “If they
24 ARTS Film, Stage & Music
“It is difficult to
remember a rap album
released to such fer-
vid expectations,”
said Danny Schwarz
in Rolling Stone.
Teased almost two
years ago, before the
delays began, the second full-length from
25-year-old Philly rapper Lil Uzi Vert easily
lives up to those expectations. In its initial
18-track form, the concept album about
his abduction and journey through space
showcases the charismatic artist at his
best, “still melodically minded”—especially
on the middle six tracks—but also return-
ing often to the machine gun–fast street
rap with which he built his online fan base
several years ago. And then, with Eternal
Atake at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart,
Uzi released a 32-track deluxe edition.
He assumes two personas here beyond
his own, including Baby Pluto, who raps,
“Reality is not my move,” said Dan DeLuca
in The Philadelphia Inquirer. The interstel-
lar theme links Uzi to a long tradition in
African-American music and never bogs
down the album. “I’m Sorry,” for example,
is “a festival singalong waiting to happen.”
Mandy Moore has
found a musical com-
fort zone, but her lyrics
“speak from a shakier
place,” said Brad
Nelson inPitchfork
.com. On her first
album in 11 years, the
former teen-pop singer—and current star
of TV’s This Is Us—is free of ex-husband
Ryan Adams, the indie rock stalwart who
caused her to doubt her musical talent.
She’s also co-writing with her new spouse,
Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith. But her anxiety
about trusting in her current happiness
keeps poking through, even against a
lush folk-pop backdrop that sounds a lot
like Fleetwood Mac—“glassy marbles of
sound with storm clouds of color swirl-
ing inside.” The opener, “I’d Rather Lose,”
is “a defiant mission statement” about
staying true to oneself, said Gwen Ihnat
in AVClub.com. But after the strong single
“When I Wasn’t Watching,” the album
loses energy. Still, it’s good to have the
singer back. Older now, she is “certainly
wiser” and appears “ready to embrace a
new musical persona as appealing as her
onscreen one.”Pavement’s Stephen
Malkmus has experi-
mented before, but
“it does feel like he’s
cracked a code here,”
said Matthew Perpetua
in NPR.org. In a solo
career that has now
stretched 20 years, “he’s never lost his
cerebral stoner vibe or his easy way with
melody.” But he has also never offered his
own interpretation of a folk album, and
his talent leaps out again as he experi-
ments with “sounds that are entirely new
for him: flutes, bouzoukis, tabla, sitars,
gently plucked 12-strings, languid pedal-
steel drones.” Indeed, “the musical high-
lights are many,” said Mark Richardson
in The Wall Street Journal. The single
“Shadowbanned” recalls acoustic Led
Zeppelin, while “Xian Man” has “the loose,
ramshackle funkiness of Neil Young when
he plays with Crazy Horse.” Malkmus holds
back too much emotionally, though —he’s
always the curious observer—and the
appeal of this record’s sound wanes, as
“there aren’t quite enough variations.”
You should hear it; just don’t overplay it. It
“works best when taken in from a distance.”Lil Uzi Vert
Eternal Atake
++++
Mandy Moore
Silver Landings
++++Stephen Malkmus
Traditional Techniques
++++Covid-19 and the arts: How the shutdown may reshape culture
Broadway on the day it closedReuters