It's a quarter after one, I'm a little drunk, and I need to talk about the Lady Antebellum album now

Been listening to this album on and off for the last few months, and goddamn is it good, especially when (cliched, yes) i've had a few. The Supertramp keyboards in "Our Kind Of Love"! The power ballad dynamics of "Hello World"! And not to mention "Need You Now"...

"need you now" is an incredible song - haven't got round to the rest of the album though, "american honey" underwhelmed me.

"American Honey" is a grower. The vocals are awes.

after a couple months of casual/passive exposure to "need you now" the other day I realized it's actually a good-to-great song (rather than getting sick of it.) funny how that works.

'need you now' is totally great and perhaps would make for a good thread: songs that sound perfect when listened to in the situation described in the song

Really, really hard to get past the spectacularly stupid name, I gotta say. Have they ever explained why in the world they chose such a loaded term?

It beat out Femme Slavetrader.

"Need You Now" rips off Alan Parsons?

You be the judge!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS1z2inwJ2o

Lady Antebellum's success makes Jody Rosen scratche his head.

its funny that this thread just makes me think about how much i love alan parsons.

as far as the slate thing goes, you know, sometimes people just want to hear some pleasant music. actually, MOST of the time people just want to hear pleasant music. and Lady A are kinda perfectly pleasant. great music for people on all kinds of drugs. uppers, downers, pot, booze, x, acid, anti-depressants. same with alan parsons!

there should really be big illegal modern country raves. where everyone drops x and listens to the biggest shiniest mod pop country ballads on huge speakers in the woods.

I last listened to Miranda Lambert's "The House That Built Me" high as fuck, so I know whereof you speak.

this is a good ravey remix. has a country artist ever put out a remix album? i'll bet they would sell like hotcakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW5Gq-71w5o

Shania Twain's Up, yo

tons of need you now remixes.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lady+antebellum+remix&aq=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-xp9k6OMV4

They just changed their named to Lady A:

Dear fans... pic.twitter.com/7JlcH2NMl6

— Lady A (@ladya) June 11, 2020

Surprised to see a lot of supportive comments, but of course the usual white whining:

"What I care about is the list of words and things that hurt people!!!! When will it end??? Will we need to form a Commission on acceptable words we are not allowed to ever use????"

change it to Lady Antifa

— grace spelman (feat. acab)(abolish remix) (@GraceSpelman) June 11, 2020

haha, that's a better solution. Because the A presumably still means the same fucking word in people's minds. Also I'm pretty dumbfounded that they never considered the connotations of that word until now. That word doesn't have any other definitions. But I'm also learning more about what white people classify as 'racist' every day and it's depressing.

The 'explanation' that was floating around when they first broke out is that they had chosen the name out of admiration for some beautiful "antebellum-style" houses they saw somewhere (presumably on a, uh, plantation tour) and did not understand the historical connotations of the name. Which, if it were not obviously a cynical lie crafted by a PR firm, would be a pretty damning indictment of the US educational system.

I just hope the Dixie Chicks (who are being invoked, "Who's next?" style) change their name to the D Chicks.

Was hoping for 'Lady Postbellum'.

Lady Reconstruction

They should just skip to the logical end result and call themselves Hester Prynne

never heard of em til this week, but damn punk rock was right on time 45 years ago eh

The 'explanation' that was floating around when they first broke out is that they had chosen the name out of admiration for some beautiful "antebellum-style" houses they saw somewhere (presumably on a, uh, plantation tour) and did not understand the historical connotations of the name. Which, if it were not obviously a cynical lie crafted by a PR firm, would be a pretty damning indictment of the US educational system.

They knew damn well what it meant, they just didn't give a shit. Which means the pressure on them in recent days must have been fairly intense.

i'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt for good intentions but damn, did they not even take a moment and google it?

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/lady-antebellum-lady-a-country-blues-1013919/

This Lady A — a 61-year-old black woman whose real name is Anita White — has been playing the blues under the name for more than 20 years. She began singing as a gospel performer at church and started going by Lady A for karaoke nights in the Eighties. She’s released multiple albums with the name, and on top of her day job working with Seattle Public Utilities, she’s gearing up to release another album, Lady A: Live in New Orleans, on her birthday on July 18th.

White tells Rolling Stone she’s frustrated that Lady Antebellum hadn’t gone to her before making a decision, pointing out the irony in changing a name in support of racial equality while simultaneously taking another one from a black performer. “This is my life. Lady A is my brand, I’ve used it for over 20 years, and I’m proud of what I’ve done,” she says, her voice breaking. “This is too much right now. They’re using the name because of a Black Lives Matter incident that, for them, is just a moment in time. If it mattered, it would have mattered to them before. It shouldn’t have taken George Floyd to die for them to realize that their name had a slave reference to it.

“It’s an opportunity for them to pretend they’re not racist or pretend this means something to them,” she adds. “If it did, they would’ve done some research. And I’m not happy about that. You found me on Spotify easily — why couldn’t they?”

When reached for comment Friday morning, a rep for Lady Antebellum said the band was not aware of the other artist and plans to reach out to her.

'Reach out' to slap a cease-and-desist notice on her if she complains again, no doubt. By the way, this band makes Bread sound like Venom, they are truly, truly horrible.

Matt that analogy has me rolling

'Reach out' to slap a cease-and-desist notice on her if she complains again,

Cease and desist from asserting her established common-law TM rights (and obvious PR advantage)? Not a chance. The band will fold, sounds like they have no leverage here.

Actually, I just checked -- there are two active LADY A registrations in the U.S., covering musical recordings and live performances; I assume they belong to the gospel performer. The band didn't even run a trademark search!

Wait, I'm wrong -- I dug deeper, they actually belong to Lady Antebellum.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBeTF3iDVht/

Today, we connected privately with the artist Lady A. Transparent, honest, and authentic conversations were had. We are excited to share we are moving forward with positive solutions and common ground. The hurt is turning into hope. More to come.

“Lady A. Transparent”, now there’s a great name.

http://sgwproductimages.azureedge.net/159/8-27-2019/5251885271217KaJC.JPG

Transparent, honest, and authentic conversations were had. We are excited to share we are moving forward with positive solutions and common ground. The hurt is turning into hope.

What's the term for this kind of writing/messaging, this sentimentalised preciousness? Is there one? I hate it.

drunk texting?

it's called enwhitenment

Heard they're considering a name change to "Lady Reconstruction." Just one problem: that's already the name of the Christian goregrind solo project of Niels, the former guitarist for Prostitute Disfigurement.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/legal-and-management/9415420/lady-a-band-lawsuit-singer-anita-lady-a-white

How bout Lady Assholes?

People who would name their band Lady Antebellum in the first place are terrible people shocker.

"Transparent, honest, and authentic conversations were had. We are excited to share we are moving forward with positive solutions and common ground. The hurt is turning into hope." ----> “We are sad to share that our sincere hope to join together with Anita White in unity and common purpose has ended.”

how disappointing! praying for lady antebellum during this difficult time

Pretty profoundly dumb for them to press the issue

That's why I think they are terrible: they know how it looks and don't care. Raw power, baby.

Somebody on Twitter suggested Lady Reconstruction, but that sounds like a goregrind band to me, like they'd be opening for Prostitute Disfigurement.

authentic conversations were had

Way to read the room, Lady Go Fuck Yourself.

more like lady go DIVAS

Heard they're considering a name change to "Lady Reconstruction." Just one problem: that's already the name of the Christian goregrind solo project of Niels, the former guitarist for Prostitute Disfigurement.

― handsome boy modelling software (bernard snowy), Thursday, June 18, 2020 10:17 AM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

Somebody on Twitter suggested Lady Reconstruction, but that sounds like a goregrind band to me, like they'd be opening for Prostitute Disfigurement.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, July 8, 2020 6:19 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

you two need to do a better job coordinating your weird jokes

just go with "Lady B"

lady postbellum, surely

or just drop the "Lady" altogether. just be A. it's what the Dixie Chicks would've done

Lady BM

shittin' on haterz

They’ve clearly got lawyers... do they not have any publicists or PR people to stop them from shit?

I guess I know the answer and it’s that they just don’t give a shit.

Lady K

Lady Anti-BLM more like

— // jbl (@neurasthenya) July 8, 2020

goddamn, she's still got it

Lady A-; one for the Xgau crowd

https://www.vulture.com/2020/07/lady-a-lawsuit-interview-anita-white.html

the meat of it:

n her very first conversation with the band, on June 15, when its members — Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood, and Charles Kelley — repeatedly asked to take a picture they could post on social media to show the world how they were “moving forward with positive solutions and common ground,” White could see that they weren’t really concerned about her position as an independent artist. The band wanted to record a song with White, she told me just after the lawsuit was announced, and they wanted to record the process, documentary style, to chronicle the proof that they were nothing like the rest of the country standing on opposite sides of life and liberty, unable or unwilling to meet in the middle. But as they spoke during the negotiations over the last two weeks, White began to realize that any meeting in the middle would result only from her own painstaking strides. The band had already made their splashy statement, declaring newfound wokeness by ceremoniously discarding the latter half of their name. Their declarations of faith were meaningless, White now says, because they never engaged with her in good faith.

“The first contract they sent [on June 30] had no substance,” she explains. “It said that we would coexist and that they would use their best efforts to assist me on social-media platforms, Amazon, iTunes, all that. But what does that mean? I had suggested on the Zoom call that they go by the Band Lady A, or Lady A the Band, and I could be Lady A the Artist, but they didn’t want to do that.”

At the same time, while the band was rebranding itself across the internet, pushing their own brand of Lady A up search results, White fell further down, becoming harder to find on Google and streaming platforms alike. A search for Lady A reveals the band first, and while White appears close to the top in artist results (second on Spotify, for example, and third on iTunes, after both “Lady A” the band and “Lady Antebellum”), her music is sometimes dozens of entries deep, far beneath the country group’s vast catalogue. “I attempted to upload my single [on independent distribution service DistroKid] and couldn’t verify my name, Lady A, for several days,” she wrote to me, via email, on June 30. “It finally went through and now I’m just waiting until my July release to see if my single will be buried.”

White says that the goal since learning of the band’s name switch-up was always to continue to perform and release music under the name Lady A. But as the band proved unwilling to compromise, she began to consider other options for protecting her business interests. Regarding the $10 million she asked for when her attorney sent the latest draft of the coexistence agreement on July 3 — what Nashville songwriter Shane McAnally recklessly likened to extortion on Twitter — White says that it was simply a request for the necessary resources to support herself and, perhaps more importantly, the entire Black community. Her plan, she told me, was to use $5 million to rebrand, to start over as an artist with more than 20 years in the game — but without the high-powered label and management machine of a Lady Antebellum. The other $5 million was to be donated to the charities of her choice, including organizations that provide support to other independent Black artists. If the band formerly known as Lady Antebellum was going to vow to support to Black lives, Lady A says, she was going to hold them to it.

With the pro bono support of intellectual-property attorneys from the Palo Alto–headquartered Cooley law firm, White is confident that justice will eventually prevail. If she has any concern about the way negotiations have crumbled for all the world to see, it is for the way she is being portrayed by the band, how she believes they are positioning her as “the angry Black woman.” But even that won’t stop her fight.

“I was quiet for two weeks because I was trying to believe that it was going to be okay and that they would realize that it would be easier to just change their name, or pay me for my name,” White says. “Five million dollars is nothing, and I’m actually worth more than that, regardless of what they think. But here we go again with another white person trying to take something from a Black person, even though they say they’re trying to help. If you want to be an advocate or an ally, you help those who you’re oppressing. And that might require you to give up something because I am not going to be erased.”

turns out a band called Slavery Nostalgia until this year has a racism problem which a name change couldn’t fix

this whole episode had better destroy them

At least back in the day the black artist would get a Cadillac; today the going offer is "their best efforts to assist me on social-media platforms."

(And let me state just to ensure there is no mistake: The Cadillac as payment was bullshit too.)

Sky Ferreira covered "Need You Now" at Coachella?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7YdTW7A8C4

This song still hits for me

Great choice for her, too. Really suits her.