Brian Mansfield

This was why I loved being at USA Today during its peak years: We avoided the worst of those power struggles.
I recall with fondness a publicist threatening we’d never interview her artist again. I said, “That’s fine. We can always go talk to Lady Gaga instead.” Last time she tried that with us.

I remember that book. Think I read it. Would've been right up my alley at the time.

The thing about this new season of “The Bear” is how thoroughly the show has conditioned me to refuse to accept that any of the apparently good things might actually be good.

One of my greatest collecting regrets is throwing away hundreds of copies of each title in a pretty significant catalog about 15-20 years ago because I didn't have a place to store them and couldn't imagine how I'd ever get rid of that many copies. I did keep one or two of everything, though.

Nashville is a great city in which to be a vinyl collector.

Tiffany at an Erasure concert in Nashville was so wild!

One of the best. And such a great guy.

I once spent two days in the studio with the Beach Boys. At one point, Brian Wilson was in the control room talking about why the group's records sounded the way they did. Because he was deaf in his right ear, he explained, he was trying to create the illusion of stereo for one ear.

I should probably discontinue my "Write this in the style of Nina Melechen" prompt, then.

I play with LLMs a lot, and I've started adding prompts along the lines of "Now doublecheck this and fix everything you got wrong" as a matter of routine.

I got a press release today that contained the most obviously AI-generated quote I've ever seen.

In related news, I have officially banned the "It's not just this—it's that" and "It doesn't just do this—it does that" sentence structures at the newsletter I edit.

AI LLM tools don't do everything well, but they do come in handy when it comes to transcripts. If you know what you want them to do and can tell them, it might be worth giving one of them a shot.

It occurs to me that when the couple from Rotterdam asked if it was OK to park on the side of the street on Music Square East that it might’ve freaked them out a bit when I replied, “Sure, now walk around with me to the back of this building and let me show you a little piece of a quonset hut.”

The Lower Broadway of Earthly Delights.

That's what makes this story interesting. They *weren't* planning on doing that for country (just arbitrary hoops for Top 40/Hot AC). They changed their tune when three stations played it 30+ times the first weekend, then four more added it after that. Now UMGN's working it because of radio play.

Especially after a few beers.

Plausible deniability goes a long way when it comes to catchy songs.

Oh, the people that could do that are the ones who already know the content. It's the people who listen to the radio who probably don't know and probably don't care. Only two things can hold the record back at radio: her lack of history at the format & probably unfounded concern about the lyrics.

The interesting thing is that the only people who seem to know (or care) are media gatekeeper-types (be they in favor of opening or closing this particular gate) and Chappell's fans.

www.countryinsider.com/news/could-c...

If you think the weather in Nashville is crazy these days, you should’ve been here on St. Patrick’s Day in 1892.

One of the most unnerving experiences I ever had was standing outside a school in Camden, Tennessee, on March 5, 2003, and seeing a guy come up the sidewalk with a rear wing from a Piper Comanche in his arms.

The one time I got to see Badfinger's Joey Molland — who died Saturday night at 77 — was in 2019 at one of the weirdest bills I've ever witnessed: Mickey Dolenz, Todd Rundgren, Christopher Cross, Chicago's Jason Scheff and Molland performing songs from the Beatles' White Album in Danville, Kentucky.

Two straight Fridays seeing Zach Top. Yeah, that’s a good thing.

A Bruce Springsteen pinback and a torn ticket stub from a Feb. 26, 1981, Springsteen concert at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium.

Today in my personal concertgoing history:
I sold my baseball card collection to raise the money to buy tickets for this concert.
A friend had floor seats, so I snuck down to hang with her. Bruce jumped into the audience right in front of us. He raised his hand into the air, and I grabbed it.

YouTube video by Andrew Duhon Andrew Duhon - Shotgun Religion [Official Video]

Twice in the past week, I've heard a prominent country act sing a song positioning his Christianity as self-satisfied rebelliousness against cultural enemies. Today, I have Andrew Duhon's "Shotgun Religion" on repeat to drive the first song's memory out of my head.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWtr...

No, I was all over downtown! Ryman to Pinnacle to Omni to Jelly Roll’s Goodnight Nashville.
(I’m tired and a little sore today.)

Started the day with a surprise Beatles sighting, ended it watching Jelly Roll play the grand opening of his new Nashville club. In between somewhere, I got a look at a new Nashville venue and saw Lainey Wilson sing "Livin' on a Prayer."
It was a busy day.

Mansfield 911 On Feb. 13, 2002, my 6-week-old daughter stopped breathing as my wife was putting her to bed. This is what happened next.

23 years ago tonight, I had just finished writing Waylon Jennings' obituary when I heard my wife scream upstairs. Our infant daughter, who had undiagnosed whooping cough, had stopped breathing and was turning gray. Here’s the 911 call.

on.soundcloud.com/FqP2viZjrSb2...

The people who licensed the song may not get "Personal Jesus," but I guarantee you Johnny Cash did.