Here’s the update on “Vultures 1,” Kanye West’s new album.

Kanye uploaded the album to all the streaming services through a service called FUGA, which is owned by Downtown Music here in New York. He did the upload on Saturday, when no one was paying attention. It seems like when Downtown/FUGA realized what happened, they pulled it off as many streaming services as possible.

West apparently did the upload on Saturday, after being rejected by FUGA on Friday. It seems he did it behind their backs, but they’re not commenting.

I’ve been directed to a statement they made earlier:

“Late last year, FUGA was presented with the opportunity to release Vultures 1. Exercising our judgment in the ordinary course of business, we declined to do so.”

“On Friday, February 9, 2024, a long-standing FUGA client delivered the album Vultures 1 through the platform’s automated processes, violating our service agreement. Therefore, FUGA is actively working with its DSP partners and the client to remove Vultures 1 from our systems.”

FUGA now tells me they’re totally out of this, and they’ve been informed there’s a new distributor.

Currently, “Vultures” is off of iTunes/Apple and Amazon. It still seems to be on Spotify, although one track is missing. That’s because the Donna Summer estate filed a take down notice over an unauthorized sample.

A couple of “Vultures” tracks are still on iTunes. That’s because Kanye uploaded them through a different service called Create Music from Los Angeles. It’s unclear if they will follow suit.

So the reason for all this does seem to be objections to West’s antisemitic statements, and maybe because the album is explicit and vulgar. Kudos to these people for exacting editorial control. But the removal has nothing to do with the streamers. It’s the distributor. The streamers — Apple, Amazon, etc — just want to make money. They have no moral imperative.

Big stars have labels that do the uploading. But without a label, West is left to these devices, using an indie distributor. Even when he was signed to DefJam he often uploaded material without telling anyone. But that was before he was revealed as an admirer of Hitler.

On “This is Me…Now” Jennifer Lopez has a song so personal and intimate there are SEVEN credited writes. That would be “Dear Ben Pt. II,” a sequel to a song on “This is Me…Later” from 20 years ago.

Even Cyrano de Bergerac was a lone ghost writer. He didn’t have six companions.

There’s one song with SIXTEEN writers. Each one contributed a word. It’s called “Hearts and Flowers.” It was written at a conference table, with people zooming in!

Lopez has another song that relies heavily on Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett’s “Superstar.” She also has tracks based on the Justin Timberlake song “Cry Me a River,” and another on a Chris Isaak song. Even the sampled songs have groups of people — all needed for heavy lifting when they stole the original. It’s like an “Ocean’s 11” movie.

You wonder how this could be acceptable. Even more, how Ben Affleck and Matt Damon managed to get someone to cook up an original song for their Dunkin’ Donuts commercial. Maybe JLo should have paid attention to that.

The Lopez album drops at midnight with a zillion dollar short video she paid for. This is a disaster waiting to happen. We’ll listen for more later tonight. Meantime, here’s the title track, with the Timberlake sample, sung in they key of Ouch.

Indeed, vocal prowess is not the highlight here. JLo is neither a Jennifer Hudson nor a Mary J. Blige. Her voice is thin and shrill. You can imagine cats running up poles when the songs are played. I give her credit: she’s just singing, there’s no effort to fix it up and make it better. This is really her now: rich, comfortable as a celebrity, and won’t make apologies. That’s sort of cool.

Unfortunately the committee written songs are pretty bad. Most of them are ballads or mid tempo, and that doesn’t help. Lopez sounds a lot like she’s gulping for air trying to figure these things out. The songs feel like they’ve been composed by AI. “Make me a Jennifer Lopez song” you type into the program. And these are what you get.

EXCLUSIVE

UPDATE

The Kanye West album “Vultures” was removed from most digital platforms because of a take down notice from Donna Summer’s estate. It was just restored to iTunes and Spotify but without the song “Good Don’t Die.” (iTunes still has six other tracks they’ve de-listed.)

West says on Instagram that the album has been removed from all digital platforms and it should be ordered on his website. But all about but one song has been reloaded.

Summer’s estate complained that West used a sample of “Love to Love You Baby” without permission on “Good (Don’t Die),” which caused the trouble. Ozzy Osbourne, separately, threatened legal action over a sample of one of his songs.

Unfortunately this had nothing to do with objectionable lyrics. The platforms don’t care about that!

Keep refreshing…

EARLIER Yesterday, Kanye West’s “Vultures,” was number 2 on the iTunes Top 200.

Today, it’s gone.

The album has vanished from all the iTunes charts– singles, albums, rap albums.

Have sales simply stopped? Or has iTunes stopped offering it?

The album is full of vulgarities and features an antisemitic reference that is ugly, hateful, and repellent.

If Apple has decided not to distribute the album, more power to them. It would be incredible if someone in the music business executed some editorial authority. It would be a miracle!

Keep refreshing.

Usually, I add a YouTube link for a song from an album, but I can’t in this case because the material is so objectionable.

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Instead, here’s a nice song to cleanse your mind.