Month: July 2017

Matt Skiba Talks With Music Radar

Jason Tate

Matt Skiba of Blink-182 talked with Music Radar:

I’m not doing something I haven’t ever done before; it’s just on a different scale and with different guys. I’m really lucky that lightning struck twice in my life. When all is said and done, it was a pretty easy transition. Yes, there were moments of total terror and panic, but that’s life. That’s just wanting to do a great job.

And:

We had a group of songs that we still may or may not use, I don’t know. There’s way more material than just what is on the deluxe record; there’s a whole other record’s worth of material that I personally thought sounded too much like Alkaline Trio.

That’s how I write; it’s hard to change. It’s like you can’t just change your fingerprint. We discussed the record at length and made sure that we didn’t just really like it, we had to love it. You can’t put something out that is anything short of true love and true pride.

John Feldmann Talks About New Goldfinger

Jason Tate

John Feldmann sat down with Alternative Press to talk about the new Goldfinger album:

If I listen to the song and it makes me happy, that’s all that matters for Goldfinger. The point isn’t trying to connect at radio. With Blink, the intent was a comeback record. We knew going into it that it was time to get on the radio and put the band back on the map where they belonged, because they’re a timeless, classic, legendary group. Not that Goldfinger isn’t, but we were always underground. I was singing about animal rights and telling Ted Nugent to fuck off. I was never trying to compete with whatever was on pop radio at the time. When we were blowing up, it was Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys, ultimately. That was never my goal; it was just to get my aggression out. “A Million Miles” came out of a spot of “I still care about music.”

On-Demand Audio Streaming Hits Record High

Jason Tate

Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch:

A new report from Nielsen out this week paints a picture of the booming on-demand audio streaming business, pointing to a significant increase in consumers’ use of streaming services and record numbers of streams being served. According to the mid-year report, which focuses only on the U.S. market, on-demand audio streams surpassed the 7 billion figure for the first time ever during March of this year.

That’s audio streams, to be clear – not just music.

That is, the term “audio” also includes non-music streams like spoken word recordings and podcasts – the latter of which has also seen rapid growth.

DJ Khaled Tops the Charts Again

Jason Tate

DJ Khaled once again has the top album in the country:

Debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 is Calvin Harris’ Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, earning the superstar DJ/producer his highest charting album yet. The star-filled dance-meets-R&B/hip-hop effort features guests ranging from Frank Ocean and Katy Perry to ScHoolboy Q and Nicki Minaj. Harris’ previous high on the Billboard 200 was logged when his last studio effort, Motion, debuted and peaked at No. 5 in 2014.