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Celebrating ‘TOYPAJ’ 25 Years Later

Blink-182
Jason Tate

Brady Miller with a nice essay on the 25th anniversary of Blink-182’s Take Off Your Pants and Jacket:

My interest was piqued by this Entertainment Weekly review. Those being the days of Napster or Limewire, I started downloading each song from the album individually. Track one was “Anthem Part 2”, and I played it before the rest of the album had finished downloading. Verse one begins, “Everything has fallen to pieces. Earth is dying’, help me, Jesus.” A few lines later, “Corporate leaders, politicians. Kids can’t vote adults elected them.” At fourteen, I was beginning to notice the world beyond me. Forces I couldn’t control, from how societies function to the laws and politics that help some while holding others back. There was an angst to the way Tom DeLonge sang these opening lines, but also a playful wink. The disenchanted youth that inherits the problems created by one or two generations prior.

Plain White T’s Perform on Southwest Flight

Plain White T's
Jason Tate

Plain White T’s performed at 35,000 feet for Southwest Airlines.

To mark the occasion, the Plain White T’s took to the skies and surprised Southwest Customers by singing their hit song, “Hey There Delilah,” which continues to draw crowds and resurface on TikTok with billions of plays. The Plain White T’s were one of the first artists to perform onboard a Southwest flight when the airline launched the program 15 years ago.

Grammys Make Submission Changes

Grammys
Jason Tate

The Grammys have announced some rule updates:

As part of the Grammys’ annual process of accepting proposals from the music creators and professionals who make up its membership body, and its ongoing commitment to reflecting today’s dynamic musical landscape, new Categories and rule changes are now in effect for the 69th Grammy Awards, which culminate with the 2027 Grammys live across ABC, Disney+ and Hulu on Feb. 7, 2027.

Bose Launches Record Label

Jason Tate

Bose have launched an in-house record label.

One key differentiator is the launch of a new record label, Bose Records. Bose CMO Jim Mollica said in an interview that the plan isn’t to go toe-to-toe with the “Big Three” label conglomerates, but rather to help break underappreciated or new artists and — crucially — not have to pay for music rights when they feature in Bose commercials. (Mollica said Bose wouldn’t look to own the artists’ masters, the company wouldn’t take a share of their record sales or streams, and that they would be free to sign with other labels.)

Taylor Swift Nabs Another Number One

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Variety:

Taylor Swift‘s run as a true action figure on the charts continues as her “Toy Story 5” song “I Knew It, I Knew You” was announced Monday as debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It’s only the third time a theme song from an animated Disney film has reached the summit, following “A Whole New World” from “Aladdin” in 1993 and, of course, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from “Encanto” in 2022.

The Menzingers Talk With Rolling Stone

The Menzingers
Jason Tate

The Menzingers sat down with Rolling Stone:

May: I don’t want to be cynical about it and be like, “Oh, we’ve been playing guitar for this long and it gets a little bit boring.” It doesn’t get boring. It’s fucking awesome, but there is a desire to incorporate some other instruments. Over the last couple of years, I personally got really into electronic music and I know the rest of the guys, we’ve all been listening to all kinds of things from all decades and we’re like, “Yeah, these sounds actually can be cool.” We just went for it and it’s still relatively subtle. It really helped us expand and it was really satisfying to open up some of those sonic doors that way.

Daisy Grenade Talk With Pete Wentz

Daisy Grenade
Jason Tate

Daisy Grenade talk with Pete Wentz about their latest EP:

For me, my background in musical theater and acting allows me to take something personal that happened to me and put it into a fictional scenario. I don’t like writing literally, “This event happened, and these were the circumstances.” That doesn’t fulfill me the same way. Writing like I’m a character or in fictional circumstances still lets me express and process whatever it is, but it gives it a little more life and packages it differently. Sometimes things just aren’t as interesting as they could be written, so I like heightening things. That comes from theater acting for me.

Amy Lee Talks New Album

Evanescence
Jason Tate

Amy Lee of Evanescense sat down with Loudwire:

”I feel like we’re in a moment where words are really important and every single line is an opportunity, it’s a chance to say something that’s going to impact somebody,” she shares. “Hopefully in a positive way, make them feel something, whether it’s feeling understood or not alone in something or just they’re not alone in the craziness of everything going on in the world right now. It’s fucked up and it feels like all of our control is being ripped away.”

Death Cab for Cutie Talks With Rolling Stone

Death Cab for Cutie
Jason Tate

Death Cab for Cutie talked with Rolling Stone:

I Built You a Tower will be released under ANTI Records, Epitaph’s sister label. For Death Cab, the return to an indie is a homecoming of sorts. “It felt so refreshing to be back in a room with people that were culturally of our world,” Gibbard says, recalling the first meeting with Epitaph owner Brett Gurewitz and former head of A&R Alison Crutchfield. “I can really count on one hand in the 20 years at Atlantic the number of people that we felt we had some true similar musical vocabulary” he adds, “It feels like we’ve landed back in a place that we feel very comfortable at.”

Rare the Beatles Photos From Final Concert

The Beatles
Jason Tate

Rolling Stone have shared thirteen rare and unseen photos from The Beatles final concert:

The Beatles saga can be neatly divided into two halves: everything that came before their concert at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on Aug. 29, 1966, and everything that came after. That momentous event marked the final time they played a proper concert following years of relentless road work that greatly limited the number of hours they could spend in recording studios. In the aftermath, they were able to camp out at Abbey Road and carefully craft masterpieces like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Bandwithout a clock ticking towards their next show.

The All-American Rejects Talk With Rock Sound

All American Rejects
Jason Tate

The All-American Rejects talked with Rock Sound:

Well for starters, there was no big budget from a record label, so we recorded and produced the album ourselves in our individual creative spaces – Tyson [Ritter, frontman] in Tulsa, Scott [Chesak, former keyboard player] in Austin, and me in my studio in Nashville. Even though we were limited because of budget and geography, it was freeing to create something without the outside voices of A&R or anyone else for that matter. No pressure to write another ‘Gives You Hell’ or ‘Move Along’. We got to make the record that we wanted to make – as that band, but from where we are in our lives now.

Last.fm’s Independence Day

Jason Tate

Last.fm has regained their independence:

Today, Last.fm begins a new chapter as an independent company. Ownership has changed, but the product you use every day has not. Your account, your listening history, and your data remain exactly where they are. The team building Last.fm is the same. The service continues as normal.

MUNA Talk With Rolling Stone

Muna
Jason Tate

MUNA talked with Rolling Stone about their latest album:

McPherson: You can’t help but react against what you’ve previously worked on, whether you’ve had success or not. With “Silk,” there of course is fear. This has been happening to us since the beginning of our career. We’re always like, “What if this is the best moment of our lives and then everything else after this sucks?” Since we toured with Harry Styles, we were like, “What if this is the peak?” You never know. We have to accept that, but what we are in control of is making music that we think is good. It would have been a very fear-based scarcity mentality thing to do to try to recreate “Silk Chiffon” another 11 times and see which one sticks.