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Love It or Hate It, Refused Changed Punk

Refused
Jason Tate

David Anthony, writing for Noisey:

All that love, and all that criticism, was only further proof of the impression that The Shape Of Punk To Come made. Even if it’s become cooler to deny the record its place in punk history, the actual shape of modern punk music would be drastically different without Refused. For a full decade, bands used The Shape of Punk to Come as a sonic reference point, and it became a stand-in for a bigger ideological shift within the genre. It’s become a way to describe punk and hardcore music that has a forward-thinking approach, one that sees the style as an open space where anything could be possible. So while it may not be easy to find a band that accurately replicated Refused’s sound, the fact that they became the baseline for an entire artistic approach speaks volumes.

More Allegations Against Dahvie Vanity

Huffpost
Jason Tate

Sebastian Murdock and Jesselyn Cook, writing at Huffington Post:

Hendry’s story is disturbingly familiar. HuffPost spoke to a dozen women who said Torres sexually assaulted them between 2006 and 2015. We also spoke to a girl, now 16, who said Torres started grooming her when she was 13 and he was 30. Most of the women said they were under 18 at the time of their alleged assaults.

After the article came out, Big Cartel have (finally) removed Torres’s merch store.

Korn Demoing With Travis Barker and John Feldmann

Korn
Jason Tate

Korn have been working with Travis Barker and John Feldmann on new music:

We’re doing it all over. We’ve been to Nashville a few times, we’ve done a lot in L.A. We actually wrote with John Feldmann, too, for the demos. Travis Barker laid the temporary drums for some, and that was cool. We’ve known John Feldmann since ’87 — he was in Electric Love Hogs. So we’re writing with different people. We grabbed [producer] Nick Raskulinecz, and he’s very hands on and such a fan of music. It’s not a job or a gig to him.

Rising Instagram Stars Are Posting Fake Sponsored Content

Instagram
Jason Tate

Taylor Lorenz, writing for The Atlantic:

Taylor Evans took the fake-“sponcon” game one step further, once faking the entire purpose of a trip to Miami. Technically, she was just there on vacation, paying her own way for everything, but on Instagram she positioned it as an exclusive press trip. “I took a lot of pics at restaurants and posted ‘Thanks so much XYZ restaurant for the hospitality!’” she said. “You say it in a way that people could interpret it as you having an established relationship with that brand … The hope is that it’s perceived in a way that looks like there’s a reason you’re in a different city and state, not just enjoying a weekend vacation.”

We live in interesting times.

Twitter Is Relaunching the Reverse-Chronological Feed

Twitter
Jason Tate

Casey Newtom, writing for The Verge:

Twitter is offering users another escape hatch from its ranked timeline. The company said today that it will introduce a prominent new toggle in the app to switch from the ranked timeline to the original, reverse-chronological feed. The company says the move comes in recognition of the fact that Twitter is often most useful in real time, particularly during live events such as sports games or the Oscars.

How YouTube Built a Radicalization Machine for the Far-Right

YouTube
Jason Tate

Kelly Weill, writing for The Daily Beast:

YouTube has become a quiet powerhouse of political radicalization in recent years, powered by an algorithm that a former employee says suggests increasingly fringe content. And far-right YouTubers have learned to exploit that algorithm and land their videos high in the recommendations on less extreme videos. The Daily Beast spoke to three men whose YouTube habits pushed them down a far-right path and who have since logged out of hate.

We built all these tools, we wrote the code to keep people engaged, to keep them watching and clicking ads, and pushed it out into the world without ever thinking about the consequences. The other day I opened up YouTube in a browser I never use, via a VPN in incognito mode, and it was about six videos before I started getting recommended anti-feminism shit from known bigots. This is bad.

‘My Dad’s Friendship With Charles Barkley’

Basketball
Jason Tate

Shirley Wang, writing at NPR:

When Charles Barkley’s mother, Charcey Glenn, passed away in June 2015, Barkley’s hometown of Leeds, Alabama, came to the funeral to pay respects. But there was also an unexpected guest.

Barkley’s friends couldn’t quite place him. He wasn’t a basketball player, he wasn’t a sports figure, and he wasn’t from Barkley’s hometown. Here’s what I can tell you about him: He wore striped, red polo shirts tucked into khaki shorts and got really excited about two-for-one deals. He was a commuter. He worked as a cat litter scientist in Muscatine, Iowa. In short, he was everyone’s suburban dad. More specifically, he was my dad.

This was a great read.

‘The 1975 – Notes on an Exceptional Year’

The 1975
Jason Tate

The 1975’s Matty Healy sat down with NME to talk about the past year, and their upcoming album:

People get confused, they can’t understand why a lad their age wouldn’t be wanting to be in The Courteeners or be in a punk band more than my band. It’s because it’s done, lads, it’s done. We’ve done it. It was great but we’ve done it. It’s like, white men shouting has been done so many times and the interesting perspective in punk is where women are. But that’s why there are interesting bands like Idles who deal with stuff like fragility and toxic masculinity. If there’s meaning, it’ll resonate.

Apple Music Removing “Connect”

Jason Tate

Zac Hall, writing for 9to5Mac:

Apple has started notifying Apple Music artists that it is removing the ability for artists to post content to Apple Music Connect, and previously posted Apple Music Connect content is being removed from the For You section and Artist Pages in Apple Music. Connect content will still be viewable through search results on Apple Music, but Apple is removing artist-submitted Connect posts from search in May.

I miss Rdio and I miss their “heavy rotation” feed. That was the right way to integration social features into a music streaming service.

Facial Recognition Used at Taylor Swift Concert to Track Stalkers

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Steve Knopper, writing at Rolling Stone:

Taylor Swift fans mesmerized by rehearsal clips on a kiosk at her May 18th Rose Bowl show were unaware of one crucial detail: A facial-recognition camera inside the display was taking their photos. The images were being transferred to a Nashville “command post,” where they were cross-referenced with a database of hundreds of the pop star’s known stalkers, according to Mike Downing, chief security officer of Oak View Group, an advisory board for concert venues including Madison Square Garden and the Forum in L.A. “Everybody who went by would stop and stare at it, and the software would start working,” says Downing, who attended the concert to witness a demo of the system as a guest of the company that manufactures the kiosks.

Panic! at the Disco Hit Rarified Chart Air

Panic at the Disco
Jason Tate

Gary Trust, writing for Billboard:

Meanwhile, “Hopes” leads Alternative Songs for a fifth week and Adult Pop Songs for a second week. The song is just the fourth to top those two airplay charts and Pop Songs simultaneously, dating to the March 1996 inception of Adult Pop Songs in Billboard’s pages in March 1996. (Pop Songs began in October 1992 and Alternative Songs, in September 1988.)