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Story of the Year Reflect on ‘Page Avenue’

Story of the Year
Jason Tate

Story of the Year and John Feldmann talked with Billboard about Page Avenue 15 years later:

I don’t want to take credit for the success of the record — but I mean, I have to, to a certain extent, because Ryan and I fought a lot. He wanted it to be a metal record, and if it would’ve been the record he wanted, it would’ve never connected the way it did. The record needed to have the melodies and the vocals the way that they were, in order for people to really understand how great the songs were. That probably took 10 years for Ryan to really understand.

If you look back, they didn’t hire me to do the second record. That’s how bummed Ryan was on how the first record sounded. He was really upset. He was like, “This record is a pop record.” He wanted to make something heavy, so they hired a metal producer to do the second record, which failed horrifically. It got them dropped [from the label] and it didn’t connect. I think in hindsight, Ryan understands it. But when he was a kid, he was so defiant on my process. It was really challenging for me. He worked at Papa John’s pizza. My job was to make sure he didn’t have to work at a pizza store anymore. I was really trying to give him a career.

Spotify Lifts Song Download Cap

Jason Tate

Amy X. Wang, writing at Rolling Stone:

A common gripe among Spotify users is that the app limits the number of songs that can be downloaded to phones and computers for offline listening (3,333 tracks per device, with a three-device limit, to be exact). In its latest software update, the streaming service has quietly increased the limit threefold.

A number of power-users first noticed that they were able to save more than 3,333 songs this week, and the Swedish streaming giant confirmed the change on Wednesday to Rolling Stone.

A well deserved finally.

Apple Music Gains Better Album Organization

Jason Tate

Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories:

While the old artist page design of Apple Music mixed albums, singles, EPs, live albums, and more under the same ‘Albums’ section, the new Apple Music features separate sections for different types of music releases. The new sections include singles and EPs, live albums, essential albums recommended by Apple Music editors, compilations, and appearances by an artist on other albums. As pictured above, Apple Music now also highlights an artist’s latest or upcoming release at the top of the page.

Much better.

Pitchfork Details the Best Albums of the ’80s

Pitchfork
Jason Tate

Pitchfork have put together a feature on the “200 best albums of the 1980s.”

Longtime readers may remember that, in 2002, we made a list of The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s. That list was shorter, sure, but it also represented a limited editorial stance we have worked hard to move past; its lack of diversity, both in album selections and contributing critics, does not represent the voice Pitchfork has become. For this new list, we gathered votes from more than 50 full-time staffers and regularly contributing writers to open up our discussion.

Apple Music to Publish Its Own Top Music Charts

Jason Tate

Rolling Stone:

Apple Music, in a software update Friday to all users, is rolling out 116 “top 100” numeric charts, which will display the top-streamed songs on Apple Music refreshed on a regular basis. In a demo to Rolling Stone, Apple Music executives showed how the charts — one global chart and a top 100 chart for every country in which Apple Music is available — are grouped together under the platform’s “Browse” tab and have a similar visual appearance to that of playlists or albums. Each chart is updated daily at 12 a.m. PST.

The global chart can be found here.