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David Bendeth Talks 10-Year Anniversary of ‘Riot!’

Paramore
Jason Tate

David Bendeth, who produced Paramore’s Riot!, sat down with Billboard to talk about the album’s 10-year anniversary:

It’s funny, when we started the record, all of the songs that we thought were going to be singles, never were. “When It Rains,” I thought for sure was going to be a smash at radio. In fact, John Mayer heard it and said, ‘If that’s not a hit song, I quit the business.’ “Hallelujah,” we thought that was going to be the first single at some point when we were making the record. Even with “That’s What You Get,” which I think was the third single, the song was in 6/8. It’s very difficult to make something in 6/8 sound like a normal sound for Top 40. So, I felt like the risks that had been taken paid off.

Streaming Triggers a Resurgence in the Small Record Label

Jason Tate

Bloomberg:

Merlin, an organization made up of some of the world’s top indie labels, distributed $353 million to members over the past year — a 52 percent jump from a year earlier, the group will announce Thursday.

The credit goes to streaming — internet services like Spotify and Apple Music that give listeners access to millions of songs for a monthly fee or for free if they’re willing to hear ads. No longer needing to press and distribute physical CDs, independent record labels can now reach a global audience at lower costs — and close the gap with the Big Three of Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.’s Sony Music Entertainment and Access Industries’ Warner Music Group.

The Grammys Announce Changes

Grammys
Jason Tate

The Grammys are making a few changes to their awards. Billboard reports:

Moving forward, all music creators (songwriters, producers, engineers, mixers, mastering engineers, featured artists) credited with at least 33 percent or more playing time on the winning album will be eligible to receive a Grammy in the Album Of The Year category. Previously, songwriters were not recognized in this category.

Austin Jones Charged With Child Porn

Legal
Jason Tate

The Chicago Tribune:

Internet pop artist Austin Jones was charged in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday with child pornography after allegedly coercing two underage female fans to send him sexually explicit videos. […] A criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday alleged Jones had online conversations with two 14-year-old female fans in which he encouraged them to send him sexually explicit videos of themselves, including dozens of images of them performing graphic sexual acts.

America’s Healthcare Crisis Is a Gold Mine for Crowdfunding

Jason Tate

Bloomberg:

Growth has been rapid. In a September 2015 LinkedIn post, Solomon wrote that the one million campaigns set up over the previous year had raised $1 billion from nearly 12 million donors. By February 2016, the total was $2 billion. In October 2016, it was $3 billion, from 25 million donors. A NerdWallet study of medical crowdfunding said GoFundMe had indicated that $930 million of the $2 billion raised in the period the study analyzed was from medical campaigns.

This is horrific. No one should have to turn to crowdfunding sites for healthcare.

MacStories Reviews the New iPad

Apple
Jason Tate

Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories, about the new 10.5” iPad Pro:

The first time I swiped on the 10.5” iPad Pro’s 120Hz display last week, I thought it looked fake – like a CGI software sequence. It was incredibly, utterly crisp and fast. It didn’t look like iOS belonged on the screen: after years of iPad usage, my brain was telling me that something didn’t seem normal about the way iOS was animating. Except it’s all real, and it simply takes a couple of days to get used to the new display and the work Apple has put into ProMotion for smoother scrolling and fluid animations throughout the system.

Halsey Has a Number One Album

Halsey
Jason Tate

Halsey has the number one album in country this week.

Pop singer-songwriter Halsey notches her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, as her second full-length studio effort, Hopeless Fountain Kingdom, debuts atop the list. The set, which was released on June 2 through Astralwerks Records, earned 106,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 9, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 76,000 were in traditional album sales.

Apple Announces Podcast Updates

Apple
Jason Tate

Apple has announced some new podcast updates. Jason Snell, over at Six Colors, has a good rundown:

The other big news out of today’s session is for podcasters (and presumably for podcast advertisers): Apple is opening up in-episode analytics of podcasts. For the most part, podcasters only really know when an episode’s MP3 file is downloaded. Beyond that, we can’t really tell if anyone listens to an episode, or how long they listen—only the apps know for sure.

Apple said today that it will be using (anonymized) data from the app to show podcasters how many people are listening and where in the app people are stopping or skipping. This has the potential to dramatically change our perception of how many people really listen to a show, and how many people skip ads, as well as how long a podcast can run before people just give up.