George Orwell’s classic, 1984, has recently shot up the Amazon charts.
On Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning the book was #1 on Amazon’s computer-generated list of best-selling books. The list reflects hourly book sales.
The 68-year-old novel appeared on the list on Monday, hovered around the #6 spot for much of the day, rose to #2 by Tuesday afternoon and then hit #1.
Walt Mossberg, writing at The Verge:
The excessive length and lackluster content of that football ad is but one example of the poor use of ads all over the internet. And that situation is behind the rise in ad-blocking software and the quiet concern about business models at some content sites.
Too often poorly executed, annoying, code-heavy, privacy-invading ads clutter websites and apps — especially on mobile or the News Feed on Facebook, where content increasingly is consumed without requiring the reader or viewer to even visit the originating site.
And:
About a week after our launch, I was seated at a dinner next to a major advertising executive. He complimented me on our new site’s quality and on that of a predecessor site we had created and run, AllThingsD.com. I asked him if that meant he’d be placing ads on our fledgling site. He said yes, he’d do that for a little while. And then, after the cookies he placed on Recode helped him to track our desirable audience around the web, his agency would begin removing the ads and placing them on cheaper sites our readers also happened to visit. In other words, our quality journalism was, to him, nothing more than a lead generator for target-rich readers, and would ultimately benefit sites that might care less about quality.
Holy shit.
Ryan Adams has announced a new limited edition box set for his upcoming album, Prisoner. It’ll come with all of the songs on the new album getting their own 7″ record and 17 unreleased b-sides. The set also comes with a play set of Adams’s stage setup and action figures. Pre-orders will go up tomorrow at noon.
Jeff Rosenstock has released a surprise, live, acoustic benefit album.
Last year, my friend Dan opened a record store in Long Island and we almost immediately talked about doing an acoustic show the week whatever next record I was working on came out. The night of the final presidential debate, a bunch of us crammed into his small air-conditioned store, which soon became muggy with human sweat. I played a bunch of songs I’d never played before, with no microphones or PA system, spoke to some people, changed my shirt, drank a water and headed back home to get ready for tour. A buncha weeks later my buddy Dan e-mailed this recording and was like “heyyyy” and I was like “heyyyyyyy” and here we are!
Joanna Stern, at the Wall Street Journal:
Apple has added an alarm to help find earbuds in proximity. Tap “Play Sound” in the iOS app and the AirPod will start chirping. In the app, you can specify which AirPod you’d like to sound. Only problem? If the AirPod’s battery runs out, it’ll remain silent.
In regard to losing these little suckers, I agree with John Gruber:
In short, the best way not to lose them is to treat them as easily lost, valuable objects. I’ve misplaced my AirPods in my house far more often than I’ve come close to actually losing them — that’s the feature I’m looking forward to with AirPods support in Find My iPhone.
I spoke in more detail about the AirPods on last week’s podcast, but, in short: I love these things and don’t think I could go back to any other type of in-ear headphone.
The complete list of 2017 Oscar nominations have been announced. La La Land leads the pack with 14 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress.
Kristy Diaz, writing at Track Seven:
I was the punk rock version of the ‘cool girl’ trope for years.
The punk rock cool girl likes real music. Good music. Proper music. She’s into the latest hot hardcore band playing to 15 people right now. She knows every word to The Shape of Punk To Come. She doesn’t listen to pop music, or dance music, or stuff that Other Girls like. Her favourite Braid record is the Correct One. She only sings along to Panic! At The Disco ironically. She can hang out with your musician mates and hold her own in a conversation, but she won’t point out the ways in which even punk rock, this glorious utopia we inhabit, has the capacity to oppress.
And, much like the original concept, she’s not real.
The xx have debuted at number two on this week’s Billboard charts while The Weeknd stays at number one (completely due to streaming):
The xx scores its highest charting album ever on the Billboard 200 chart, as the alternative band’s third studio album, I See You, debuts at No. 2. The set earned 46,000 equivalent album units in the week ending Jan. 19, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 36,000 were in traditional album sales.
I’ve been hearing this album everywhere over the past week.
Micah Singleton, writing at The Verge:
According to a lengthy report from the Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv, Tidal has been inflating its subscriber totals to the public since the company was acquired by Jay Z two years ago. Dagens Næringsliv says it obtained internal reports from the streaming service that show Tidal only had 350,000 subscribers in September 2015, the same month when Jay Z tweeted that Tidal had reached 1 million users.
They probably should’t worry about this too much since Sean Spicer will go on TV and defend whatever numbers our President makes up — alternative facts in streaming subscribers are probably just fine.
Star Wars: Episode VIII will be titled The Last Jedi.
John Nolan has unveiled a new compilation with proceeds going to the ACLU. Music For Everyone will be released this spring:
Artists who have committed to donating rare or unreleased music to the compilation include Taking Back Sunday, Anti-Flag, Answering Machine, Baggage, Chris Farren, Potty Mouth, Brendan Kelly, Anthony Green, Frank Iero, Dave Hause, Sleep On It, Jared Hart, Cassino, Dead Heavens featuring Walter Schreifels, Allison Weiss, Brett Newski and more artists to be announced.
Adele will be performing at the Grammy awards.
New Found Glory’s Chad Gilbert teamed up with Lego for a new music video.
Sum 41’s All Killer No Filler is getting a vinyl re-press on January 27th.