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Japandroids Detail the End of the Band

Japandroids
Jason Tate

An excellent feature on everything surrounding the final Japandroids’ album is up over at Stereogum:

These are standard talking points for a 41-year-old who has spent nearly half his life in a rock band. I imagine a glimpse into King’s personal life would endear fans who might otherwise be skeptical about a Japandroids album with a song called “Upon Sober Reflection.” But early sobriety and new fatherhood are special, fragile things of which anyone would be protective. Especially for someone like King, who is described by anyone who truly knows him with some variation of “intensely private.” If alcohol and lust were the lifeblood of Japandroids, it only stands to reason that serenity would be the death of them. But if anyone cops a resentment over King’s healthier, happier life, just know: You’ve been grieving a version of Japandroids that hasn’t existed for over a decade. Fate & Alcohol is the stage of acceptance

An Argument for Streaming Services to Label AI Music

Technology
Jason Tate

Ed Newton-Rex, writing for Music Business Worldwide:

First up, it’s worth saying that I don’t think DSPs should ban all AI music. There are clearly good use-cases for AI in music creation; if training data is licensed, these use-cases are worth supporting, at least in my book. (I do think a music streaming service will emerge that does explicitly reject all AI music, as Cara has done in the image space. And it will probably do well. But there are good reasons for most DSPs not to take such a blanket approach.)

As table stakes, DSPs should follow the example of other media platforms – Instagramand TikTok, for example – and label content that is generated by AI.

That way, music fans can at least choose what they listen to, and, therefore, what they support. Require uploaders to label AI music they upload, and introduce a post-upload moderation process for tracks that slip through the cracks. This is perfectly feasible. You hope that most uploaders will be honest – in general, people tend to prefer to be – and, for those who aren’t, there are a number of third-party systems that can detect AI music with a high degree of accuracy.

Tom DeLonge Talks With Spin

Blink-182
Jason Tate

Tom DeLonge talked with Spin:

“That said, Blink will be the priority forever,” he continues, his eyes lighting up. “Look at this dressing room. How do I go back from this fucking dressing room? We have to play stadiums, because I need a ping pong table in my dressing room. Honestly, I think this is a whole new beginning for the band. With what we’re planning on doing, who we’ve become, and how we’re doing it now I think it’s really, really exciting.”

Butch Walker Done Making Solo Albums

Butch Walker
Jason Tate

Butch Walker talked with Rolling Stone about the anniversary of Letters and how he’s done with solo albums:

“I don’t want to be that cliché of an aging artist that puts out new shit that nobody cares about,” Walker tells Rolling Stone. “And when you write so many records doing a certain thing, you start to worry about recycling and repeating yourself. I would rather celebrate a record that has an anniversary — and I have a lot of them. By the time I get through that cycle, I’m going to be like 900 years old.” […]

So, if Walker is serious about calling his solo career quits, would that make 2022’s Butch Walker as…Glenn, his excellent piano-man LP in the vein of Elton John and Billy Joel, his final album?

“Glenn was the swan song,” he confirms. “And I thought that when I did it. I just really needed to process it over a year or two and see if my theory held up.”

Instagram Lets Users Add Song to Profile

Instagram
Jason Tate

The Verge:

A new feature announced by Instagram today will allow users to add a song on their profile — much like Myspace in the early 2000s.

The music added to a user’s profile shows up in the bio area, according to screenshots shared by Instagram. A song will be featured on a profile until the user removes or replaces it. But unlike Myspace, songs won’t autoplay — people viewing a profile with a song can play and pause the track. 

Rocky Votolato Launches Kickstarter

Rocky Votolato
Jason Tate

Rocky Votolato has a Kickstarter up for a new band project.

I started a new band called Suzzallo!  Our debut album is called “The Quiet Year” and this record is deeply meaningful to me.  I absolutely can’t wait to share these songs with you guys. We are in the final stages of making the album now and could use your support to get it finished and released into the world!

StubHub Sued for Inflating Ticket Prices

Legal
Jason Tate

ABC News:

The attorney general for Washington, D.C., sued StubHub on Wednesday, accusing the ticket resale platform of advertising deceptively low prices and then ramping up prices with extra fees.

The practice known as “drip pricing” violates consumer protection laws in the nation’s capital, Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.

“StubHub intentionally hides the true price to boost profits at its customers’ expense,” he said in a statement. 

The company said it is disappointed to be targeted, maintaining its practices are consistent with the law and competing companies as well as broader industry norms. “We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms,” the company said in a statement.

The 1975 Sued by Malaysian Festival

The 1975
Jason Tate

Variety:

The organizer of Malaysia’s Good Vibes Festival has filed a lawsuit against the 1975 and all its members individually following frontman Matty Healy’s protest against the country’s anti-LGBTQ laws during the event last July. The festival is seeking £1.9 million ($2.4 million) after the band’s antics resulted in the festival being shut down.

In court documents filed by festival organizers Future Sound Asia in the U.K. High Court, they claim that the 1975 and their management team were aware of the numerous prohibitions the band had to abide by in order to perform.

The Oral History of the ‘Garden State’ Soundtrack

The Ringer
Jason Tate

The Ringer:

Imogen Heap (Frou Frou, “Let Go”): “Let Go” was originally written for a film called Phone Booth. It had a much bigger energy, much bigger drums, very intense. I always loved the song, but it didn’t get into the movie. Then one night in our studio in West London, I brought out my cello. We stripped away all the intensity, and we were just left with the strings and the voice and that amazing bass line. We loved it so much, but through that whole Frou Frou album [Details], nobody really got to know about it until after Garden State. 

Braff: There was a Radiohead song at the end, [“Sulk”]. Of course it would have been a huge Hail Mary try, but as I recall, what happened was we found a song that just works better. We didn’t need to make the insane ask of Radiohead.

Major Labels Sue Verizon Over Music Piracy

Legal
Jason Tate

Abby Jones, writing at Stereogum:

Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group have filed a joint lawsuit against Verizon, alleging the internet service provider of facilitating “massive copyright infringement committed by tens of thousands of its subscribers.”

The suit, filed in filed in Manhattan July 12, claims that Verizon has failed to protect copyrighted material by knowingly providing high-speed internet to a large community of online pirates.

YouTube in Talks With Record Labels Over AI Music Deal

YouTube
Jason Tate

Financial Times:

YouTube is in talks with record labels to license their songs for artificial intelligence tools that clone popular artists’ music, hoping to win over a sceptical industry with upfront payments. The Google-owned video site needs labels’ content to legally train AI song generators, as it prepares to launch new tools this year, according to three people familiar with the matter.  The company has recently offered lump sums of cash to the major labels — Sony, Warner and Universal — to try to convince more artists to allow their music to be used in training AI software, according to several people briefed on the talks. 

Explaining the RIAA’s Lawsuit Against AI Music Startups

Legal
Jason Tate

Devin Coldewey, writing for TechCrunch:

Like many AI companies, music generation startups Udio and Suno appear to have relied on unauthorized scrapes of copyrighted works in order to train their models. This is by their own and investors’ admission, as well as according to new lawsuits filed against them by music companies. If these suits go before a jury, the trial could be both a damaging exposé and a highly useful precedent for similarly sticky-fingered AI companies facing certain legal peril.

The lawsuits, filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), put us all in the uncomfortable position of rooting for the RIAA, which for decades has been the bogeyman of digital media. I myself have received nastygrams from them! The case is simply that clear.

ComedyCentral.com Removed From Internet

TV
Jason Tate

Comedy Central’s website has also been scrubbed from the internet:

For years, the Comedy Central website was home to a large amount of content, including clips from every episode of The Daily Show since 1999, the full run of The Colbert Report, and many more shows. Now, the site simply redirects to Paramount+, with a message explaining that “while episodes of most Comedy Central series are no longer available on this website,” fans can still watch the channel through their TV providers or find “many seasons of Comedy Central shows” on Paramount+.

MTV News Taken Offline

MTV
Jason Tate

MTV News has been taken offline:

I believe the decision was at least partially motivated by Paramount’s unwillingness to pay for E&O (errors and omissions) insurance and associated licensing costs (such as for Getty Images) in perpetuity. Every piece of content published on a site like MTV comes with a certain amount of risk. Is there a sentence that is inaccurate? Does a negative review contain something that an artist might construe as libelous? Is a photo or video properly licensed? And often times, these issues don’t surface until years after the initial piece of content was published.