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The Early November Talk New Album

The Early November
Jason Tate

The Early November talked with Idobi about their new album:

Look at the triple disc as an example, I committed so hard to that theme that I probably took away from allowing myself to be a little bit more generous in creativity because of how strict I had to be to complete the theme like that. I didn’t want that to happen again. 

So you look at it from a standpoint of learning from your mistakes and actually putting it into practice. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to grow and be better. So that was one of the reasons. But I’m really glad that you asked that question and picked up on it. And it was something that I bounced around with for a little while until I learned what this record wants to be, something different than maybe what’s exactly in my head.

Andrew McMahon Talks New Song

Jason Tate

Andrew McMahon talks about the new single released today with People:

When I was thinking about it, I was like, “Do I really want to put out a Wilderness track in the middle of Something Corporate tour? This is such a beautiful moment.” And I immediately called Josh, who was the co-founder of Something Corporate. I was like, “I want to send you a song. What would you think about bringing the guys together and doing this as a collaboration?” He was so genuinely enthusiastic about it, and it was almost like a healing moment. Josh and I were, we’ve been best friends forever, but you end a band, you move on, you just don’t know where people stand, and he was so excited. So, I brought it to the other guys and merged this Wilderness-esque production with my original band playing all the instruments. It became this beautiful moment that felt, weirdly for the first time, all of these bands coming full circle and feeling like for once it’s one thing in one place.

And:

The song that’s going to come out next was actually written for the last Wilderness record. Luke, who produced and co-wrote “Death Grip” with me, wrote a few songs on my last album. This song was a part of the sessions that we did together. It was the first time where I was like, “This feels way more like a Something Corporate song than it does a Wilderness song that belongs on this record,” and so I always just had it in my back pocket.

And then when “Death Grip” came up, and the band seemed legit excited about getting back in the studio, I forwarded them this other track, and I was like, “This is just a demo, but if we’re all together, maybe we should try and cut another song,” and everybody raised their hand and was excited. So, we cut both in the same weekend. That song was written during the pandemic. There were lyric changes and things that I had to make to say, “No, let’s put this in the present universe.” But it’s really about just trying to source your happiness in the middle of a difficult moment. It’s called “Happy.”

Sonos Updates Privacy Policy

Technology
Jason Tate

Chris Welch, writing for The Verge:

As highlighted by repair technician and consumer privacy advocate Louis Rossmann, Sonos has made a significant change to its privacy policy, at least in the United States, with the removal of one key line. The updated policy no longer contains a sentence that previously said, “Sonos does not and will not sell personal information about our customers.” That pledge is still present in other countries, but it’s nowhere to be found in the updated US policy, which went into effect earlier this month.

It has not been a good few months for Sonos.

Scraping the Web Now, Asking for Permission Later

Apple
Jason Tate

Federico Viticci, writing at MacStories about Apple’s details on their AI model being trained on web content:

As a creator and website owner, I guess that these things will never sit right with me. Why should we accept that certain data sets require a licensing fee but anything that is found “on the open web” can be mindlessly scraped, parsed, and regurgitated by an AI? Web publishers (and especially indie web publishers these days, who cannot afford lawsuits or hiring law firms to strike expensive deals) deserve better.

I agree wholeheartedly. I felt similarly when I looked at the data that trained Google’s AI. I see Chorus and our forum very clearly in their training data. We didn’t agree to that. Our community never agreed to that. Google played a massive role in devaluing small and medium sized websites (and the online ad business) and we’re certainly not going to be the ones getting any publishing deals. None of it sits well with me.

Hawthorne Heights Pick Ten Essential Emo Albums

Hawthorne Heights
Jason Tate

 JT Woodruff of Hawthorne Heights has picked his ten essential 90’s emo albums:

Initial Records ran a festival in Kentucky called Crazy Fest. And one of my friends took me to that for the first time to see all of these bands. And Bleed American had just come out, and I had never heard Jimmy Eat World before that. So Bleed American was my introduction, but his introduction was Clarity. So he’s pissed when he’s listening to Bleed American, and I’m in love, because I’d never heard the intricate beauty of Clarity. So I listened to Bleed American. It’s so incredible — still one of my favorite records. And then I hear Clarity and I’m absolutely blown away.

Ace Breaks Down The Early November Album

The Early November
Jason Tate

Ace Enders breaks down The Early November’s new album track-by-track:

This song flirts with the torture of regret within the mind, which is why there are voices whispering throughout the beginning of it. Picking which one to listen to, be influenced by, not be influenced by, etc. The fantasy of “if I could only do it again.”

That perpetual never-ending gnawing. Eventually coming to a moment of realization within and gaining clarity by being honest with yourself.

Spotify to Launch New Premium Plan

Jason Tate

Bloomberg:

Spotify Technology SA will introduce a new, higher-priced premium plan for its most ardent users later this year, according to a person familiar with the plan. Users will be charged at least $5 more per month for access to better audio and new tools for creating playlists and managing their song libraries, said the person.

Spotify Announces New Price Increase

Jason Tate

Variety:

The Spotify Premium Individual plan is increasing by $1, from $10.99 to $11.99 per month, according to the company’s updated price listings. The Premium Family plan, which provides access for up to six members a household, is going up by $3, from $16.99 to $19.99 per month.

America’s Best Decade

The Washington Post
Jason Tate

Andrew Van Dam, writing for The Washington Post:

So, we looked at the data another way, measuring the gap between each person’s birth year and their ideal decade. The consistency of the resulting pattern delighted us: It shows that Americans feel nostalgia not for a specific era, but for a specific age.

The good old days when America was “great” aren’t the 1950s. They’re whatever decade you were 11, your parents knew the correct answer to any question, and you’d never heard of war crimes tribunals, microplastics or improvised explosive devices. Or when you were 15 and athletes and musicians still played hard and hadn’t sold out.

ICQ to Shutdown

Jason Tate

Michael Kan, writing for PCMag:

On Friday, the ICQ website posted a simple message: “ICQ will stop working from June 26.” It now recommends users migrate to the messaging platforms from VK, the Russian social media company that acquired ICQ from AOL in 2010, but under a different corporate name. 

It’s an unceremonious end for a software program that helped kick off instant messaging on PCs in the 1990s. ICQ, which stands for “I Seek You,” was originally developed at an Israeli company called Mirabilis before AOL bought it in 1998 for $407 million.

ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. Those were the days.

Spotify to Discontinue Car Thing

Jason Tate

The Verge:

Spotify’s brief attempt at being a hardware company wasn’t all that successful: the company stopped producing its Car Thing dashboard accessory less than a year after it went on sale to the public. And now, two years later, the device is about to be rendered completely inoperable. Customers who bought the Car Thing are receiving emails warning that it will stop working altogether as of December 9th.

Unfortunately for those owners, Spotify isn’t offering any kind of subscription credit or automatic refund for the device — nor is the company open-sourcing it. Rather, it’s just canning the project and telling people to (responsibly) dispose of Car Thing.

DOJ to Sue Live Nation/Ticketmaster

Legal
Jason Tate

The New York Times:

The Justice Department and a group of states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, as soon as Thursday, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry, said three people familiar with the matter.

The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation shored up its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, said two of the people, who declined to be named because the lawsuit was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said.

Bruce Springsteen Documentary Coming to Disney+

Bruce Springsteen
Jason Tate

Variety:

“Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band” will follow the band’s 2023-2024 world tour, featuring footage from band rehearsals and backstage moments, conversations with Springsteen as he develops the setlist and archival clips of the E Street Band. The project is intended to complement Springsteen’s existing body of autobiographical works, which includes the memoir “Born to Run,” the live performance (and documentary) “Springsteen on Broadway,” and the films “Western Stars” and “Letter to You.”

The documentary is directed by Thom Zimny, the longtime Springsteen collaborator behind “Western Stars” and “Springsteen on Broadway,” as well as music docs “The Gift: The Journey of Johnny Cash” and “Willie Nelson & Family.” Zimny also produces alongside Springsteen, Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, Adrienne Gerard and Sean Stuart.

Vinyl Me, Please Fires and Sues CEO

Jason Tate

Denver Post:

The Denver record company Vinyl Me, Please has ousted its top executives and sued them for allegedly funneling company funds to their pricy pet project in RiNo.

Vinyl Me, Please was founded in 2012 and has become a popular record-of-the-month subscription service in the dozen years since, with 20,000 subscribers today, it said. CEO Cameron Schaefer and Chief Financial Officer Adam Block led the company in recent years.

But the company’s board fired them, along with Chief Strategy Officer Rich Kylberg, in March. And on Wednesday, all three were sued by the company they led.

The stated cause for their ouster is a new 14,000-square-foot vinyl record production plant at 4201 N. Brighton Blvd. That plant, which started pressing records this year, has been hyped by national and local media, as well as Schaefer, Block and Kylberg, since 2022.