Jimmy Iovine on the Future of Apple Music

Dan Rys, at Billboard, sat down with Jimmy Iovine to talk about Apple Music:

Before we get into that, we have to get into the why. It’s a story, it’s complex. Because what everyone’s writing is the obvious right now. They’re writing, “People in the record business are getting into tech so they can talk to people in the record business.” That’s hogwash. And why it’s hogwash is, it takes a certain individual… For example, I met [Apple executives] Steve Jobs and Eddy Cue in 2003. I realized, okay, the future of music is going to be intertwined with distribution through technology companies. It just looked like that to me, and I realized how far behind I personally was. So I set out to really understand. So I worked with those guys for about two years, and I said to Steve, “I’d like to do headphones with Apple with [Dr.] Dre,” about two or three years later. He said, “Do it yourself, you can do it.” So I tried it myself.

Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the traditional literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

Frank Iero Hit by Bus, Hurt but Recovering

Frank Iero

Frank Iero was hospitalized after an accident in Australia. He recently tweeted that he is “pretty banged up but miraculously alive and in stable condition.”

The former guitarist of rock group My Chemical Romance was hospitalized in a serious condition Thursday after being hit by a bus while unloading his van in Australia. […]

Local police said a bus ran into the back of the van while it was being unloaded by three men in downtown Sydney. Two of the men were stood at the back of the vehicle when the bus collided with them. They were taken to hospital and a serious but stable condition, the third man escaped serious injury, police added.

Quick Site Update and a Thank You

I just wanted to take a moment to plug our forums and the supporter upgrade we have available. We’ve now passed a half-million posts on the forum, and are closing in on 20,000 registered members. The website is continuing to grow each month, more people are signing up to help us continue on our journey, and I can’t say thank you enough.

In the next few months we’ll be focusing on expanding our publishing and coverage. So that means more interviews, music and movie reviews, and featured articles. We’ve got an episode of Encore ready to go this week talking about all sorts of stuff, and after our Yellowcarddeep dive” episode did so well two weeks ago we recorded a special episode on the upcoming Jimmy Eat World album that will be out next week.

Amazon Debuts Amazon Music Unlimited

amazon

Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch, on Amazon’s new music streaming service, “Amazon Music Unlimited”:

Rumors have been swirling around Amazon’s plans to launch its own, standalone music streaming service, and now those reports have been proven out: the company is today announcing the launch of Amazon Music Unlimited. This new, on-demand streaming service offers access to tens of millions of songs, and is available for $7.99 per month for Prime members, or $9.99 per month for non-Prime members. Amazon has also launched a “for Echo” subscription plan that lets you listen only on its connected speakers for just $3.99 per month.

Music Sales on Bandcamp Will Count on Australian Charts

Bandcamp

Music Feeds is reporting that Bandcamp sales will now count towards the Australian music charts:

An ARIA spokesperson tells Music Feeds, “We are very excited to be able to include Bandcamp sales into the ARIA Charts. This platform that has become increasingly important for artists, in particular independent artists, to sell their music to their fans so it is integral that the ARIA Charts can reflect these sales.”