Variety is reporting that Michael Keaton is back in talks to join the Spider-Man: Homecoming cast as the villain. So, it’s gotta be Vulture right?
Michael Keaton May Join ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Cast
An Update from Bandcamp
Bandcamp founder, Ethan Diamond, has posted an update on the status of the music service:
Bandcamp grew by 35% last year. Fans pay artists $4.3 million dollars every month using the site, and they buy about 25,000 records a day, which works out to about one every 4 seconds (you can see a real-time feed of those purchases on our desktop home page). Nearly 6 million fans have bought music through Bandcamp (half of whom are younger than 30), and hundreds of thousands of artists have sold music on Bandcamp. Digital album sales on Bandcamp grew 14% in 2015 while dropping 3% industry-wide, track sales grew 11% while dropping 13% industry-wide, vinyl was up 40%, cassettes 49%… even CD sales grew 10% (down 11% industry-wide). Most importantly of all, Bandcamp has been profitable (in the now-quaint revenues-exceed-expenses sense) since 2012.
An area I’d like to see Bandcamp expand into: podcasts.
Taylor Swift’s Impact on Jimmy Eat World
Billboard looked at what kind of bump Jimmy Eat World got from the Taylor Swift Apple Music ad.
For their second act, Swift queued up Jimmy Eat World’s hit “The Middle,” (No. 5 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 Alternative Songs in 2002) a track on her “Getting Ready to Go Out” playlist that, she says, she “used to listen to in middle school.” The tune’s bump was even larger than “Jumpman”: between the week before the ad’s April 18 debut and the week after, “The Middle” soared 298 percent in sales and 49 percent in U.S. streams (from 3,000 downloads sold to 12,000; from 614,000 clicks to 916,000) and led to a surprise appearance on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart at No. 16.
In a Room With Radiohead
Adam Thorpe, writing for Times Literary Supplement, after visiting Radiohead while they recorded their recent album:
This is all layers as well, a millefeuille of epochs and moments, and seems perfectly attuned to Radiohead’s methods. We wander out into the grounds: tree-surrounded lawns, large swimming pool, further courtyards and barns, decayed cottages and a softly roaring mill-race. In one of the larger granges, numerous canvases display abstract explosions of colour. The barn’s speakers are wired up to the recording studios: the band’s resident artist Stanley Donwood reacts in acrylic to what he hears, the results to be modified and manipulated on computer for the LP’s cover.
Ariana Grande’s Billboard Cover
Chris Martins profiles Ariana Grande for Billboard:
As a matter of fact, Grande appears on the cover of Dangerous Woman in shiny black headgear with long ears. It looks like it was designed for American Horror Story by the cartoonists at Warner Bros. The Super Bunny “is my superhero, or supervillain — whatever I’m feeling on the day,” says Grande. “Whenever I doubt myself or question choices I know in my gut are right — because other people are telling me other things — I’m like, ‘What would that bad bitch Super Bunny do?’ She helps me call the shots.”
Her new album is straight up great.
Donkey King Score Achieved
Wes Copeland has broken the all-time record high score for Donkey Kong.
It’s how he took the title, though that’s so staggering. Copeland did not lose a single Mario in the game. He took his first life all the way from the first level all the way to the end, cashing in the extra lives to obliterate all comers.
“This will be my last record score,” Copeland wrote on Facebook. “I don’t believe I can put up a game any higher than this.” Copeland had set 1.2 million as his ultimate goal in Donkey Kong, and said he’d retire from competition if he could reach that.
Google Announces “Google Home”
Google has announced their own little device that lives in your home and you speak to and it does things for you, kind of like the Amazon Echo. From, The Verge:
It’s not portable, but the benefit of always being plugged in is that Google can make a more powerful speaker. Quieroz says that it “really fills the room” and that it will have “strong bass and clear highs.” That’s important, because one of the main use cases Google is foreseeing here is listening to music. The Echo isn’t great at that.
I like the idea of these devices being around and helping me with conversions while cooking, or checking basketball scores, or hopefully one day being able to control more home automation — I’m not convinced on them being great music listening devices yet.1
I’ll reserve judgement until I can hear one in person. I do think this is potentially a great podcast speaker.↩
Rage Against the Machine Counting Down
Rage Against the Machine have launched a countdown website.
Update: Billboard is reporting that Prophets of Rage is a new project consisting of Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk, along with Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Cypress Hill’s B-Real.
The band’s debut is set for Hollywood Palladium on June 3, with a show at L.A.’s Whisky a Go Go planned as well. A 2016 summer tour is also being considered.
‘Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me’
Steven Hyden released his new book, Your Favorite Band is Killing Me: What Pop Music Rivalries Reveal About the Meaning of Life, this week.
Beatles vs. Stones. Biggie vs. Tupac. Kanye vs. Taylor. Who do you choose? And what does that say about you? Actually–what do these endlessly argued-about pop music rivalries say about us?
Music opinions bring out passionate debate in people, and Steven Hyden knows that firsthand. Each chapter in Your Favorite Band is Killing Me focuses on a pop music rivalry, from the classic to the very recent, and draws connections to the larger forces surrounding the pairing.
I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve heard really good things and have always enjoyed Steven’s writing.
Kesha’s Billboard Music Awards Performance Blocked
Joe Lynch, writing for Billboard, on how Dr. Luke’s record label, Kemosabe Records, is blocking Kesha from playing the Billboard Music Awards:
“Kesha accepted an invitation to perform on the show and she received written approval from Dr. Luke’s record label, Kemosabe Records,” dick clark productions said in a statement. “Kemosabe subsequently rescinded its approval following a media report on Wednesday May 11 regarding Kesha’s appearance on the BBMAs. Unfortunately, Kesha and Kemosabe have since been unable to come to an agreement for Kesha to perform on the show.”
Utterly ridiculous.
Update: The performance is now back on with the following statement from the label:
Kesha’s performance on the Billboard Music Awards was always approved, in good faith. Approval was only suspended when Kemosabe learned Kesha was to use the performance as a platform to discuss the litigation. Now that Kemosabe has obtained assurances, that it is relying upon, from Kesha, her representatives and Dick Clark Productions that neither Kesha nor her supporters will use the performance as such a platform, the approval has been restored.
I repeat: utterly ridiculous.
Frank Turner on Safe Gigs for Women
Frank Turner, writing on his blog:
It’s actually really fucking dumb that I have to spell this out, but if you’re the kind of guy who has ever behaved like that towards a woman in any context, I’d like you to do two things: firstly, just be a fucking human, consider yourself in the other person’s shoes, ask yourself if you could defend your actions if publicly called out in front of your friends, your family, the whole crowd. And secondly, if that first part didn’t work, I’d like you to fuck off and never come to any of my shows again.
Remembering ’90s Swing Music
Tom Breihan, writing for Stereogum, with a remembrance of the late ’90s swing revival:
Looking back, it’s hard to figure out how all this shit happened, but there are some threads to pick at. After grunge began to pass out of favor, this stuff seemed like its polar opposite: sharp rather than slovenly, crisp and efficient rather than wild and intuitive, knowingly silly rather than deadly self-serious. Within the rapidly atomizing alt-rock universe, there was a hunger for something smooth and sophisticated. A few years before the grunge revival popped off, there was the deeper-underground but just as silly lounge revival, with Combustible Edison releasing music on Sub Pop and a ton of Esquivel reissues coming out. But if you’re looking to blame the swing revival on anyone, blame Hollywood.
Sinéad O’Connor Found Unharmed in Chicago
This morning there was a missing-person search for Sinéad O’Connor but thankfully local police tell The Hollywood Reporter that she was found, unharmed, in a Chicago suburb.
On Monday morning, a statement from the Wilmette Police Department said officers are “seeking to check the well-being of Sinead O’Connor. O’Connor reportedly left the Wilmette area for a bicycle ride yesterday at 6:00 a.m. and has not returned. A caller has expressed concern for her well-being, and no other information is available at this time.”
Twitter to Not Count Links and Photos in Character Limit
Sarah Frier, reporting for Bloomberg, that Twitter will no longer be counting images or links in their 140-character limit:
The change could happen in the next two weeks, said the person who asked not to be named because the decision isn’t yet public. Links currently take up 23 characters, even after Twitter automatically shortens them. The company declined to comment.
Good, finally, still feels like a half-measure.
Drake Tops Billboard Charts Again
Drake topped the charts yet again this week with Beyoncé coming in at number two. Radiohead debuted at number three.
Views earned another 313,000 equivalent album units in the week ending May 12, according to Nielsen Music (with 175,000 of that in pure album sales), as A Moon Shaped Pool launches with 181,000 units (173,000 in sales)