Link - PAGE 289

The Music Industry’s War Against YouTube

YouTube
Jason Tate

Rob Levine, writing for Billboard, looks at the strange place YouTube occupies in the music industry:

Most Internet companies need to get ­permission from labels in order to use their music — a negotiating dynamic that results in high fees. With services that operate under the DMCA — like YouTube and, until recently, SoundCloud — the dynamic is very different. These services also stream music uploaded by users, and ­copyright holders who don’t want their content online need to file takedown notices — one for each copy of each song. Instead of ­selling the rights to music that a service needs, label ­executives say they’re stuck selling the rights to music that a service essentially already has.

Well, that’s the theory. In practice, it’s more complicated.

SoundShare: A Social Network for Music Fans

Apps
Jason Tate

John Voorhees, writing for MacStories, looks at new social network built just for music fans:

SoundShare is an iPhone-only app designed to break down the walls between competing streaming services so that it’s easier to share music with your friends. Integration with Apple Music, Spotify, and Deezer allows music sharing with others and collaboration on playlists regardless of which service your friends use.

Fuse Talks With John Feldmann

Jason Tate

Fuse spoke with John Feldman about working with Blink-182 on their new album:

It gave me goosebumps on the spot. I thought, “This is it.” In my mind I knew I had the job. Then he started playing bass chords and I was like, “Fuck, I’m in love with this guy.” That was the first song we did together as a group. [Matt] Skiba came in, he’s the new guy, he liked that Mark liked it. He wrote the whole second verse. He came in and sang it in one pass, he’s that kind of guy. He crushed it in one take. At the end of the track Travis asked, “Why don’t you give me one minute of click and let me just play whatever the fuck I want?” which is how the ending of the song becomes this big crescendo of Travis Barker with these strings and Matt Skiba gang vocals.

Drake’s ‘Views’ Streamed 250 Million Times

Drake
Jason Tate

Drake’s new album, Views, has been streamed over 250 million times and has so far sold 1.2 million copies (this includes the streaming album equivalents).

Over 200 million of Views’ streams have originated in the US, and the album has also sold more than 1 million digital copies through iTunes around the world. Its domestic sales totals aren’t clear yet, but Billboard forecasted over 850,000 digital album sales earlier this week. That’d be the highest total for a male artist since Justin Timberlake’s The 20/20 Experience was released over three years ago. When you add in its streaming figures and individual track sales, the album is on pace to move over 1 million equivalent album units in the US alone. (The international figure is closer to 1.2 million.)

Andrew McMahon 10 Years in Remission

Andrew McMahon
Jason Tate

Andrew McMahon spoke a little with People Magazine about being 10 years in remission from leukemia. He also mentioned he’s begun working on new music:

“I finally got together with this production team in New York downtown that I’ve just been so psyched on working with that I said, ‘I’m gonna do my New York record,'” says McMahon, who recorded all his previous albums on the West Coast. “I don’t want to scare anybody, but it’s pop.”

Is Apple Music Really Deleting Your Music? Doubtful.

Jason Tate

Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore, looks at what may have happened in regard to the blog post going around saying that Apple Music deleted a bunch of files off someone’s hard drive.

Whatever the case, Apple Music was never designed to delete Pinkstone’s source library, and it won’t delete yours. That’s simply not how the service works on your primary Mac. But if you’re not aware of how iCloud Music Library stores copies of tracks, you may delete your local copies to save space, thinking you can get them back — and get screwed as a result.

My guess is that there was a misunderstanding in how the system works, because the system is pretty stupidly confusing at times, and there is always the chance it was a bug. But there’s absolutely no way that deleting your music, without you expressly saying to do it, is “working as intended” as apparently the original author was told by tech support.

What I consider to be the killer feature of Apple Music, the combination of my local library with their streaming library, is also the feature that adds the most complexity to the service. While it does work, and I do use it, it’s far from perfect and definitely confusing. That’s on Apple to fix if they want you to trust your music library to their product. If they don’t have that trust then people will continue to use two apps: one for music they own and then Spotify for everything else.

New AFI Music Could Be Coming Next Year

Blaqk Audio
Jason Tate

Jade Puget and Davey Havok talk with the OC Register about Blaqk Audio’s new album and mention that we may be getting new AFI as early as next year.

The duo are constantly working independently and together to juggle all of their obligations and keep things fresh, which is why straight after the release of this Blaqk Audio record and the tour, new AFI music could be out as soon as early next year.

Funko Shows Off New ‘The Force Awakens’ Collectables

Jason Tate

StarWars.com has shared photos of the new The Force Awakens Funko collectables and they’re amazing.

Coming in July and made in Pop!’s already-classic design aesthetic, the lineup includes everyone from Luke Skywalker to maskless Kylo Ren to Rey (with lightsaber!). In addition, several retailer exclusives are coming, featuring special depictions and variations of characters. Look for Rey with X-wing helmet, Poe Dameron with jacket and blaster, and much more. Finally, you can recreate Rey’s fateful meeting with Luke right on your desk.

Apple Music to Get Design Overhaul

Jason Tate

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple Music will be getting a pretty big overhaul this year:

Following a management shakeup, the service’s new look is being overseen by content head Robert Kondrk and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor. Design chief Jony Ive’s team also has provided input, along with Iovine and Eddy Cue, the senior vice president in charge of Internet services.

9to5Mac has more on what the new look may be, and it’s described as a more “black and white” interface:

The new user-interface ditches the current colorful and translucent look in favor of a simpler design that emphasizes black and white backgrounds and text. For instance, the user interface in the albums view will no longer change in appearance based on the color of a particular album’s art. While the new interface will eschew color in the user-interface, album artwork will become “huge” and a larger part of the interface in order to avoid a dull black and white look, according to people who have seen the updated Apple Music service.

There’s a small aside at the bottom saying that iTunes itself will get a minor update this year with a larger revamp expected next year. My argument has long been that iTunes needs to be separated into different apps. There’s just too much going on. I’m still using, and for the most part enjoying, Apple Music. The ability to combine my library with the Apple Music library remains the killer feature for me, but god damn when the bugs hit they are infuriating. I currently have two versions of “Thrice” in my library even though they’re named the same and I’ve checked all the sorting options and tried renaming them multiple times. I mean what the hell.

The National to Begin Recording Soon

The National
Jason Tate

In a new interview with Pitchfork, The National mention that they are set to begin recording their new album soon.

Dessner said of the studio, “We need a new home because everybody is scattered,” since frontman Matt Berninger now lives in Los Angeles and Bryce splits his time between the Catskills and Paris. He adds that he’s “been really, really working hard on the National stuff now, so that’s mainly, almost every day,” and that they will “do the whole record there, because it’ll just be fun and a good feeling.”

The Street Artist Behind Blink-182’s New Album Art

Blink 182 - Full Car
Jason Tate

NME interviewed D*Face, the artist behind Blink-182’s latest album artwork:

“But those first ideas that I sent, they said ‘nothing’s really doing it for us.’ [see above and below for the rejected album artworks] There was an illustration, however, that I’d worked on about a year and a half ago that I’d parked up and not got round to finishing. I looked at it and thought how California, to me, is about driving, the birth of the hot-rod and that whole lifestyle – so it made sense if it had a car in it. So that was the first checkpoint for me where I realised it was working. I sent that idea over and Matt [Skiba] and Travis were like ‘that’s the one. That the shit!’ But, to be honest with you, Mark [Hoppus] was like ‘I’m not so sure…’ – so it wasn’t straightforward, let’s put it like that!”

Seeing some of the rejected art ideas is pretty cool, but I’m definitely more of a fan of what they ended up with.

Inside Pandora’s Fight with Spotify and Apple Music

Jason Tate

John Paul Titlow, writing for Fast Company, looks at Pandora and their attempt to fight back the big streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music:

By shifting toward on-demand subscriptions, Pandora is hoping to add a new, much deeper layer of data and understanding to its artificial brain. By creating artist-based stations and thumbing songs, listeners can teach Pandora a lot—but behaviors like saving albums and listening to them on repeat or adding individual songs to playlists are vastly more informative (as Spotify and Apple already know). Right now, if you’re obsessed with the new Rihanna album, Pandora has no idea. These are the types of blind spots the service needs to fill in, especially if it wants to target superfans with special perks.

Data is just as crucial when it comes to selling concert tickets.

I’m fascinated by the idea of big music data and how it can find the perfect next band or album for a listener. I think Pandora is smart to be moving into trying to tie their music service into other things like selling concert tickets. But, I’m bearish on the company as a whole. They’ve been relegated to what is basically a feature in other apps and there’s no reason to pay for something you already get in a good enough fashion somewhere else.

‘Hamilton’ Gets 16 Tony Nominations

Hamilton
Jason Tate

Michael Paulson, writing for The New York Times, on Hamilton’s history making 16 Tony nominations:

“Hamilton,” the groundbreaking hip-hop musical about the nation’s founding fathers, has been nominated for 16 Tony Awards, the most in Broadway history.

Tony nominators singled out the show in every category of theater making — acting, writing, directing, dance, music and design. A whopping seven “Hamilton” performers received nominations; in two categories, “Hamilton” actors will be competing against one another.

Blink-182 Talk with ET Online, Travis Barker Audio Interview

Blink-182
Jason Tate

I can’t figure out what’s really “exclusive” about this ET Online interview with Blink-182, but this tidbit about “Teenage Satellites” seems to be the most new information:

“One of the last songs we wrote, called ‘Teenage Satellites,’ it was one of the last days of recording, and it was another song that came together really fast,” he recalled. “I got to the studio early and I was literally just hitting one chord on the guitar over and over again. John [Feldmann, the album’s producer] walked in, and he’s like ‘What’s that?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know, it’s just something I made up.’”

You can also find an audio interview with Travis Barker on 101 WKQX-FM below.

Read More “Blink-182 Talk with ET Online, Travis Barker Audio Interview”