Billboard’s recent music consumption report reveals a 33% decrease in vinyl sales year over year.
Read More “Report: Vinyl Sales Decrease 33%”Report: Vinyl Sales Decrease 33%
UMG Acquires Indie Label Group PIAS
In an announcement on Tuesday (Oct. 15), Kenny Gates said he and his [PIAS] co-founder Michel Lambot were selling their shares to UMG, which acquired a 49% stake in the company in 2022, to “allow us to offer a truly global distribution and services platform to the independent music community.”
Nintendo Unveils Alarm Clock
Nintendo has announced a new alarm clock called Alarmo:
Read More “Nintendo Unveils Alarm Clock”In addition to the motion features, a big part of the device appears to be its immersive sounds, which are pulled from five different Switch games: Breath of the Wild; Pikmin 4; Splatoon 3; Super Mario Odyssey; and Ring Fit Adventure. There are 35 audio “scenes” in total, though you can also connect the alarm to your Nintendo account for more pulled from Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Mario Kart 8, which will be free updates coming later.
New Robert Smith Interview
Robert Smith of The Cure talked with The Times:
“Our songs always had a fear of mortality,” he says. “I don’t feel my age at all but I’m aware of it and when you get older that fear becomes more real. Death becomes more everyday. When you are younger you romanticise death, but then it happens to your family and friends. I am a different person to the last record and I wanted to put that across. It can be trite. People could say, ‘Oh, we’re all going to die — surprise me!’ But I try to find some emotional connection to that idea.”
Howard Benson Talks Early My Chemical Romance
Howard Benson talked with Grammy.com about working on My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge:
Nobody wanted to produce them because their record before mine was a thrash record. My manager said to me, “You need to meet these guys. Something is going on with them.” [When] I met them, [they had] no songs [to play for me]. But I looked the singer [Gerard Way] in the eye and I’d done enough at that point in my life where I had this feeling about this kid. He was going to be a star.
I asked him, “Are you worried about the 3,000 fans you have? Or do you want to have 300,000,000 fans? Which kind of record are we going to make?” He goes, “F— the 3,000 fans.” I was like, “Okay, we can do business.”
Their A&R guy Craig Aaronson called me up one night and goes, “At the end of one of these cassettes is a lyric that goes, ‘I’m not okay.'” I remember going to rehearsal and saying, “We have to write a song around that.” [Gerard] wrote the song literally overnight, came back the next day with a half-written song. From then on, the record took shape.
Deryck Whibley Alleges Sexual Abuse by Former Manager
Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 alleges he was sexually abused by the band’s former manager Greg Nori:
Whibley has talked about these challenges in interviews before. But there are key details about his life he’d shared only with a few people, revelations that he poured into the book. “I don’t know how to tell the real story without getting into some of this stuff, because it’s all intertwined with my life, intertwined with the music and in the band,” says Whibley. “It’s just such a big part of it.”
Throughout the pages of “Walking Disaster,” Whibley describes a fraught and frightening relationship with Sum 41’s first manager, Greig Nori, whom the singer alleges groomed and sexually and verbally abused him for years, starting when he was 16 and Nori was 34.
Zach Bryan Declines to Submit for 2025 Grammys
Zach Bryan has reportedly withdrawn from consideration for the 2025 Grammy Awards:
Sources confirm that Bryan decided not to submit this year, based on feeling that he does not feel comfortable with awards shows making music competitive.
Record Store Day 2024 Black Friday Exclusives
Record Store Day have announced their exclusive Black Friday 2024 titles.
Green Day Banned by Las Vegas Radio
LOL. Green Day got banned by two Las Vegas radio stations:
Billie Joe Armstrong is from Oakland, California, the former home of the Oakland A’s. The MLB team is now moving to Las Vegas, and Armstrong does not like that. During a Green Day concert in San Francisco on Sept. 20, the frontman took a few shots at the team’s owner John Fisher, as well as Sin City as a whole: “We don’t take shit from people like fucking John Fisher…I hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst shithole in America.” Though a good chunk of the Bay Area audience probably agreed with those sentiments, a couple of Las Vegas radio stations took it personally.
Vegas rock station KOMP 92.3 announced in a recent Instagram post that they’d be banning Green Day’s music.
The Lasting Power of “All The Small Things”
Spin did a profile on Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” as it turns 25:
Blink didn’t jump at the idea. “I remember Mark saying, ‘I don’t think this is funny,’” recalls Siega. “And when I told Tom, ‘You’re gonna run down the beach with a dog chasing you’ [parodying Britney Spears’ “Sometimes” video], he went, ‘I don’t get it.’ The biggest challenge was getting them to understand what they were making fun of. They were hesitant. We had to really rehearse those dance sequences.”
Travis Barker WSJ Interview
Travis Barker talked with the Wall Street Journal:
Still, the years have brought them to a better place. “This is the best version of our band,” Barker said. “We’ve learned so much about one another and we’ve accepted each other for who we are. It’s the easiest and nicest it’s ever been.”
Warped Tour to Return in 2025
Kevin Lyman has confirmed Warped Tour is returning in 2025:
“We have something cooking for 2025. Details should be ready in a few weeks,” Lyman told Pollstar.
Japandroids Detail the End of the Band
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
NOFX to Livestream Final Shows
An Argument for Streaming Services to Label AI Music
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.