The Veronicas Working With Travis Barker and John Feldmann

The Veronicas

The Veronicas have confirmed they’re working with John Feldmann and Travis Barker on new music:

As to whether the songs with Barker will feature on their new album, expected to drop later this year, Origliasso could not confirm or deny.

“I would like to say yes, we would love to have some of those tracks make this record… those songs are sick,” she said.

“It’s sort of deciding whether those songs will go on a Veronicas record or whether they’ll go on a side project release because John was loving it.”

AI-Produced Music Raises Copyright Questions

Technology

Dani Deahl, writing at The Verge:

AI is capable of making music, but does that make AI an artist? As AI begins to reshape how music is made, our legal systems are going to be confronted with some messy questions regarding authorship. Do AI algorithms create their own work, or is it the humans behind them? What happens if AI software trained solely on Beyoncé creates a track that sounds just like her? “I won’t mince words,” says Jonathan Bailey, CTO of iZotope. “This is a total legal clusterfuck.”

I’m filing this article in the “things I wasn’t even thinking about earlier but now can’t stop” folder.

BTS Top The Charts

BTS

BTS has the number one album in the country:

The seven-track set, which was released on April 12, starts with 230,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending April 19, according to Nielsen Music — a career-best week for BTS. Of that sum, 196,000 were in album sales — another career-high week for the South Korean pop group.

The Maine Share Another Book Excerpt

The Maine

The Maine have shared another excerpt from their book, You Are OK: Finding Your Way When Life Doesn’t Feel OK, on Medium:

I found — or maybe she found me — the love of my life at the start of the Lovely Little Lonely Tour and have been extremely happy with my relationship for the past couple of years. But as a person, as an individual, I ended up stumbling upon some of those same feelings of anxiety and worry and dread at the start of writing this record. I think it just was a culmination of stress and thinking, “How much longer can I do this?” I was moving into a new place and worrying if I was going to be able to afford rent and all this shit. It just felt like the enormity of the world was solely resting on my shoulders. Going to write this record, it was like, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do.” You Are OK sort of walked out.

Create Vinyl with Bandcamp

Bandcamp

Bandcamp:

Today, we’re offering a first glimpse of an initiative from Bandcamp that aims to address these challenges. Our new vinyl pressing service streamlines the financing, production, and fulfillment of vinyl records. With no up-front investment, an artist or label can create a vinyl campaign and start taking orders almost immediately. Once they reach their minimum goal, we press their records and ship them to their fans.

This is awesome.

Grateful Dead Announce Graphic Novel

Comic Books

The Grateful Dead have announced a new graphic novel:

Grateful Dead Origins takes an in depth and personal look at the formation of one of the most important American rock bands of all time, exploring the early days of Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Pigpen, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. The story of the band’s transformation from a bar band performing as the Warlocks to becoming the creators of their own sound and forefathers for the jamband culture is depicted in the original story written by Chris Miskiewicz and illustrated by Noah Van Sciver.

Danny Boyle to Exec Produce Alan McGee Biopic ‘Creation Stories’

Film

Deadline:

Danny Boyle is to exec produce an Irvine Welsh-penned feature about seminal British record label Creation with Rupert Everett, Suki Waterhouse and Jason Flemyng joining the cast.

Creation Stories, which has been long in the works, is based on Alan McGee’s autobiography, The Creation Records Story: Riots, Raves and Running a Label, about the highs and lows of running the label famous for putting out records by the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Oasis.

Nortre-Dame Cathedral on Fire

The New York Times

The New York Times:

Notre-Dame cathedral, the iconic symbol of the beauty and history of Paris, was scarred by an extensive fire on Monday evening that caused part of its delicate spire to collapse, bruised the Parisian skies with smoke and further disheartened a city already back on its heels after weeks of violent protests.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, said André Finot, a spokesman for the cathedral, and officials added that no one had been killed or wounded in the blaze. But even three hours after the fire began, the authorities were still scrambling to contain it — and warned that they were not certain they would be able to.

Khalid’s ‘Free Spirit’ Tops the Charts

Khalid’s Free Spirit is the number one album in the country this week:

Khalid notches his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, as his third release, Free Spirit, opens atop the tally. The set, released on April 5 through Right Hand/RCA Records, starts with 202,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 11, according to Nielsen Music — the fourth-largest week of 2019 for an album. Of that sum, 85,000 were in traditional album sales.