Our music forum has put together a cover compilation of Alkaline Trio songs. You can stream that below.
Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump Cast in Animated Movie
Variety reports that Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy will be doing various voice-over roles in the upcoming animated film Gnome Alone. He’s also working on the score and has written an original song for the movie:
Patrick Stump of the band Fall Out Boy performed multiple voice-over roles, composed the score and has written an original song to be performed by Becky G, whose character discovers that her new home’s garden gnomes are not what they seem, she joins the gnomes to fight against little monsters who have invaded through a portal from another world.
How Instagram Uses AI to Block Offensive Comments
Nicholas Thompson, writing at Wired:
The algorithms that resulted were then tested on the one-fifth of the data that hadn’t been given to DeepText, to see how well the machines had matched the humans. Eventually, Instagram became satisfied with the results, and the company quietly launched the product last October. Spam began to vanish as the algorithms did their work, circling like high-IQ Roombas let loose in an apartment overrun with dust bunnies.
Jay-Z – “The Story of O.J.” Video
Jay-Z released his new album 4:44 on Tidal today. There’s also a new video up for “The Story of O.J.”
Haim Perform on Fallon
Haim performed “Want You Back” on Fallon last night.
The Juliana Theory Reunite; Cancel Tour Dates
The Juliana Theory are postponing their 20-year anniversary tour. Instead they’ve decided to reform the band and start writing a new album. Their statement can be found below.
Sainte – “Eyes Are Open” Video
Sainte have released a video for “Eyes Are Open.”
Arcade Fire – “Signs of Life” Video
Arcade Fire’s new song “Signs of Life” is up on Spotify and Apple Music and they’ve released a new video for the song as well.
St. Vincent – “New York”
St. Vincent has debuted their new song “New York.”
The Best of 2017 … So Far (Encore Episode 150)
On this week’s episode of Encore I am joined once again by special guest Craig Manning. This week our main topic is all about the best albums released in 2017 … so far. As we hit the midway mark of the year, it’s time for our annual tradition of discussing what albums we’ve fallen in love with during the first six months, what didn’t make the list, what we were anticipating and how those stacked up, and all that jazz. (There’s also a rant about movie theaters at the beginning because some people can’t put their phones away.)
What albums have you loved this year so far? We’d love to hear from you and see if there’s something new for us to discover as well. As always, thanks for listening.
Albums in Stores – Jun. 30th, 2017
Today sees new releases from LANY, The Japanese House, Sir Sly, and 88 Fingers Louie. If you hit read more you can see all the releases we have in our calendar for the week. Hit the quote bubble to access our forums and talk about what came out today, what albums you picked up, and to make mention of anything we may have missed.
The iPhone Turns 10
The iPhone turned 10 today. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a good piece:
There is no way to overstate it. The iPhone was the inflection point where “personal computing” truly became personal. Apple had amazing product introductions before the iPhone, and it’s had a few good ones after. But the iPhone was the only product introduction I’ve ever experienced that felt impossible. Apple couldn’t have shrunk Mac OS X — a Unix-based workstation OS — to a point where it could run on a cell phone. Scrolling couldn’t be that smooth and fluid. Touchscreen response couldn’t be so responsive. Apple couldn’t possibly have gotten a major carrier to cede them control over every aspect of the device, both hardware and software. I can recall sitting the hall at Moscone West, watching the keynote unfold, 90 percent excited as hell, 10 percent concerned that I was losing my goddamn mind. Literally mind-blowing.
Hayley Williams Talks with The Fader
The Fader has a pretty interesting interview with Hayley Williams of Paramore:
She tells me that after we spoke, she had a panic attack in her car. She apologizes profusely for how this encounter has played out, and tells me that she felt triggered when I asked about the fallout from the lawsuit with her former bandmate. She says that legal reasons make it difficult for her to know what she can and cannot say, and that it both bores her and stresses her out that every recent story about the band has focused on band drama and not on the songs. Fair enough. I keep digging, though, and eventually she admits it was more than that, but that she is having a hard time explaining, or figuring out for herself, what it is.
I offer to let her sleep on it, telling her I was now likely to write about this strange episode, and that it might be good if she provided a more fully realized account from her own perspective. This idea, to my surprise, seems to immediately pique her interest. She quickly agrees and we hug, then go bowling at a little neon spot that doesn’t seem to have changed the decor since the 1980s.
The entire thing is worth reading.
Tumblr’s Unclear Future
Brian Feldman, writing at New York Magazine:
The future of Tumblr is still an open question. The site is enormously popular among the coveted youth crowd — that’s partly why then-CEO Marissa Mayer paid $1 billion for the property in 2013 — but despite a user base near the size of Instagram’s, Tumblr never quite figured out how to make money at the level Facebook has led managers and shareholders to expect.
I haven’t read a Tumblr blog regularly since Property of Zack closed down. I haven’t even logged into my account in quite a while now. What’s the main Tumblr use case these days?
Warped Tour’s Wilmington, NC Date Was Canceled
Warped Tour’s Wilmington, NC date has been canceled.
From the Vans Warped Tour team, the bands, and all of our sponsors, we are truly sorry that this had to happen. We were completely blind-sided by the city of Wilmington, NC and have tried to work through everything as fast as we could.