Pandora Nears Deals for On-Demand Streaming

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Pandora is looking to get into the on-demand streaming game:

Pandora Media Inc. is aiming to start expanding its internet-radio service as soon as next month, offering its hallmark free tier as well as two new monthly subscription options that will mark its foray into on-demand music streaming, said people familiar with the matter.

Can they fix their shitty Flash based web app and awful streaming quality first?

Japandroids Have Been Missed

Japandroids

Steven Hyden, writing for Uproxx, on missing the Japandroids and how to follow up Celebration Rock:

Japandroids make music that should, theoretically, be relatively easy to produce more than once or twice per decade. And yet, when you make a record as good at being simple as Celebration Rock is, it doesn’t leave you with a lot of options moving forward. If you repeat the formula, you have to compete directly with your most beloved record (and your audience’s distorted memory of that record). If you change up the formula (assuming you’re even capable of doing that), you run the risk of losing what people liked about you in the first place.

On the End of Yellowcard

Yellowcard

Evan Lucy has a nice interview and feature on the end of Yellowcard over at Alternative Press:

The sense of finality led Key to approach writing Yellowcard from a different angle lyrically, as well. The singer felt especially galvanized by the ability to have the album’s lyrics serve as his farewell to friends, fans and family, and he challenged himself to use each song to express a different sentiment of saying goodbye. Some, like the affecting wistfulness of “Empty Street” (“Boxing up the fireworks/cancel my parade/the street is empty tonight”) and album closer “Fields & Fences,” complete with a goosebump-inducing orchestral outro, find him staring down his rapidly approaching future as Yellowcard’s ex-frontman, while the fiery “Savior’s Robes”—with its biting chorus, “Play us a song I know/Make it an older one”—seems aimed at those who’d prefer the band’s Ocean Avenue selves be fossilized forever.

Trying to read the article and having an Ice Nine Kills video pop up in my face sure was fun.

Planes Fly Fast (Encore Episode 130)

Encore 130

This week’s podcast finds the hosts talking about traveling and the routines related to flying. We discuss (as spoiler free as possible) ‘Stranger Things,’ we gush about the new The Menzingers’ song, and we talk about Green Day’s new one as well. We also talk about looking up tour dates, song lyrics, and what bands may end up standing the test of time and why. We finish up with some Olympics talk. Because OLYMPICS!

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