Remove

Taylor Swift’s Impact on Jimmy Eat World

Taylor Swift
Jason Tate

Billboard looked at what kind of bump Jimmy Eat World got from the Taylor Swift Apple Music ad.

For their second act, Swift queued up Jimmy Eat World’s hit “The Middle,” (No. 5 on the Hot 100 and No. 1 Alternative Songs in 2002) a track on her “Getting Ready to Go Out” playlist that, she says, she “used to listen to in middle school.” The tune’s bump was even larger than “Jumpman”: between the week before the ad’s April 18 debut and the week after, “The Middle” soared 298 percent in sales and 49 percent in U.S. streams (from 3,000 downloads sold to 12,000; from 614,000 clicks to 916,000) and led to a surprise appearance on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart at No. 16.

In a Room With Radiohead

Radiohead
Jason Tate

Adam Thorpe, writing for Times Literary Supplement, after visiting Radiohead while they recorded their recent album:

This is all layers as well, a millefeuille of epochs and moments, and seems perfectly attuned to Radiohead’s methods. We wander out into the grounds: tree-surrounded lawns, large swimming pool, further courtyards and barns, decayed cottages and a softly roaring mill-race. In one of the larger granges, numerous canvases display abstract explosions of colour. The barn’s speakers are wired up to the recording studios: the band’s resident artist Stanley Donwood reacts in acrylic to what he hears, the results to be modified and manipulated on computer for the LP’s cover.

Ariana Grande’s Billboard Cover

Ariana Grande
Jason Tate

Chris Martins profiles Ariana Grande for Billboard:

As a matter of fact, Grande appears on the cover of Dangerous Woman in shiny black headgear with long ears. It looks like it was designed for American Horror Story by the cartoonists at Warner Bros. The Super Bunny “is my superhero, or supervillain — whatever I’m feeling on the day,” says Grande. “Whenever I doubt myself or question choices I know in my gut are right — because other people are telling me other things — I’m like, ‘What would that bad bitch Super Bunny do?’ She helps me call the shots.”

Her new album is straight up great.

Remove
Remove

Interview: Frank Turner

Craig Manning

Frank Turner is about to return to the United States for another leg of the Positive Songs for Negative People tour. I got a chance to chat with Frank about how he feels about the album now that it’s been out for a little while, why his next record will be more “radical” and “experimental” than anything he’s ever done before, how Butch Walker ended up producing the album, why playing shows with Jason Isbell is a realization of a years-old dream, and how recording the mournful “Song for Josh” in a live setting almost made Turner, a “profoundly, sternly atheist man,” glimpse a higher power.

Read More “Frank Turner”

Donkey King Score Achieved

Nintendo
Jason Tate

Wes Copeland has broken the all-time record high score for Donkey Kong.

It’s how he took the title, though that’s so staggering. Copeland did not lose a single Mario in the game. He took his first life all the way from the first level all the way to the end, cashing in the extra lives to obliterate all comers.

“This will be my last record score,” Copeland wrote on Facebook. “I don’t believe I can put up a game any higher than this.” Copeland had set 1.2 million as his ultimate goal in Donkey Kong, and said he’d retire from competition if he could reach that.

Read More “Donkey King Score Achieved”

Remove
Remove