Singles Club: Taking Back Sunday – “Tidal Wave”

Taking Back Sunday
Drew Beringer

To say that Taking Back Sunday is a polarizing band is an understatement. For nearly 15 years now the Long Island-based band have gone through it all – inter-band drama, outer-band drama, more member changes than they’d like to admit, and the transition from emo darlings to bonafide rock stars. And while not every fan has always enjoyed every change the band has gone through musically and professionally, Taking Back Sunday has always stuck to their vision. And the same can be said about the band’s latest song, “Tidal Wave,” the first single from the band’s upcoming seventh LP of the same name.

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Zac Farro Confirms He’s Drumming on New Paramore Album

Jason Tate

Zac Farro has confirmed in an interview with Idobi that he’s drumming on the new Paramore album, but at the moment, that’s it.

They’ve asked me to play drums on their album, on their new album. So [Hayley] put it on their Instagram and put it on their website, and it’s no joke that I’m back just playing drums for them on their album alongside with doing my HalfNoise stuff. That’s it, and that’s literally all it is right now. No one’s really asked cause I’ve kind of deterred the question, but I’m doing HalfNoise – that’s my band. They’ve asked me to drum, and it was like, ‘Yeah, of course!’ We’ve always been friends, and yeah, there was a little bit of weirdness cause I left the band for a few years, but all that stuff is not even there anymore and there’s no hard feelings and it’s just been rad and fun.

Drake Tops Charts For Ninth Straight Week

Jason Tate

Drake, again, is at the top of the charts this week. Projections have Blink-182 overtaking Views, which has now been at the top of the charts for nine weeks, when they debut on the charts next week.

Views earned 111,000 equivalent album units in the week ending June 30, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 25,000 were in traditional album sales. The bulk of Views units were driven by streaming equivalent album units (67,000), owed to the album’s popularity on streaming services.

Hacker Involved in ‘Celebgate’ Pleads Guilty

Technology
Jason Tate

James Vincent, writing for The Verge:

A hacker has pleaded guilty for his role in the “Celebgate” breach of 2014. Edward Majerczyk faces up to five years in federal prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Like fellow hacker Ryan Collins, the 28-year-old Majerczyk used a phishing scam to trick celebrities into entering their online credentials into fake ‘security’ sites. Majerczyk then used this information to illegally access more than 300 personal Gmail and iCloud accounts, retrieving private photos and videos from targets including celebrities. No individuals affected by the hack were named in court documents.

Kevin Durant Joins Golden State Warriors

Kevin Durant Joins Golden State Warriors
Jason Tate

Kevin Durant has joined the Golden State Warriors, basically, on paper, forming an unbeatable basketball team:

But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth. With this in mind, I have decided that I am going to join the Golden State Warriors.

With that new huge contract I’m sure he’ll be able to find a nice one bedroom apartment in San Francisco.

Happy Fourth of July

Jason Tate

Today is the 4th of July holiday so we will be on a more relaxed posting schedule. I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable day and we’ll be back to our regular schedule tomorrow.

Sponsor: Thank You to Blink-182; ‘California’ in Stores Now

Blink-182 - "Bored to Death"
Sponsored Post

My thanks to Blink-182 for sponsoring Chorus this week. They released their new album, California, yesterday and I’ve gotta say: I’m impressed. I’ve been toying around with a write-up about the album that I may post in the foreseeable future, but the fact is that I think this is the best Blink’s sounded in years. Great, fun, summer pop-punk music.

You can find the album now on all streaming platforms, iTunes, and in stores. The album is making a run for the #1 spot next week so if you’re into it — definitely give it a spin (or ten). Thanks again to Blink for sponsoring the website this week. Hilarious to think that I once built a Blink-182 fan-page, and here we are, 20-something years later, and they’re sponsoring the site. It’s awesome.

Searching for a Good Reason to Remove the Headphone Jack

Headphones
Jason Tate

Jason Snell, writing at Six Colors:

I have a point of view on all this, but I’m trying very hard not to get mad about something that hasn’t happened. This is a tech unicorn, an unannounced feature on a nonexistent product, and it’s important to keep that in mind. Still, it’s not a bad intellectual exercise to ponder why Apple might make such a move, and what the ramifications might be.

The speculative conclusion at the end about the rumored “AirPods” sounds right to me. What I really hope for is that any wireless headphones that Apple ship don’t use Bluetooth, but instead use a new, maybe proprietary, technology along with Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a massive pain in the ass to use with multiple devices and flaky as hell.

One thing I have seen when I’ve talked about this with some non-techy friends: they either don’t care at all and just use whatever headphones come with their phone or they really care and find this to be an absolute abomination. I don’t see much middle ground. We discussed this whole thing in more detail on this week’s episode of Encore because it really does fascinate me to no end. The tradeoffs seem almost unbearably negative, but yet it seems so inevitable at the same time.