I had the pleasure of joining Deanna on the Missaligned podcast this week to talk about the history of AbsolutePunk and Chorus.fm, different apps and tech stuff we like to use, comic books, and a variety of other topics. I had a really great time and can’t thank Deanna enough for having me.
Matador’s head of sales Rusty Clarke revealed to the A.V. Club that the situation where Car Seat Headrest’s album had to be recalled cost the label over $50,000.
“This is definitely an unprecedented situation,” Clarke told The A.V. Club. “We’ve never had to actually recall an album from retail before.” And while the physical loss is huge, as no part of these recalled products are salvageable—which pushes the album’s physical release to July—fans that pre-ordered digital copies were also put out. “We’d had it up for pre-order since March, so it had accrued a fair number of pre-orders at iTunes and Amazon and Google Play,” says Clarke. “We were able to switch out the audio that the artist re-recorded and we had mastered in a 48-hour turnaround, which was kind of amazing… but we had to redeliver it elsewhere. That means that we lost our pre-orders. So that was a little bit sad, too. And, of course, it’s not a great customer experience for those people who had pre-orders. Now they’ll be essentially confused as to why they’re not getting their album delivered.”
Ian Cohen, writing for Noisey, about The Hotelier’s new album:
The second path, surprisingly, was that of Brand New. Not in the sense that the Hotelier had become a band welcomed at any variation of Emo Night or that they’d even one day headline Madison Square Garden. Here was my friend’s explanation of the Brand New model: “They’ll make every wrong move that turns out to be the right move.”
Yes, the artwork is at the top.
The Strokes will release their new EP, Future Present Past, on June 3rd. They’ve unveiled two songs from it: “OBLIVIUS” and “Drag Queen.”
Update: It looks like the entire EP is up on Spotify.
Jessie Ware has shared her new song, “Till The End,” from the upcoming Me Before You soundtrack on Elle.
Rocky Votolato and Noah Gundersen have teamed up for a Live On Lacquer live 7″ release. The pressing is limited to 500 and up for sale now on Bandcamp.
Live On Lacquer preserves music in a way that is timeless and genuine. Much like the way records were made in the mid-20th century, these songs are captured live and cut in real-time onto lacquer discs with our 1940’s Scully vinyl lathe. Once cut, the lacquer masters are immediately sent off for plating and pressing. Each song is recorded in one take with no editing, allowing for the truest expression of the artist’s performance to be captured. The recording method used here is 100% analog and retains a level of humanity and imperfection often lost in modern digital productions.
The Weeknd and Belly canceled their appearance on Kimmel last night because Donald Trump was set to appear on the same episode.
I’m here on a campaign of positivity and love and to contribute what I can to music. I create songs people go to sleep and wake up to, songs that they fall in love to. For me, being Muslim and being somebody that appreciates my access here in America, I love the fact that I’m able to be here. To play my part in this business is a privilege and a beautiful thing. The fact that I could lose that ability through the actions of someone such as Donald Trump isn’t right to me. At all.
Good for them.
You have to pick one: an album you enjoy or an album that the artist is happy with.
I’m not here to say either answer is correct or to call those who don’t enjoy Thrice’s long-awaited comeback, and ninth studio album, To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere, selfish or wrong. But let’s be honest and say that rarely does artistic growth and vision mesh completely with fan expectation. Essentially, I’m arguing that there are going to be some fans who are disappointed with Thrice’s new album. As unfortunate as that is, the band should take solace in knowing they’ve crafted their best work in years.
One of the more interesting stories in the journalism space over the past week has been the revelation that billionaire Peter Thiel has been secretly funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker. I think, not surprisingly, I agree most with John Gruber’s take:
It’s free speech on both sides. Thiel was free to secretly back (and apparently strategically steer) Hogan’s case against Gawker. But Gawker founder Nick Denton was free to air his suspicion that Hogan had a billionaire Silicon Valley backer, and Forbes was free to out Thiel as said backer. And now commentators who are appalled are free to express their outrage at Thiel, perhaps embarrassing him and making it less likely that he or others of similar super-wealth will do this in the future.
You’re free to do stupid shit under the banner of free speech, and I’m free to say so.
DC Comics’ Geoff Johns was on Seth Meyers the other night to talk about DC’s new “rebirth” comic story (for what it’s worth: I really liked the first issue) — there’s a little mention of working with Ben Affleck on a solo Batman movie as well.
Miles Raymer, writing for MTV, looks at some ideas on fixing copyright law in how it relates to musicians and clearing samples:
Menell’s solution is to apply something called a compulsory license to sampling, remixing, and other derivative works. Compulsory licenses replace the process of gaining a copyright holder’s permission to make use of their original work with a flat royalty structure and a set of rules for how the work can be reinterpreted. We already have this kind of setup for cover songs: Under U.S. copyright law, anyone can perform and record any song that anyone else has written and recorded without getting their prior permission, as long as they pay a royalty to the copyright owner. This is why pop-punk bands can cover Top 40 songs, why iTunes is full of sound-alike cover versions of hit songs by artists it doesn’t have deals with, and why hip-hop producers often hire instrumentalists to play “interpolations” of musical passages they want to sample but can’t clear.
Hilary Duff is currently working on her new album. I was pleasantly surprised by her last release.
Aleen Mean, writing on her blog, on how in spite of the new features Twitter keeps rolling out, it remains broken in one glaring way: it’s too easy to abuse people on the service.
Time and time again, we’ve been told that the company is working on making things better for targets of harassment. What we see, however, are half-baked enhancements designed to make the service more appealing to advertisers and attempts at enticing new users. Many people have suggested changes they could implement to curb abuse. For example, Randi Lee Harper’s list of suggestions from earlier this year is still on-point.
Five Finger Death Punch has announced they’ve signed with Rise Records. They still owe their former label, Prospect Park, one more album (that the label is kinda saying sucks and are suing over). From the band’s announcement:
We have had great success with our current label, Prospect Park, and will continue to enjoy further success with our next and final album (subject to surmounting the label’s court action to prevent us from recording it), after which we will commence a new and exciting label partnership with the people at Rise and BMG.
I’m just surprised they didn’t find some way to throw in one more proclamation of the great success they were going to have with Rise and BMG.
Jenny Lewis’s new band NAF has announced some additional tour dates. You can find those below.