Graduation Speech – “No Confidence” (Song Premiere)

Graduation Speech
Adam Grundy

Today I’m thrilled to bring everyone an early listen to the new single from New Jersey emo band, Graduation Speech, called “No Confidence.” With a sound that fits somewhere between the pop bliss of The Get Up Kids and the working-man rock of The Menzingers, Graduation Speech check all the boxes for what you’d want in a band. The band shared, “‘No Confidence’ is my attempt to sum up the feeling of disgust and fatigue from watching parasitic ghouls that show total disregard for humanity and people.” If you’re enjoying the latest single, please consider pre-ordering their new LP called Arcane Feelings here.

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Sleepytime Gorilla Museum – “Hush, Hush” (Video Premiere)

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Adam Grundy

Today I’m thrilled to bring everyone a tasty slab of rock from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, called “Hush, Hush.” Band member Carla Kihlstedt shared:

’Hush, Hush’ is a celebration of dusk, when angels and demons come out from the dusty corners of our houses and our minds to play. It was the first song I wrote after moving to the East Coast, the saddest part of which was leaving my dear Sleepytime Gorilla Museum comrades and community. Matthias and I formed a duo called Rabbit Rabbit Radio – making the most of our new lives and our self-imposed musical isolation. ‘Hush, Hush’ poured out of me — the music itself, an obvious tribute to all that I absorbed in so many years of living, rocking, creating, and conjuring both on stage and off, next to the fine humans of the Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.

If you’re enjoying the new single, you can pre-order their upcoming LP titled Of The Last Human Being here.

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Skateland – “Autobahn!” (Video Premiere)

Skateland
Adam Grundy

Today is a great day to introduce everyone to the Austin-based bedroom pop artist known as Skateland. On his latest single, called “Autobahn!” Skateland makes writing breathtaking melodic hooks look easy. Skateland shared, “‘Autobahn!’ is a dialogue about the hills and valleys of love and relationships. The narrator begins the song with what he presumes is a breakup speech, but somehow along the way concedes that for better or worse he will always love this person, and that the tough parts of loving someone are what make it worth it in the end.” If you’re enjoying the early listen, you can pre-save the track here.

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Music Streaming Fraud Costs Musicians Millions

The New York Times
Jason Tate

David Segal, writing for New York Times:

The guys in Bad Dog, a folkie duo from Washington, D.C., weren’t hoping to get rich off the album they recorded this summer. David Post and Craig Blackwell have been devoted amateurs for decades, and they’re long past dreams of tours and limos. Mostly they wanted a CD to give away at a house party in December.

But not long after “The Jukebox of Regret” was finished in July and posted on SoundCloud, nearly every song on it somehow turned up on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and at least a dozen other streaming platforms. This might have counted as a pleasant surprise, except for a bizarre twist: Each song had a new title, attached to the name of a different artist.

And:

Despite their backgrounds, both men were stymied by the vast and arcane world of music streaming fraud, a realm where anonymous pirates are constantly devising new ways to steal from the $17 billion a year pool of royalty money intended for artists.

That’s a giant, tempting pot of gold for scammers around the world. Beatdapp, a Vancouver company that detects fraud for industry clients, estimates that a little more than 10 percent of that pot, about $2 billion, is swiped annually.

First Grammy 2024 Performers Announced

Grammys
Jason Tate

Olivia Rodrigo, Dua Lipa, and Billie Eilish are the first round of Grammy 2024 performers.

Both Eilish and Rodrigo are among the most-nominated artists on the bill (and, at 22 and 20 respectively, among the youngest) with six nods each while R&B star SZA leads the list with a total of nine nominations. Following SZA, tied with seven nominations apiece, are Victoria Monét, Phoebe Bridgers (six of those for her work with Boygenius, one for a collaboration with SZA) and mixing engineer Serban Ghenea.