Reuters is reporting that Amazon is preparing to launch their own, standalone, streaming music service:
The service will be offered at $9.99 per month, in line with major rivals, and it will offer a competitive catalog of songs, the sources said. Amazon is finalizing licenses with labels for the service, which likely will be launched in late summer or early fall, the sources said.
The gunman who opened fire inside a crowded nightclub here early Sunday morning, launching a rampage that killed 50 people and injured 53 others in the deadliest shooting spree in the country’s history, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before the attack, according to U.S. law enforcement officials.
Over the next few days, if you’re able to give blood, please consider donating.
The Washington Post, reporting on the death of The Voice singer, Christina Grimmie:
“Words cannot begin to describe the pain I am feeling,” Grimmie’s manager, Brian Teefey, said in a statement. “I learned this business through the eyes of a father, and Christina was like a second daughter to me. All I wanted to do was assist her in achieving her musical dreams while protecting her from the pitfalls associated with the business.
Mackenzie Hall, writing for Alt Press, talks with Jack Barakat of All Time Low about opening his new bar, The Riff, in LA.
I mean, I’m pretty biased to the pop punk, pop rock genre. My [birthday] playlist, I’m doing Green Day, Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, Good Charlotte, you know the stuff I grew up on. But, the coolest thing about The Riff is that we’re going to play Muse, we’re going to play harder rock, we’re going to play hip-hop. It’s really going to be all over the place, and it’s not going to be a club. There are a lot of clubs in LA, where it’s all about who you know to get in and you’re standing on a table to buy a bottle. We just want a whiskey-inspired bar. There’s no cliques, there’s no anyone kind of looking down on you. It’s just going to be very kind of chill spot.
Nathan Hubbard (former CEO of Ticketmaster), writing for The Ringer, on why trying to get tickets to major events is a pain in the ass:
The other way these held-back tickets weasel their way into the secondary market: The individuals who get the tickets realize that, ostensibly, someone just handed them cash. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but attending a concert or a game can be a pain in the ass. Industry insiders fortunate enough to obtain these tickets are just jaded enough that they don’t need to go like true fans do. And so they think about the traffic, and the parking, and the hassle, and they check prices on the secondary market. And they realize that whatever true fans are willing to pay sounds better than the work of actually going to the event. So they sell (out).
Nick Bilton, who wrote Hatching Twitter, a book I’ve recommended in the past, writes for Vanity Fair about the current state of Twitter:
If these expulsions sound like murders, that’s likely because many of them were committed with the same behind-the-scenes planning and mastery. In every instance, the man who was knocked off had no idea who was behind the coup that led to his demise. In 2013, after the publication of my book Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal, I was greeted with effusive (or enraged) phone calls, text messages, and e-mails from co-founders, board members, and senior employees who were excited to finally learn the true identities of their tormentors. I still occasionally receive calls from people inside the company asking me for information about a recent firing.
John Boyega, of Star Wars fame, has signed on to star in Pacific Rim 2.
“I am very proud and happy to welcome John into a fantastic sandbox,” Guillermo del Toro added. “The Pacific Rim universe will be reinforced with him as a leading man as it continues to be a multicultural, multi-layered world. ‘The World saving the world’ was our goal and I couldn’t think of a better man for the job.”
Katie J.M. Baker, writing for Buzzfeed:
A former Stanford swimmer who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman was sentenced to six months in jail because a longer sentence would have “a severe impact on him,” according to a judge. At his sentencing Thursday, his victim read him a letter describing the “severe impact” the assault had on her.
This is exceptional. Please read, please share.
From the official Presidential proclamation:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2016 as African-American Music Appreciation Month. I call upon public officials, educators, and all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate activities and programs that raise awareness and foster appreciation of music that is composed, arranged, or performed by African Americans.
Trey Pearson of the Christian band Everyday Sunday has opened up about his sexuality with 614 Columbus:
With me, Trey is not a rock star; he’s an articulate man in his early 30s, not only confronting his own sexuality and how it will affect his family, but also shedding part of a persona he’s been maintaining for almost two decades, on stage and off.
This is not a normal story. Trey and I decided to tell this story together, for him to come out not just to his family and a handful of friends, but to the masses—where he could become a model and mentor for thousands in his musical flock still searching for acceptance and clarity within their faith.
I made the mistake of reading the Facebook comments.
Colin Stutz, writing for Billboard, on the removal of lyrics from Spotify:
In a statement Spotify said, “We can confirm our partnership with Musixmatch is ending. It was a great partnership and there is mutual respect between both companies as our business strategies move us each in different directions.”
Musixmatch, meanwhile, has a bit more to say about the split, suggesting it did not come amicably.
Speaking of The Ringer, here’s Lindsay Zoladz, writing about the idea of the “surprise album” release:
“Surprise” is pop music’s latest fetish commodity, a new but widely accepted virtue in an industry desperately trying to adapt to the demands (and attention spans) of the digital age. The album promotional cycle used to be pretty uniform: Announce the release date a few months prior, send a single to radio, and tour once the album comes out. But these tactics have now been replaced by, say, obtuse teasers that often feel like perfume ads directed by Terrence Malick and promotional hieroglyphs graffitied onto urban sidewalks (and which often, in the case of Arcade Fire and more recently Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, result in apologies).
Blink-182’s recent interview with Kerrang has been posted online by one nice Reddit fan. This is the good part of Reddit. The bad is this guy.
The Ringer, the new publication from Bill Simmons (formerly of Grantland/ESPN) has launched. I think it’s interesting that they’ve teamed with Medium to host and design the entire website. It leads to some confusing branding (is this on Medium, or is this its own thing), but all-in-all, I like it.
That header though.
Federico Viticci, writing for MacStories, on his history with mixtapes:
This went on for months. Listening to Luca’s CDs became a habit for me. I would listen as I perused his handwritten tracklists in the back of the CD covers. My mom would even ask me to “play Luca’s music”. I loaned a few of Luca’s CDs to my classmates. I believe that Luca kept doing it for a simple reason: he was (still is) a good friend and he thought it was cool that he could download music for free and burn an extra CD for me. Talking about new songs and old gems he included in his mixes was an excuse to catch a break between classes – no texting, no selfies, just two friends discussing songs on a mixtape.
Take the time to read this today.
