Yours Truly shared a track by track commentary on their new album, Self Care, over at All Punked Up:
“Composure” is about trying to keep your cool at the end of a relationship and how difficult it can be. It’s natural to be upset, angry and a million different other emotions at once. I wrote it at a time when I really needed to reclaim my self-worth after losing so much of it. I was over being miserable and waiting for acceptance.
Jay Peters, writing for The Verge:
Apple bought music recognition app Shazam in 2018, and now it’s integrating it into iOS in another big way — a new Music Recognition feature can identify songs playing around you as well as in apps on your phone. And it even works when you’re listening to music on your headphones.
The new feature is available as a toggle in Control Center, but it does require a developer beta of iOS 14.2 if you want to try it right now.
I use Shazam very frequently, often when watching a TV show or movie. On iOS 14 you can assign “back taps” to a Shortcut, so I assigned a double tap on the back of the phone to a Shazam Shortcut that listens and identifies the song.
MusicHarbor, a great app for tracking new music coming out from your favorite artists, got a big iOS 14 update. MacStories has a rundown of the new features:
MusicHarbor also offers three types of widgets: Upcoming Releases, Latest Releases, and Stats. Upcoming Releases and Latest Releases draw from the albums collected in those sections of the app. Upcoming releases come in small and medium variants, while Latest Releases also includes a large widget. Each type displays a grid of album art, album details in some cases, and release date. The small widgets simply act as launchers for MusicHarbor, while the medium and large ones will open the album tapped.
Amazon Music now offers podcasts. The company issued an update today that brings more than 70,000 shows to the platform, including some major titles, like Serial and Pod Save America, as well as new exclusive deals like a show with DJ Khaled called The First One, where he’ll interview artists about their breakthrough hits and the stories behind them. Disgraceland, a popular show from iHeartMedia, will also become exclusive to the platform starting in February 2021.
Tom DeLonge talked with The Guardian about UFOs and other stuff:
DeLonge comes across as 99% enthusiast/expert and 1% eccentric. He can’t answer some of my questions (“What’s the most convincing piece of evidence you’ve seen as to the existence of aliens?”) due to “national security issues”. But he clearly knows something, or thinks he knows something. But what level of government cover-up are we talking about? Are aliens (2-1 to him by now) really living among us like in Men in Black?
“No, not at all,” says DeLonge. “It’s not conspiratorial. Anybody can go on to the CIA website and read thousands of reports. There’s just a vacuum of conversation. Our government has had decades of the very difficult burden of dealing with something that is extremely advanced but poorly understood. They need time to dig into this, to understand it, to gather data and analyse it.”
And:
So if national security wasn’t an issue, could DeLonge tell me stuff that would make my hair stand on end? “Yes. I thought I knew most of the unnerving parts, then I was briefed on something and I didn’t sleep for three nights. I think what’s going to come is a greater understanding of who we are and where we need to go. And that excites me, because I do believe something beautiful can come from something so unnerving.”
So aliens are real? (He wins 3-1.) “Things were written in text thousands of years ago, like hearing voices in your head, a burning bush that was talking. The ancient texts may have called it God, but I’m just saying it’s not that simple. The star of Bethlehem – was that a star or a craft? Because a star is really big. It wouldn’t be hovering over a manger.”
👽 Exist.
The RIAA have released their 2020 mid-year report. One interesting tidbit:
Vinyl album revenues of $232 million were 62% of total physical revenues, marking the first time vinyl exceeded CDs for such a period since the 1980’s, though it still only accounted for 4% of total music recorded music revenues.
Alex Williams, writing at The New York Times:
“We’ve broken so many records,” Mr. Mooney said. “It will be the biggest year of sales volume in Fender history, record days of double-digit growth, e-commerce sales and beginner gear sales. I never would have thought we would be where we are today if you asked me back in March.”
NME:
Filing fees for an O visa, which applies to “Individuals with Extraordinary Ability or Achievement,” will increase from $460 to $705, a rise of 53%. The P visa, which can also be used by family members of the individuals, will increase by to a total cost of $695.
Visa application waiting times are set to increase to 15 business days, but a fast track service that costs over $1000 will be available for those needing their application to be dealt with more quickly.
Lynn Gunn of PVRIS talked with Alt Press about her latest album:
My ultimate intention with everything, not just music and career, but life right now, is to feel [as] free as possible, and just be, and be what I know I am and what I’m comfortable being. That’s very different from what I felt like I needed to be when we first started playing music.
Especially with making this album, I was flying around constantly and traveling around and going in different sessions alone and tracking alone and doing everything really singularly, just due to circumstances and how things are playing out within our scheduling. This album has been the most…I’m putting air quotes around “solo venture.” And so it felt the most appropriate to finally have everything align with that and to be real and open about it.
Garbage will release a new album next year:
We have a new record being mixed as we speak that’s going to come out next year. We’ve got three more songs to go and then we’re done. And then we’ll concentrate on the artwork and start planning for next year. We were really excited. We were talking with our team this morning, and things are still looking hopeful.
Comedy Central announced Wednesday that it has ordered a revival of the ’90s animated series. The move comes amid a significant push into adult animation at ViacomCBS’ entertainment and youth group, which comprises most of the company’s cable brands and is headed by Chris McCarthy. The unit also on Wednesday revealed that Grant Gish, a veteran of Marvel Studios and Fox Animation, would join as head of adult animation. […]
The new version will be adult-oriented. It will not, however, involve “Ren & Stimpy” creator John Kricfalusi, whom a source tells Variety will have no creative input into and will receive no financial remuneration from the new series. Kricfalusi was accused in a 2018 Buzzfeed article of sexually abusing teenage girls.
Brian Fallon, writing at Spin:
In a time when concerts may feel like a distant memory, I find myself thinking of the ones I’ve seen — either in person or on film — that stands out as a reminder to keep me company during the waiting. With that, let’s look back at a career-defining, career-inspiring concert that was arguably undefeated among Gods and humans. I’m talking about the cold, presumably damp, and absolutely electrifying night of Nov. 18, 1975 at Hammersmith Odeon (as it was then called) in London, England. This is the site where a virtually unknown (at least to British audiences at the time), Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would take a crowd of 3,000+ (seated) souls and usher them into the upper gates of holiness, known as New Jersey.
The letter calls for major political party committees in the U.S. to “establish clear policies requiring campaigns to seek consent of featured recording artists, songwriters and copyright owners before publicly using their music in a political or campaign setting.” […]
The letter’s signees include the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Sia, Regina Spektor, R.E.M, Lorde, Blondie, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Rosanne Cash, Lionel Richie, Pearl Jam and Green Day.
Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans are set to star in The Gray Man, with AGBO’s Joe & Anthony Russo directing their first blockbuster since setting the all-time global box office record with Avengers: Endgame two years ago. The intention here is to create a new franchise with a James Bond level of scale and a budget upward of $200 million.
Sarah Perez, writing at TechCrunch:
Facebook is preparing to launch officially licensed music videos on its social network in the U.S. next month, in a direct challenge to YouTube. In materials reviewed by TechCrunch, Facebook informed Page owners linked to artists they’ll need to toggle on a new setting to add their music videos to their page ahead of an August 1st deadline, at which point Facebook will automatically create a page of their videos if no action had been taken.
Artists will not have to manually upload their videos or even provide links, Facebook told the artist Page admins. Instead, by enabling the new setting, artists are giving Facebook permission to add music videos to their Page, where they can be discovered by fans on the Page’s Videos tab. This library will include both the artist’s own official videos and those they’re featured in, Facebook explained in its marketing materials.