Ashley King, writing for Digital Music News:
If you thought only streaming platforms were feeling the onslaught of artificial intelligence-created (AI) artists and generated music, think again. Even radio stations aren’t safe from the budding industry of AI-generated content. According to Billboard, an AI singer called Xania Monet has become the first known AI artist to earn enough radio airplay to debut on a Billboard radio chart.
You know, we don’t have to do this…
Fall Out Boy talked with Rolling Stone about the anniversary of From Under the Cork Tree:
One of the things that has always been important to me, and speaks to the longevity of this record, is that we never really stopped playing any of those songs. I never wanted to. There are records that tanked, and it was really hard to play those songs because it hurt to think about ‘em. But in general, I never like to pretend a record didn’t happen. I never like to play a show without touching a record. Ever since Cork Tree came out, our sets have a substantial amount of the album. I have more respect for the album now than I did when I was a kid. Now, when I play those songs, I care about ’em a lot more than I did in 2007 because I understand what it means to people. It creates this responsibility.
“This advertisement is part of a broad campaign the US government is running across television, streaming, and online channels,” Spotify said in a statement. “The content does not violate our advertising policies. However, users can mark any ad with a thumbs up or thumbs down to help manage their ads preferences.”
Spotify users began noticing ICE recruitment ads earlier this week offering $50,000 signing bonuses, prompting a wave of boycott calls across social media. “I get an ad and it starts with, ‘millions of dangerous illegals are rampaging the streets. Join ICE today,’” user miss.mia777 posted on TikTok. “I don’t pick up my phone while driving. I picked up my phone with a quickness and deleted the app.” On reddit, boycott threads have quickly climbed to the top of r/music.
Worshipping the grind is a side effect of status anxiety. If you don’t have credentials, or a network, or a novel idea, then you need to show you’re serious. And what better way than by staying in the office when everyone else goes home and tweeting about it? It’s peacocking: look how hard I’m trying. But effort is not value. Hours are not outcomes. Work is not the same as progress.
If your only edge is effort, you’re replaceable. There is always someone who can work longer. Someone younger, hungrier, more desperate. There is no long-term moat in exhaustion. And if you do somehow win that way, you might not like the prize. You’ll have built a system that only functions when you’re suffering.
This whole piece is great but these two paragraphs? Chef kiss.
Ashley King, writing for Digital Music News:
After launching a trial in 2022, Ireland is due to make its basic income for artists program permanent starting in 2026. Under the program, selected artists receive a weekly payment of approximately $350, for around $1,500 per month. Applications are due to open in September 2026, with 2,000 spots available. Eligibility criteria has yet to be announced, but the Irish government expressed that it may expand the program to additional applicants in the future, if funding permits.
Yellowcard talked with the LA Times about their new album:
Key says he was initially intimidated singing in front of Barker in the studio and had a few moments where negative, self-conscious thoughts were getting the better of him in the vocal booth during recording. Instead of getting annoyed, he says Barker helped ease his anxiety with a few simple words.
“Travis came into the booth, closed the door, put his hand on my shoulder, and he said, ‘You’re gonna do this as many times as you need to do it. I’m gonna be here the whole time.’” Barker was truly speaking from experience. He told Key at the time that he’d just recorded 87 rough takes of his parts on “Lonely Road,” his hit song with Jelly Roll and MGK. “That was a real crossroads for me,” Key said.
Paris Hilton and Andrew McMahon are teaming up for the romantic comedy series Aught to Be.
Amazon is currently developing the romantic comedy series “Aught to Be,” Variety has learned exclusively.
The half-hour series hails from the Tornante Company, with Paris Hilton attached to executive produce under her 11:11 Media banner. Andrew McMahon, the front man of bands like Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate, will also executive produce, as the show is inspired by his hit song “Konstantine.”
The RIAA has singled out Discord and Telegram as “notorious markets” for pre-release piracy:
“Messaging platforms Telegram and Discord have become the primary mechanisms through which pre-release music is distributed without authorization,” wrote the RIAA. “Through private and semi-private communities, organized, global groups engage in hacking, social engineering, and other methods to obtain pre-release music and, in many cases, sell this illegally obtained material for thousands of dollars.”
I think annoyance, like cholesterol, has a good kind and a bad kind. The bad kind makes you want to flee: backed-up traffic, crying babies on planes, colleagues who say they can use Excel when really they mean they’ve heard of Excel. But the good kind of annoyance draws you in rather than driving you away. It’s that feeling you get when there’s something you can and must make right, the way some people feel when they see a picture frame that’s just a bit askew, except a lot more and all the time.
Whenever I fix the thing that’s annoying me, it does feel “fun”, I guess, but it’s not fun in the way that, say, going down a waterslide is fun. It’s a textured pleasure, the kind of enjoyment I assume that whiskey enthusiasts get from drinking extremely peaty, smoky scotch—on the one hand, it burns, but on the other hand, I kinda like how it burns.
Good annoyance is, I think, the only thing that keeps people coming back for more, indefinitely. There is nothing that a human with a normally-functioning brain can do for eight hours a day, every day, for their whole career, that feels “fun” the whole time, or even a large fraction of the time. We’re just too good at adapting to things. And thank God, because if we never got bored, we never would have survived. Our ancestors would have spent their days staring doe-eyed and slack-jawed at, like, a really pretty leaf or something, and they would have gotten eaten by leopards. Fun fades, but irritation is infinite.
I feel the urge to quote this whole thing.
As of Jan. 1, 2026, Ek will “transition” to the role of executive chairman of Spotify, the company said Tuesday. At that time, Gustav Söderström, currently co-president and chief product and technology officer, and Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer, will become Spotify’s co-CEO. Söderström and Norström will report to Ek and both will also serve on the company’s board of directors (subject to shareholder approval).
Kenny from The Starting Line talked with The Aquarian about their new album:
Those three records were made in a five- or six-year time span. It’s really messed up to think about. Then it took us 18 years to record another one! Time seems to be a weird accordion. In that very short amount of time a lot happened in my life. Then in the next 18 years it got spaced out in terms of events. Making Say It Like You Mean It memories are attributed to being in a professional studio and working with a professional producer for the first time. Also, I was working with one of my idols [Mark Trombino] who had made so many of my favorite records up to that point. It was hard not to be intimidated by it.
A lot of that process I was going with the flow. It even frustrated Trombino a little bit. I remember there were times he would say, “How does this sound?” I would say, “Sounds really great!” Then he would say “What do you think of this?” And I’d say “That sounds so good!” [laughs] “Okay just get the fuck out of here and I’ll actually do work” because I was no help at all. I guess I have to start having opinions about these things.
It was just big wide eyes taking it all in! I wanted to sound like Blink 182 and Jimmy Eat World! This would be cool if we could have a record that sounded as good as Clarity. I remember I was listening to very little pop-punk by the time we got to making Based On A True Story. I was trying to fit more of that style into the songwriting and moving away from general punk aesthetic. It was closer to our philosophy now. This is who we are and this is what feels good on the stage. Let’s try and concentrate on that good stuff.
Over 400 artists have signed on to the “No Music for Genocide” project:
No Music For Genocide is a cultural boycott of Israel. Over 400 initial artists and labels have geo-blocked and removed their music from that territory in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza; ethnic cleansing of the Occupied West Bank; apartheid within Israel / ’48; political repression of Pro-Palestine efforts wherever we live; and the music industry’s own ties to weapons and crimes against humanity.
Twenty One Pilots have filed a lawsuit against Temu:
As evidence, the complaint includes dozens of pages of photos comparing official merch to the alleged counterfeit products sold on Temu. One example features an official $35 Twenty One Pilots t-shirt alongside a strikingly similar replica sold on Temu for $7.54.
Spotify’s new messaging feature—which is actually the newest iteration of a social messaging feature the streaming giant killed off in 2017 due to low engagement—wants to give users more control. It features encryption “in transit and at rest,” an option to reject message requests from others, and the option to opt out completely. But anything short of opting out of the feature will inadvertently introduce a doxxing risk by linking you to people with whom you’ve shared music in the past.
Andy Baio has the best break down of the Will Smith AI(?)-crowd controversy I’ve seen:
This minute-long clip of a Will Smith concert is blowing up online for all the wrong reasons, with people accusing him of using AI to generate fake crowds filled with fake fans carrying fake signs. The story’s blown up a bit, with coverage in Rolling Stone, NME, The Independent, and Consequence of Sound.
[…]
But here’s where things get complicated.
The crowds are real. Every person you see in the video above started out as real footage of real fans, pulled from video of multiple Will Smith concerts during his recent European tour.
