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Pre-Saving Albums Can Allow Labels to Track Users on Spotify

Jason Tate

Billboard:

Users who “pre-save” an upcoming release to their Spotify accounts may be sharing more personal data with the act’s label than they realize.

To pre-save music, which adds a release to a user’s library as soon as it comes out, Spotify users click through and approve permissions that give the label far more account access than the streaming giant normally grants them — enough to track what they listen to, change what artists they follow and potentially even control their music streaming remotely.

Jony Ive Leaving Apple

Jason Tate

Jony Ive, the famous designer at Apple, is leaving the company after thirty years. I thought Gruber’s take on the whole thing was pretty good:

Third: This may be good news. Ive is, to state the obvious, preternaturally talented. But in the post-Jobs era, with all of Apple design, hardware and software, under his control, we’ve seen the software design decline and the hardware go wonky. I don’t know the inside story, but it certainly seems like a good bet that MacBook keyboard fiasco we’re still in the midst of is the direct result of Jony Ive’s obsession with device thinness and minimalism. Today’s MacBooks are worse computers but more beautiful devices than the ones they replaced. Is that directly attributable to Jony Ive? With these keyboards in particular, I believe the answer is yes.

Spotify Says They Overpaid Songwriters and Publishers in 2018

Jason Tate

Tim Ingham, writing at Music Business Worldwide:

Because of this additional complexity, Spotify has now calculated that, retrospectively, according to the CRB decision, many music publishers actually owe it money for 2018, due to an overpayment based on the prior rates. And guess what? It wants that money back.

Spotify told the publishers the news this week and, as you can imagine, these companies – already up in arms over Spotify’s CRB appeal – are fuming about it.

One senior figure in the music publishing industry told MBW: “Spotify is clawing back millions of dollars from publishers in the US based on the new CRB rates that favor the DSPs, while appealing the [wider CRB decision]. This puts some music publishers in a negative position. It’s unbelievable.”

Listening to Fall Out Boy on the Brink of Collapse

Jason Tate

John Bazley, writing at Catapult:

We didn’t yet know exactly how the following year would work its fingernails into our neighborhood and pick it apart, but there was a palpable feeling of impending doom lingering over the roofs in my hometown.

All easy to ignore, of course, when Fall Out Boy would release a new record. I was twelve, living within my CD collection and the narratives it projected upon the world in front of me. I didn’t know about subprime mortgages or Lehman Brothers then. I just counted the days until Infinity On High. There was no other world event that could possibly take precedent over the release of that album. My excitement for Infinity On High may have been an unsustainable motivator, but sustainability itself was a questionable construct in 2007.

This is very well written.

Spotify’s Mood Related Data Lets Advertisers Target by Listeners Emotional State

Jason Tate

Liz Pelly, writing for The Baffler:

[A] more careful look into Spotify’s history shows that the decision to define audiences by their moods was part of a strategic push to grow Spotify’s advertising business in the years leading up to its IPO—and today, Spotify’s enormous access to mood-based data is a pillar of its value to brands and advertisers, allowing them to target ads on Spotify by moods and emotions. Further, since 2016, Spotify has shared this mood data directly with the world’s biggest marketing and advertising firms.

This creeps me out.

Living With Perfect Pitch and Synaesthesia

Jason Tate

LJ Rich, writing on her blog:

Now, I’d like you to imagine you’re chatting with your conversation partner. But instead of speaking and hearing the words alone, each syllable they utter has a note, sometimes more than one. They speak in tunes and I can sing back their melody. Once I know them a little bit, I can play along to their words as they speak them, accompanying them on the piano as if they’re singing an operatic recitative. They drop a glass on the floor, it plays a particular melody as it hits the tiles. I’ll play that melody back – on a piano, on anything. I can accompany that melody with harmony, chords – or perhaps compose a variation on that melody – develop it into a stupendous symphony filled with strings, or play it back in the style of Chopin, Debussy or Bob Marley. That car horn beeps an F major chord, this kettle’s in A flat, some bedside lights get thrown out because they are out of tune with other appliances. I can play along to every song on the radio whether or not I’ve heard it before, the chord progressions as open to me as if I had the sheet music in front of me. I can play other songs with the same chords and fit them with the song being played. Those bath taps squeak in E, this person sneezes in E flat. That printer’s in D mostly. The microwave is in the same key as the washing machine.

This is from a few years back, but I just came across it and found it fascinating.

Who’s Going to Stop Spotify’s Viral Rap Impersonators?

Pitchfork
Jason Tate

Noah Yoo, writing for Pitchfork:

There’s a rapper on Spotify named Lil Kambo who’s racked up 2 million streams and counting on his song “Kid Carti.” This would be a significant feat for any unsigned, self-releasing artist in the modern day. The only problem is that “Lil Kambo” doesn’t exist and “Kid Carti” is a pitch-shifted leak of Playboi Carti’s yet-unreleased track “Kid Cudi” (previously referred to as “Pissy Pamper”), a song the rapper’s been teasing for some time and even playing out live. Lil Kambo isn’t a viral hit—he’s a fraudster.

Playdate: The New Handheld Video Game System

Technology
Jason Tate

Panic, a company known for their Mac and iOS software, has announced the Playdate, a new handheld video game system:

Playdate is both very familiar, and totally new. It’s yellow, and fits perfectly in a pocket. It has a black-and-white screen with high reflectivity, a crystal-clear image, and no backlight. And of course, it has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB-C, and a headphone jack. But it also has a crank. Yes, a crank: a cute, rotating analog controller that flips out from the side.

It also includes a full season of original games, at no extra charge, delivered each week to the system — games in all sorts of genres that are all hopefully surprises.

This looks adorable. Panic is a Portland based company that has their office not that far from where I live; I walk by their customizable sign all the time. The company is also one of the main reasons I started using a Mac after discovering their editor Coda, which was basically revolutionary to me at the time. This little video game system looks like a whole lot of fun and I wish them the best of luck.

Taking Back Sunday Oral History

Taking Back Sunday
Jason Tate

Kerrang did an oral history of Taking Back Sunday:

We’d met Dave Stein, who was our lawyer for years, at a show and he gave me his card. He was like, ‘If you ever need a lawyer, let me know.’ He was kind of the New York hardcore lawyer. So once we started talking to Victory I reached out to Dave and asked him to look over the contracts. And he’s like, ‘Do not sign this.’ But at the time we weren’t thinking too far ahead – we just wanted to have a record out, so we did it anyway. And I don’t think we’d be where we are had we not been on Victory. They really gave us a large push and that really helped us.

Carly Rae Jepsen Talks New Album With NPR

Carly Rae Jepsen
Jason Tate

Carly Rae Jepsen talked with NPR about her upcoming album:

Our first single, “Now That I Found You,” was very much that euphoric, kind of top-of-the-mountain feeling. “Feels Right,” as well, has a very summery vibe to it. Maybe “Automatically in Love,” as well, which has a very ’90s feel to it; I was driving with Mariah Carey in my head around the time that we worked on that song. And then on the other side of the spectrum, I think the more intimate ones would be “The Sound” and “Right Words Wrong Time.”

Blink-182 in Second Place in Hall of Fame Fan Vote

Blink-182
Jason Tate

Blink-182 is currently number two in the in-museum “vote your choice” fan vote for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Since the start of the year, Blink-182 has led the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s in-museum “Voice Your Choice” fan vote. But a new contender has emerged.

Motley Crue overtook first place in the kiosk-driven voting this weekend. The popular ‘80s metal band has been surging since the release of “The Dirt” on Netflix in March.