Ben Travis, writing at Empire:
Elsewhere, Wright is continuing to work on his documentary about the cult band Sparks, and his previously-mooted Baby Driver sequel is still in the works. “A first draft of Baby Driver 2 exists,” he confirms, adding that it introduces a whole swathe of new characters following the original’s high body-count, and “takes the story further”.
Scott Tobias, writing at The Ringer:
Fyre and Fyre Fraud arrive at many of the same conclusions about what happened with the festival, and both documentaries place much of the blame on McFarland, a scam artist who was subsequently sentenced to six years in federal prison for wire fraud. However, the major difference between them is that the Hulu doc has an exclusive interview with McFarland and the Netflix doc does not. In the course of preparing a profile on Chris Smith (American Movie, Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond) for The Ringer, coming later this week, I asked Smith on Monday about the Hulu documentary that was released earlier in the day. What he said wound up sparking a kind of ethics-off between the two camps.
Maroon 5 were the biggest act on the radio in 2018:
The band finished 2018 as the biggest act on U.S. radio airwaves, according to Nielsen Music. The group’s catalog of songs collected 8.58 billion audience impressions across all monitored radio stations, from 1.95 million plays of their tunes.
Drake was the second most-heard act on the radio last year, with 8.15 billion in audience impressions, while Imagine Dragons (7.18 billion), Post Malone (7.14 billion) and Ed Sheeran (7.08 billion) rounded out the top five biggest radio acts of 2018.
The founder of Coachella talked with the LA Times about a variety of topics, including the controversial “radius clause:”
The radius clause is part of all business to some extent. You can’t put a car dealer every block; a car dealer has a region. These artists generally come back later that year. Sometimes two more times that year. So it’s just a moment of time that there’s a radius clause on that. Ours is more for that first part of the year right before Coachella.
Human beings trying to make a living playing shows, car dealerships, same thing.
David Brooks, writing at Billboard:
When senior executives from Coachella parent Goldenvoice explained that the dome would be impossible to build in four months and would require the AEG-owned concert promoter to rearrange the entire festival site and remove a large section of portable bathrooms, West became irritated, declaring that he was an artist with a creative vision who shouldn’t be spending his time talking about port-a-potties.
Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have been tapped to pen Sony Pictures and Mattel Films’ “Master of Universe” reboot with brothers Adam and Aaron Nee still directing.
Mattel Films is partnering with Sony Pictures on the feature film, which is based on Mattel’s beloved toy-line that spawned a successful animated TV series (1983-85) as well as a 1987 film. The property centers on the warrior He-Man, the last hope of a magical land called Eternia. Dolph Lundgren starred in the original pic as the title character, while Frank Langella played the villainous Skeletor.
Sarah Perez, writing for TechCrunch:
This has led Spotify to believe that influencers in the podcast community will be able to bring their community with them when they become a Spotify exclusive, and then further grow their listener base by tapping into Spotify’s larger music user base and, soon, an improved recommendation system.
Personally, I think an “exclusive” to one platform ‘podcast’ isn’t really a podcast. It’s a Spotify radio show. Which, cool, that’s fine, but if it’s not available via an RSS feed to any podcast player, it’s not a podcast.
Kashmira Gander, writing for Newsweek:
A rare ear condition has left a woman only able to hear women’s voices.
The woman from Xiamen, on China’s east coast, knew something was wrong when she woke up and couldn’t hear her boyfriend’s voice, MailOnline reported citing AsiaWire. The next morning, an ear, nose and throat specialist at Qianpu Hospital told Ms. Chen that she had a form of low-frequency hearing loss known as reverse-slope hearing loss. This meant she was unable to hear lower-frequency sounds, including the average male voice.
After a report earlier this week that the location of almost every phone in the United States could be bought, the carriers are saying they’ll stop doing that:
AT&T said Thursday it will stop selling its customers’ location data to third-party service providers after a report this week said the information was winding up in the wrong hands.
The announcement follows sharp demands by federal lawmakers for an investigation into the alleged misuse of data.
Joseph Cox, writing for Motherboard:
Nervously, I gave a bounty hunter a phone number. He had offered to geolocate a phone for me, using a shady, overlooked service intended not for the cops, but for private individuals and businesses. Armed with just the number and a few hundred dollars, he said he could find the current location of most phones in the United States.
The bounty hunter sent the number to his own contact, who would track the phone. The contact responded with a screenshot of Google Maps, containing a blue circle indicating the phone’s current location, approximate to a few hundred metres.
The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks.
Holy shit. This is outrageous.
Daniel Kreps, writing at Rolling Stone:
Leaving Neverland, a documentary that accuses Michael Jackson of sexually abusing a pair of young boys, is set to premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
“At the height of his stardom, Michael Jackson began long-running relationships with two boys, aged 7 and 10, and their families,” the film’s synopsis states. “Now in their 30s, they tell the story of how they were sexually abused by Jackson, and how they came to terms with it years later.”
The two-part, 233-minute Leaving Neverland, named after Jackson’s famed California ranch, will receive its world premiere as part of the festival’s Special Events category before airing on HBO this spring.
A sequel to Venom, which made a truckload of money, is in the works:
Following box office smash “Venom,” Sony Pictures is putting the wheels in motion for a sequel to the antihero adventure. The studio has tapped Kelly Marcel, one of the screenwriters from the first movie, to pen the script.
Sources close to the negotiation tell Variety that, although an exact amount couldn’t be unveiled, Marcel’s deal was a significant one. She will also executive produce the follow-up, which will see Tom Hardy return as the eponymous symbiote. Marcel was also a producer on the first pic.
Nathan J. Robinson, writing at Current Affairs:
I’d like to send a message, then, to those who like Peterson, or those young men who think Ben Shapiro is a “cool kids’ philosopher,” or those who find Sam Harris profound: You are missing out on the real world of ideas. You are accepting a shallow substitute for the real thing, and it is a dead end. These men do not have solutions. They have pseudo-solutions. If you are depressed, if you are alone, if your job sucks and you aren’t sure where your life is going, what you need is not the shallow bromides of _12 Rules for Life_sc. You need to come and join the left.
There is a misconception, pushed by people like Shapiro and Peterson, that “the left” consists of a very particular strain of “social justice” thinking that traffics in making white people, especially men, feel ashamed all the time.
Mark Mulligan, writing at the Music Industry Blog:
YouTube is the dominant music streaming platform, with 55% of consumers regularly watching music videos on YouTube, compared to a combined 37% for all free audio streaming services. YouTube usage skews young, peaking at nearly three quarters of consumers under 25. Although YouTube leads audio streaming in all markets — even Spotify’s native Sweden — there are some strong regional variations. For example, emerging streaming markets Brazil and Mexico see much higher YouTube penetration, peaking at close to double the level of even traditional music radio in Mexico. Indeed, radio is feeling the YouTube pinch as much as audio streaming. 68% of those under 45 watch YouTube music videos compared to 41% that listen to music radio. The difference increases with younger audiences and the more emerging the market.
Lauren Hough, writing at HuffPost:
This is the stuff I can’t remember — how a particular day unfolded. Maybe the next job was the Great Falls, Virginia, housewife who answered the door in some black skimpy thing I never really saw because I work very hard at eye contact when faced with out-of-context nudity. She was expecting a man. I’m a 6-foot lesbian. If I showed up at your door in a uniform with my hair cut in what’s known to barbers as the International Lesbian Option No. 2, you might mistake me for a man. Everyone does. She was rare in that she realized I’m a woman. We laughed about it. She found a robe while I replaced her cable box. She asked if I needed to use a bathroom, and I loved her.
This was a great read.
