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Riding Shotgun With the Boss

Bruce Springsteen
Jason Tate

Dwight Garner, writing at The New York Times, reviewed Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography:

The book is like one of Mr. Springsteen’s shows — long, ecstatic, exhausting, filled with peaks and valleys. It’s part séance and part keg party, and then the house lights come up and you realize that, A) you look ridiculous dancing to “Twist and Shout” and, B) you will be driving home in a minivan and not a Camaro.

His writing voice is much like his speaking voice; there’s a big, raspy laugh on at least every other page. There’s some raunch here. This book has not been utterly sanitized for anyone’s protection, and many of the best lines won’t be printed in this newspaper. Most important, “Born to Run” is, like his finest songs, closely observed from end to end. His story is intimate and personal, but he has an interest in other people and a gift for sizing them up.

The 40th Anniversary Edition of the Voyager Golden Record

Kickstarter
Jason Tate

A Kickstarter has launched to press a reproduction of the Golden Record that was included on the Voyager space probes:

The Voyager Golden Record contains the story of Earth expressed in sounds, images, and science: Earth’s greatest music from myriad cultures and eras, from Bach and Beethoven to Blind Willie Johnson and Chuck Berry, Senegalese percussion to Solomon Island panpipes. Dozens of natural sounds of our planet — birds, a train, a baby’s cry — are collaged into a lovely sound poem. There are spoken greetings in 55 human languages, and one whale language, and more than one hundred images encoded in analog that depict who, and what, we are.

Tim Lambesis Filed a $35 Million Lawsuit Against Medical Team

Legal
Jason Tate

Graham Hartmann, writing at Loudwire, on how ex-As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has filed a $35 million lawsuit against a California medical team:

In a legal document filed by Lambesis’ representatives, Tim claimed “a nurse, doctor, and psychiatrist at the San Diego County Sheriff Department’s Vista Detention Facility and George F. Bailey Detention Facility acted with deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in May and June 2014 by denying him medication which had been prescribed for him prior to his incarceration.” According to a separate document on CaseText, that medication is revealed to be anastrozole, which was prescribed to Lambesis to combat side effects of withdrawal from anabolic steroids.

Tim Lambesis remains incarcerated for attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife.

J.K. Rowling Reviews the Violent Femmes

JK Rowling
Jason Tate

J.K. Rowling has reviewed the debut album from the Violent Femmes for Ruth and Martin’s Album Club:

I’m not quite sure how the Violent Femmes passed me by. I turned 18 the year this album came out, but I was obsessed with The Beatles at the time. Of contemporary bands I really loved, the standouts were the Smiths and the Psychedelic Furs. I loved any band with a great guitarist. I played guitar myself, mostly alone in my bedroom.

It’s possible that I heard the Violent Femmes but I’ve forgotten. They could easily have been part of the informal seminars on alternative music I received from the muso I dated in my late teens.

Balance and Composure Discuss Van Crash of 2013

Balance and Composure
Jason Tate

Balance and Composure spoke with Entertainment Weekly about their 2013 van crash:

Their van and trailer were totaled, news that devastated the group. “When you’re a touring musician, that’s like your home,” Van Ellis says. “It just made so much sense during the whole thing that we weren’t going to live throughout it. The severity of falling through this guardrail, I think it just shook us to the point where no one wanted to think about touring or being on the road in any capacity.”

Brian Fallon Talks About Critical Reaction to ‘Get Hurt’

Jason Tate

Brian Fallon spoke with Chicago Now and talked a little about his reaction to Get Hurt’s reviews:

I say things about Get Hurt but I don’t mean that I feel this way. I feel that that’s the way other people felt in the press. I don’t agree with them. I still think that Get Hurt – I think some of the stuff is good on there. I think some of the stuff is awesome actually.

But some of the critics didn’t get it – like Pitchfork didn’t get it – and they didn’t like me and they went after me for it. But they went real personal with it. They kind of slammed me as a dude. I was like, “You’ve never met me so how are you going to make assumptions about what my intentions are? That’s a little bit ridiculous.”

So what it taught me is to absolutely not regard whatever anyone else says about your intentions and what you’re doing. And it taught me to be stronger. I don’t look at them with any sort of malice or hatred, I look at them almost in gratitude and say, “You know what? You spawned me to be a better writer. Thank you very much.”

US Music Streaming Revenue Grows 57%

Jason Tate

Lucas Shaw, writing for Bloomberg, on a new RIAA report that shows US streaming revenue growing 57% in the first half of 2016:

For the good news to continue, sales of paid subscriptions must outpace the declining purchases of music, whether downloaded or on a CD. Physical music sales tumbled 14 percent while downloads also shrank by a double-digit percentage. Streaming holds promise because the cost of a one-year subscription — $120 — is more than the average consumer spent on CDs, even at the peak.

“We’re starting to see on-demand music streaming as no longer a thing that hipster college kids and young people do,’’ said Larry Miller, a former industry executive who now teaches music business at New York University.

Spotify and Tinder Team Up to Add Music to Profiles

Jason Tate

Jordan Crook, at TechCrunch, on the team up between Tinder and Spotify:

Just as Tinder allowed folks to connect their Instagram accounts to their Tinder profile, the same is now true for Spotify. Users will be able to check out each others’ most-played songs on Spotify.

But even if you don’t have Spotify, Tinder will still let you use Spotify to add your ‘Tinder Anthem’ to your profile. Think back to the MySpace days of auto-playing songs on profiles and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this will feel like.

See Cute Is What We Aim For, swipe left.

Read More “Spotify and Tinder Team Up to Add Music to Profiles”

Zane Lowe Discusses Apple Music / Beats 1

Jason Tate

Craig Mclean, with a profile of Zane Lowe for the Evening Standard:

“Deciding within a few hours to jump on a plane for Tokyo to interview Frank Ocean, and getting the go-ahead from him by text — ‘Yeah, do it, get on a plane’ — and that’s all we have: we don’t have a time, we don’t have a location and there’s a freedom in that which makes it incredibly exciting to be working in this modern framework.”

“This modern framework” is the music industry’s new frontier. It’s a still-virgin landscape where Apple runs the show and its expat Londoner sheriff always gets his man.

Jason Aldean Achieves Third Straight No. 1 Album

Jason Tate

Jason Aldean tops the Billboard charts this week. Drake comes in at number two, and the Suicide Squad soundtrack is at three.

They Don’t Know is also Aldean’s third consecutive No. 1 on the chart. His last two chart entries, which also happen to be his last two studio albums, likewise opened atop the list. His last album, 2014’s Old Boots, New Dirt, launched at No. 1 with 278,000 copies sold. Two years before that, Night Train rolled in at No. 1 with 409,000 sold.

Report: Label Let Frank Ocean Out of Contract Early

Frank Ocean
Jason Tate

Mesfin Fekadu, writing for the Associated Press, details how a source claims Frank Ocean was let out of his record contract early:

Even before Frank Ocean released his albums “Endless” and “Blonde” on Apple Music last month, he and his label decided the relationship was over.

A person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press that Ocean’s label, Def Jam, decided to let the singer out of his contract early because the relationship between the singer and the label was like a “bad marriage.” The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly speak about the topic, did not say how many albums Ocean was contracted for, but added that “it wasn’t going to work out.”

Halsey: Hey Buzzfeed, ‘Sorry I’m Not Gay Enough for You’

Halsey
Jason Tate

Hilary Hughes, writing at MTV, details Halsey’s tweet storm this weekend over a Buzzfeed article:

The more popular she becomes, the straighter she presents, so BuzzFeed says — and she has a big problem with that. She has since deleted her tweets, but went in before doing so: “tiresome analysis of my 1 year in the public eye and the ignorance of 8+ years of sexual discovery to determine if I’m truly queer. [And it] is part of a mentality so engrained in the erasure of bisexual ‘credibility’ even within the lgbt community.”

“Roadies” Gets Canceled

Jason Tate

Cameron Crowe’s tour drama “Roadies” has been canceled by showtime.

Despite the mega-talent both on screen and behind the camera, “Roadies” struggled to find an audience and was met with mixed reviews. Variety‘s Maureen Ryan wrote that the show “feels like a Spotify playlist in search of a reason to exist,” in her initial review. The finale brought in just over 500,000 viewers, according to Nielsen’s “Live +3” ratings. The 10-episode run wrapped on Aug. 28.

Blog: When a Crackpot Runs for President

The New York Times
Jason Tate

Nicholas Kristof, at The New York Times:

There are crackpots who believe that the earth is flat, and they don’t deserve to be quoted without explaining that this is an, er, outlying view, and the same goes for a crackpot who has argued that climate change is a Chinese-made hoax, who has called for barring Muslims and who has said that he will build a border wall and that Mexico will pay for it.

We owe it to our readers to signal when we’re writing about a crackpot. Even if he’s a presidential candidate. No, especially when he’s a presidential candidate.