After announcing in September it was working with industry group DDEX on a standard for disclosing when AI is used in a song, AI credits are launching with DistroKid as the first partner. Unfortunately, even if the rest of the industry gets on board, voluntary labels likely won’t be enough as AI uploads threaten to overtake humans.
Boards of Canada have just confirmed that their first album in well over a decade, called Inferno, will be out on May 29th. I was already sold, but this cryptic 40-second-long teaser has me even more excited.
This is also your last chance to catch any performances you might have missed. Last week I missed out on Clipse, Young Thug, The Rapture, and Tomora, so they’re my priority. But I also am looking forward to Röyksopp, who didn’t make the stream last weekend. Head over to the official Coachella YouTube channel.
Last week we got special guest, Jack White. This week it’s Musgraves who gets that honor, after releasing the title track from her upcoming album Middle of Nowhere, the second single after “Dry Spell.” This weekend’s livestream replaces the stage with Yuma. That means no Model / Actriz or Drain, but you do get Armin van Buuren and a solo Boys Noize set. Watch here.
The YouTube livestream starts at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. This is your chance to catch anything you missed last weekend (Tomora wasn’t on my radar), and for artists who had some issues to iron them out (sound for Slayyyter’s set was rough). Here’s the schedule for tonight:
There are plenty of video synths that conjure pixels or warp video files. Glitch Boy loads playable NES ROMs and breaks them to create reactive art using audio or MIDI. It even has a built-in chiptune synth. Of course, the normal Kickstarter caveats apply.
While playing Fortnite Festival, if you want to sing along to songs, you’ll be able to use “any microphone that works in Fortnite on PC and Console,” while drummers can plug in “a Rock Band 4 or compatible MIDI drum kit,” according to Epic Games. The features launch on Thursday.
It’s a jam-packed lineup to close out the three-day festival. The full schedule is available here. In addition to those mentioned above, I’m really looking forward to Oklou, Clipse, and The Rapture. Which means I’m gonna have to rewind a lot to catch it all. Let me know who you’re excited about most in the comments.
You can see the full weekend schedule here. But the highlights of night two include the debut of the new collaborative project between Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize at 8PM PT / 11PM ET on the Sahara Stage. You can find all the live streams on the official Coachella YouTube channel. Let me know what you’re tuning into in the comments.
The billionaire investor is offering to take over the world’s biggest music company (and home to artists like Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar) through his hedge fund. The deal for UMG is valued at more than $50 billion and would install Hollywood superagent Michael Ovitz as chair.
Murphy Campbell’s nightmare isn’t over yet. Distributor Vydia has rescinded its claims to her YouTube videos. But her Facebook and Instagram posts about the incident have been removed for copyright infringement. Neither Meta nor Vydia have responded to a request for comment, but it’s unclear what could possibly have been infringing in this video (reposted by United Musicians & Allied Workers).
It makes it easy to flood streaming with AI Beyoncé ripoffs.
Murphy Campbell plays public domain ballads, but YouTube accepted the copyright claim anyway.
It’s no secret that musicians are generally not huge fans of AI. So obviously, a magazine for musicians “brought to you by ChatGPT and Suno” wouldn’t go over well. But Bass Magazine wants to assuage any fears, saying:
“We would never compromise our vision or our mission of bringing you the best bass content in the world for some high dollar sponsor to populate our issues in exchange for cash. That is simply unthinkable.”
The post then ends with that most timeless of internet pranks, the Rickroll.
0A portable turntable is probably the way to go if you’re starting out, but I might choose something cheaper.
The musician’s account disappeared after posting pictures from his no-phones-allowed concert to r/PaulMcCartney, spurring media reports that mods had banned him. However, as 404Media points out, the subreddit’s mods say it wasn’t them, and a site admin commented with an attempt at an explanation:
Hey all! Just for clarity, that account was never banned from the site (or the subreddit) there was a technical error that made it appear to be banned from the site. This has now been resolved. Sorry for any confusion this caused or issue for the mod team here!
Watch Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter join Fred Again for an absolutely amazing helmetless two-hour DJ set, featuring the wildest Usher drop I’ve ever heard. And don’t skip out on the video description, which includes not just the track list, but incredible timestamped notes like:
1:34:00 Oh Jesus Christ. This was maybe the most beautiful thing ive ever seen happen. Thats Thomas’s son singing in a song he made when he was 12, blended with Thomas playing (saying?) i cant do without u
Something Jimmy Iovine said in a recent interview caught Artist manager Joel Gouveia’s ear: “The streaming services, to me, are minutes away from being obsolete.” It sounds wild on its surface, but it got Gouveia thinking. He makes a compelling case that Spotify’s days are numbered, and what comes next could be interesting:
We are witnessing the death of the “Mass Audience” and the birth of the “Micro-Community.”
The music industry has spent a decade obsessing over how to get a million people to listen to a song once. The next decade will be defined by artists figuring out how to get 1,000 people to care forever.
It’s not just the country music scene that’s quietly embraced AI, artists across genres are using it to experiment with arrangements, demo new songs, and create sample material. But, songwriter Michelle Lewis told Rolling Stone, nobody wants to admit it. And producer Young Guru believes it’s more widespread than anyone realizes:
…it’s become common for hip-hop producers to make funk and soul samples out of AI, rather than license original music or hire musicians. Guru guesses that “more than half” of sample-based hip-hop is being made this way now.
[Rolling Stone]
It’s like liner notes meets Wikipedia. Premium users can tap a SongDNA card at the bottom of the Now Playing screen to show the writers, producers, and other contributors, as well as any samples or interpolations. Spotify says you can then tap on those to expose connections to other artists and songs:
It’s an interactive way to follow the connections between tracks and see how artists, eras, and genres intersect, giving you a deeper understanding of how what you’re listening to came together.
8
Verge Score
A loving tribute to Akai’s glory days that shows the competition how it’s done.
Last week, Michael Smith pleaded guilty to creating hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and then using bots to stream the songs “billions” of times. The scheme allowed Smith to earn over $8 million in royalties, according to the DOJ.
On Version History: how to play your voice like an instrument, with a little help from Chromeo.
I enjoyed this write-up of the Afroman defamation trial, which, by the way, he won. Mike Masnick cuts to the core: the police think they should be able to do whatever they want, including screwing up, without fear of embarrassment.
“The whole point is to make the cost of accountability so high that people stop trying. But Afroman showed up in an American flag suit and explained, calmly and clearly, that he makes funny songs, that these officers raided his house for no good reason, that they broke his stuff, and that he has every right to talk about it.” I think I’ll watch his videos again to celebrate.
