Music

There was a flurry of headlines earlier this week claiming vinyl sales were down 33 percent this year, which would have been the first decline in 17 years. Don’t fret, though: it turns out sales were actually up 6.2 percent — Luminate, the firm which handles most of the music industry’s metrics, changed its methodology at the beginning of the year.

A new feature lets artists create playlists with the songs they’ve played at recent shows. It sounds like it’ll make it a lot easier to get familiar with all the songs an artist is going to play before you see them on tour.

Green Day’s Dookie is 30 years old — I’ll give my fellow millennials a moment to gather themselves — and to celebrate the band is releasing demastered tracks available on everything from a toothbrush to a Game Boy cartridge. Unfortunately they’re tough to buy (each track is only available via a drawing) but you can at least listen to them all right here.

Some turned out great, but others highlight just how messy this technology is, according to Pitchfork. From Shaad D’Souza’s review:

Thanks to enthusiasts at minidisc.wiki, you can still add songs to a MiniDisc from a modern computer using its web app. Which means we live in a world where a Pixel 9 Pro can talk to a MiniDisc player from 2002.

For another 8 hours or so, it’s still time for the monthly event where Bandcamp foregoes its revenue split with artists. It’s also now a sponsored event if that matters to you, but the music probably still sounds the same.

So said Daniel Plasche, co-director of a Berlin venue, while talking to The New York Times about the club’s decision to follow other nightclubs by putting stickers on customers’ smartphone camera lenses.

Magnopus helped make recent Metallica and Karol G Fortnite concerts.

The service will be shut down on November 28th according to a post on the streaming site, with subscription renewals being automatically canceled.

It’s the latest addition to the company’s Aira line of portable music makers and is primarily designed as a sampler allowing musicians to record and edit up to 48 samples and piece them together into a song with a 64 step sequencer.

Grant Kirkhope created music for games like Donkey Kong 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, but they’ve returned to what is probably their most recognizable work with an HD version of GoldenEye 007’s pause screen soundtrack.

The fraud was less about all the fake bands releasing fake songs created in partnership with an unnamed exec at an AI music company, and more about the many, many accounts he made to stream all of his AI tunes on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music in order to get paid.

Kamala Harris is the latest participant on Track Star, a TikTok game show where players identify a song for money.

The music producer recently confirmed that he composed two ringtones for Apple: “Daybreak” and “Chalet”. The tones were released back in 2019 putting them on iOS version 13 and later. Both tones have a relaxing vibe to them that would have fit right in with Flylo’s Adult Swim bumps that rewired an entire generation’s musical tastes...or at least just mine.

Colombian singer-songwriter Karol G will be the star of Fortnite Festival’s fifth season, which launches tomorrow. Like with other Festival seasons, there will be themed items based on the artist that you can acquire.

The new store lets “a select number” of Next Pro artists design merch that SoundCloud will create and sell for them, all while artists collect 100 percent of the profits. So far, the SoundCloud Store features merch from artists like Wiz Khalifa, Denzel Curry, Bktherula, and others.

Panasonic resurrected the legendary Technics 1200 turntable eight years ago, but Tamás Borján’s version will appeal to both nostalgic DJs and Lego fans.

The EP-1320 “instrumentalis electronicum” is preloaded with Dark Ages instruments and effects, including the hurdy gurdy, gittern, tambour, plus swordfights and “two separate witches.”

Responding to the RIAA’s copyright lawsuit, AI songmaker sites defended their models as being like kids learning rock and roll or tools enabling creativity. Country artist Tift Merritt had a different take after being shown a song AI music generator Udio spat out when prompted to mimic her style:

The new video for Porter Robinson’s “Easier to Love You” features some gorgeous animation, courtesy director Tomoyasu Murata. It’s almost enough to make you forget how sad it is. (For those unfamiliar with his work, check out this interview I did with Robinson back in 2022.)