Music

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:

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:

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:

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 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:

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.

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.

Experimental musician and YouTuber Hainbach posted a clip on social media using a humble kalimba to create epic sounds that would make Hans Zimmer jealous. Now he’s explained how to recreate the Earth-shaking drones, but fair warning, it calls for some pretty obscure and expensive gear.

For those of you not familiar, Afroman was raided by the police and then made two music videos (“Will You Help Me Repair My Door“ and ”Lemon Pound Cake”) about it. The officers sued him for using surveillance footage of their raid in the videos. On cross-examination during the trial, Afroman gave a stirring speech on the importance of the First Amendment. He’s also released another video, “Battle Hymn of the Police Whistleblower.”

It’s a joke so good half the comments section had to make it, but sad to say it’s the other Sotomayor who dropped Terrence’s album of the week (which, I’m happy to confirm, is indeed a total bop).

I love tools that let you make music based on a simple set of rules. Tim Holman created this one based on a YouTube video in which notes are triggered by a simple binary counter. Now if only I could get this out of Chrome and into my DAW.

People are tired of not owning anything, iPods are popular again, and Tidal is trying to cash in. You don’t need a subscription to buy songs, and the company is only taking a 10 percent cut, but there’s an extra service fee if you use Apple’s in-app payment system.

Bitwig teased its latest version back in August, and it’s finally here. There are tons of new editing features, like automation clips, which make it easy to create repeating patterns for any parameter. You can also lock projects to a key signature to ensure you never hit a wrong note.

MTV Rewind collects broadcast clips and music videos from YouTube and strings them together to recreate the experience of actually watching MTV in its heyday. There’s even a collection of 98 videos that attempts to piece together the first full day of broadcast, complete with classic bumpers.

The BBC’s hottest take in 1986 about kids making music on computers is, let’s say, questionable. But watching kids create a composition in this recently dug up clip on what appears to be a Yamaha CX5M and seeing how far music software has come is fascinating.

The next one won’t be until May 1st, so if you’ve been itching to pick anything up, maybe today is the day. Let me know what you’re grabbing in the comments. I’m eyeing a few things, including the collab between Montreal rapper cropscropscrops and NYC producer Vaygrnt: We’ve Been After Each Other.

I’m at the courthouse in downtown Manhattan, where the DOJ and 40 state and district attorneys general are accusing the entertainment titan of maintaining an illegal monopoly that drives up ticket prices.

The band didn’t mince any words in the statement after a choral version of the song was used in a video claiming that “Thousands of American families have been torn apart because of criminal illegal alien violence,” saying:

Deezer started labeling AI content last year. Now Qobuz is doing the same. It’s also enacting an AI charter promising “The heart of Qobuz is and will remain human,” saying curation and editorial won’t be AI-driven. It stopped short of banning AI content, which some customers have been asking for.

Australian mobile carrier Telstra launched Second Life Sounds to raise awareness of the discarded electronics in landfills and collecting dust. I don’t know how much of an impact this box of repurposed mobile phones, game consoles, and old cables is going to have, but it’s a good reminder to revisit Since I Left You.