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Bono says you can blame him for that free iTunes U2 album
Remember back in 2014 when U2 gave away an album's worth of songs to every iTunes user in the world?
US government sells 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli's one-off Wu-Tang Clan album
Prosecutors didn't say who bought 'Once Upon a Time In Shaolin' or how much they paid.
An unborn baby recorded an album through biosonic MIDI
Luca Yupanqui's parents turned her in-utero movements into MIDI data.
Sleevenote is a high-res music player designed for album art
Tom Vek (yes, that Tom Vek) has designed a music player, one he hopes will break the curse of gadgets designed by musicians.
Netflix will make a movie about Martin Shkreli's rare Wu-Tang album purchase
The story behind Martin Shkreli's $2 million purchase of Wu-Tang Clan's 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' is coming to Netflix.
Spotify redesign makes it easier to play, favorite and download music
Today, Spotify is rolling out three new icons in its iOS app. The icons are meant to make it easier to add albums to your playlists, download albums to listen offline and quickly shuffle songs.
The band X Ambassadors created a music video for the visually impaired
For people who are blind or visually impaired, listening to a music video is often just like listening to the track. The band X Ambassadors wants to change that. They've teamed up with Microsoft to create an "audio-only music video" that's meant to allow blind, low-vision and sighted fans to enjoy the single "Boom" in a new way.
Thom Yorke's new album comes with a Netflix short film
The same day Thom Yorke's upcoming album ANIMA comes out, he'll release a short musical film directed by frequent collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson. The one-reeler will be set to three ANIMA tracks, and Yorke is expected to both score and star in the production. Netflix, which released a trailer today, calls the film a "mind-bending visual piece" and says it's best played loud.
Tenacious D created a YouTube series to accompany their new album
If you're wondering what Jack Black's been up to lately, other than starring in box-office-conquering movies, he's drawn every single frame of a YouTube show starring himself and Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass. The comedy-rock duo's web series is called Post-Apocalypto, which shares a name with their upcoming record.
Future earns highest-charting streaming-only album on Billboard 200
Future's new album, Beastmode 2, is now the highest-charting streaming-only album, Billboard reports, debuting at No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 200. With this album, Future has dethroned Chance the Rapper, whose Coloring Book became the first streaming-exclusive album to chart on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 8. Coloring Book also went on to earn Chance the Rapper the first Grammy awarded for a streaming-only album.
Tidal will debut an unreleased Prince album in 2019
Tidal and Prince's estate are done battling it out in court, ending things in good terms and with a new album, to boot. Jay-Z's streaming service has announced that it's debuting a new Prince album with previously unreleased songs in 2019. It will stream exclusively on Tidal for 14 days and will be available as a download seven days after it launches. Prince's estate will also release a physical version worldwide following Tidal's exclusive.
'Record Player' app searches Spotify when you snap a pic of an album
Say you're at a record store and you come across an album that you'd like to listen to before you buy it. Now there's an app that can help you out with that. It's sort of like Shazam, but for album covers, Pitchfork reports, and once you snap a picture of the album, it will find it for you on Spotify. The image you use -- whether uploaded from your camera roll or taken in the moment -- is sent to the Google Vision API, which will provide a guess as to what the image is. The app then uses that guess to search Spotify and surface the first result for you. The app was built on Glitch, Fog Creek Software's collaborative app-building platform that launched last month.
Jazz star Esperanza Spalding to record an album on Facebook Live
Other artists keep their music under lock and key until it's fully polished, but jazz star Esperanza Spalding wants to "rely on improvisation and first instinct" for her next album. That's why she's writing, recording and arranging 10 songs for it -- most with lyrics -- within a 77-hour period while streaming the whole process through Facebook Live. It'll be a tough three days, but based on Spalding's impressive résumé, she's more than qualified to accomplish her goal. The four-time Grammy Award-winning artist plays multiple instruments, has been a professional musician since she was 15 and has recently been named as a professor at Harvard University's Music Department.
Aphex Twin is the latest artist to open an online record store
Aphex Twin is opening an online record store. For his own music, of course. The Vinyl Factory reports that Richard D. James has started his direct-to-fans store with reissues of his back catalog including ... I Care Because You Do and newer stuff like Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2. More than that, there's a ton of digital-only and unreleased music on offer as well. What's available today isn't the half of it, though. "ALL Rephlex material will be going up here in due course+xtras," a note at the bottom of the site reads.
Australia's first vinyl factory in 30 years will open next year
Thanks to new production technology and the support of big companies like Sony, vinyl is hot these days. Trent Reznor is releasing his Quake score for LP, the Contra soundtrack is available as a record at Comic-Con this year, and Blu-ray versions of Deadpool and Logan come with their own vinyl counterparts. Now there's a new pressing plant set to open in Melbourne, making it the first modern record press in Australia in 30 years.
Jay-Z’s Tidal-exclusive ‘4:44’ went platinum in less than a week
Jay-Z's latest album 4:44 had a very exclusive release. It was available only on Tidal and new customers signing up to the streaming service days before the album dropped were also required to be Sprint customers in order to get access to 4:44. But despite those limitations, the album is the latest streaming-only release to go platinum. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tweeted the news today, meaning 4:44 hit the milestone in less than a week.
Jay Z’s ‘4:44’ album will be another Tidal exclusive
As you'd expect from the guy that owns Tidal, Jay Z is releasing a new album called 4:44 on June 30th, exclusively on ... Tidal. Also getting in on the action is Sprint, the US carrier that acquired a 33 percent chunk of Tidal earlier this year for $200 million. It will offer customers a six month Tidal HiFi trial and free access to the album, the first in a series of exclusives. "Jay Z is a global icon and we're giving customers and incredible opportunity to be among the first to experience his new album 4:44," said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure in a statement.
Facebook Albums will store any kind of status update
Next time you create a Facebook album for a trip or an event, you can toss everything in there for posterity, not just photos and videos. That means if you posted a text-only status update or checked-into a hotel, a theme park, a resto, a tourist spot or anywhere else, you can add them all to the album for that specific outing. According to TechCrunch, Facebook has already begun rolling out the changes to the web and to Android devices. We have no exact date for iOS, but the new features will apparently be available for iPhones and iPads "soon."
Jay-Z pulls another album from streaming services he doesn't own
While Jay Z took his album Reasonable Doubt off Spotify just before he launched his own music service , the artist has recently pulled his Blueprint albums. Pitchfork noticed the disappearance of the 2001 album from iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music and Apple Music. You can still listen to the majority of Mr. Carter's back-catalogue on music services besides the one he owns -- although he won't make as much money from it.
'Star Wars' is getting an official electronic music album
There are plenty of Star Wars-inspired songs and remixes (such as Meco's disco adaptations), but the legendary space fantasy series is finally getting something official... and you might want to give it a listen. The upcoming Star Wars Headspace will include electronic tunes that are either influenced by or reworks of the movies, most of them from artists you'll know if you're big on digital beats. The whole thing is produced by Rick Rubin, and there are tracks from Bonobo, Claude VonStroke, Flying Lotus, Kaskade and Röyksopp, among others.
