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Dr. Dre classic 'The Chronic' comes to more streaming services on 4/20
The classic rap album 'The Chronic' will be available just in time to celebrate its namesake.
The work-from-home gear you should actually buy
Working from home is difficult even in the best of times. Here are some essential gadgets and services that can help you stay calm, cool, and productive.
Apple Music will pay up to $50 million of indie label royalties in advance
Apple has set aside $50 million to help indie musicians affected by COVID-19.
Music streaming subscriptions grew by nearly a third in 2019
Streaming music still has a lot of room to grow, it appears. Counterpoint Research has determined that paid music subscriptions jumped 32 percent in 2019 to reach 358 million thanks to a mix of exclusives, phone service bundles, regional price cuts and extended trial periods. Not that the services will want to get complacent -- competition is heating up, according to analysts.
Apple Music's Come Together space puts its upbeat playlists in one place
Building on the AI-generated Get Up! Mix the company unveiled last week, Apple is now adding a new section to Apple Music called Come Together that features a variety of playlists designed to help you get through long days stuck inside. In all, there are seven new playlists to check out. And as you might imagine, they cover the gamut of genres and moods.
Apple Music's AI-generated upbeat playlist helps you cope with reality
Apple is trying something new to keep people's spirits up during the coronavirus pandemic. In Apple Music, it's introducing a new algorithmic playlist called the Get Up! Mix that the company says is full of "happy-making, smile-finding, sing-alonging music." With the help of human editors, it will update the playlist each week with new songs. Think: Discovery Weekly, but with a focus on playing tunes that will encourage good vibes -- though there's the promise of discovering new music as well.
Apple Music's Beats 1 station will broadcast from hosts' homes
Office workers aren't the only ones who can work from home during the coronavirus pandemic -- radio DJs can do so, too. Show hosts on Beats 1, Apple Music's internet radio station, will be broadcasting from the safety of their homes starting today. According to Apple, they will use FaceTime on their iPhones to conduct interviews with popular musicians like Elton John and Hayley Williams. It's not clear whether or not the anchors will use iPhones to record the non-interview sections of their shows, but it would be surprising if they opted for smartphones over more professional audio equipment such as condenser microphones and preamps. However, exclusive programs from Stone Age's Josh Homme, Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig and more will indeed be recorded on their iPhones.
Apple Music's Replay 2020 playlist tracks your favorites week-by-week
You don't have to sit tight until December to start your 2020 retrospective. As promised, Apple Music has made its automatic Replay 2020 playlist available to subscribers through its beta web player. You'll have to visit the site through a mobile browser to add the playlist (the desktop page seems stuck on Replay 2019 as we write this), but you can get an automatically updating look back at your top tracks of the year well before spring has even started.
Pandora's Apple Watch app will soon stream music without an iPhone
Next time you go for a run or to the gym, you might be able to leave your phone behind but still listen to whatever music you want on the fly if you're a Pandora premium subscriber. The Apple Watch app is being updated so that it no longer needs to be tethered to an iPhone to stream music or podcasts. As long as you've got a WiFi or cellular data connection, you can do just that. Engadget has tried this out and verified it works, but we've also learned that the app update is happening in stages, so not everyone will have this feature yet.
Lawsuits claim Amazon, Apple and more are streaming unlicensed music
When you walk into a bar, hotel or store, you probably hear music. The same goes for when you tune into a TV channel or radio station. Those businesses are supposed to pay royalties to the artists for using their music. Collection firms like Pro Music Rights (PMR) are tasked with monitoring these things. And they've had a lot more work on their hands, now that they need to keep track of streaming services which must properly license the songs they add to their libraries. PMR -- which sued Spotify last year -- alleges that 10 of the biggest services have been streaming unlicensed music from artists the company represents, and has filed lawsuits against each.
Apple Music partnered with the NBA for its latest curated playlist
While Apple Music has dipped its toes into year-end reviews and the like, it's fair to say playlists haven't been as much of a focus for the platform as say Spotify and YouTube Music. You won't, for example, find an algorithmically-generated soundtrack tailored to your pet's tastes on Apple Music. But if you're a basketball fan, there's a good chance you'll hear the company's newest effort soon enough.
Streaming now accounts for 80 percent of the US music market
Streaming has completely reshaped the face of the music industry over the last decade, with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music proving to be overwhelmingly popular with music fans. The Recording Industry Association of America has revealed some stats that underline the mammoth sea change. The organization says streaming accounts for 80 percent of the US music market, compared with seven percent in 2010. Streaming subscriptions rose from about 1.5 million to around 61 million between 2010 and the first half of 2019, according to the RIAA.
Apple reportedly spends big to bring Billie Eilish documentary to TV+
Apple loves Billie Eilish. It didn't only name her as Artist of the Year for the first Apple Music Awards, it also reportedly paid her $25 million for the right to stream a documentary following her life after she released her debut album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. The documentary, which was co-produced by Eilish's own record label, will not be available through Apple Music, though: It will be released through Apple TV+ instead.
Apple Music Replay highlights your favorite tunes of the year
Apple Music has been around for long enough that you can start reminiscing about years past, and Apple is banking on that nostalgia for its latest addition. It's debuting an Apple Music Replay feature that highlights your favorite tunes not just from the past year, but every year you've been a subscriber. It creates custom, shareable playlists for each year and tells you which artists, albums and songs dominated your ears. In my case, that's a whole lot of trance, jazz and ambient.
Apple Music student plans now come with Apple TV+ for free
Yes, you read that correctly. Today, Apple confirmed that it will be bundling Apple TV+ with its Apple Music student plan, which currently costs $4.99 per month. The deal will be available to new subscribers for "a limited time," the company clarified, as well as students who signed up for the music plan long before Apple TV+ was announced. Access will run out once the user loses their student status (i.e. they graduate or drop out) or if they decide to cancel their subscription. The offer was first revealed by Hailee Steinfeld (Pitch Perfect 2, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse), the star of upcoming Apple TV+ exclusive Dickinson on Instagram yesterday. Spotify and Hulu have a similarly priced student bundle. Apple's deal is arguably more cohesive -- and could lead the way to some kind of 'mega bundle' with Apple Arcade -- but Hulu has a broader, albeit ad-supported library of shows. Which subscription is better value? We'll let you be the judge. We wouldn't be surprised, though, if many students simply opted for both -- $10 per month is cheaper than a standard Netflix sub, after all.
Seamlessly compare the 2019 remix of R.E.M.’s ‘Monster’ to the original
It's hard to believe, but it's been 25 years since R.E.M. released Monster. And, like any classic album approaching such a milestone, it's getting a massive reissue complete with a remastered version of the album, demos and outtakes, plus two discs worth of live material. But, perhaps most interesting, there's also a remix of the album done by original producer Scott Litt. Some of the changes are not subtle, and for something that has been in the pop culture consciousness for so long, there's bound to be some brush back. (For instance, ditching the stuttering tremolo guitar in "What's the Frequency, Kenneth" seems pretty brazen.)
Zane Lowe's new Beats 1 show is all about new music
This summer, Apple created New Music Daily, a curated playlist with the latest and most popular tracks from around the world. Today, it's launching a companion radio broadcast on Beats 1. The weekly show, "New Music Daily with Zane Lowe," will feature interviews with artists, commentary and songs from the playlist. The first episode premieres today at 12PM ET (9AM PT) with guests Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and Coldplay's Chris Martin.
Fender Songs is an interactive chord book that syncs with Apple Music
Don't believe the hype: The guitar isn't dying. But the industry that surrounds the instrument is definitely in a transitional period, to put it politely. Fender has weathered a lot of the storm by focusing one thing: getting more people to play guitar. Simply building decent affordable instruments isn't enough, though. So a couple of years ago it launched Fender Play an app and subscription service that delivers guitar, bass and ukulele lessons straight to people's computers and phones. And Fender Tune (which, frankly, is a must have for any guitarist) has an encyclopedia's worth of alternate tunings, scales and chords at players fingertips, making them less likely to abandon the instrument.
Serato's DJ software is ready for macOS Catalina
One downside about using your Mac to DJ is that every system update carries some risk of incompatibility or error, and the recent change to Catalina was more drastic than others. That's because Apple forcibly ejected iTunes in favor of splitting duties between more iOS-like Music, Podcasts and TV apps. While most people could move on with a few adjustments, DJ software that linked to iTunes for indexing and creating playlists of music needed an update to deal with the new system. Now Serato has announced that DJ Pro 2.3 and DJ Lite 1.3 are compatible with macOS Catalina, ready to load their libraries automatically from the new Music app. Separately, the company said that its Studio 1.3.1 software is also supported on the new OS,but Serato Sample and Pitch 'n Time Pro and LE are "actively being worked on."
Recommended Reading: The redesigned WWE Network
WWE Network 2.0: How WWE rebuilt its streaming service after a split with Disney Chris Welch, The Verge After a flashy reveal at CES a few years ago, the WWE Network is by all accounts a success, amassing well over a million subscribers by early 2019. Disney threw a wrench in the plans when it bought BAMTech, the company that had successfully constructed streaming services for the likes of Major League Baseball and HBO Now. It was also what WWE relied on for its 24/7 buffet of choke slams and live events. WWE saw the writing on the wall, and rebuilt its streaming library from the ground up.
