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19 Aug 2011 15:59

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Music, World: Another stage collapse: Belgian music fans grieve after Pukkelpop tragedy

  • Pukkelpop was cancelled Friday, a day after a collapsed stage, violent storm and uprooted trees killed five and injured 140 at the Belgian music fest, which included major acts (the Foo Fighters, Eminem) and up-and-comers (Odd Future, Crystal Castles). Many of the acts that played or were scheduled to play have offered condolences for the tragedy on Twitter. It’s the latest in a long line of devastating stage collapses this summer, and the worst so far by injuries. Sadly, a sixth person died in the Indiana State Fair incident from last week. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Aug 2011 11:04

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Music: Years later, Pitchfork explains why it stopped hyping Black Kids

  • If you were a music fan in 2008, you might have seen the Pitchfork review for Black Kids’ “Partie Traumatic” and asked yourself, “What the hell?!” Why’s that? Well, the band was built up by Pitchfork, with many people first hearing about them thanks to this review. Well, finally, with a couple of years of hindsight, Pitchfork has finally explained itself a little bit in their roundup of “One-List Wonders.” Key line: “Soon came signs it was all happening too fast.” Either way, “I’m Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” is still a great song. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Aug 2011 11:23

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Music, U.S.: Indiana stage collapse follows Flaming Lips, Cheap Trick incidents

  • We are all right. We are praying for our fans, and the people of Indianapolis. We hope you’ll join us. They need your strength.
  • The members of Sugarland • In a tweet sent out soon after last night’s devastating stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair, where Sugarland was performing last night. There has been a spate of these lately — just last weekend, The Flaming Lips suffered a bunch of damage to their gear after a similar stage collapse in Oklahoma which took out a massive video screen. And prior to that, Cheap Trick had a stage fall to the ground in Canada, nearly injuring the band and thousands of spectators. The Indiana situation was clearly the worst, however — five lives were lost and 40 people were injured, and those numbers could go up. Devastating. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

09 Aug 2011 20:46

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Music, Tech: Spotify slowly wins over America, one invite at a time

  • 1,400,000 number of Americans on Spotify, the all-you-can-eat music service that came to the U.S. last month
  • 175,000 of them pay for subscription; that’s 12.5% of the invite-only U.S. users, which is impressive source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Jul 2011 14:01

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Music, Tech: “New Pandora” does away with Flash and becomes more social

  • Pandora is getting rid of Flash. Their current site pretty much entirely runs on Flash, so a move to HTML5 is a big step for them, and as their site’s tech has gotten creaky over the years, a bit long-overdue. The moral of the story is that Pandora’s facelift looks really, really cool. Not to mention their renovations make the site more social, encouraging people to share music with their friends and making the entire process easier — it’s definitely something to look forward to, especially if you’re an avid desktop Pandora listener. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jun 2011 10:53

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Music: Lou Reed: Metallica collaboration “a marriage made in heaven”?

  • The record, not yet titled, features 10 songs composed by Reed with significant arrangement contributions by the band that suggest a raging union of his 1973 noir classic, Berlin, and Metallica’s ’86 crusher, Master of Puppets.
  • Rolling Stone writer David Fricke • Describing that bizarre Metallica-Lou Reed album the duo collaborated on. May we just say, could you pick two weirder albums to mash up? But that said, both Metallica and Reed seem uber-excited about the project, which is based around a bunch of songs Reed wrote for a German play. “A marriage made in heaven,” Reed said. “I knew it from the first day we played together: ‘Oh, man, this is perfection, right in front of me.’ ” It might be a bit before the project gets out, as neither Reed nor Metallica (who still are a multi-platinum-selling force) currently have a record deal. But then again, both are legendary enough that they probably have the money to start one. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Jun 2011 13:31

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Music: Clarence Clemons hospitalized after massive stroke

  • The beloved saxophonist of the E Street Band has had two brain surgeries since the stroke, and initially suffered paralysis on his left side, but he’s able to move his left hand now and his condition is still improving. Over the past few years, Clemons hasn’t had the best health — he’s had surgery on his hips, knees and back. Despite that, he has yet to miss a concert because he’s so passionate about making people happy. Recently, Clemons guested on Lady Gaga’s new album “Born this Way.” Here’s hoping he gets better and gets back to what so many people love him for — making music. source
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

09 Jun 2011 16:49

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Music: Today would have been Les Paul’s 96th birthday

  • Happy electric guitar day, everyone! Les Paul, the musical legend centrally responsible for developing the electric guitar, as well as a range of musical innovations (he also pioneered multi-track recording), was born today in 1915. Paul led a long and industrious life; and still regularly performed into his 90s, ultimately passing away in 2009 from pneumonia complications. In honor of Paul’s birthday, Google has a pretty cool logo variant up that lets you strum some guitar chords, definitely worth a look if you have a few idle moments. A tidbit about the man’s commitment: he shattered his right arm in a car crash, and had the doctors pin his elbow at a 90-degree angle so he could continue to play, even though he’d lost all movement at his elbow. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jun 2011 21:29

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Music: Bridging the piracy gap: Apple’s iCloud cleverly inverts Napster 1.0

  • We totally have to give Apple credit: The conceit around the iTunes portion of the iCloud service, while not exactly what we expected (it’s not Lala 2.0, sadly), manages to pull off an interesting trick — it creates a revenue model from a place where only piracy existed before. By upgrading your music’s quality and making it easily accessible from the cloud, it adds value inexpensively, and gets around a major sticking point for the major labels cleverly. And music industry officials see it as a positive. “It allows for revenue to be made off of pirated music in a way that consumers don’t feel that’s what they’re paying for, and that’s what I find fascinating about it,” noted Jeff Price, the CEO of TuneCore Inc., which helps independent artists sell their music online. Our music anywhere for $25 a year? Sure, we’ll pay that. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Jun 2011 14:50

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Music: Lady Gaga gets assist from Amazon in million-selling week

  • 1,108,000 number of copies of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” sold in its first week, the tenth-largest week of sales in SoundScan history
  • 1,140,000 number of copies 50 Cent’s “The Massacre” sold in its first week back in 2005; Gaga’s album is the largest sales week since then source
  • » Lady Gaga’s album set a record for digital sales, but Lady Gaga can’t get all the credit. Amazon was selling the album for 99 cents on its first day (even though it kind of backfired), contributing about 440,000 copies in the first week. Not surprisingly, Amazon’s deal upset some retail outlets, namely music stores who lost sales because of the insanely low price Amazon sold the album for. (Best Buy also had a similar deal, where they gave an album away with a cell phone. And it also sold at some kinda weird outlets, like CVS and Whole Foods.)
Posted by Justin Jones • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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