Music

The latest news and reviews of music.

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Spotify may finally make the leap to Xbox One this fall (updated)
Sony and Spotify have been pretty cozy for the past few years on PlayStation, but it looks like the streaming service is going to show Xbox fans some love soon too. Reddit's unblinking eyes spotted Xbox's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb using the app on Xbox Live. The Verge independently confirmed with its off the record sources that an app for the Swedish music service was being tested internally, with a wide roll-out planned before the Xbox One X's launch November 7th. Now to speculate whether Microsoft will abandon Groove Music for Spotify the way that Sony did its Music Unlimited service.
Stream Lollapalooza performances live this weekend on Red Bull TV
Another summer big summer music festival is upon us. This weekend, artists converge on Chicago for four days of live tunes at Lollapalooza. If you can't make the trip, don't fret: Red Bull TV is streaming select sets to just about any TV device you might own. Coverage starts Thursday, August 3rd at 6:30PM ET with a pre-show and Cage the Elephant will properly kick things off at 7:35PM ET. Other acts who are scheduled to perform include Lorde, Muse, Run the Jewels, Wiz Khalifa, Phantogram, alt-J, The Shins and many more. The music starts earlier in the afternoon on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so if you don't have any plans, there are much worse things to do with your time.
Classic action game 'Another World' is headed to your turntable
If you've played Éric Chahi's classic action-adventure Another World (aka Out of this World), there's a good chance you remember the soundtrack. Large chunks of the game were punctuated by silence, but you knew something special was happening whenever Jean-François Freitas' ethereal, Vangelis-like score began to play. Now, you can relive those moments on your turntable. Black Screen Records is releasing a vinyl (plus a CD, we'd add) version of the soundtrack, making it available for the first time beyond the deluxe editions of the game's 20th anniversary release.
SoundCloud is close to getting a lifeline
It's grim times for SoundCloud between massive job cuts and talk of mismanagement, but help might be coming soon... at a steep cost. Bloomberg sources understand that SoundCloud is in "advanced" talks to sell stakes in the company to two (as yet unnamed) private equity firms. The deals would ensure the streaming music service stays afloat, but it would also hand majority control to outside companies. In essence, SoundCloud would be giving up its vaunted independence in order to keep the lights on.
Recommended Reading: Trent Reznor on Beats, Apple Music and more
In Conversation: Trent Reznor David Marchese, Vulture Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor helped craft Beats Music, the streaming service that would eventually become Apple Music after the tech giant purchased the popular headphone brand. On the heels of NIN's most recent EP release, Add Violence, the musician sat down with Vulture to chat about a range of topics. Among other things, Reznor talks Beats, Apple Music, streaming, his new music and lessons learned.
Jump between a dream and reality in Major Lazer's new music video
Major Lazer's latest EP, Know No Better, came out last month, surprising fans two years after the electronic hip-hop group's previous LP, Peace is the Mission. The original music video for the track — which features Travis Scott, Camila Cabello and Quavo on vocals — has a video game-style first person perspective that shows the unseen protagonist handing out flyers with the title printed on it to various strangers on the street. Now, though, the group has a totally new video for the track. While watching, you can click an icon to switch between two perspectives of a boy's life. It's fun to change viewpoints between his ordinary life and his aspirational dreams, and the story the video tells is both emotional and adorable.
Fender's Mustang GT amps pack an overkill of digital options
Playing the electric guitar in a cover band can be complex. You need to be able to sound like a wide range of different guitar players, each with their own distinct sound -- much of which is based on their unique amplifier and effects profile. The Fender Mustang GT series of amplifiers, consisting of 40-, 100- and 200-watt models, aims to squeeze a range of classic Fender sounds into a single digital cabinet. Imagine being able to sound like Prince, AC/DC and Chic in quick succession onstage without having to change out any of your gear. That's the Mustang GT promise, and -- for the most part -- Fender succeeds. With a full-featured set of pre- and post-effects modules, customizable presets and a deep catalog of amplifier emulation available, Fender has made it pretty easy to sound however you want, provided you're OK with a solid-state sound rather than a tube-based one.
Google Play Music and YouTube Red to merge into single service
YouTube Red and Google Play Music will eventually merge to create a new service. The move comes after months of speculation following Google's decision back in February to combine its YouTube and Play Music teams. According to The Verge, YouTube Music head Lyor Cohen said the company wanted to merge the services to help "educate consumers and bring in new subscribers". Google's complicated music offering currently spans three different apps. YouTube Music is a free app open to everyone but offers an enhanced experience if you're also signed up to YouTube Red, which gets rid of adverts on videos and lets you save them offline. People who sign up for YouTube Red also get access to Google Play Music, which is basically Google's version of Spotify. At the same time, people who sign up for Play Music will also get YouTube Red's benefits -- if you sign up for one, you get the other free.
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.
An iPod Shuffle for Spotify is surprisingly essential
Thanks to Baby Driver, we've all been reminded of our love affair for the MP3 player -- namely the iPod. Now that Apple Music, Spotify and others allow us to carry millions of songs on our phones at all times, the days of frantically loading a dedicated media player before leaving the house are long gone. However, that doesn't mean a tiny device that easily fits in your pocket is no longer a worthy music companion. Enter Mighty, an iPod Shuffle-like gadget that syncs Spotify playlists for offline playback and the most compelling case I've seen in awhile for a separate music player.
Google Play Music tweak adds a sidebar full of shortcuts
As a music streaming service, Google Play Music works well enough but its user interface leaves an awful lot to be desired. Following the mobile app's update that added persistent navigation buttons, as 9to5 Google spotted, Mountain View has added those to the web version as well. The dedicated icons for your music library, recent listening history and home tab reside on the left rail now, and hovering over the ellipses below those reveals top charts, new releases, radio stations and podcasts.
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.
Tidal's redesigned app puts more emphasis on music discovery
Tidal's been in the news recently, as Jay-Z debuted his new album 4:44 as a Tidal-Sprint exclusive (which wasn't without some controversy, as last-minute subscribers to the streaming music service weren't allowed access to the album). Then, just a week later, the album was released to other streaming services (well, except Spotify). But now, Tidal has some non-Jay-Z related news: An updated version of Tidal's app is out today, and it's got a completely new layout. In fact, it looks a lot like Apple Music and Spotify.
MelodyVR's music app will have songs from the biggest labels
When MelodyVR finally launches its virtual reality platform for music, it'll have experiences to offer from all three major record labels. After signing up both Warner and Universal Music within the past few months, it has now forged (PDF) a worldwide multi-year licensing and distribution deal with Sony Music Entertainment. The startup calls the team-up "an extremely significant milestone," since it will now be able to use Sony's vast catalog, which includes music from artists signed by Columbia, Epic, Legacy, Masterworks, RCA Records, Sony Classical, Sony Music Latin and Syco Music. According to VRFocus, experiences featuring Sony's tracks will launch on the platform, but the record label can use them elsewhere after some time.
SoundCloud explores underground music scenes in a miniseries
SoundCloud isn't done exploring new avenues just because it's facing tough times. The streaming audio service is partnering with The Fader on a documentary miniseries, SoundCloud Next Wave, that spotlights underground music scenes in six cities ranging from New York to Rio de Janeiro. The first episode (which focuses on LA's burgeoning goth rap scene) premieres on SoundCloud's YouTube channel on July 20th at 10AM Eastern, and you'll get a new episode each month for the rest of 2017. It's something of a gamble for SoundCloud, but it might be one of the company's wiser strategies given some of its recent messes.
Listen to tunes in Google Play Music's search results
If you use Google Play Music on the road, we have good news: you can listen to the latest summer jams faster than ever. In a mirror of an update to the web player from several months back, the streaming service revamped search results field in its Android and iOS apps, centering around "play" buttons for every result it finds. So long as you find what you're looking for, you can start playback the moment you've finished typing instead of visiting a dedicated search results page. Just be aware that it starts a radio station when you hit that button for a song -- you may not enjoy this feature so much if you only wanted to listen to one cut.
Jay-Z's '4:44' tops Billboard 200 chart following wider release
Clearly, Jay-Z learned a lot about the perils of permanent streaming exclusives from former Tidal buddy Kanye West. Jay-Z's 4:44 album has topped the Billboard 200 chart for the week ended July 13th, or the first week after its brief Tidal exclusive came to an end. The release managed the equivalent of 262,000 album sales (1,500 song streams are equal to one album) in the US, which makes it the fourth-largest release at this point in 2017. And significantly, he did this after ditching Spotify in April -- the tally comes largely thanks to Apple Music, iTunes downloads and (to a lesser degree) old-fashioned CD sales.
This iOS app makes creating and editing guitar tabs a breeze
One of the more tedious tasks of playing in a cover band is managing lyric and chord sheets. When you play a typical four-hour gig in a local bar, memorizing all that music is not always going to happen. You've got to study each song and learn your particular parts, sure, but having a cheat sheet with the verses and the chords on an iPad can really help keep you on track while you also manage your guitar, pedal effects and vocal performance. Gathering all this song data from the internet (or writing it out yourself) can take time. For me, the process usually involves finding the right transcription of the chords in the correct key online, copying the relevant bits from the web page and then creating a PDF on my computer for upload to Dropbox and my iPad so everyone can access it. An upcoming app called TabBank, currently in beta and set to release on July 27th, aims to simplify this process quite a bit, with a simple way to create and import chord sheets and tab right on an iPad or iPhone.
Twitter will livestream the Electronic Music Awards September 21st
If festival season has left you tapped out financially and physically, Twitter has a way for you to watch this year's Electronic Music Awards. Come September 21st, the microblogging service will broadcast electronic music's Grammy's from a "custom multi-stage warehouse venue" in Los Angeles' Downtown Arts District, as spotted by AdWeek. Other details are scarce at the moment, but the show promises more news will arrive ahead of the big night. Hopefully legendary producer Paul Oakenfold helping run the event will keep everything from devolving into a series of incomprehensible bass drops. But honestly, this seems like something that'd be better suited for Twitch than it is for Twitter's livestreaming efforts at this point.
Google Play Music's New Release Radio is available for all users
Google has officially announced New Release Radio, a station on Google Play Music that provides users with a daily selection of new songs they may like based on their listening history. The feature has actually been out in the wild for almost a month now, but originally it was positioned as an exclusive for Samsung users (though neither Google nor Samsung made an official announcement).

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