Music

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Pirates swamp online stores with counterfeit music CDs
It can be easy to forget that CDs still represent a significant chunk of the music industry's revenue in the streaming era, but pirates certainly haven't forgotten. The Wall Street Journal has learned that counterfeit CDs are a serious problem at Amazon and other online stores. Bootleggers (frequently from China) produce discs that are increasingly similar to the real deal and sell them for slightly less than legitimate copies, making them look like bargains instead of obvious frauds. And they aren't always coming from obscure suppliers, either. In an RIAA investigation, Amazon fulfilled 18 out of 44 CD orders identified as counterfeit.
Trump made a 30-year-old Janet Jackson song a hit again
Memes and Saturday Night Live sketches have been the only bright spots coming out of this year's televised garbage fires presidential debates. Last night's final meeting between priapic Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was no different. But rather than a mustachioed man in a red sweater asking about climate change, we got Trump interrupting Clinton, calling her a "nasty woman" at one point. As a result Spotify reports that following the debate, streams of Janet Jackson's "Nasty" have jumped 250 percent.
Smart ping pong paddles remix music to the speed of play
I love playing table tennis, but my backhand topspin is average at best. I'll play for an hour and grow tired of chasing wayward balls, knowing that I'll never have a smash quite like Peco from Ping Pong. Never mind -- now I can cut loose with a game of "Ping Pong FM" instead. The modified bats, which have contact microphones inside, log when you've hit the ball and remix music accordingly. Exchange slices too slowly and the song will drop to a lower tempo; likewise, driving the ball with some vicious top spin will cause it to speed up. You can try to match the beat or purposefully remix the music in weird and wonderful ways -- it's entirely up to you.
The Weeknd's new music video is the FPS you never wanted to play
Canadian music artist The Weeknd dropped a music video today for his just-released single False Alarm, and it's a doozy -- a bank heist gone bloody from a gun-toting robber's first-person perspective. If you love a bleak FPS experience of unwilling hostages, shot cops and dead buddies backed by lyrics about hollow modern romance, this is the vid for you.
Pandora rebrand hints at its future in on-demand music
Pandora has been promising a big shift to on-demand music ever since it bought Rdio in 2015, and it's hinting at that sea change through a very conspicuous way: its branding. The company has given itself a new look that, as the company puts it, reflects the nature of music as a "personal experience." The days of that staid-looking "P" and matching word logo are over. Instead, you'll see a look more reminiscent of a tech startup, with a "dynamic" brand that mixes up patterns and colors.
Lady Gaga album leaks through Amazon's Echo speaker
Lady Gaga is starting to reveal some of the songs on her upcoming album Joanne, but it might not be quite the controlled release she was hoping for. Fans with Amazon's Echo speakers recently discovered that they could listen to 30-second previews of currently unavailable songs from the album just by asking Alexa to "play Joanne by Lady Gaga." You couldn't do that on Apple Music, Spotify or even Amazon's own website. The trick only worked in the US and has since been shut down, but it's a reminder that it's no longer enough to hide store listings these days. If you're going to keep music under lock and key before its release, it has to be virtually non-existent online.
The 'Final Fantasy XV' soundtrack was a decade in the making
What were you doing 10 years ago? Try to think back. Maybe you had a different job or lived in another apartment. I was still a college student, waiting tables at a pub in my spare time. It feels like a lifetime ago. Now, consider this: Back then, Japanese composer Yoko Shimomura had just been asked to work on Final Fantasy XV. She wrote the first track in 2006, while it was still called Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Ever since, she's been waiting. Waiting and working through 10 years of tumultuous development, for the moment that fans could hear her work as it was intended -- as part of the full game.
Spotify ads briefly served malware to your PC
Some Spotify listeners got more than just free music with their ad-supported software. Multiple users report that the streaming service was serving malware-laden ads that would pop up your default web browser in a bid to compromise your system. Reportedly, some of these didn't even require your input to do damage. And they weren't specific to any one platform, either -- Linux, Mac and Windows users all saw the same behavior, although it's not clear that the hostile code could damage all three platforms.
Stream performances from the Austin City Limits Festival this weekend
Planning on a weekend at home? Allow us to provide an entertainment suggestion. Like it does with Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, Red Bull TV is providing music fans who aren't making the trip a way to watch live performances from this weekend's Austin City Limits Music Festival. The livestreaming starts tomorrow at 3PM ET and runs through Sunday with LCD System, M83, Major Lazer, Local Natives, Mumford & Sons and many more scheduled to take the stage.
Pacemaker's shareable, editable 'mixtapes' make everyone a DJ
Ever since the original Pacemaker DJ device in 2008, the Swedish team has been rethinking how we mix music. Today, Pacemaker's iOS app gets an overhaul that drags the mixtape well and truly into 2016. Pacemaker had long since moved on from being a facsimile of the DJ booth, instead allowing all music lovers to pick tunes from Spotify, and create seamless playlists stitched together by the app's in-house AI DJ "Mållgan." Today Pacemaker expands on that with a bunch of social features that blend elements of Soundcloud and Spotify with, of course, a little DJ twist.
Raise some Hell on your commute with the 'Doom' soundtrack
In case you wanted to listen to the crushing beats and guitar riffs of Doom's soundtrack during your daily trip to work or school, now's your chance. Composer Mick Gordon's industrial-metal score is available to purchase and stream from Google Play, iTunes and Spotify. A tweet from Gordon outlines what's available in the digital version: 31 tracks with new mixes spanning a 128 minute runtime. And at least a few pentagrams and numbers of the beast if you run it through a spectrogram.
Spotify launches in the world's second biggest music market: Japan
After protracted deal-making with the country's record labels, Spotify has finally launched in Japan. To sweeten the deal to prospective listeners, it's already putting particular focus on the service's lyric display feature -- and the karaoke possibilities that (vaguely) come with that. But what's another country in Spotify's empire? Japan is the second largest music market in the world; Bloomberg pegs it at around 300 billion yen (almost $3 billion). The country continues to sell physical music media like CDs well -- it's the country where Tower Records stores still lives on. Spotify Japan has launched both a free ad-supported service as well the typical 980 yen per-month ($9.70) subscription -- it's in invite-only beta for now.
Google hires industry vet Lyor Cohen as YouTube's head of music
In a music world where exclusives and direct ties to artists are increasingly important, Google is hoping to give YouTube a boost with its latest hire: Lyor Cohen. The former Def Jam president has most recently been heading up his 300 Entertainment label that started in 2013 with financial backing from companies that included Google. In a letter to employees, Cohen said he will continue running 300, which has been home to artists including Fetty Wap, Migos and Young Thug for another 60 days.
Spotify is in 'advanced talks' to buy SoundCloud
Those rumors that SoundCloud is shopping itself around? They just got more substantial. Financial Times sources understand that Spotify is in "advanced talks" to buy SoundCloud. Details of the terms are still scarce at the moment, but it won't surprise you to hear that Spotify is declining to comment. We've asked SoundCloud for its take as well.
Music labels sue YouTube ripping site over piracy
With the downfall of the Pirate Bay and Kickass Torrents, users are turning to another way to get illegal songs: ripping YouTube streams. Record labels have taken note of the problem and sued the largest site, YouTube-mp3.org for $150,000 per violation. They say the site has up to 60 million users and and hosts tens or hundreds of millions of illegal downloads per month. "It should not be so easy to engage in this activity in the first place, and no stream ripping site should appear at the top of any search result or app chart," says RIAA president Cary Sherman.
Spotify's Daily Mixes use your listening habits to make playlists
Spotify has been keen on adding new discovery features to its service for a while now. Today, the streaming option announced yet another tool that keeps your playlists fresh. The new feature is called Daily Mixes and it compiles six different playlists that are constantly updated based on your listening habits. Each mix contains over a dozen songs and more tracks load as you listen so you don't have to worry about running out of material.
Alan Turing's groundbreaking synthesizer music restored
Alan Turing is known for a few small achievements, like helping end World War II, laying the groundwork for modern computers and developing the "Turing test" for machine intelligence. You may not be aware, however, that he paved the way for synthesizers and electronica by inventing the first computer-generated musical tones. A pair of researchers from the University of Cantebury have now restored the first-ever recording made from Turing's "synthesizer."
Fender's FXA2 in-ear monitors sound great onstage and off
When you think "Fender," your brain conjures up images of guitars, of long-haired tattooed musicians exploding into ear-piercing solos. It's an appropriate assessment -- the Stratocaster (or one of its many clones) is usually the first instrument of aspiring rock gods. What you don't think about are earbuds. But after a recent acquisition, the guitar maker is hoping to change that with its line of in-ear monitors.
Deezer's family streaming plan is now available across Europe
Like most streaming services, music or otherwise, Deezer has a family plan that offers enough individual accounts to cover your whole household for a significantly discounted price. This particular subscription option, however, was previously exclusive to users in France and T-Mobile customers in the Netherlands, but as of today, it's now available throughout Europe -- apart from in Sweden, for whatever reason. For €15 or £15 per month, the family plan gets you six separate Premium+ accounts (€10/£10 on their own), each of which can be used across two devices, or three for the primary login.
Paid streaming services provide a big boost to the music industry
Streaming continues to play a bigger role in music industry revenue and now it's starting to provide some real help offsetting declining album sales in the US. In its mid-year report, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) reports that the industry saw its biggest growth in the first half of 2016 since the 1990s, up 8.1 percent year-over-year to $3.4 billion. In terms of music streaming as a whole, revenue from those services was up 57 percent during the first half of the year and it now makes up 47 percent of the music industry's total revenue. That's up from 32 percent of the total revenue this time last year.

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