Music

The latest news and reviews of music.

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Pandora isn't selling, plans to offer cheaper subscriptions
Reports of Pandora's possible sale or merger with another company were swirling when its founder Tim Westergren returned as CEO in March. In an interview at the Midem music industry conference in France over the weekend, Westergren addressed those rumors and provided some info on the upcoming subscription service. Spoiler alert: the company isn't for sale and doesn't plan on merging.
Spotify's karaoke-style lyrics are gone, for now
If you tried to access Spotify's lyrics feature recently, you were likely greeted with a "Humming is fun" message instead. That's because the streaming service ended its partnership with Musixmatch, a company that power the tool with its catalog of song lyrics. Billboard reports that "updates" are on the way, though specifics aren't mentioned, so there's no concrete indication when or if the feature will return. Spotify does still offer insight into the meaning of a song's words, thanks to a separate partnership with Genius.
Pebble adds Alexa's voice controls to its upcoming Core wearable
Pebble announced its 3G-enabled Core device just last week, and even though the gadget won't ship until 2017, the company is already adding features. Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant will be available on the wearable exercise accessory, bringing voice controls to the iPod Shuffle-esque device. With the Core, Alexa can still handle tasks like playing music, reading news headlines, shopping on Amazon, ordering food, controlling smart home tech and more. In terms of more Pebble-specific chores, the virtual assistant can read your Pebble Health summary to keep you up to speed on your daily stats.
Boss-battle game 'Furi' gets a soundtrack full of electro artists
You might not know much about The Game Bakers' upcoming one-on-one action game Furi, but you're about to hear a lot more about it in a very literal sense. The studio has revealed that its boss-battles-only title will have a soundtrack created by a slew of known electro artists, including Carpenter Brut, Danger and The Toxic Avenger. The Game Bakers are confident enough in it that they're both selling the soundtrack (€15/$17 for digital, €30/$34 vinyl) and holding a concert in Paris on July 8th.
Spotify's deal with Dubset means more remixes to stream
Back in March, Apple reached a deal with Dubset to make sure sampled artists in remixes and DJ mixes on its music service were properly compensated. Last week, Spotify did the same, inking an agreement to leverage Dubset's MixBANK distribution platform to ensure that both the artists creating the mixes and those being sampled receive the royalties they're due. The MixBANK system checks an uploaded track for copyrighted material before getting permission for its use from the correct label and/or publisher.
Make music with the Large Hadron Collider through a web app
Now that music has come to the Large Hadron Collider, it's time for the giant science ring to make some music of its own. Meet Quantizer, a project from students Juliana Cherston and Ewan Hill that turns the ATLAS experiment's many, many particle collisions into music. The web app grabs data (in real-time when possible), cleans it up and maps it to musical notes. After that, it's just a question of the style you want to hear. There are cosmic sounds if you prefer an ambient vibe, or house music if you'd like something a little more dance-worthy.
Twitter will serve up Spotify links as 30-second clips
When Twitter first announced Audio Cards that would put songs in your social feed, SoundCloud was the music service of choice at launch. After the feature has been available for well over a year, Spotify tracks will now show up in a similar fashion. Any tweet that contains a link to a song from the streaming service will offer a 30-second preview in your timeline. Spotify clips will also appear in that curated Moments feed, which is how the company broke the news today.
SoundCloud Go is available to creators for $2 a month
When SoundCloud's long-rumored streaming service launched in March, the same rate applied to all users. The audio hosting site has been offering Pro plans to creators for quite some time, with the priciest Pro Unlimited tier including unlimited uploads, advanced stats and more for $15 a month. When SoundCloud Go arrived, there was no mention of a discount for paying customers. If they wanted access to the new tunes, they had to pay the $10 monthly fee.
Spotify's Discover Weekly playlists have 40 million listeners
Everybody hates Mondays, but Spotify listeners probably hate them a bit less than most. That's when the service's "Discover Weekly" playlists get refreshed, which offer a selection of personalized tracks based on your listening habits. Since launching last July, Spotify says 40 million users have streamed almost 5 billion Discover Weekly tracks. Not bad for something that just started out as an in-house experiment. (And yes, I'm listening to my Discover Weekly playlist as I type this.)
Chance the Rapper's streaming-only album hits Billboard chart
In late 2014, the Billboard 200 chart began to take into account both album sales and streaming plays for its rankings. When the list is updated this week, the first streaming-only album will be included on the chart. Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book debuted at number 8 on the list with 38,000 in equivalent sales since its debut on May 13th. The album is an Apple Music exclusive until May 27th where it has tallied 57.3 million streams so far. According to Billboard, there are no plans to make the album available for sale. When Billboard started including streams over a year ago, it announced that 1,500 streams from an album would translate to "an equivalent album unit."
Spotify's Family Plan now covers six people for $15 a month
While Spotify has offered Family Plans for some time now, rival music streaming services, particularly those from Apple and Google, have it beat in terms of price. Today, the company has addressed that issue, allowing up to six family members (or friends) to grab a Premium subscription for $15/£15/€15 a month. Previously, linking just five accounts would cost double the price it does today.
Rhapsody's VR app is a hub for live music videos
The tech world is obsessed with virtual reality. It should come as no surprise, then, that music-streaming service Rhapsody wants a piece of it as well. The company took a step forward today by introducing Rhapsody VR, an iOS and Android app that offers access to 360-degree videos from music concerts. The content is free for everybody to watch (preferably through a headset like Google Cardboard), meaning it's not limited to people who subscribe to Rhapsody.
Google's Family Library will let Android users share apps
It's been a long time coming, but Android users will soon be able to share apps with other family members. Android Police reports that Google has begun notifying developers that Family Sharing, which lets up to six family members enjoy the same paid app, will be enabled by default from July 2nd, giving Android households the opportunity to enjoy similar perks to those with iPhones and iPads.
Spotify comes to Android TV
The Google I/O opening keynote might be over, but that doesn't mean there's any shortage of news from the developer event. Spotify, for one, has announced that it is expanding its reach to TVs and set-top boxes by launching a new Android TV app. It's exactly what you'd expect from a Spotify offering, in that it allows you to browse your tracks, albums and playlists, either with your Android TV remote or with the Spotify app thanks to Spotify Connect.
Vevo revamp puts a personalized music video feed on your phone
If you're fond of gorging on music videos while you're waiting for the bus or lounging on the couch, Vevo has your back. It's launching redesigned Android and iOS apps that bring its more personalized experience to phones and tablets. The simpler interface revolves around a Spotlight section that shows both recommended videos (based on what you've watched and liked) as well as a New for You playlist that offers a relevant feed of the latest and greatest clips. You might not have to spend any time sifting through videos just to find something you'll enjoy, in other words.
SoundHound adds voice search to its music discovery app
Last June, SoundHound revealed its plan to provide answers to more than just your music queries. It did just that with a universal search app called Hound, software with a feature that aimed to take on the likes of Siri and Google: voice commands. However, that handy tool didn't hadn't made the leap to the company's flagship app, but that changes today. The SoundHound software that finds music answers will now let you ask those questions with your voice.
iTunes update delivers 'simpler design' with modest changes
Apple is still trying to figure out how to improve the usability of iTunes. Today, the company released an update that tweaked the interface a bit, adding a sidebar and media selection tool that make navigating through libraries a bit easier. That sidebar menu is the biggest and most useful change, bringing back a UI feature from older versions of the app. From there, you can easily edit playlists, drag and drop songs to build playlists and hide or expand parts of the menu.
Alien sex tapes, robot rape and the evolution of consent
A little over a week ago Engadget's EIC and I had dinner with a couple of friends at a Chinatown Thai restaurant in L.A. As I sipped on a Singha Slurpee, our dinner companions, Claire Evans and Jona Bechtolt of the band Yacht, gave us an off-the-record rundown of a bizarre and twisted plan for the release of their next single, I Wanna Fuck You Till I'm Dead. They'd created a One Night in Paris-style sex tape spoof with a twist: Instead of peeling off their clothes, the couple would peel back their flesh to reveal hypersexualized alien bodies.
ABC's 'Nashville' VR specials will be a last hurrah for the show
There was sad news for fans of ABC's country music drama Nashville this week. The network announced that the show was being cancelled at the end of season 4, which is currently airing. That revelation came on the heels of ABC revealing that it would give fans an inside look at the series with virtual reality. A collection of videos are set at the Bluebird Cafe serving as a companion to what will be the last few episodes of the show.
This is how you make subaquatic music
Water is a pretty strange compound. Since it's so dense, it drops the volume of sounds compared to what you'd hear on the surface. At the same time, it causes sound to travel much faster than it does through air, by roughly 400 percent. Neither of these really affect us on a day-to-day basis, but then again, we aren't performing a concert from the confines of an aquarium. We'll leave that up to AquaSonic, a band whose vocalist, according to New Scientist, devised her own singing technique to ensure that she could belt out her subaquatic notes without creating a bunch of bubbles in the process.

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