[VIDEO] This is a brilliant performance (embedded on the main Loop post). Sounds like there’s some extra acoustic drumming going on in the background but, as far as I can tell, it’s all Alexandr Misko’s fingerwork.
That bassline has been stuck in my brain for days now. Also worth a read, the production notes on the song’s Wikipedia page. Fascinating.
Following up on their Dr. Dre event at the O2 Academy Brixton in London back in March, Apple Music announced a free Shawn Mendes concert for this Thursday evening:
https://twitter.com/AppleMusic/status/996049405294862336
The concert will be hosted by Zane Lowe at the Hollywood Ford Theaters in Los Angeles, with a live Q&A to follow.
If you’ve never played the guitar, this is a fun way to learn a bit about tuning. And if you play the guitar, make your way down the page and try your hand at tuning by ear.
Nice implementation.
[VIDEO] This is just amazing. It’s from 2009, so the video quality isn’t perfect, but no matter, it good enough and the audio is what matters.
McFerrin is talented and the audience interaction is remarkable. Well worth the watch (video embedded in main Loop post).
[VIDEO] Fantastic look (embedded in the main Loop post) at the sequence of today’s pop hit creation process.
Side note, I’d like to urge folks to support at least one newspaper or journalism source, whether it be The New York Times, The Guardian, or your favorite blog. Pick one, buy a subscription, help keep that vital flame alive.
Slate, from a few years ago:
The fade-out—the technique of ending a song with a slow decrease in volume over its last few seconds—became common in the 1950s and ruled for three decades. Among the year-end top 10 songs for 1985, there’s not one cold ending.
Fadeouts are gone from popular music.
Advances in technology played a big part in the rise of the fade-out. Electrical recording emerged in the 1920s, allowing studio engineers to increase or decrease amplification. And achieving the effect became even easier when magnetic tape recording became widely available in the ’40s and ’50s. Many early fade-outs were added simply because engineers were short on time: To meet the demands of radio, or the limited runtime of one side of a vinyl single, they had to make the record fade out early.
And:
Done right, the fade-out is a song’s parting gift to the attentive listener. “Thanks for staying ’til the end,” it says. “Here’s a little somethin’ for ya.”
But what caused the fade-out to, well, fade out?
Let’s shift our accusatory fingers, then, to the iPod. That’s where our itchy thumbs have been stationed since Apple introduced the device in 2001. With a mere depression of the fast-forward button to get to the next tune, why wait out those last dwindling seconds?
This is a fascinating read. Especially the examples where little easter eggs are hidden in the lower volumes of the fade.
[H/T Brother Stu
[VIDEO] There are no words to adequately describe this. Just watch (video embedded in main Loop post).
[VIDEO] Fantastic backgrounder (embedded in main Loop post) on SNL and live music from producers Lindsay Shookus, Brian Siedlecki and Melanie Malone.
Fascinating story. The power of social media.
[VIDEO] Flip over to the main Loop post for the video. This is pretty cool. And, I suspect, just the beginning.
Austin Powell, Daily Dot:
Tommie King could be the next rapper to breakout from Atlanta. He’s well-connected, has obvious swagger, and he’s been quietly building a successful collection of singles on Spotify. His latest, “Eastside (feat. Cyhi the Prynce),” has already clocked more than 110,000 streams, driven largely by its placement on 14 independent playlists.
And:
In the modern music economy, in which streaming services account for nearly two-thirds of the total revenue generated by recorded music, emerging artists are increasingly being tracked via big data. Spotify streams, YouTube views, Twitter interactions, and even Wikipedia searches are all being used to discover the proverbial next big thing. That’s why King’s manager has worked to land his music on a staggering 594 Spotify playlists to date.
And:
There’s just one catch: King essentially paid to be added to those Spotify playlists. He’s one of countless artists who have compensated curators to check out his tracks—or in the case for some of his contemporaries, to be added to specific playlists—to gain valuable streams and attention.
The black market for Spotify playlists is booming. It’s cheaper than you might expect to hack the system—and if it’s done right, it more than pays for itself.
No doubt, Spotify’s playlists are its secret sauce. They’ve quietly built the modern big data equivalent of the Billboard top 100 genre charts.
If the pay-to-play is true, I’m surprised that Spotify would tolerate that behavior. They have an opportunity to own a significant chunk of music’s future. But if they allow artists to buy their way in, they’ll squander that chance, all credibility gone.
Notably absent from this article is Apple (just a single mention, in passing). Is this simple bias? Or is Spotify truly owning this space? Very interesting.
[VIDEO embedded in main Loop post] Chrysanthe Tenentes, Kottke.org:
Here you have songbird Stevie Nicks, every makeup artist’s worst nightmare, belting out an early version of her song “Wild Heart” during an Annie Leibowitz cover shoot for Rolling Stone in 1981.
This is a little gem. Think about how hard it is to sing when you are sitting down. Stevie Nicks really lets us have it, making the whole thing effortless.
And listen for the other folks joining in. This is off-the-cuff, and wonderful.
[VIDEO] Don’t know if it’s the best Beatles cover ever, but given that this (video in main Loop post) is two people busking in the subway, that’s a helluva performance. Sweet, sweet harmonies.
The HomePod is self-balancing, algorithmically adjusting its sound for the environment in which it’s placed.
Me? I like the sound. Have not yet felt the need to tweak it. But I do like a challenge. I came across this article from OSXDaily, which walks you through the process of tweaking your EQ for iOS.
I fired up some music, then went to Settings > Music and tapped EQ. There are 23 different canned EQ settings to choose from. The article recommends Late Night to maximize volume on your iPhone. Give that a try if you listen to music out of your iPhone speakers frequently.
Thought I’d try to AirPlay that EQ to HomePod.
With the music still playing, I went to Control Center, tapped the upper-right corner of the music player (bringing up AirPlay), and selected my HomePod. The music played, but when I tapped the various EQ settings, no change.
I went to iTunes on my Mac, launched System Preferences > Sound and tapped my HomePod. Back in iTunes, I tapped the EQ column in the current song (if you don’t see an EQ column, go to View > Show View Options and tap the Equalizer checkbox). No dice. Changing EQ does not impact HomePod.
This is me noodling, not at all a complaint. I love the HomePod sound. The EQ question comes up often enough, I thought I’d dig in, make sure I understood what was going on. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Nashville Post:
“Gibson Brands, Inc. today announced that the company made a $16.6 million coupon payment to holders of its $375 million, 8.875% senior secured notes due 2018.”
That simple statement issued a week ago — at all of 26 words, it’s less than a quarter the length of Gibson’s boilerplate company description that accompanied it — suggests a business-as-usual tone of a company taking care of its contractual commitments.
But the situation facing the iconic Nashville-based music instrument maker, which has annual revenues of more than $1 billion, is far from normal: CFO Bill Lawrence recently left the company after less than a year on the job and just six months before $375 million of senior secured notes will mature. On top of that, another $145 million in bank loans will come due immediately if those notes, issued in 2013, are not refinanced by July 23.
Reading through all of this, things do indeed look dire. But I can’t imagine the Gibson brand going away. I’d be more concerned with new hands coming in to run the company and changing a process which produces some of the finest guitars in the world, diluting a brand synonymous with guitar craft.
Damn.
[H/T Josh Centers]
John Voorhees, MacStories:
When Apple acquired Shazam, people wondered what would become of the popular song identification and music discovery app. It’s not unusual for an app acquired by a big company to be pulled from the App Store or for development to slow substantially.
As John reports, the new version of Shazam has a great new UI, supports Spotify, same as always, and features lyrics sync, for those karaoke moments.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that if you’re using the iOS 11.3 beta, playback is broken throughout the app.
Good to know.
[VIDEO] Where have you been all my life? So much to love about this idea. I hope it becomes a standard.
Of particular note, it is motion activated. Pick up your guitar, the amp turns on.
Video embedded in main Loop post.
[VIDEO] Billboard:
After numerous delays, Apple has finally confirmed that Before Anythang: The Cash Money Story will release on their Apple Music streaming platform on Friday. The Cash Money documentary will feature Bryan “Birdman” Williams narrating his childhood and what inspired him to change his life’s trajectory by launching the mythical label back in 1991.
Cash Money is home to prominent artists like Drake, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj. An amazing, compelling story. Trailer embedded in the main Loop post.
If there’s music playing and there’s a HomePod in the room, chances are that music is coming from HomePod. But there may be times when you’ve got some background music coming from another source (your TV, say) and you want to identify the tune.
I am used to asking Siri on my iPhone to identify background music. Typically, I’ll fire up Siri and say:
What song is this?
But trying to get HomePod Siri to identify a song playing in the background proved tricky. I tried everything I could think of. No dice.
Fortunately, 9to5Mac’s Benjamin Mayo figured this out. To ask HomePod’s version of Siri to identify a background song, say:
Hey Siri, Shazam this.
Works every time. Weird to me that none of the more standard ways work. I hope we don’t end up with a Siri dialect problem, where users have to remember which command works on which version of Siri.
This is not frivolous opinion. There is a lot of detail on both the tools used to measure things like “Fletcher-Munson loudness compensation”, and the measurements themselves.
From the conclusion:
The Look and feel is top notch. The glass on top is sort of frosted, but is smooth to the touch. When I first reviewed the home pod, I noted that it was light. I was comparing it with the heft of my KEF speakers. This thing, as small as it is, weighs 5 lbs. Which is quite dense, and heavy for its size. The Fabric that wraps around it is study, reinforced from inside, and feels very good to the touch.
And:
The Frequency response, Directivity, and ability to correct for the room all go to show that the HomePod is a speaker for the masses. While many of you in this subreddit would be very comfortable doing measurements, and room treatment, there is no denying that most users won’t go through that much trouble, and for those users the HomePod is perfect.
And caveats:
Because of the onboard DSP, you must feed it digital files. So analog input from something like a Phono is out, unless your Phono Preamp has a digital output which can then be fed to the HomePods in realtime via airplay, possibly through a computer. But you cannot give the HomePod analog audio, as the DSP which does all the room correction requires digital input.
And:
Speaking of inputs, you have one choice: AirPlay. which means, unless you’re steeped in the apple ecosystem, it’s really hard to recommend this thing. If you are, it’s a no brainer, whether you’re an audiophile or not.
And:
As a product, the HomePod is also held back by Siri. Almost every review has complained about this, and they’re all right to do so. I’m hoping we see massive improvements to Siri this year at WWDC 2018. There is some great hardware at play, too. What’s truly impressive is that Siri can hear you if you speak in a normal voice, even if the HomePod is playing at full volume. I couldn’t even hear myself say “Hey Siri” over the music, but those directional microphones are really good at picking it up. Even whispers from across the room while I was facing AWAY from the HomePod were flawlessly picked up. The microphones are scary good — I just hope Apple improves Siri to match.
And from the rollup at the top of the post:
am speechless. The HomePod actually sounds better than the KEF X300A. If you’re new to the Audiophile world, KEF is a very well respected and much loved speaker company. I actually deleted my very first measurements and re-checked everything because they were so good, I thought I’d made an error. Apple has managed to extract peak performance from a pint sized speaker, a feat that deserves a standing ovation. The HomePod is 100% an Audiophile grade Speaker.
I don’t have the expertise to speak to the audiophile comments, but everything else in the post clicks for me, jibes with my HomePod experience.
As to the negatives, I think Apple has done a great job of making sure the hardware is top notch. Which means they can fix the software negatives via updates over time.
Me? I absolutely love my HomePod. If you love music, and are willing to pony up for Apple Music, it’s a no-brainer purchase.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, New York Times:
When do the strongest adult musical preferences set in?
And:
For this project, the music streaming service Spotify gave me data on how frequently every song is listened to by men and women of each particular age.
And:
Consider, for example, the song “Creep,” by Radiohead. This is the 164th most popular song among men who are now 38 years old. But it is not in the top 300 for the cohort born 10 years earlier or 10 years later.
Note that the men who most like “Creep” now were roughly 14 when the song came out in 1993. In fact, this is a consistent pattern.
I did a similar analysis with every song that topped the Billboard charts from 1960 to 2000. In particular, I measured how old their biggest fans today were when these songs first came out.
I was about 11 when I first really latched on to music, 12 when I got my hands on my first guitar. And by 14, I was deeply immersed in what would become my forever comfort music.
Fascinating article.
Apple Watch shipments beat expectations, topping 18 million in 2017, up by more than 54% on 2016. The Series 3 was the key growth driver, as total shipments of the latest version of Apple’s Watch were just under 9 million, making up nearly half of all shipments in 2017. Apple’s Q4 performance was impressive in itself, as shipments grew by more than 32% over Q4 2016 to 8 million, the highest ever number of shipments in a single quarter, not just for Apple, but for any wearable vendor.
I recognize that these are vastly different products, but Apple’s success with Apple Watch after much skepticism from the market reminds me strongly of the imminent rollout of HomePod.
The early watchOS experience is quite different from what we’ve got today. Complications (the hot spots on the watch face that update with things like notifications, current weather, etc.) and Activities integration are but two major changes that rolled out over time and significantly changed Apple Watch’s usefulness.
What’s critical to me is that those changes rolled out as free software updates. And they work on the original hardware. I have on my wrist a Series 0 Apple Watch (the very first publicly available model) and it works with the latest rev of watchOS. It can be a bit slow at times, but other than that, it works perfectly.
The point is, Apple Watch at birth was almost nothing like what we have today. And I believe the same thing will be true for HomePod. Yes, there are limitations on what we can get from Siri today, limitations on what and how we connect to HomePod. But I believe a year or two will bring a sea change of improvements and functionality. And I believe those changes will continue to work on the existing hardware.
David Pogue, Yahoo:
In a devastatingly effective demo, Apple lines up four of these things: The Google Home Max ($400), Sonos One ($200), Amazon Echo ($100), and the HomePod. They’re volume-matched and rigged to an A/B/C/D switch, so a single song can hop from one to the other. (Apple even installed a halo backlight behind each speaker that illuminated to show you which one was playing.)
The HomePod sounded the best. Its bass, in particular, was amazing: full and deep, but also distinct and never muddy — you could hear the actual pitch of the bass notes, not just the thud. That, unsurprisingly, is where other small speakers have trouble.
And:
The real shock was the Google Home Max, a massive, 12-pound machine that’s supposed to be all about the sound; it sounded like cardboard compared with the HomePod and Sonos.
Heh. Like cardboard. Nice.
I’ve yet to read a review that didn’t place HomePod on top of the heap. David Pogue’s comments about hearing “the actual pitch of the bass notes, not just the thud”, jibes with what I’ve heard from people who’ve spend quality time with a HomePod.
Friday. Can’t wait.
[VIDEO] So much richness here. There’s an organized performance called Choir! Choir! Choir!, where attendees (total strangers, who come to see the performance) are taught a sequence of vocal parts, then a bit of rehearsal, then they perform.
In the video embedded in the main Loop post, David Byrne (the unmistakeable voice from Talking Heads) sings David Bowie’s classic Heroes, and the crowd sings background. I would absolutely love to attend one of these performances. Bucket list.
Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:
Apple today updated its HomePod tech specs page with a new Audio Sources section that lists all of the ways in which the speaker can stream audio, setting the record straight on some conflicting information.
Here’s the list, from Apple’s HomePod tech specs page:
A week from tomorrow!
UPDATE: The question came up about Bluetooth being in the wireless section, but not listed as an audio source. I asked about it on Twitter, the response was, Bluetooth too compressed for the quality HomePod requires. So Bluetooth is used for pairing, but not music transfer.
[VIDEO] If you are a songwriter or musician, take the time to watch this video (embedded in the main Loop post). It’s the second entry in Rick Beato’s excellent series, “What makes this song great?”
Even if you are a music theory beginner, you’ll find this easy to follow and full of insight.
This particular song? Everything She Does is Magic, by The Police. I’ve heard this song hundreds of times and never once saw any of the special that Rick Beato reveals. Great, great video.
[H/T Steven Woolgar]
Bloomberg:
Songwriters will get a larger cut of revenue from streaming services after a court handed technology companies a big defeat.
The Copyright Royalty Board ruled that songwriters will get at least a 15.1 percent share of streaming revenues over the next five years, from a previous 10.5 percent. That’s the largest rate increase in CRB history, according to a statement from the National Music Publishers’ Association.
The decision is a major victory for songwriters, who have long complained they are insufficiently [compensated] by on-demand music services like Spotify and YouTube. Streaming services account for the largest share of music industry sales in the U.S., while global streaming sales jumped 60 percent in 2016, according to the IFPI.
Obviously, a big deal for artists. Question is, will this force a change to the pricing of Apple Music and other services?
[VIDEO] Saw these spots (embedded in the main Loop post) over the weekend, timely marketing push coinciding with Apple Music’s big presence during last night’s Grammys.
I loved both of these ads, though that second one hit me twice. First, I love the Animoji, animation, and music combination. But I also love that this is Childish Gambino, who is really actor Donald Glover.
Good stuff.
Billboard:
Today Apple launches Apple Music for Artists, a dashboard designed to provide acts with hundreds of data points giving deep analytical insight into their fans’ listening and buying habits.
And:
The easily navigable dashboard’s home page provides artists with their current number of plays, spins, song purchases and album purchases. The user can specify the time period ranging from the past 24 hours to the 2015 launch of Apple Music.
An Insights panel showcases key milestones via bullet points that highlight such information as all-time number of plays and purchases for specific songs or cumulatively.
And:
Apple Music for Artists debuts more than two years after Spotify, Pandora and YouTube bowed their own artist dashboards. While admittedly a late entry, Apple hopes to make up for its tardiness with the depth of information available, level of transparency and the ease of use provided by the clean user interface.
Good news for Apple Music artists.
One side note: The original Billboard headline was “Apple Bows Apple Music For Artists to Provide Acts With Deep Analytics Dive”. Took me a few reads to parse that one. Music and Hollywood writers have their own headline language. You’d rarely (if ever) find the word “boffo” in a tech headline. But “Boffo Box Office”? Happens all the time in the Hollywood press.
When Hollywood folk check out the tech blogs, do they see the same alien language?
This ad (embedded in the main Loop post) ran last year, but I just encountered it this weekend, thought it worth sharing.
I feel like the days of iconic album covers are all in the past. It’s not that the covers are any less creative, it’s more that I tend to get my music via links or as part of crafted playlists.
At the same time, album art went from 12″ album covers, to less than 5″ for a CD cover, down the the tiny thumbnails we have today.
No matter, enjoy the ad.