One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz. | | | | Steve Jobs introduces the third-generation iPod on April 28, 2003.
(Kim Kulish/Corbis Historical/Getty Images) | | | | | | “One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.”
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| | rantnrave:// The IPOD isn't really-most-sincerely dead, but it's close to merely dead after APPLE's announcement that it's discontinuing the NANO and the SHUFFLE, leaving the TOUCH as the only remaining iPod model. Will history remember the iPod (and its companion software, ITUNES) as merely a transitional technology between CD players and smartphones, or as a really-most-sincerely revolutionary way of experiencing music? I can't speak for history, but put me in the revolutionary camp. A thousand songs in your pocket! 128k of gleaming high fidelity! Rip 'em and listen to 'em in any order you want! Or lay back and shuffle! It all sounds quaint in 2017. And yet every corner of the music industry, from artists to programmers to accountants, is still playing catch-up with that revolution. It still colors what you hear, how you hear it, how it sounds, what you pay, why you pay. The industry's collapse and resurgence are both rooted in that 21st century transistor radio. APPLE at its best... GOOGLE's strange insistence on operating two subscription music services, neither of which gained much traction, is Google at its not-so-best. Even LYOR COHEN, who oversees music for YOUTUBE, understands if you've never heard of either GOOGLE PLAY MUSIC and YOUTUBE RED. Merging them is a belated no-brainer. Too belated, perhaps? ... On a bathroom wall somewhere on LONG ISLAND is a towel (now framed) that JOE STRUMMER once blew his nose into, and another that once dried BRYAN FERRY's body. The NEW YORK TIMES' COREY KILGANNON profiles DENNIS & LOIS, a couple of punks who just won't quit... A laid-off SOUNDCLOUD product manager wants the $10K that WETRANSFER's DAMIAN BRADFIELD is offering to ex-SoundClouders, but she has neither the ability, nor the desire, to meet his criteria. She's proposing something better. Show her the money... Never gonna give this up... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from VIC MENSA, ARCADE FIRE, PASSION PIT, AMINÉ, ISLEY BROTHERS & SANTANA, JOHN PIZZARELLI, JULIA MICHAELS, CAGE THE ELEPHANT, BENJAMIN GIBBARD, THE FALL, PERCEPTIONISTS, MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA, JOYWAVE, STALLEY, JILLETTE JOHNSON, ALICE COOPER, PRONG and a complete collection of ELVIS PRESLEY's 1953-55 recordings... And MARGO PRICE dropped this by surprise on Thursday, and MICK JAGGER this... RIP D.L. MENARD and BILL COLLINGS. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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| An in-depth story about Sheer Mag, a rock group from Philadelphia that reached cult status before they’d ever put out an album. | | |
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| In a country that is trying to reconcile its system of stringent political control with the porousness of modern culture, even a feckless pop star can be a threat. | | |
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| Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, expounded on a range of topics at a music business power panel hosted by the Tommy Boy chairman and New Music Seminar founder Tom Silverman. | | |
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| As the recent Lawrence Field Day Festival illustrates, indie rock may be artistically benefiting from an increasingly marginalized status in the music world. | | |
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| Roger, Bono, Bruce, and Billy Joe, sit down and shut up. | | |
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| Earlier today, Apple announced that it's finally discontinuing the iPod nano and shuffle once and for all, making the touch the last iPod standing. Instead of simply mourning the loss of the devices, let's celebrate the rich and full existences they led before shuffling off this mortal coil into the cold, unforgiving world of eBay auctions. | | |
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| Here’s your chance to support a lot more than just 173 genius ideas. | | |
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| It's not even fair how close he comes to musical satisfaction without *quite* hitting the spot. | | |
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| They are known in punk rock circles as simply Dennis and Lois, two superfans who are still going to concerts and shows, and bonding with the bands. | | |
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| "Learn to Let Go" is more than a song title... it's become one of my mantras over the last few years. As much as our past creates who we are, we can't let it define us or hold us back. | | |
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| As the late icon's famed Rolls-Royce returns to public view, we look back at how it served both as a safe haven and a souped-up plaything. | | |
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| A judge rejected the contention that master tapes belonged to the promoter who brought the band to the United States. | | |
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| Justin Bieber reportedly canceled his world tour to “rededicate his life to Christ.” But when did Bieber become so devout--and what’s the story of his church with a shady past? | | |
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| What do we listen to when all the news is bad? Music is motivating, but over the past year, in a hailstorm of political outrage we couldn't have prepared for even if we'd known, old playlists haven't always kept up. | | |
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| "I always call it 'the big tent,'" says the CEO of the Country Music Association, who has helped expand not only the genre’s borders but also its audience through deft diplomacy and "lightning-rod moments" at the CMAs. | | |
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| "What's the strangest thing for this band to do at this point?" singer asks. "Just to go into a studio and make a f***ing album like a normal band". | | |
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| Flipping the gaze and redefining what a dream dude can be. | | |
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| By the seventies and eighties, the venerable opera-queen stereotype-a pre-Stonewall signifier-had receded. But in recent years operas on gay themes have proliferated. | | |
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| This week, Tanglewood and Mass Audubon will join forces for an imaginative four-day minifestival called “Tanglewood Takes Flight,” a celebration of birds and music. | | |
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| While there are strong artists among the latest Mercury nominees, including Stormzy, Kate Tempest, J Hus and Loyle Carner, the eagerness to support stodgy indie rock means visionary albums have been overlooked. | | |
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| | | | | | | From "Sinatra & Jobim @ 50," out today on Concord Jazz. |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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