Music

Kamala Harris is the latest participant on Track Star, a TikTok game show where players identify a song for money.

Internet shows like Track Star are a new kind of media circuit for public figures. Democrats want these viral moments — and they’re trying hard to make them happen.

The music producer recently confirmed that he composed two ringtones for Apple: “Daybreak” and “Chalet”. The tones were released back in 2019 putting them on iOS version 13 and later. Both tones have a relaxing vibe to them that would have fit right in with Flylo’s Adult Swim bumps that rewired an entire generation’s musical tastes...or at least just mine.

Colombian singer-songwriter Karol G will be the star of Fortnite Festival’s fifth season, which launches tomorrow. Like with other Festival seasons, there will be themed items based on the artist that you can acquire.

Epic Games also will be hosting a playable Karol G concert inside Fortnite (made by Magnopus, the team behind the recent Metallica show) that debuts on August 23rd.

The new store lets “a select number” of Next Pro artists design merch that SoundCloud will create and sell for them, all while artists collect 100 percent of the profits. So far, the SoundCloud Store features merch from artists like Wiz Khalifa, Denzel Curry, Bktherula, and others.

Panasonic resurrected the legendary Technics 1200 turntable eight years ago, but Tamás Borján’s version will appeal to both nostalgic DJs and Lego fans.

This 2,215-piece Technics SL-1200 MK2 won’t actually play records but it’s got a motorized platter that spins, a movable tone arm with an adjustable counter balance, and a sliding pitch fader.

The EP-1320 “instrumentalis electronicum” is preloaded with Dark Ages instruments and effects, including the hurdy gurdy, gittern, tambour, plus swordfights and “two separate witches.”

Yes, it’s an even-less-scrutable version of the EP-133 sampler I couldn’t make hide nor hair of, but sore tempted am I to drop $299 and annoy the hell out of my D&D group.

Responding to the RIAA’s copyright lawsuit, AI songmaker sites defended their models as being like kids learning rock and roll or tools enabling creativity. Country artist Tift Merritt had a different take after being shown a song AI music generator Udio spat out when prompted to mimic her style:

... the “imitation” Udio created “doesn’t make the cut for any album of mine.”

“This is a great demonstration of the extent to which this technology is not transformative at all ... It’s stealing.”

I had similar thoughts back in March.

The new video for Porter Robinson’s “Easier to Love You” features some gorgeous animation, courtesy director Tomoyasu Murata. It’s almost enough to make you forget how sad it is. (For those unfamiliar with his work, check out this interview I did with Robinson back in 2022.)

Splice got itself in some trouble a couple weeks ago when it issued a YouTube copyright strike against Krystle Delgado, a music attorney who showed one of the company’s sample licenses on screen. Splice wised up and retracted the strike last week, CEO Kakul Srivastava tell me. “We fundamentally support the rights of creators to express themselves – even if we disagree,” she wrote in an email to Delgado.

For her part, Delgado confirmed that the strike was indeed retracted by YouTube, and tells me that she wishes she could have spoken to to Srivastava directly before Splice’s lawyers escalated the situation.

As always, I will remind everyone that copyright law is the only functional speech regulation on the internet, and using it to chill speech or block criticism never tends to go well!

The star takes the electric SUV through a cinematic montage of situations to the sounds of Training Season — while explaining how she’d direct a Porsche commercial in ways that “Porsche guys” wouldn’t.

A new approach to marketing the Macan makes sense, considering recent Taycan sales numbers ahead of that SUV’s impending refresh.

Apple Music Classical now has a Top 100 chart. A collection of keyboard concertos composed by Johann Sebastian Bach is at number one, followed by recordings of Johannes Brahms-composed symphonies.

Apple updates placement on Mondays, using data from Apple Music / Music Classical, iTunes, and Shazam, according to MacRumors.

The streaming music service has launched a new Parental Guide detailing its tools for managing your kids’ listening habits as well as its efforts to keep the platform safe.

Spotify’s actual parental controls are limited to filtering out explicit content and controlling the playback of certain artists. For a fully curated experience, you’ll need to spring for Spotify Kids, which is part of the Premium Family package.

House music and technology are my two favorite things, and finally, I’ve found a way to write about them both.

Thanks to the CrowdStrike fail that caused chaos in systems across the globe, a DJ named Chris Lake is facing challenges with his concert in New York tonight. One of the DJs, Andruss, can’t make it, so they’ve had to adjust the lineup to fill his spot.

Kendrick Lamar’s brutal and relentless takedown of fellow rapper Drake has inspired a wealth of content creators. We’ve had gifs, animated shorts, and now a whole-ass video game. Game designer Richie Branson has made a game where you must “wop wop wop wop wop” on owls as fast as possible to rack up points.

A core trope of Verge coverage over the years is that copyright law is the only functional regulation on the US internet, because it allows various actors to demand content takedowns without worrying about that pesky First Amendment.

Anyway, Splice, a company which sells music samples and beats, got upset at Krystle Delgado, a copyright attorney and YouTuber, for showing one of their license agreements during a livestream, and issued a YouTube copyright strike over it. Her response video is pretty good — and neatly demonstrates the pressures and complexity independent creators face trying to do what would otherwise be straightforward journalism.

According to Not a Tesla App, the 2024.26 update in testing has features like parental controls that limit speed and acceleration or notify about late-night drives, an AQI symbol for poor local air quality, and scheduled charging.

It also adds built-in apps for Amazon Music and YouTube Music streaming in the US if you have Premium Connectivity or an active Wi-Fi connection.

Last week, Paramount Global abruptly pulled the MTV News archive that remained available following its shutdown last year. Now Variety reports that the Internet Archive has amassed more than 460,000 snapshots of the site, which you can browse through using the Wayback Machine.

Some of the biggest players in the music industry are suing generative AI music startups Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In the lawsuits, plaintiffs include examples of AI songs that sound a lot like human artists — and some are pretty blatant.

You can catch the tremendous concert film Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus live during its online premiere June 30 at 8:00 PM ET on the Criterion Channel. And don’t worry if you miss the stream — you’ll be able to watch it on any time starting July 1.

(ICYMI: we interviewed the movie’s director Neo Sora back when it had a theatrical release.)

A report from 404 Media highlights a new type of bot that gets around Ticketmaster’s queuing system by opening dozens of different browsing sessions on one computer, giving them multiple chances to snag tickets from fans. The mix of bots — and fans — likely contributed to Ticketmaster’s latest crash.

The iconic desktop media player has enjoyed several revivals, but none as technically impressive as Rodrigo Méndez’s Linamp.

Powered by a Raspberry Pi 4B, the stereo’s touchscreen interface features Winamp’s recognizable UI, allowing music to be played from CDs, storage drives, and even Spotify. Most of the iconic Winamp features are there, including playlist editing, but those hypnotic visualizers are, unfortunately, MIA.

Late hyperpop legend Sophie, who tragically slipped and fell at the age of 34 from a balcony window in Greece in 2021 trying to look at the moon, has been memorialized on the 9th track “So I” of Brat, Charli XCX’s new album.

“When I’m on stage, sometimes I lie

Say that I like singing these songs you left behind

And I know you always said, “It’s okay to cry”

So I know I can cry, I can cry, so I cry”

I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying.