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MUSIC

What Happens To Your Music If Your Streaming Service Goes Away?

The reason I’m screwed is that Spotify listeners’ ability to access their collection in the far-out future will be contingent on the company maintaining its software, renewing its agreements with rights holders, and, well, not going out of business when something else inevitably supplants the current paradigm of music listening. - The Atlantic

Algorithms Are Dulling Your Musical Taste

“Algorithmic recommendations are addictive because they are always subtly confirming your own cultural, political, and social biases, warping your surroundings into a mirror image of yourself while doing the same for everyone else.” - Los Angeles Times

The EU Has Fined Apple Two Billion Dollars For The Way It Treats Music Apps

“The commission said it found that Apple violated European competition rules by preventing app developers from informing users about 'alternative and cheaper’ music services." - Washington Post

Ignore The Nobel Committee, And Ask Yourself If Lyrics Can Ever Truly Be Literature

"While they can certainly be literary, a lyric is just one channel for conveying meaning in a song. The vocal delivery, melody, rhythm, arrangement and production are all used to enhance, or sometimes subvert, what the words are saying." - The Guardian (UK)

Music Is So Over On Social Media, But Sounds Are Here To Stay

As TikTok blocks music clips, “royalty-free, almost-contextless sound clips will become the new hot commodity.” - Wired

The Crisis In Pop Music

In the streaming era, tours have become the main source of cash as sales of recorded music have plummeted. However, a recent study by the Help Musicians charity found that an astonishing 98% are struggling to make a living. - The Guardian

The Strain Pop Music Inflicts On Voices

Pop vocals, then, routinely run up against the physical limits of the human body. Yet what makes a song difficult to sing doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with having to hit a particularly tricky note. - The Atlantic

Putin Is Using Classical Music Just The Way Lenin And Stalin Did

That is, "to project 'feelings of patriotism and national pride' inside Russia and 'the authority of the country on the international stage.'" (The phrases come from Putin's decrees.) One good example: an August 2022 performance of Shostakovich's "Leningrad" Symphony (the 7th) in St. Petersburg. - Van

ASCAP Reports Record Music Royalty Collections In 2023

ASCAP’s 2023 revenues represent an increase of $215 million or 14.1% over 2022. ASCAP says it increased the value and monetization of its members’ music with domestic revenue from U.S.-licensed performances surpassing $1.327 billion, which is an increase of $149 million or 12.6% over the prior year. - Inside Radio

Why Putin Is Using Shostakovich For Propaganda

Putin clearly hopes that the “Leningrad” Symphony will be as helpful for his invasion of Ukraine as it was for Stalin’s defense against the German invasion. -Van

Text-To-Music AI: Meet The Photoshop Of Music

Project Music GenAI Control is a new prototype tool that allows users to generate music using text prompts and then edit that audio without jumping over to dedicated editing software. - The Verge

Scientists: Pythagoras Was Wrong About Universal Music Harmonies

Researchers have now discovered two key ways in which Pythagoras was wrong. Their study, shows that in normal listening contexts, we do not actually prefer chords to be perfectly in these mathematical ratios. - Phys.org

Universal Music’s War With TikTok Tells Us Much About How The New Music Business Works

They are negotiating in a new world in which a seconds-long clip of a song on TikTok can be just as valuable as the tune in its entirety. - The Wall Street Journal

Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall To Be Renamed For Marian Anderson

The original deal with Verizon for naming rights at the Philadelphia Orchestra's home venue expired as of Jan. 1. Philanthropists Leslie Anne Miller and Richard B. Worley (the orchestra's former board chair) have given $25 million to name the hall for the great Philadelphia-born contralto in perpetuity. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

We Recreated Leonardo Da Vinci’s Harpsichord-Viola From His Own Designs

After five years of research, a team at Leonardo3, an interactive museum/exhibition center in Milan, built the instrument from drawings and notes in the 93rd folio of Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus (1478). And, in doing so, they learned why the harpsichord-viola had not been built and played before … - Artnet

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