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Amazon's new music streaming service arrives in the UK with an Echo hook

by James Vincent

Amazon is launching its on-demand music streaming service, Amazon Unlimited Music, in the UK. The service was unveiled in the US last month, and offers 40 million tracks, Android and iOS mobile apps, and both handpicked and algorithmically...

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A Tribe Called Quest’s new album is tear-jerking, essential protest music

by Kwame Opam

When A Tribe Called Quest reunited to perform on The Tonight Show last fall, the group — Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Jarobi White, and Phife Dawg — couldn’t know what 2016 would bring. They were pioneers returned from hip-hop’s golden age, but...

Shia LaBeouf can rap, and I don’t know how to feel

by Micah Singleton

Nothing makes sense anymore. Shia LaBeouf, the actor and man who enjoys hanging out in elevators and calling it art, can rap. More precisely, he has bars. The man can spit. In a year when barely anything makes sense, Shia LaBeouf turning out to be...

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Listen to A Tribe Called Quest’s new album: We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service

by Kwame Opam

It took 18 years, but A Tribe Called Quest has released its sixth and final album — and it already sounds as vital and important as their early ‘90s classics. We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service sees Q-Tip, Jarobi White, Ali Shaheed...

Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen dies at the age of 82

by James Vincent

Legendary Canadian singer, songwriter, and poet Leonard Cohen has died at the age of 82. The news was announced on his Facebook page late last night, and although no details were shared regarding the cause of death, Cohen’s passing was not...

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Run The Jewels’ apocalyptic post-election track is dedicated to ‘everyone who is hurting’

by James Vincent

Feeling dead inside? Run The Jewels can wake you up a little. The rap duo have released a new single dedicated to "everyone who is hurting or scared right now." The pair say they wrote the song months ago (it seems it was planned for the upcoming R...

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Pandora brings the best features from its Plus service to the desktop

by Micah Singleton

Pandora has redesigned its web player to match the updated looks of its mobile apps and bring some features from Pandora Plus to the desktop. The new design relocates the navigation bar to the bottom of the screen, and brings album artwork to the...

Electric Jukebox is a music streaming service that only works on your TV

by Ashley Carman

Electric Jukebox is a dongle that streams music to a TV. It can be controlled through a remote or voice commands and was introduced last year. The dongle, the remote, and Electric Jukebox’s streaming service only work in the UK, and the hardware...

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Steely Danzig mashup adds dad-rock to Mother

by Rich McCormick

Glenn Danzig has always struck me as a singularly angry dude. That's partly because he's been infamously angry in public a number of times — irate about stage times, pissed off about Sinead O'Connor's bullshit, and indignant about bricks in his...

Why won’t the Country Music Association Awards mention Beyoncé?

by Kaitlyn Tiffany

Beyoncé’s surprise performance at the 50th Country Music Association Awards caused a tizzy on Twitter yesterday — both among Bey fans sitting down to watch their first country-music event, and some country-music fans who weren’t into the...

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Roli's Blocks are a new kind of surface for music-making

by Paul Miller

Most people, in my experience, like music. Many people, in my experience, would like to make music. But have you ever tried to make music? It's kind of difficult! There are so many different notes, and you get one note wrong and blam now it just...

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10 years of Taylor Swift: can you remember an era that isn’t this one?

by Kaitlyn Tiffany

Taylor Swift’s debut album Taylor Swift was released 10 years ago today. It’s hard to remember a time before her outsize cultural influence, which spans not only country and pop music but Twitter, “good girls,” confessional writing, capitalism,...

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How to make the most of Spotify playlists

by Kaitlyn Tiffany

A playlist is one of the best gifts you can give yourself. Playlists — where emotions lurk in every shadow and the mysterious alchemy of memory is constantly bubbling and brewing! Playlists — where you can cut the filler tracks and go all killer,...

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Dan Sultan is a singing, 3D-printed head in the music video for Magnetic

by Andrew Liptak

Australian alt-rock singer Dan Sultan just released his latest single, "Magnetic." It was accompanied by a really cool music video: one that features a stop-motion film of a 3D-printed bust of the singer. Sultan contacted Melbourne-based studio D...

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I went to a Hatsune Miku concert in my living room

by Andrew Webster

There are things you do at a concert that you wouldn’t during your everyday life. When thousands of people are pumping their fists in time to the beat, you do it, too. When they chant “encore” in unison, so do you. I did all of those things while...

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Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in literature

by Amar Toor

Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday. In a press release, the academy said that the legendary American singer-songwriter "for having created new poetic expressions within the great...

Pandora unveils new logo as showdown with Spotify nears

by James Vincent

In the battle for supremacy in the music streaming biz, Pandora is very much the grizzled veteran. Since the company first launched back in 2000 (2000!), its look has barely changed, sticking to just two variations of a rather staid wordmark. Now,...

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Amazon's full on-demand streaming music service launches today

by Dan Seifert

Amazon’s long-rumored on-demand music streaming service is now available. The company is launching its new service as Amazon Music Unlimited, a on-demand competitor to the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. Amazon has done a...

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SweetVinyl’s SugarCube SC-1 removes clicks and pops from old vinyl records

by Ashley Carman

A company called SweetVinyl just introduced a device that takes pops and clicks out of records without damaging them. Called the SugarCube SC-1, SweetVinyl says it designed an algorithm to detect unwanted noises, isolates them, and removes them in...

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iMessage users can now use Shazam without leaving their conversation

by Anisa Purbasari

Users of the popular music-identification app Shazam can now look up songs within iMessage without leaving their conversation. Today, the London-based company announced the launch of Shazam for iMessage, where you can send song names and previews...

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Somebody tell 2002 Kelly Rowland you can't send texts with Excel

by Micah Singleton

2002 was a strange time in America: Beyoncé and Jay Z just went public with their relationship, Michael Jordan was playing for the Washington Wizards, and Mark Zuckerberg was still a coder for hire. But one of the year's most confounding moments...

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Amazon’s music service for Echo users will launch in the next few weeks

by Micah Singleton

Amazon is planning to launch its long-rumored on-demand music service, which will compete with Spotify and Apple Music, by the beginning of next year, according to a source close to the situation. The company will also launch its Echo-based music...

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Lady Gaga will headline the Super Bowl halftime show next year

by Lizzie Plaugic

It's official: Lady Gaga will be performing at 2017's Super Bowl halftime show. US Weekly rumored the news earlier this month, but it was never actually confirmed by the NFL or Gaga herself. Today, Lady Gaga tweeted that she will, in fact, be the...

Ambient rock group Tycho just released a surprise, chill new album

by Andrew Webster

Look, it’s been a crazy week. You started out watching Donald Trump yell for 90 minutes, and now it’s Friday, and you’re ready to take a break. Well, good news: ambient rock project Tycho just released a surprise new album, and it’s super chill. I...

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Bon Iver obscures his vulnerability with vocal effects on 22, A Million

by Lizzie Plaugic

Bon Iver’s debut album, 2007’s For Emma, Forever Ago, slow-burned into relevance, despite the fact that its creator, Justin Vernon, might have preferred it remain in obscurity. It sold just 4,000 copies in its first week, but eventually received a...

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Pacemaker lets you create and share mixtapes made with Spotify streams

by Micah Singleton

Pacemaker, the DJ app that allows you to stream and beat-match songs from Spotify, is attempting to resurrect the mixtape. Today the company is introducing the Digital Mixtape, a new feature in version 2.0 of the app that will allow you to use its...

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Spotify's mobile lyrics feature is launching first in Japan

by Sam Byford

After several years of rumors suggesting an imminent launch, Spotify is now available in Japan, one of the biggest music markets in the world. The service will compete against the likes of Apple Music and Google Play Music, as well as local apps...

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Spotify is reportedly in talks to acquire SoundCloud

by Micah Singleton

Spotify is reportedly in advanced talks to purchase SoundCloud, according to a report from the Financial Times. The move would give Spotify a larger library of content  — SoundCloud has over 125 million songs — and remove a competitor from the...

Record labels sue popular YouTube audio-ripping site

by Lizzie Plaugic

A group of record labels, including UMG, Sony Music, and Warner Bros., have filed a copyright infringement claim against a YouTube stream-ripping website, the BBC reports. The website, youtube-mp3.org, converts YouTube streams to mp3 audio files....

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Dash Radio launches a filter that lets you toggle between clean and explicit music

by Micah Singleton

Anyone that has listened to FM radio, iHeartRadio, or even Beats 1 knows that when your favorite song comes on and it's full of bleeps on the curse words, it can be a bit frustrating if you want to sing along. On the other hand, if you're...

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Drake's Views is the first album to hit 1 billion streams on Apple Music

by James Vincent

Drake's Views has become the first album to clock up 1 billion streams on Apple Music. The Canadian rapper announced the news on Instagram with a pair of pictures — the first showing a celebratory plaque from Apple, signed by CEO Tim Cook (above);...

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Mary J. Blige will interview Hillary Clinton in potentially awkward Apple Music show

by Rich McCormick

Hillary Clinton will appear alongside singer Mary J. Blige on a new show for Apple Music, the streaming service announced tonight. The show is called The 411 — presumably a reference to Blige's debut album What's the 411? — and promises to show...

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