If YouTube didn’t exist, 85% of time spent on YouTube would move to lower value channels, and would result in a significant increase in piracy. | | | | Harry Styles on "Saturday Night Live."
(Will Heath/NBC Universal) | | | | |  | “If YouTube didn’t exist, 85% of time spent on YouTube would move to lower value channels, and would result in a significant increase in piracy.”
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| | rantnrave:// The MP3 is dead, long live the MP3. For everyone who read the excellent HOW MUSIC GOT FREE (if you haven’t yet, seriously order it right now), this is the final nail in a coffin that a group of German engineers has been trying to close since the ‘90s. The research group that created the MP3 and fought for years for it to win the sound file wars has finally thrown in the towel, saying the AAC is better. Not coincidentally, the same group created the AAC. The technology behind the AAC, they say, involves a more holistic understanding of how the brain processes information. Or, as NPR's ANDREW FLANAGAN explains, "New audio formats and products, with richer information and that better address mobile music streaming, are arriving"… Let’s hear it for the boys: BILLBOARD reports that men are having their longest streak of Hot 100 No. 1s in 25 years, with seven in a row. It started with RAE SREMMURD’s “Black Beatles," way back in November. That was followed by tracks from THE WEEKND, MIGOS, ED SHEERAN, KENDRICK LAMAR, BRUNO MARS and now (my personal pick for song of the summer ’17) “I'M THE ONE” by DJ KHALED featuring JUSTIN BIEBER, CHANCE THE RAPPER, LIL’ WAYNE and QUAVO. Who’s going to unseat them? My money is on MILEY CYRUS, whose new “MALIBU” is already topping the Trending 140 chart... That said, HARRY STYLES hasn’t had his turn in the No. 1 spot yet. With a new album out today, he has to be gunning for it. Weigh his chances in our latest MusicSET: "Harry Styles’ Second Direction"... I couldn’t stop laughing while reading ANNE T. DONAHUE’s take on all the things RIVERDALE gets wrong about music. While I applaud the show for all its moments focusing on music, there is a lot happening that doesn’t make sense in our reality. Good thing this show is set in a TWIN PEAKS-esque alternate reality, right?... YOUTUBE has heard the grousing about its value to artists and the music industry, and its serious about changing your mind. So much so that it commissioned a study from RBB ECONOMICS and will publish a series of white papers debunking some of the biggest arguments against the streaming platform. The first aims to debunk the idea that YouTube streams are cannibalizing sales and streams from higher paying platforms. Not surprisingly, it suggests the alternative, if you take YouTube out of the mix, is piracy... It’s EUROVISION season and surprise, surprise: RUSSIA is not participating. Many post-Soviet nations are, however, and they’re using it to make their politics known… Finally, a shoutout to my old pal DAVID MOGENDOFFER, who went from being the most beloved guy at MTV UK to helping the GORILLAZ create a virtual reality video for YouTube. Break the next VR video record with him! | | | - Courtney E. Smith, guest curator |
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 | NPR |
| The MP3 upended the way the world receives and hears music, for better and for worse. Now it's dead. | | |
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 | REDEF |
| Can a boy-band graduate shake his own mythology and expectations and rock his way into a new life in 2017? Or is he truly shaking anything at all? Meet Harry Styles, who you may or may not have known before. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| High-profile new box sets from Beyoncé, Radiohead and the Beatles are appealing to an audience still willing to spend big on physical media. | | |
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 | The Calvert Journal |
| Why is Eurovision so politically important for New East countries? | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Seven No. 1s in-a-row, from "Black Beatles" to "I'm the One," mark the most consecutive leaders by exclusively male acts since 1991-92. | | |
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 | Pitchfork |
| Ahead of next week’s Helium reissues, peers and students of band leader Mary Timony share stories of her greatness. Or as Carrie Brownstein puts it: “Timony, that woozy wizard.” | | |
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 | Thump |
| "When I die, it’s going to be in the kitchen of my restaurant, the DJ booth, or the dancefloor." | | |
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 | The Creative Independent |
| "I try really hard not to get jaded or cynical about things, but I think it’s just a fact of growing older that you just start to notice patterns, and a lot of those patterns are upsetting." | | |
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 | The Quietus |
| With every pop release hailed like the coming of a prophet have the big names of the mainstream sucked up too much critical oxygen? Michael Hann asks if poptimism has merely ended up becoming as narrow-minded as the rockism it usurped. | | |
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 | The Vinyl Factory |
| 10 records that borrowed from Kraftwerk’s 1981 electronic opus. | | |
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 | UPROXX |
| Sergei Prokofiev's beloved piece gets a 'Fargo' twist in the latest season three episode, "The Narrow Escape Problem." | | |
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 | Music Week |
| David Mogendorff, artists relations manager at YouTube, has spoken to Music Week about the growing demand for VR content, having worked with Gorrilaz on the ground-breaking video for their track Saturnz Barz, the world’s biggest VR video release to date. | | |
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 | The Next Web |
| A playlist celebrating the creative use of technology in music, compiled by Philip Oomen, Head of Music Research & Licensing at MassiveMusic. | | |
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 | MTV News |
| Even with the final reveal of Jason Blossom’s killer, a bigger question looms over the town defined by its murders and booming maple syrup empires: Why doesn’t anybody in "Riverdale" know how music works? | | |
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 | BuzzFeed |
| Karen Carpenter has seemingly always been big in the Philippines. I never knew why until now. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| The Offspring's Dexter Holland has completed the molecular biology Ph.D program he put on hold to focus on rock & roll. | | |
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 | Google Blog |
| The music industry is navigating a period of significant change. But while physical sales have been on the decline, advertising- and subscription-funded streaming have been a source of growth. | | |
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| The Guardian |
| Brian Eno’s favourite music genre is getting cool again, as a number of events dedicate new areas to the art of the chillout. But why now? | | |
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| Pitchfork |
| Mike Hadreas details his daily listening habits: rowing with Mr. Mister, rehearsing with Bobby Darin, driving his Honda with Sia, and more. | | |
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| Billboard |
| In a new court filing reviewed by "Billboard," Universal is said to have demanded that its $30 million deal to license Prince's recorded-music catalog be rescinded and the money returned. | | |
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| © Copyright 2017, The REDEF Group |
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