Music

Important Update on the Wu-Tang Clan Super Secret Album Saga

They sold it. Wu-Tang Clan spent nine years making a super secret album called Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, of which only a single copy would be sold. A few months ago, a “private American collector” quietly bought it for “millions” of dollars. Wu-Tang threw in some free $55,000 speakers, too. ODB must be…

This Insane 2-Player Synth Makes the Music of the Future

What happens if you bolt together two keyboards, full color displays, a full suite of analog controllers and a granular synthesiser engine for two enthusiastic musicians? The Collidoscope is what—and it sound just futuristic as you’d expect. The guys that built it, researchers Fiore Martin & Ben Bengler, describe how it works: The Collidoscope samples…

Rdio Will Be Cancelling Subscriptions Starting Tomorrow

As you’ve probably heard if you’re an Rdio user, the music-streaming service is shuttering its doors. The fate of the company’s assets is clear—sold for $75 million to Pandora—but the wind-down process has now been outlined. https://gizmodo.com/rdio-is-being-acquired-by-pandora-1742863433 Effective the 23rd November, Rdio will stop accepting new subscriptions, and begin cancelling new accounts. Users’ accounts will…

The Weird, Sketchy History of Internet Cafes

Internet cafes started as coffee shops where you could check email. But over the years, people turned them into dens for sharing pirated music, hotspots for video game addiction, and even temporary housing. How Internet Cafes Were Born In the February 17, 1993 edition of the Washington Post, writer John Boudreau filed a story from…

Rockstars are go! For the 50th anniversary of the puppet adventure show Thunderbirds, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker is joining Portishead’s Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp’s Will Gregory fora ginormous tribute concert on Dec. 1. Contact the author at [email protected].

David Bowie’s New Video Is 10 Minutes of Sci-Fi Creep

The music video for David Bowie’s latest, Blackstar, premiered in NYC earlier today. It needed a full theatrical release, because it’s a 10-minute trip through an impossibly weird sci-fi cult. Quintessential Bowie, basically. The full Blackstar album is slated for January 8th.

Adele’s 25 Will Not Be On Spotify or Other Streaming Services

Adele’s highly-anticipated new record 25 will not be available on Spotify, according to the company. Here’s the canned statement provided to Gizmodo: “We love and respect Adele, as do her 24 million fans on Spotify. We hope that she will give those fans the opportunity to enjoy 25 on Spotify alongside 19 and 21 very…

Someone Made a Rube Goldberg Machine for Techno Beats and It’s Magical 

Hacking records is old hat in the music world. But have you ever wondered what happens when you hack everything you can find into a whirling tower of techno-making mechanical marvels? See above. London-based musician Graham Dunning is a tinkerer, to say the least. The artist spliced various pieces of metal onto records, stacked them…

World’s Largest Music Box Plays the Harry Potter Theme (Also Tchaikovsky and Liszt)

Do you like those tiny automatic musical instruments you can wind up and listen to their adorable jingling tunes? Or your grandma’s dancing ballerina music box? Or the wooden cable car model you have got from your uncle, playing “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”? If so, this overgrown hybrid of a music box…

Here’s How to Export Your Rdio Playlists

The news that Pandora is buying bankrupt Rdio is very sad indeed, and leaves many of us wondering what will happen to the Dad Rock playlists we spent years perfecting. Here’s a way to export them, for now. Frank Chimero posted a Chrome plugin that you can use to export your Rdio playlists as well…

Rdio Is Being Acquired By Pandora

Whoa, this is surprising news: The music streaming site Rdio is filing for bankruptcy protection and handing over key assets to competitor Pandora. Pandora is paying $75 million in a deal that include Rdio’s tech and intellectual property. From the release: In addition to acquiring technology and intellectual property from Rdio, many members of Rdio’s…

YouTube Music Is Breathtakingly Pointless

The new YouTube Music app is a failure. YouTube is quietly one of the most powerful forces in digital music, and this—THIS!—is the app that’s supposed to change everything. It changes nothing. Announced last month, YouTube Music is a cornerstone of YouTube’s strategy for getting people to sign up for its new YouTube Red subscription…

Should Doctors Be Allowed to Listen to Music During Surgery?

If you’ve had surgery under anesthesia in the last couple of decades, your doctor was probably listening to her favorite music while operating. There’s growing debate in the medical field about whether music in the operating room really helps surgeons focus or creates a potentially dangerous distraction. Imagine you’re in a busy restaurant. People chatter,…

Hologram Pop Star Hatsune Miku “Announces” 2016 US and Canada Tour

If you’re a fan of virtual musicians with computer-generated bodies and voices, and you live in North America, then do I have news for you. Hatsune Miku, Japan’s “virtual pop star,” is coming to the US and Canada next year for a seven-city, synth-filled tour—her first tour in this neck of the woods. Miku herself…

Beats Music Will Die a Sad, Lonely Death Later This Month

The writing has been on the wall for Beats Music ever since Apple bought the company and launched its own streaming service, Apple Music. The end is now coming: on November 25th, the not-quite-two-year-old service will end. According to Engadget, Apple is emailing the last remaining subscribers, encouraging them to jump ship over to Apple…

You Can Download YouTube’s New Music App Right Now

Last month, YouTube introduced us to a number of new initiatives aimed at roping people into a paid subscription. Today, we’re getting our first look at YouTube Music, the service’s tailor-made experience for kicking out the jams. The new app is available for both iOS and Android. In short, the app is designed to flesh…

iMaschine 2 Is a Powerful Overhaul of One of the Best Music-Making Apps

It’s been four years since electronic music production leader Native Instruments trotted out iMaschine. Today, we’re getting a total refresh, iMaschine 2, which makes the old app look puny. The old iMaschine was a great tool for the times but it was very much, as NI described it, “a sketchpad.” The new app is aimed…

The Hoverboards Have Won 

Missy Elliott has a new video for her excellent comeback single “WTF (Where They From).” In it, she rides around on an auto-balancing skateboard. The video also features what may be the first case of high-profile hoverboard break dancing: Earlier this fall I railed against calling them hoverboards, because they don’t fucking hover. But you…

Roland Boutique Series Review: Retro Synth Sound for Modern Day Dial Turners

With software these days you can recreate almost any sound you want. The hulking equipment that used to produce electronic music is long gone. And yet, people have a desire to touch buttons and turn knobs. The Roland Boutique Series is a middle-ground between the digital age of music making and the classic synths of…

I Listened to Sennheiser’s Absurd $55,000 Orpheus Headphones

I’m one of the first people in the world to listen to Sennheiser’s new $55,000 Orpheus headphone system. The new hardware’s 20 years in the making. Real, real serious shit. I’m trying hard to concentrate on the music–trying to give this crazy thing the severe attention I think it deserves. But I keep laughing my…