Music

Northward: Marble Garden

On a recent trek to Minnesota to visit family and do a bit of research on experimental cities, I knew exactly where the soundtrack for my journey around the state would be coming from: 89.3 FM, The Current. I discovered some great new music while listening to the station, but one song stuck out as…

A Website That Warps You Back to the Hit Songs of Your Youth

Do you ever have flashbacks to that middle school dance, the one where you slow-danced to All-4-One and had your first kiss under an elm tree while Quad City DJs closed out the night. (Not that that happened to me or anything.) A dead simple but super fun website now lets you travel back to…

The Most (And Least) Obscure Hit Songs Of The Last 114 Years, Graphed

It’s not often that you get the chance to say, “You probably won’t know this song, it’s pretty obscure” about a hit song. Now, thanks to this graph, you can. Image and list credit: Very Small Array Very Small Array put together this graph of the hit songs that either went on to become cultural…

The Amazon Prime Music catalog has been expanded by hundreds of thousands of songs, including some previous glaring absences. Time to get your Kendrick Lamar and David Guetta on.

The New TMNT Movie Rap Song Has Nothing To Do With Vanilla Ice

I don’t mean that as a judgment, just a statement of fact. “Shell Shocked,” the new song accompanying the new live-action Ninja Turtles movie, was composed by Juicy J, Wiz Khalifa, and Ty Dolla $ign and produced by Kill The Noise and Madsonik. And it’s pretty damned good. It’s also far more Ninja Turtle-specific than…

This Lovely Music Video Is Also a Lesson in How Cells Grow

British digital artist Andy Lomas has created a virtual model of cellular growth, allowing us to watch as intricate bio-inspired sculptures slowly take shape. Recently, he collaborated with techno-producer Max Cooper to create a music video titled Seething, named for the unstoppable and unrelenting propagation of life. As Lomas explains: Structures are created out of…

How The Neverending Story Taught Us to Love 80s Synth-Pop

Exactly 30 years ago today, the world saw The NeverEnding Story for the first time. It was a time before CGI, when you had to make fantasy movies with puppets. But nothing feels old fashioned about the synth-laden, sunset-colored theme song by Giorgio Moroder. The flying dragon-dog was pretty cool, too. While animatronics were on…

RIAA Bullies Tiny Music Sites That Pay Fees Instead of Make Money

We’ve known for years that the RIAA acts like a bunch of hypocritical bullies with nothing better to do than pick on the helpless. But wow. The latest report about how the lobbying organization is now bullying small music sites that not only have zero revenue but also pay licensing fees is just pathetic. https://gizmodo.com/riaa-reminds-us-why-we-hate-them-with-obnoxious-smartas-5877143…

Mondo Reveals Batman: The Animated Series Album Covers!

Now this is a fun idea. Mondo is making Batman: The Animated Series 7-inch album covers for San Diego Comic-Con. They look so rad. Here’s a preview video along with the art and where to get them via Mondo: We are so excited to announce our Batman: The Animated Series 7-Inch records featuring five different…

Explore New York City According to the Music It Inspired

New York City has not only provided the backdrop for a countless songs, but it’s also birthed entire genres of music. So when you start to plot where each of these moments happened, you’re soon left with a pretty exciting guided tour of one of the world’s biggest cultural capitals. YouTube links make it even…

The Antlers: Hotel

Summer can’t be all wild beach parties and fireworks and Songs of the Summer. There’s dim-roomed sunburn agony and thunderstorm-brokered power outages too—and these moments deserve their own playlist, as well. Here’s one nominee: Hotel, an amazing, foggy track off of the Antler’s latest album, Familiars. Released in mid-June, Familiars is no fun-time summer jam…

100 famous bass lines played in one badass mega-medley

This guy put together a medley with what he thinks are the 100 bass lines that every bass player should know. I think that a few should be forever banned and some great ones are missing, but most of them are a spot-on selection. In any case, kudos for his nonstop 13-minute performance. SPLOID is…

Vinyl’s Upward Surge Continues Because Vinyl Rules

Last week, Nielsen Soundscan released its mid-year report, and once again, album sales were in the gutter, down 14.9 percent from the year before. Vinyl, though, keeps plugging upwards, with sales growing 40 percent to 4 million units. Even as our media is increasingly intangible, there’s a subset of people that just can’t get enough…

Bloomberg: SoundCloud Is About to Sign Deals With Record Labels

Bloomberg is reporting that Soundcloud is close to signing deals with the world’s largest music labels that will protect it from legal wranglings over copyright violations. The news agency reports that Soundcloud—to music in 2014 what MySpace was to bands in 2004—is negotiating with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. According…

Aerosmith made more money on Guitar Hero than from any of their albums

According to the head of Activision, Aerosmith has made more money from licensing their songs and image for the Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game than from any one of their albums. This should really come as no surprise. Even back in the recording industry’s most profitable days, bands were almost always making more money from live…

I’m Not Sure How to Feel About this Neko Case Video About Geeks

Awesome singer-songwriter Neko Case got together with Kelly Hogan to make the song “These Aren’t the Droids” for the 2776 comedy/music benefit project. A lot of the sight gags are great, but the “geek stuff is for boys” message is a little … outdated. It’s hard to tell exactly what Case and Hogan are trying…

DJ Dodger Stadium: Love Songs

Last month my esteemable colleague Kate Knibbs proclaimed a certain song by Grimes to be a strong contender for song of the summer—and that it is! But I am here to offer another worthy contender, this one with a summery video to boot: “Love Songs” by DJ Dodger Stadium. Okay, maybe this isn’t the song…

8 Legendary Rock Concerts You Can Watch on YouTube Right Now

YouTube’s live music selection just got a massive shot in the arm: Music Vault has added over 12,000 clips from classic rock gigs, many of them full concerts, that you can watch for free. Here are eight of the best that you should watch as soon as you can. In excess of 2,000 hours of…

Batman Rocks Out To Dethklok In Animated Music Video—And It’s So Metal

How do you pump up the testosterone on a song by Metalocalypse’s Dethklok? Make Batman the lead singer and send him rocking with his iron buns and his backup band—made up of Red Hood, Nightwing, and Robin on the drums. This video might not be terribly safe for work depending on how your work feels…

The Soundtracks Behind Your Favorite Books

Books have typically missed out on getting the soundtrack treatment that movies have. But more books than ever are getting their own soundtracks now, and that’s a good thing. Today, we want you to create a soundtrack to go along with a book of your choice, whether an old classic or a new favorite. You…