Morning Music Notes – Disasters of a Different Kind

Two Bestival Disasters – One Serious, One Artificial

The Isle of Wight’s Bestival was this past weekend, with headliners such as The xx, Sigur Rós, Alabama Shakes, Azealia Banks, and loads more. Sadly, a bus carrying Bestival passengers crashed late last night, killing 3 people (via Gigwise). The coach reportedly left the road and struck a tree, and then the coach overturned.

Sigur Rós also suffered a “disaster” of their own, but obviously nowhere near as serious as dying in a bus crash. The band were supposed to play a night time slot, as they were relying on the darkness for some key visuals. However, apparently their slot was “pushed into daylight by the expansive demands of the headliner.” And who was this demanding headliner? Stevie Wonder! Is it wrong to make a blind joke about darkness?

Sigur Rós issued a full statement on their website, noting “sigur rós would like to apologise to anyone disappointed not to see the band’s bestival performance live online last night. early in the day a decision had been made to delay broadcast till after the show to give the band a chance to review the footage ahead of webcast, since they were dismayed that their guaranteed “darkness” slot had been pushed into daylight by the expansive demands of the headliner. the band’s only uk show of the year, this would-be highlight of the 2012 calendar, would have to be conducted without proper lights or visuals. sadly then, a perfect storm of production issues and technical problems conspired to mean that the band went on to have a thoroughly miserable experience on stage too. and to spare everyone’s blushes a decision was made to draw a discrete veil over proceedings. sorry, but we can be so much better than what you missed. another time, for sure.”

Nothing like cowering behind an Internet rant that Stevie Wonder won’t see – literally.

Warner Music Sued Over Muse Sci-Fi Rock Opera Concept

Here’s a weird one for you – if it involves the phrase “sci-fi rock opera”, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be weird. The fantastic three song closing set to Muse’s album, The Resistance, features a blend of classical music and rock on the Exogenesis tracks. A songwriter, Charles Bollfrass, claims that he contacted Muse and 2 other bands to compose the score for Exogenesis, but all declined (via Fact). He was a little surprised to see Muse close out their album with his concept.

Bollfrass also claims that the cool cover art on the Resistance is from an image on his storyboards from the Exogenesis idea he pitched. He wants what he feels he is due, and is suing Warner Music for $3.5 million, for copyright infringement, unfair trade practices and unfair competition. Bollfrass also hopes Muse doesn’t rip off his “The 2nd Law” ideas either.

YouTube Now Has Its Own iPhone App, and it Has Ads

Google owns YouTube, and Apple is kicking non-Apple things off of their iPhones, including Google Maps. This meant that YouTube needed to make it’s own iPhone app, which it has now done (via Tech Crunch). However, they’ve added ads. So before you get to watch the latest video of a cat doing something utterly hilarious, you’ll have to watch a short add. Boo to ads! However, since the app is separated from being a native Apple iPhone app, and videos are being monetized, this means more content. An example is music videos from VEVO, which are now viewable on the mobile version of YouTube. The search has been updated, which is good news, as the previous one was sort of crap.

Teenage Smartphone Use is Increasing Rapidly, But They Don’t Care About Stats, or Anything

In July 2011, 36% of teenagers claimed to have smartphones. One year later, this has jumped to 58% of people aged 13-17 (via Slash Gear). So either more teenagers are lying, or Nielsen are doing their research effectively.

However, young adults are still the big users, with 74% of people aged 25-34 having a smartphone. They also have higher paying jobs, so there might be some correlation there. Are we going to get to a point where smartphones are just phones, and we can drop the “smart” prefix?

In terms of operating system for their phones, Android is still the big winner, with 51.8% of smartphone sales. Apple’s iOS is second with 34.3%. Lagging way behind is Blackberry, with 8% and dropping. People aged 65+ understood about 2% of these last two paragraphs (note: no source).

Stream the new Grizzly Bear album, Shields

Courtesy of the folks at NPR, who seem to get every exclusive album stream first, comes the entire stream of the new Grizzly Bear album, Shields. Following up their highly successful previous album, Veckatimest, the band have already dropped tunes like Sleeping Ute and Yet Again on our happy ears. It’s one of the more anticipated albums on the busy fall line up, so check it out now before it gets lost in the shuffle.