Morning Music Notes – Shazam Yells SHAZAM After Every Purchase
Stone Temple Pilots (Finally) Fire Scott Weiland
Yesterday, 90s Alt Rock giants, Stone Temple Pilots fired troubled singer Scott Weiland (via MTV). Their publicist apparently is short on words, and merely emailed around “Stone Temple Pilots have announced they have officially terminated Scott Weiland.”
Weiland responded to the comment with RAGE his own comment, noting “I learned of my supposed ‘termination’ from Stone Temple Pilots this morning by reading about it in the press. Not sure how I can be ‘terminated’ from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits, but that’s something for the lawyers to figure out. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing all of my fans on my solo tour which starts this Friday.”
Weiland does raise a good point – who owns the band? I’m pretty sure the only way to solve this mystery is to battle it out on a reality show. I’m available to host, too.
The National’s Aaron Dessner Curates New Boston Calling Festival
If London can having a London Calling festival, then surely Boston can have a Boston Calling festival, right? Um, sure. On May 25 and 26 at Boston’s City Hall Plaza, we will get just that, complete with awesome “dog in a suit and hat” logo. Does the dog come with the ticket purchase?
The festival is curated partly by Aaron Dessner of the National. For acts, he obviously picked his band, as well as the Shins, Dirty Projectors, Cults, Youth Lagoon, Andrew Bird, the Walkmen, MS MR, Of Monsters and Men, Ra Ra Riot, Marina and the Diamonds, Matt and Kim, plus more, more, more. Early bird tickets go on sale on Friday.
Shazam Creates $300 Million in iTunes and Amazon Sales
Shazam is that smartphone app you bust out at a bar or party when you hear a song you like but just don’t know the goddamn name of it. The app tells you, and it also slyly gives you the option of buying it on iTunes or Amazon, with an obvious kickback for Shazam. It also works for TV shows. The app has announced some stats, and they are pretty impressive.
Shazam notes that users are tagging a whopping 10 million songs, shows, and ads a day (via hypebot). In terms of sales from songs they discover on Shazam, people are buying about $300 million a year through iTunes or Amazon, with the majority of sales being music.
“20% of all iPhones in the US used Shazam last month, and in some European countries like France, Germany and the UK we’re seeing closer to 30% or 40%,” said Shazam’s executive VP of marketing, David Jones. “And we’re currently adding at least 2 million new users a week, and more than 3 million some weeks.”
Mobb Depp and Super Mario Brothers, Together at Last
Mash up culture doesn’t seem to want to die. Another trend is making 8-bit songs, such as Daft Punk or Radiohead’s classic albums. What we have here is Mobb Deep’s vocals mixed with samples and sounds from the original 8-bit game – Super Mario Brothers.
Check it out below and read all about Teddy Faley and the producers on their BandCamp page. Note the awesome artwork above, too. Also note that Band Camp embeds still don’t have a volume, and the default is fucking LOUD.
Mario Deep
