Morning Music Notes – Apparently Coachella Was This Past Weekend

What You Missed at Coachella

You probably weren’t at Coachella. I definitely wasn’t at Coachella. Why would I go and see some bands like Stone Roses, Blur, and Red Hot Chili Peppers when I’ve never heard of them?! As usual, a decent amount of newsworthy cool shit happened, and we’ll summarize in as few words as possible.

R. Kelly Joins Phoenix for 1901 and Ignition Remix

New Phoenix track Chloroform was mixed with I Am a Flirt, too. Check out a video below and cry that we didn’t get another Daft Punk / Phoenix collaboration.

Phoenix x R Kelly

Daft Punk Air Commercial, Cause Pandemonium

New Daft Punk album Random Access Memories continued it’s bizarre yet Internet-halting marketing campaign. Instead of the usual 15 second commercials on Saturday Night Live, we get over a minute on a screen at a festival in the California desert. This is in addition to debuting the album in the little known town of Wee Waa, Australia. Not many bands could pitch these ideas to older record execs and have them approve it. The album features Pharrell Williams, The Strokes’ singer Julian Casablancas, Panda Bear, Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, Chilly Gonzales, DJ Falcon, and Todd Edwards. Check out the edited for TV version, which was on SNL again this past weekend.

Daft Punk Preview Get Lucky

Other exciting stuff happened – just check Twitter and Instagram for some nonsensical posts.

Deftones’ Bassist Chi Cheng Dies

Chi Cheng was in a car accident back in 2008. The bassist was one of the founding members of the Deftones (who we caught in Toronto recently). After being in a partially conscious state for the past few years, Cheng passed away on Saturday at the age of 42. His family posted a statement on oneloveforchi.com.

“This is the hardest thing to write to you. Your love and heart and devotion to Chi was unconditional and amazing. I know that you will always remember him as a giant of a man on stage with a heart for every one of you. He was taken to the emergency room and at 3 am today his heart just suddenly stopped. He left this world with me singing songs he liked in his ear. He fought the good fight. You stood by him sending love daily. He knew that he was very loved and never alone.”

Artists such as Tom Morello, Slash, and Papa Roach paid tribute on Twitter, with Morello saying the perhaps insensitive comment “Head injury from car accident. Everyone please wear seatbelt and live.” Perhaps not the best time to lecture.

Ding Dong Denied

Is that the nicest flowing headline I have ever written? The Brits love their music campaigns. Fans famously hijacked the Christmas #1 song a few years ago, by getting the 1990s Rage Against the Machine track Killing in the Name to beat out the heavily favoured X-Factor TV show crap. Recently, after the death of Margaret Thatcher, certain members of the public have been campaigning to get Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead by The Wizard of Oz cast to the number 1 spot in the UK. Despite selling an impressive 52,605 copies, it found itself at number 2, behind Duke Dumont’s Need U (100%), which was number 1 for a second straight week (via Billboard). I guess Thatcher won’t be rolling over in her grave after all.

Another Thatcher themed song did well in the charts. The Notsensibles’ “I’m In Love With Margaret Thatcher” landed at number 35, despite being released in 1979. I bet you Thatcher’s husband listened to that track every morning, if only to remind himself.

Songza Raises $3.82 Million, Won’t Give Me Any Money

Themed music streaming site, Songza, has a boatload of money that I wouldn’t mind getting my mitts on. The site has just raised a $3.8 million sum after a funding round (via hypebot). My most recent begging funding round netted me a McDonalds coupon. The kicker was I had no one to go with to be the other half of my “2 can dine for $8.99” deal.

Live Nation Lab’s Kyle Bylin recently said “As the service gains traction, it will likely further the transition of music to merely the audio backdrop to our daily activities. It won’t be assumed that we do something else and listen to music, it’ll be accepted that we’re always doing something else”.

Stream! Jai Paul’s Debut Album

Interesting marketing tactic – a free debut album! Well, it was free – it doesn’t seem to be free anymore. After whetting our appetite with tracks like the Jasmine demo, Jai Paul has now put his debut album up on Bandcamp. The UK electro pop artist signed to XL Recordings in 2010, and it’s unclear whether they know about this Bandcamp release or if this is continuing the mysterious Jai Paul marketing strategy (these guys must be hanging out with Daft Punk’s marketing people). Check out the album below, and turn down the volume, since Bandcamp’s default volume is 11/10 without a changeable volume setting.

UPDATE: Not an authorized upload. Do NOT buy this.

To confirm: demos on bandcamp were not uploaded by me, this is not my debut album. Please don’t buy. Statement to follow later. Thanks, Jai

— Jai Paul (@jai_paul) April 15, 2013