Great words by Chris Cohen in GQ about Apple Music Classical, the newly launched Apple service dedicated to, obviously, classical music. "I have been endlessly frustrated with how the big streaming platforms (Spotify, in my case) handle classical music. And after playing around with it for a day, I am ready to issue a snap judgment: Assuming you don’t already have a Lydia Tár-scale collection of rare Decca LPs, Apple Music Classical is the best way to immediately listen and learn... Tthe success of the app hinges on solving a boring, technical problem: metadata. Pop music relies on just a few variables to identify a piece of music: artist, album, song. In the classical world, more pieces of data matter, like the composer, the conductor, the performer, or the dates of composition, recording, and release... A usable classical streaming service needs to figure out how to display all of that information, and make it searchable". That's what Apple Music Classical has done.

Nadya Tolokonnikova of the artist-activist collective Pussy Riot has been added to the Russian Interior Ministry’s database, which claimed Tolokonnikova faced criminal charges. However, in a somewhat Kafkian manner, the Moscow authority didn't specify what those charges are. Tolokonnikova believes the charges relate to her art, the AP reports. Tolokonnikova reportedly lives in the U.S., but she is still a Russian citizen and did not seek refugee status.

Decential shares an interesting outtake from the latest Water & Music academy on global music rights: "To be fully licensed a startup would have to speak to about 150 entities and spend between $500,000 to $750,000 in legal fees. And being licensed then means you have to pass about 85 percent of your revenue straight to the rightsholders – one of the reasons Spotify has such slim margins. So unless you’re a massive platform with a savvy team, there’s not much you can do to disrupt entrenched power dynamics". “Music innovation only stays innovative until they start to touch rights and licensing, Is it any wonder that the last great innovation was Spotify?” - Dan Fowler, director of Open Source Projects at HIFI Labs and author of newsletter Liminal Spaces, said. The solution the academy has offered? Web3.

Iconic French electronic music producer Laurent Garnier has shared his new song 'Tales from the Real World', featuring vocals of late Suicide co-founder Alan Vega. It will be released on his new full-length, '33 Tours Et Puis S'en Vont', his “most dancefloor-focused yet.” The album is coming out May 25. Garnier announced he will be taking a step back from the heavy touring.

"I always had an affinity for the lower end of things and I liked the physically intimidating and challenging nature of the instrument. It was mano-a-mano, the physical representation of the object versus your body. It was more symmetrical in terms of the instrument’s stature and weight. I liked the freedom of exploration acoustically it gives you with the deeper, longer and wider tube. It gives you much more of a breadth and depth of frequency to play with" - Colin Stetson says in The Quietus interviewThe long road about his instrument of choice - the bass saxophone. He is about to release his new single, ‘When We Were That What Wept For The Sea’, celebrating the life of his father.

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, an Ethiopian nun who became known for her captivating piano compositions, has passed away in Jerusalem, where she’d lived in a monastery since 1984. She was 99 years old, Fana Broadcasting reports. As a young girl, she studied music in Switzerland and Egypt. Despite being unable to continue her formal music education, she composed, drawing from the church canon as well as popular Western genres such as the blues and ragtime to create her own singular style — a light, airy sound that was nevertheless capable of conveying intense emotion. She began releasing her first music officially in 1967, always donating the proceeds to charity.

Ugandan MPs have approved an anti-LGBTQ+ bill which recommends heavy sentences – including the death penalty – for acts of homosexuality in a country where it is already illegal, Guardian reports. The underground electronic music scene in the capital Kampala has flourished in the past decade, becoming a safe space for members of the east and central African LGBTQ+ community. The London paper talked to several Ugandans from the capital affected by the incoming law change.

Spotify's much-hyped AI “DJ” is now available in the US, serving up recommendations in six distinct ways, Medium reports. It's these:

1. Based on recent listening

2. From your past - not sure yet how they quantify the past

3. Recommended for you - based on recommendations coming from controversial technologies like “discovery mode”

4. Throwbacks - focused on catalog music

5. Editors’ picks - recommendations currently highlighted by Spotify’s artist and marketing teams

6. Trending music - a brand new mode that appears to cater to gen-z style records that are growing in popularity on Tiktok and Reels

Apple’s new app for classical music, Apple Music Classical, is now available for download for everyone, but you need an Apple Music subscription (it is not available in select countries at launch). There are more than 5 million tracks available on the app right now, as well over 50+ million data points with data attributes of 20,000+ composers, 115,000+ unique works, and 350,000+ movements. App’s specialized search engine helps you comb through the archive, Apple announced.

hundreds of tech, science, and academic leaders – have signed an open letter simply titled “Pause Giant AI Experiments”, calling on all AI labs around the world “to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4”. In their open letter signatories write: “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity". Those who’ve signed the letter include Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX, Twitter, and Tesla, also the co-founder of OpenAI, creators of GPT-4), the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak, Evan Sharp, the co-founder of Pinterest, three team members at Alphabet/Google‘s experimental AI hub, DeepMind: Victoria Krakovna (DeepMind, Research Scientist, co-founder of Future of Life Institute); Zachary Kenton, (DeepMind, Senior Research Scientist); and Ramana Kumar, DeepMind, Research Scientist.

South Korean label Kakao Entertainment has launched a new four-member virtual K-Pop girl group called MAVE in January. The members Siu, Zena, Tyra, and Marty are presented as human-like avatars with natural-looking movements and facial expressions. They speak Korean, English, French and Bahasa, although they are not able to respond to prompts and only rely on scripts prepared by humans. MAVE's debut single 'Pandora' was released just two months ago and has also already generated over 20 million streams on Spotify alone, Reuters reports. The music video for the track has already racked up more than 20 million views on YouTube and they also have over 172,000 subscribers on the platform.

Impressive numbers shared by MBW about the vast amount of songs being released on streaming services each day, and especially in the last three years. An average of 98,500 separate music files are distributed daily to streaming services (based on the numbers for the period of September 1 – October 18, 2022). However, just 4% or 3,940 tracks of those 98,500 average daily track uploads were distributed by the three majors, whereas the rest of 96% or 94,500 tracks were distributed by independent labels and, mainly, by self-releasing/DIY artists via platforms like DistroKid, TuneCore, CD Baby, and UnitedMasters. Another astonishing piece of data shared by Luminate - 91 million tracks of the 196 million audio and video music tracks on digital services today were released in 2020, 2021, or 2022, meaning in the pandemic or post-pandemic era.

"Smart but chaotic, funny but disturbing – 'Scaring the Hoes' is a confounding victory" - Alexis Petridis points out about the collaborative album by New York’s Jpegmafia and Detroit’s Danny Brown. "The end result is the dictionary definition of not for everybody... It’s music that you don’t listen to so much as allow yourself to be overwhelmed by. Once you do, it becomes curiously addictive." Pitchfork says the album is "a vehicle for the duo’s irreverent humor and energy that captures a pair of spitballing pranksters who nevertheless maintain perfect GPAs."

"Tickets today cost two to three times as much as inflation-adjusted tickets from a few decades ago" - Wren Graves argues in his excellent Consequence text about where the live music industry is heading. "This is hardly the first period of human history with great wealth inequality, but it’s one of the first times that the middle-class and 1% are competing over the same seats... There are only so many seats and many more people who wish to sit in them. In this environment, what does a fair ticket price even look like?".

A great point by Matty Karas in today's newsletter about music being illegal, and weapons legal: "In Tennessee, it will be illegal as of April 1 for male or female impersonators to perform in the presence of children or within 1,000 feet or schools, parks or places of worship. This would include, for example, any male Dolly Parton impersonator who 'appeals to a prurient interest,' as plenty of the Tennessee country queen’s songs do... It’s legal, on the other hand, for most people over the age of 21 to open-carry handguns without a permit almost anywhere in Tennessee".

"Private gigs is an underreported yet booming business that has had great breakdowns. The more I look at the trends though, the more I believe that these gigs say a lot about where music is heading" - Trapital's Dan Runcie points out in his latest memo. While he does approve of the idea, Runcie believes that "for musicians, there’s less correlation than ever between 'who pays me the most' and 'who loves me the most'".

100% renewable power, veggie food, upcycling workshop, outlawed single-use plastics, organic food, wooden stages, recycling stations, biodegradable crockery, electric fleets, low-impact solar-powered lighting, chemical-free compost loos, water-saving vacuum toilets, mobile solar-power stations, waste-separation points, and many more eco-friendly schemes are featured in sustainable festivals in the EU and the UK. Guardian selects 10 prominent ones, Pohoda, Isle of Wight, and Terraforma among others.

In the 14th century BC in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit several tablets were inscribed with cuneiform signs in the hurrian language. Archaeologists unearthed these clay tablets in the 1950s, and they turned out to be the oldest known piece of music ever discovered, a 3,400-year-old cult hymn. Richard Fink points out that this piece of music also confirms a theory that “the 7-note diatonic scale, as well as harmony, existed 3,400 years ago.” Open History reminds about the discovery.

"Whatever the environment, dance is about joy. No one dances and feels rubbish after – unless, maybe, you’ve slipped over onto your arse. But go to any club night worth its merit and you’ll be confronted with people from all walks of life. And that is the dancefloor at its most powerful" - The Face presents Emma Warren's new book, 'Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the Dancefloor'. It "places direct emphasis on movement. It’s not all about clubs; it’s about dancing as a primal need." The author writer “there’s evidence that shows when people move in synchrony together, they rate each other more highly, after swinging their arms about together in the same way. That obviously has an effect on relationships between people who experience the world differently.”

"Today almost every aspect of music-making, from composition to curation, is getting handed off to machines. But 60 years ago, just teaching a computer to sing for 30 seconds was a technological marvel" - music writer Ted Gioia goes to the roots of AI-assembled music. It was  IBM's 7094 computer that was taught how to sing in 1961.

Pakistani American singer Arooj Aftab is rejoined by her collaborators - jazz pianist Vijay Iyer and synth player Shahzad Ismaily - on her new album 'Love In Exile', a "sort of beautiful, strange sonic landscape made from strings, keys, and breath," as Rolling Stone puts it. Guardian hears tenderness, calling the album "the sound of a trio playing in gentle harmony... Aftab, Iyer and Ismaily reveal the beauty in quietude".

In the latest Trapital podcast, Dan Runcie talks to MIDiA Research’s Tati Cirisano about short form video and the three-sided battleground being fought between TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. Questions asked were which company added the most value - to artists and creators, to the music industry, and to its parent company. The conclusions: TikTok is the most valuable to artists and creators given its massive reach and cultural cache. YouTube Shorts is the one that’s most valuable to music since strong agreements are in place, and YouTube is proud of the billions it pays to the industry. Reels is the most valuable for its parent company.

• "Everything gets faster. That’s why TikTok creators are speeding up their songs and visuals.
• Everything gets shorter. That’s why song duration is shrinking—the 3-minute pop song has been replaced by the 2-minute pop song.
• Everything new soon seems old. Trends come and go as users churn through novelties.
• Everything gets dumber. Hey, just look around you.

Music writer Ted Gioia is longing for more substance in our lives in his latest newsletter, as opposed to shots of dopamine served on social media. He compares it to intermittent reinforcement - a theory based on an experiment with rats that showed that they could be manipulated more easily if rewards and punishments were sporadic and unpredictable. Gioia is hopeful - "most people crave something more enriching than a quick dose of dopamine from their handheld Skinner Box. Once they’ve tasted the real thing, a meaningful number of them—a decisive majority, in my opinion—will refuse to give up the riches of their music, books, movies, museums, and other repositories of glory and genius"

Beyoncé’s collaboration with Adidas on her fashionable athletic clothing brand Ivy Park is coming to an end, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The superstar and the German shoe and clothing giant have mutually agreed to part ways, though no specific reason for the termination was mentioned. Earlier this year, reports emerged on weak sales for Ivy Park. THR reports how Beyoncé is "excitedly looking to reclaim her brand, chart her own path and maintain creative freedom".

"AI’s most groundbreaking role will likely be as a new medium that will shift music into more adaptive, responsive formats" - Oleg Stavitsky of Endel, an AI-powered sound wellness company, writes in his MBW Op/Ed. "Generative AI can provide the next revolution in music mediums. Medium is the message: the way the music is delivered to us today influences the format and music itself" - Stavitsky shares his general idea about the issue, and looks ahead - "AI-powered adaptive functional soundscape version of your favorite music is the future available to us today. It opens up new opportunities for artists to create and monetize their art, for platforms to offer additional revenue streams, and for labels to breathe new life in their catalogs. Best of all: it can peacefully coexist with traditional pre-recorded music that we know and love."

Virginia Tech's women’s basketball team has a No. 1 seed in this year’s NCAA tournament, which means that they get to play their games at home. The NCAA has been trying to make the tournament games more of a neutral environment, so they’ve banned Virgian Tech's team from playing their song - 'Enter Sandman' by Metallica, the USA Today reports. Well, that didn't stop fans from singing the song.

MBW shares some not-so-great numbers about music played on streaming services - there are 67.1 million tracks on music streaming services that, in the 2022 calendar year, attracted 10 or fewer streams apiece, globally. These 67.1 million songs represent 42% of the entire catalog of tracks available on streaming services - there are 158 million tracks on streaming platforms. Nearly a quarter (24%), or approximately 38 million tracks attracted - zero plays in 2022.

"The cybergrind renaissance is happening in a big way, and young duo Bejalvin have blown its doors off the fucking hinges. From dubstep to deathcore and every maximalist, heavy, catchy niche in between, 'Bejible' is the most fun I’ve had listening to music in years. This is truly next level shit" - Heavy Shit Is Heavy blog notes about the second album by the Minneapolis duo. It's essentially hyper-pop from a metal perspective. Interesting stuff.

The IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) reported that global recorded music revenues in 2018 had totaled $19.1 billion. By May 2020, those 2018 revenues had been slightly downgraded to $18.7 billion, whereas this week, the IFPI says it was actually $17.5 billion, the industry analyst Mark Mulligan of MIDIA noted on Twitter. More of the same - a year ago, IFTI reported $25.9 in 2021 revenues. This week it's much less - an even $24 billion. Global recorded music growth from 2021 to 2022? Nine percent, according to the industry. One percent, according to Mulligan.

TikTok has blocked access to major label music for some users of its app in Australia last month in an effort to monitor user behavior – it was an experiment to see just how much its audience really valued 'premium' music. TikTok took that step in the middle of negotiations with the majors for its next round of music licensing agreements. Bloomberg reports that the number of people using TikTok in Australia declined for three consecutive weeks after the experiment began, and the amount of time users spent on the app declined in the same period.