Apple and Beats in the Midst of Developing Music Streaming Service

Remember how last year when Apple purchased Beats for $3 million speculation began that the two mega companies would be forming a new music streaming service that could “rival Spotify”?

Well, it sounds like that time is coming closer.

In a recently published article in The New York Times, it appears that not only is Apple working on a new music streaming service, it will also be saying good-bye to the Beats name, something that they promised back in September would not happen.

One thing that has remained a constant since the announcement of the merge is that Nine Inch Nails frontman, Trent Reznor will be playing a part in the creation of this streaming service. Reznor, whose previous title was Chief Creative Officer of Beats Music before the acquisition, previously revealed he would be part of this new project, but what he would be actually doing has remained a secret.

“Beats was bought by Apple and they expressed direct interest in me designing some products with them. I can’t go into details, but I feel like I’m in a unique position where I could be of benefit to them. That does mean some compromises in terms of how much brain power goes toward music and creating. This is very creative work that’s not directly making music, but it’s around music.”

Sadly, according to NYT, this new streaming service will not have a free tier. The free tier has become a staple in luring customers to shell out big money for more music choices and no commercials.

Reznor had also voiced his opinion on this new era where people want music for free as opposed to paying to get the music that they want.

“I think paying for music is a relic of an era gone by. And I’m saying that as somebody who hopes you pay for music. I’ve spent my life trying to make this thing that now everyone thinks should be for free.”

Another difference between the current streaming services of the world and this new project? The pricing, at least that’s what Apple was trying to do.

Apple attempted to persuade record labels to agree to lower licensing costs resulting in Apple being able to sell subscriptions to its streaming service for $8 a month; the standard for services like Rhapsody, Rdio, and yes, Spotify is $10 a month. But that did not pan out the way they wanted. As the article points out, it reflects just how far behind Apple is in the music streaming game.

As for now, nothing is concrete on what Apple is trying do with this new music streaming service, but if people have to pay for it without a free trial, do you really think the consumer give it the time of day?

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2015 Nominees Announced

It’s that time of year again; the time when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announce the nominees for the class of 2015.

Among the 15 artists being considered for inclusion at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland are: Green Day, Nine Inch Nails, The Smiths, Lou Reed, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Kraftwerk, N.W.A., Sting, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, The Marvelettes, The Spinners, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chic, War, and Bill Withers.

In order for a musician to be considered for a nomination into the Hall of Fame, their first recording (or debut record) must have been released at least 25 years ago.

For Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, this is the first year that either band have been eligible for consideration. Green Day’s debut record 1,000 Hours and Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine were both released in 1989.

Unlike Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, The Smith have been eligible for years now, but this is the first time they have been nominated. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts as well as N.W.A have been nominated a total of three times now, while Kraftwerk have been nominated one time before.

Lou Reed was previously been inducted into the Hall of Fame as a member of Velvet Underground while Sting was inducted as a member of The Police.

Ballots will now be sent out to an international voting body of over 600 rock experts which include artists, historians, and music industry members. The top five nominees with the most votes will be inducted into the Hall of Fame in April 2015.

Fans can also vote on their worthy nominees with the “fan’s ballot” which accounts for one of the 600 ballots. Fans have until Dec. 9 to put in their votes over at RollingStone. com.

Brand New Cover Nine Inch Nails in Manchester

Brand New have been taking some cues from Bruce Springsteen and have begun to cover some tracks during their sets on their current tour.

During their show in London last week, the band played “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot” from Deja Entendu when they decided to do something a little different by including covers of Coldplay’s “Yellow” and Modest Mouse’s “Trailer Trash.”

Like London, the band did the same things at their show last night (April 18) in Manchester, but rather than including it as a live mix to one of their own songs, they went on to cover Nine Inch Nails’ “Wish” on its own. Watch the fan shot video below and tell us if there’s a song in your opinion that the band should cover in the future.

Brand New are currently on tour in Europe, scheduled to perform in Germany, England, and Italy followed by a touring stint in North America for selected stops in the United States and Canada.

Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden Team Up for Upcoming Tour

Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden announced during the weekend that the two bands will be heading out on tour. Speculation about the tour began when Spin Magazine asked Soundgarden if the rumors were true during an interview at South By Southwest last week. The band side-stepped the question which typically means that the rumors are true.

This past weekend, the rumors had been confirmed when the bands both announced that the tour was definitely happening. The official announcement is set to happen later today, but the tour dates had already been released when the confirmation had been made.

Nine Inch Nails will be going from one big tour to another. The Trent Reznor-led group are currently wrapping up an Australian tour with Queens of the Stone Age while Soundgarden just finished performing at the inaugural iTunes Festival here in the United Stated during SXSW. This year also marks the 20th anniversary of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral and Soundgarden’s Superunknown.

Long live the grunge.

NINE INCH NAILS, SOUNDGARDEN TOUR:

July 19 – Las Vegas, NV @ Planet Hollywood
July 21 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Ampitheatre
July 24 – Tinley Park, IL @ First Midwest Bank Ampitheatre
July 26 – Clarkston, MI @ DTE Energy Music Theatre
July 27 – Toronto, Ontario @ Molson Canadian Ampitheatre
July 29 – Mansfield, MA @ XFINITY Center
July 30 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
August 01 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre
August 02 – Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
August 04 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
August 05 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Farm Bureau Live at Virginia Beach
August 07 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavillion
August 08 – Atlanta, GA @ Aaron’s Ampitheater at Lakewood
August 10 – West Palm Beach, FL @ Cruzan Ampitheatre
August 11 – Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Ampitheatre
August 14 – Austin, TX @ Austin360 Ampitheater
August 16 – Woodlands, TX @ Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion
August 17 – Dallas, TX @ Gexa Energy Pavillion
August 19 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Ampitheater
August 21 – Chula Vista, CA @ Sleep Train Ampitheatre
August 22 – Irvine, CA @ Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre
August 24 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Ampitheater
August 25 – Hollywood, CA @ Hollywood Bowl

Queens of the Stone Age Announce 2014 Tour Dates

Does it seem to some of you that Queens of the Stone Age never sleep? You might be a little right about that because the band have just announced more tour dates.

The new dates were released yesterday and appears to be an extension of last year’s tour in support of their new album, …Like Clockwork. For the tour dates in Australia and New Zealand, Nine Inch Nails will be joining them, so maybe we can finally get a finished version of their highly publicized Grammys’ performance that was not completed.

More tour dates isn’t the only good news coming from the QOTSA’s camp, it was also revealed during an interview with Rolling Stone that they are looking forward to working on some new music in the near future.

The full list of newly released dates can be seen below and don’t forget that they’ll be appearing at Coachella Music Festival and Sasquatch! this spring.

Queens of the Stone Age 2014 Tour Dates:

02/11 – El Paso, TX @ Abraham Chavez Theatre
02/13 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint

03/06 – Sydney, AU @ Entertainment Centre ***
03/07 – Sydney, AU @ Entertainment Centre ***
03/08 – Newcastle, AU @ Entertainment Center ***
03/11 – Perth, AU @ Arena ***
03/13 – Adelaide, AU @ AEC Arena ***
03/14 – Melbourne, AU @ Rod Laver Arena ***
03/15 – Melbourne, AU @ Rod Laver Arena ***
03/17 – Brisbane, AU @ Entertainment Centre ***
03/19 – Auckland, NZ @ Vector Arena ***
03/20 – Wellington, NZ @ TSB Bank Arena ***
03/22 – Christchurch, NZ @ CBS Canterbury Arena ***

04/11-13 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
04/15 – Portland, OR @ Keller Auditorium
04/17 – San Francisco, CA @ Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
04/18-20 – Indio, CA @ Coachella Music Festival
05/06 – St. Paul, MN @ Roy Wilkins Auditorium
05/07 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Riverside Theater
05/09 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
05/13 – Kansas City, MO @ Starlight Theatre
05/14 – Tulsa, OK @ Brady Theater
05/16-18 – Gulf Shores, AL @ Hangout Music Festival
05/23-25 – George, WA @ Sasquatch! Music Festival

05/29-31 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound
05/29-06/01 – Bologna, IT @ Rock in Idro
05/30 – Lisbon, PT @ Rock in Rio
06/03 – Rome, IT @ Rock in Roma
06/05 – Crans-Pres-Celigny, CH @ Caribana Festival
06/05/08 – Nuremberg, DE @ Rock am Ring
06/06-09 – Nürburg, DE @ Rock im Park
06/13 – Warsaw, PL @ Warsaw Orange Festival
06/15 – Aarhus, DK @ NorthSide Festival
08/05-08 – Oslo NO @ Oya Festival
08/14-16 – St. Polten, AT @ Frequency Festival
08/15-17 – Grosspoesna, DE @ Highfield Festival
08/22-24 – Saint-Cloud, FR @ Rock en Seine

*** = w/ Nine Inch Nails

Trent Reznor Receives Apology From Grammy Producer

It was probably one of the most anticipated performances of the Grammys,Trent Reznor, Queens of the Stone Age, Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsay Buckingham and Dave Grohl, but apparently that didn’t cross the mind of the people behind the yearly award show.

Instead of replacing one of the other lackluster performances during the three-hour show, the runner decided to end the show with a high by putting the show at the end.

Understandable, keep the best of last and end on a high note, but how they did it is what drove Reznor nuts to the point that he took to Twitter to air his grievance about the decision to cut the performance short and put in all the advertisements for the event in its place.

Reznor tweeted the following about the decision: “Music’s biggest night… to be disrespected. A heartfelt FUCK YOU guys.”

It took three days, by Reznor received an apology from Grammy executive producer, Ken Ehrlich. “I’m sorry he was upset,” Ehrlich told the Hollywood Reporter. “I was really thrilled that we were finally getting him on the Grammys.”

He continued, “The final jam started with Arcade Fire a few years ago, and LL Cool J last year. I want to end on a high, an up note. I did tell them we’d take it as long as we could. The number was about five, six minutes long, and we got to within a minute twenty of the end. We got as close as we could possibly get.”

The 56th Annual Grammys Reveal Closing Performers

The Grammys are set to take place this Sunday and already, organizers have revealed who will be taking the stage at the annual music award ceremony.

Previously, it was confirmed that Daft Punk, Kendrick Lamar, P!nk, Katy Perry, Lorde, and Metallica would all be taking the stage to perform during the live event and now another group of performers had been added to the list.

Today, it was revealed that Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl, and Fleetwood Mac guitarist/singer Lindsey Buckingham will be closing the Grammys with a special performance.

Queens of the Stone Age will be performing at the Grammys in celebrations of their three nominations for Like Clockwork...including nominations in the Best Rock Album, Best Rock Performance and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical categories.

Nine Inch Nails and Dave Grohl were also nominated for awards this year as well. Nine Inch Nails were nominated for Best Alternative Music Album for Hesitation Marks while Dave Grohl is up for two awards for Best Compilation Soundtrack For Visual Media for his work on Sound City: Real To Reel.

Talk about a way to end a show.

The 56th Annual Grammy Awards will be broadcast Sunday, January 26, at 8p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Stream Jay-Z’s Made in American Festival Live

Jay-Z’s Budweiser Made in America Festival kicks off today for the entire weekend in Philadelphia. For the next two days, performances from the festival will be streamed live over at Youtube or you can go ahead and watch it here for yourselves. Today’s line up consists of Beyoncé, Phoenix, 2 Chainz, Public Enemy, A$AP Rocky, Haim, Empire of the Sun, Deadmau5, and more.

Tomorrow’s line up will be made up of Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Black Hippy (Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q, Ab-Soul, and Jay Rock), Miguel, Solange, AlunaGeorge, the Gaslight Anthem, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and others.

Live streaming from festivals have become major trend this year and great for those who unfortunately couldn’t make it out to them or just simply could afford them.  For now, watch the sets from Philly below.

Nine Inch Nails Document Their Comeback

This has definitely turned out to be the week of Nine Inch Nails. On Tuesday, they let fans listen to their new album in full on iTunes for free. Yesterday, they revealed that there will be an audiophile version of Hesitation Marks coming out as well, but it would in no way challenge the original; rather it’s a different take on it.

Today, they have come back with a more great news for their fans; there’s a 13-minute documentary about the comeback tour.  Nine Inch Nails had teamed up with Vevo to record everything that it took for the band to make their comeback especially with a new line-up. The documentary is made up of interviews with Trent Reznor and the other band members, the band’s art director Rob Sheridan, and more in the days leading up to NIN’s performance at this year’s Fuji Rock in Tokyo.

The documentary can be seen here and don’t forget, as if you could at this rate, Hesitation Marks comes out on September 3, but if you want you can head on over to iTunes and listen to it for free.

 

Nine Inch Nails to Release Alternate Version of New Album

Just when you thought that Nine Inch Nails would just call it a day after releasing their new album on iTunes a week before its scheduled arrival for fans to hear for free, Trent Reznor and the rest of his merry men have announced that there will be an  “audiophile mastered version” of the album which fans, who already purchased the original version, will get for free.

In a press release, the band or rather Reznor, revealed the plan for this alternate version of Hesitation Marks. In it he explains that it is not a new album, nor would it take away from the highly anticipated version, but rather it’s a different take on the already recorded and mixed tracks.

The full release can be seen below.

“Hesitation Marks was mastered in two different ways – the standard, “loud” mastering (which is what you’ll find on the CD, on iTunes, and everywhere else), and also an alternate “audiophile” mastering, which we’re offering as a free download option for anyone who purchases the album through nin.com. For the majority of people, the standard version will be preferable and differences will be difficult to detect. Audiophiles with high-end equipment and an understanding of the mastering process might prefer the alternate version. Alan Moulder, who mixed the album, offers a more detailed explanation: When we were mixing Hesitation Marks we decided to treat the mastering process in a slightly different way to the usual. Since we had tried to treat every other aspect of making this record differently to how we were used to, it seemed to make sense. We were mixing as we went along with the production of each song rather than at the end, so we thought that once we had a song pretty close we would send it off to Tom Baker, our long time serving mastering engineer, to give it some mastering treatment. Normally you wait until the record is finished being recorded and mixed, then take all the mixes to mastering. But we thought doing it again, as we went along, might make us push the process further and spend more time on mastering rather than rush through it at the end. Whilst doing this we became aware of how much low bass information there was on the record. Since that can define how loud of a level the mastering can be, we were faced with a dilemma: do we keep the bass and and have a significantly lower level record, or do we sacrifice the bass for a more competitive level of volume? The biggest issue in mastering these days tends to be how loud can you make your record. It is a fact that when listening back-to-back, loud records will come across more impressively, although in the long run what you sacrifice for that level can be quality and fidelity. So after much discussion we decided to go with two versions. On the main release Tom did exceptional work to maintain the integrity of our mixes and reproduce the low end as much as possible and still get a decent level, although it’s still nowhere as loud as a lot of modern records. The Audiophile Mastered Version is more true to how the mixes sounded to us in the studio when we were working on the songs. Have a listen, turn up the volume and enjoy the experience!

Mastering Engineer Tom Baker adds:

I believe it was Trent’s idea to master the album two different ways, and to my knowledge it has never been done before.
The standard version is “loud” and more aggressive and has more of a bite or edge to the sound with a tighter low end.
The Audiophile Mastered Version highlights the mixes as they are without compromising the dynamics and low end, and not being concerned about how “loud” the album would be. The goal was to simply allow the mixes to retain the spatial relationship between instruments and the robust, grandiose sound.

NOTE: The standard mastered version is in no way inferior to the Audiophile Version – we wouldn’t release something inferior as the default. And vinyl purists rest assured, the vinyl edition was mastered to sound the very best for that format. The Audiophile Version is merely an alternate take on the mastering, which some people will appreciate. It’s meant to give a slightly different experience, not denigrate the standard version. Listen to each and come to your own conclusions.
If you ordered any format of Hesitation Marks from nin.com, you’ll be able to download one or both mastering versions, in whichever formats you prefer (MP3, FLAC, Apple Lossless, and WAV), beginning September 3rd.”

Nine Inch Nails will begin their upcoming Fall tour with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions In The Sky in October.