arcade fire

Opinions about the future of the music business cover a lot of ground, but one thing is certain: today's bands release albums at a much slower pace than bands did in previous eras. It's not just that Spotify and other streaming services have been taking their toll on sales; I doubt too many of today's top artists make albums at the rate Bob Dylan did early in his career. He released 21 albums between 1962-1981. The Beatles were even more prolific and released five albums in the U.S. in 1964: "Meet The Beatles!," "… Read more

Most of the music people enjoy doesn't sound very good. That's not to say it isn't good music, just that it doesn't sound great. I'm not picking on digital or contemporary music; most of my favorite Motown and Stax soul music from the 1960s and 1970s sounds like crap. Most rock music from any decade sounds cruddy; that's just the way it is.

A lot of today's best bands, including alternative darlings Arcade Fire, make awful-sounding recordings. I'm specifically referring to their Grammy Award-winning "The Suburbs" album from 2010; it'… Read more

If you're a music fan but couldn't pull off a trip to Coachella, the massive music festival in the Southern California desert, fret not--YouTube is giving you a front row seat.

Since Friday, the service has been streaming a few dozen live sets, including some by big names like Arcade Fire, Kings of Leon, The Kills, and others. And while it's too late to catch any of those performances--YouTube is only archiving a limited number of the sets--there's still a whole day left of live music for you to watch. Without baking in the sun or … Read more

While the very public spat between Microsoft and Google over the way Bing creates its search index continues, questions about Microsoft's originality have cropped up in another place--its advertising.

Music blog Stereogum picked up on a YouTube clip of an MSN.com advertisement that had been posted in late January, and noted that it the background music had been "ripped off" from the popular rock group Arcade Fire.

Below is the MSN ad in question, as well as an embed of Arcade Fire's song "Wake Up."

Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" has … Read more

The official Google blog on Tuesday posted a link to an experimental music video for the Arcade Fire song "We Used To Wait" that shows off the capabilities of HTML5 with Google's Chrome browser.

I gave it a run earlier this afternoon. After I followed the instructions to close other applications and enter my home address, the video took about 15 seconds to start. My first impression was a flashback of visiting shady Web sites back in the days before pop-up blockers existed: a cascade of no fewer than eight browser windows opened, and trying to close … Read more

When Vevo launched in December, I wasn't very impressed. I wondered why the site needed to exist when it was mainly serving as a distribution point for the ever-popular YouTube.

Despite my skepticism, it has quickly become one of the most popular video properties in the United States, thanks to its large store of exclusive content. And artists and copyright owners, at least, are getting some money when their videos are distributed through Vevo, which often wasn't the case before.

Vevo on Wednesday launched its free iPhone app, which gives iPhone and iPod Touch users access to 20,… Read more

The Zune forums are alive with complaints that a bunch of music has suddenly disappeared from Zune devices. The reason: it appears that Microsoft has pulled a bunch of music from the Zune Marketplace. If users downloaded this music to their devices via the subscription-based Zune Pass service, then it apparently disappeared when they synced their device. (I'm talking about subscription-based "tethered" downloads, of which users get an unlimited number per month. The Zune Pass also offers 10 permanent MP3 downloads per month, and those downloads have not been affected.)

I'm not a Zune Pass subscriber, … Read more