My residence workplace generally seems as if a Class 5 hurricane swept via. There are piles of magazines, teetering towers of books, information and CDs which have up to now evaded being filed, and dozens of sticky notes and scraps of paper that includes near-illegible scribbles signifying… one thing. There are additionally particular folders on three totally different computer systems full of bits reduce and pasted from web sites, newsletters and social media.
This group disaster is the results of 11 months of studying, researching, browsing, scrolling and in any other case sourcing out materials for all my music writing, radio reveals, podcasts and no matter different assignments fall in my lap. Every time I run throughout one thing that I believe is likely to be helpful, I squirrel it away someway, finally discovering a house for the factoid someplace in my content material manufacturing unit.
Nicely, most of those bits of trivia discover a residence. By the tip of November, there’s loads of materials that’s orphaned and unused for any variety of causes. I might merely sweep all the pieces into an enormous recycling bin, file the books, information, and CDs, and proceed to disregard these information on my computer systems. That appears incorrect, although, so every December, I cobble collectively a particular Ongoing Historical past of New Music present referred to as 60 Thoughts Blowing Information About Music in 60 Minutes. It’s aired on the radio earlier than being transformed to a podcast in order that the entire world could have their minds blown.
Nonetheless, even with this stock clearance, I nonetheless haven’t used all my cool factoids for 2024. Thankfully, I’ve this area each week. Right here then are an extra 10 mind-blowing gadgets about music. What you do with this data is as much as you.
1. Your headphones are filthy
My inbox is consistently clogged with surveys and polls which can be cleverly disguised adverts for some firm or service. Most come from on-line casinos seeking to drag individuals again to their websites in hopes of seeing extra wagers. British companies are particularly keen on this strategy.
A cloud storage firm not too long ago despatched me the outcomes of a bacterial examine that claims the common set of headphones is dirtier than a typical rest room seat. On common, 1,073 micro organism colonies had been discovered on a median pair of headphones, in contrast with 425 on a rest room seat. Laptops are additionally teaming with microbes, with a micro organism colony rely of 645. Telephones are surprisingly clear, with a median of 187 colonies. Staphylococcus spp. and Micrococcus spp. had been the commonest bugs discovered on tech gadgets.
I received’t be sharing headphones with anybody anymore.
2. Folks love Shazam. Loads
In 2002, Shazam began a service for British music followers. If a music got here on, you pulled out your dumbphone, dialled a quantity after which held up your cellphone so it might “hear” the music you had been making an attempt to ID. As soon as it did, you bought a textual content message with the title and artist. Since then, it’s been changed into a smartphone app, purchased by Apple, and tailored for a cheapo primetime TV recreation present. Earlier this month, it was introduced that Shazam has recognized 100 billion songs. The app averages about 2.6 billion tags a month and has someplace round 300 million month-to-month customers.
3. Need to go all medieval on somebody? Musically, I imply
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Teenage Engineering is a unusual tech firm that makes some attention-grabbing instruments, devices and instruments for the music-minded. Simply in time for Christmas, it has the EP-1320, a brand new drum machine/sampler that comes programmed with sounds from medieval occasions (from 1320–geddit?). That features lyres, hurdy-gurdies, actually old-school drum sounds, and even some Gregorian chants. For US$299, you may principally create your personal Recreation of Thrones soundtrack in your bed room.
4. The fully pointless billionaire rap
One of many benefits of being a billionaire is that you are able to do no matter you need. One of many disadvantages is that there isn’t anybody to inform you “Cease it! No! Lower it out!” This was the case with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who insisted on releasing a canopy of a music referred to as Get Low (discretion suggested) with autotune grasp T-Ache. This wasn’t obligatory or welcome. After this got here out, some individuals believed that Lara Trump was owed an apology.
5. This launch is much more disgusting
Earlier this yr, Inexperienced Day had some enjoyable celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Dookie album. In a unusual advertising and marketing transfer, they launched songs from the album on obscure and out of date music storage codecs, starting from an old style piano roll to an 8-track to a Recreation Boy cartridge. There’s even a Huge Mouth Billy Bass (keep in mind these issues?) that may sing Basket Case for you. This drastically irritated a thrash metallic group referred to as Belushi Pace Ball. Over time, they issued music in related methods and felt a bit of ripped off. In response, they launched a model of their single That is the Peak on canine poop encased in epoxy. Just one copy was created and it offered on eBay.
6. Lily Allen’s ft
British singer Lily Allen revealed that she makes more cash from photographs of her ft on OnlyFans than she does along with her music. ? Solely US$10 a month. It was estimated that she’s hauling in US$8,000 a month earlier than taxes.
7. A victory in opposition to unlawful AI music
HarmonyCloak is a brand new weapon in opposition to unauthorized generative AI fashions. It really works by inserting “imperceptible, error-minimizing noise into compositions.” That noise can’t be heard by the human ear, however AI fashions do. It confuses the AI, making it “unlearnable.” If the music can’t be realized, then it may possibly’t be replicated and even mimicked. All of the AI sees is a “disorganized, unlearnable dataset.” A Star Trek-style cloaking machine for music? Yep.
8. Going for surgical procedure? Prep with the appropriate music within the restoration room
Researchers at California Northstate College School of Medication checked out 3,736 research, narrowing issues all the way down to 35 papers containing information on affected person outcomes, specializing in issues like ache and anxiousness associated to surgical procedures. They discovered that simply listening to music after surgical procedure via audio system or headphones has a “noticeable impact” on ache and anxiousness ranges. Coronary heart charges dropped, as did ranges of the stress hormone cortisol. That meant much less reliance on highly effective painkillers.
9. The opera revival that had patrons working away screaming
A brand new tackle the 1922 opera Sancta Susanna debuted this fall in Stuttgart, Germany. When it first appeared, it was fairly scandalous with its exploration between lust and celibacy on this planet of Christianity. The brand new manufacturing took issues to a brand new stage with bare nuns on curler skates, bare performers showing as clappers in church bells, stay piercings, unsimulated intercourse acts and “a performer has a chunk of their very actual flesh reduce off and fried on a range.” Oh, and did I point out the dwarf dressed because the pope spinning round on some robotic contraption?
Though some viewers members reacted badly — many left, some bought sick, and others required medical consideration — all performances had been offered out.
10. And eventually, this was chosen as one of many ’10 most arousing songs’
We’ll finish like we began with a survey pushed out by digital PR firm Reboot On-line. They did some cursory looking via 750 songs to search out out which boosted libido probably the most. On the high of the chart was Scorching to Go by Chappel Roan adopted by Flo Rida’s Good Feeling and Girl, Contact Your self by Nikki Idol. The remainder of the highest 10 was full of attractive pop songs. The one exception was this monitor from Canadian rock duo Black Pistol Hearth. I used to be glad to see them on the record, however does this do it for you?
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