We have been waiting five years for the next Strokes album, and we still have about two weeks to go until it drops. Until then, sate yourself with our YouTube Video of the Day, the band’s new vid for the single “Under Cover of Darkness.”
The song is the first track from the band’s upcoming album, Angles, which drops March 22 from RCA records in the U.S. and March 21 from Rough Trade Records in the UK. The band offered it free to Internet denizens at the beginning of last month, but now images have been added to the beat.
Take a look and let us know what you think of the first visual representation of the Strokes’s new disc.
We have been waiting five years for the next Strokes album, and we still have about two weeks to go until it drops. Until then, sate yourself with our YouTube Video of the Day, the band’s new vid for the single “Under Cover of Darkness.”
The song is the first track from the band’s upcoming album, Angles, which drops March 22 from RCA records in the U.S. and March 21 from Rough Trade Records in the UK. The band offered it free to Internet denizens at the beginning of last month, but now images have been added to the beat.
Take a look and let us know what you think of the first visual representation of the Strokes’s new disc.
Starting Tuesday, music lovers can sign up for 60 days of free access to music subscription service Rhapsody, thanks to a promotion with MTV.
Usually, trial periods for music subscription services are about seven to 14 days, so this is a pretty big offering — one which will also include tie-ins with MTV Networks programming. Think playlists from Jersey Shore, etc. The service will also be cropping up in the mobile realm, such as in the Tosh.0 app.
This move seems like an attempt on Rhapsody‘s part to draw new users into the fold. The company reports that it has more than 750,000 subscribers, 100,000 of which it says signed up after Rhapsody spun off from RealNetworks and Viacom in April (and, also, cut its price from $15 per month to $10). At that time, according to Business Insider, MTV (whose parent company is Viacom) committed $33 million in free advertising for Rhapsody as part of the service’s move into independence.
Rhapsody was also recently integrated into MTV’s new Music Meter tool.
Since other music subscription services don’t generally release their subscriber numbers — with the exception of Spotify, which reports 10 million subscribers (though it isn’t known if they all pay or use the app) — it’s hard to say how Rhapsody stacks up against its competitors when it comes to user base.
Still, most digital music services have yet to become profitable — both Spotify and Last.fm lost money in 2009 — so we can see why Rhapsody would be making a special effort to bait users with a free trial that will hopefully lead to more paid subscribers. (This is especially in light of comments Rhapsody President Jon Irwin made with regard to the controversial Apple App Store tariff.)
Thumbplay has yet to reach its one-year anniversary in the music subscription space — and it now it seems that it will never do so, as the company is selling the service to Clear Channel Radio.
A release that hit the wires last night did not disclose a selling price, but All Things Digital‘s Peter Kafka reports that “a source familiar with the company tells me investors who put some $41 million into the company don’t expect to get all their money back.”
Kafka also reports that Thumbplay’s subscription service only has 20,000 subscribers (since launch in March 2010), all of which pay $10 per month for unlimited music (a standard pricing embraced by comparable companies, MOG and Rdio).
According to a release, the deal does not include Thumbplay’s ringtone business, but rather will allow Clear Channel to tap into Thumbplay’s music technology and services, as well as its staff — which, it seems, will be folded into the iHeartRadio platform.
Robert Pittman, Chairman of Media and Entertainment Platforms for Clear Channel (and founder of MTV, which means he’s no slouch when it comes to building out music platforms), said of the deal, “Joining Thumbplay’s custom radio and subscription services with Clear Channel’s streaming expertise, iHeartRadio’s Internet and mobile audio and music services, including 750 online radio stations, digital-only stations and apps, will create an unsurpassed integrated music product. Couple this with Clear Channel’s promotional power to reach 228 million people on a monthly basis, and you have a combination nobody else can match.”
It was also recently announced that iHeartRadio will be included in Toyota connected cars. Pandora will also be available in these vehicles.
This move, it seems, pits Thumbplay much more against services like Pandora and Slacker Radio (i.e.: services that do not yet have on-demand listening) than Spotify, MOG or Rdio.
Still, the release does say that this acquisition will make it possible for Clear Channel to launch subscription services in the the future, so we’ll have to wait and see what will transpire on the battlefield that is the digital music space.
If you’re a die-hard Michael Jackson fan just itching to exercise your artistic license, you’re in luck. Sony Music, along with Jackson’s estate, will soon be launching the “Behind The Mask” video project, which asks fans to contribute to a new music video for the song.
The project kicks off on March 7, at which time fans should head on over to a dedicated website. There, folks can select a move, lyric or crowd reaction to incorporate into the vid, or even use their webcams to contribute their own dance moves.
The director, Dennis Liu, will then pick the best clips and integrate them into the final video, which will be released during the first week in April.
If this formula sounds familiar to you, it’s because the project is being led by the creative team at Radical Media, which also worked on The Johnny Cash Project. That initiative yielded a crowdsourced video for Cash’s “Ain’t Not Grave,” which was nominated for Best Short Form Music Video in the 53rd annual Grammy Awards (sadly, it lost out to the Fame Monster herself, Lady Gaga).
“Behind the Mask” is a song off of Michael, an album that posthumously dropped in December and teased extensively on both Jackson’s website and on Ping pre-release.
