Rolling Stone: Internet Sleuths Want to Track Down This Mystery Pop Song. They Only Have 17 Seconds of It. “Before the days of apps like Shazam, trying to identify an unfamiliar song was a team effort. WatZatSong, a social network dating back to 2006 (the early days of Web 2.0) facilitated that process on a global scale. Users could upload tracks that had stumped them, and crowdsource guesses about where it had come from. Some mysteries were swiftly solved; others were tougher to crack. But it wasn’t until 2021 that WatZatSong received what would become its most infamous and enduring submission, from a contributor in Spain going by the handle ‘carl92.'”
Tag Archives: songs
Ars Technica: Universal Music sues AI start-up Anthropic for scraping song lyrics
Ars Technica: Universal Music sues AI start-up Anthropic for scraping song lyrics. “Universal Music has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, as the world’s largest music group battles against chatbots that churn out its artists’ lyrics. Universal and two other music companies allege that Anthropic scrapes their songs without permission and uses them to generate ‘identical or nearly identical copies of those lyrics’ via Claude, its rival to ChatGPT.”
How-To Geek: What Song is This? 8 Ways to Identify Music You’ve Heard
How-To Geek: What Song is This? 8 Ways to Identify Music You’ve Heard. “You can identify just about any song you’ve heard using a smartphone, your computer, or a search engine like Google. It doesn’t need to be playing right now; if you can hum it or remember the lyrics you should be good. Here’s how.”
Rolling Stone: Genius’s Attempts to Sue Google Over Song Lyrics Are Basically Dead
Rolling Stone: Genius’s Attempts to Sue Google Over Song Lyrics Are Basically Dead. “THE SUPREME COURT has rejected a bid from Genius to revive the lyrics website’s lawsuit against Google, which had accused the search engine of lifting lyrics transcriptions from Genius for millions of songs.”
Glasgow Times: Sea shanty TikTok star’s success will be explored by documentary
Glasgow Times: Sea shanty TikTok star’s success will be explored by documentary . “Nathan Evans, a former postman from Airdrie, became successful after he uploaded a video of himself singing a sea shanty. Now, a BBC Scotland documentary will follow him as he attempts to capitalise on the fame.”
Grammys Introduce New AI Rule: “Only Human Creators Are Eligible” for Nominations (Consequence Sound)
Consequence Sound: Grammys Introduce New AI Rule: “Only Human Creators Are Eligible” for Nominations . “The Recording Academy has announced a new list of rule-changes impacting who, and what, can be nominated for a number of categories at the Grammy Awards. Chief among the updates is a new rule for all categories targeted at the rising wave of artificial intelligence, or AI, technology: ‘Only human creators are eligible to be submitted for consideration.'”
South China Morning Post: Google executive says company is committed to Hong Kong amid fear of search engine pull-out over potential protest song ban
South China Morning Post: Google executive says company is committed to Hong Kong amid fear of search engine pull-out over potential protest song ban. “A senior Google executive in Asia said the US technology giant remains committed to Hong Kong, after the city’s bid to ban a controversial protest song sparked concerns that Western internet platforms may opt to leave the Asian financial hub.”
Here Comes the AI: Fans rejoice in ‘new’ Beatles music (AFP)
AFP: Here Comes the AI: Fans rejoice in ‘new’ Beatles music . “When the Beatles broke up more than 50 years ago, devastated fans were left yearning for more. Now, artificial intelligence is offering just that. From ‘re-uniting’ the Fab Four on songs from their solo careers, to re-imagining surviving superstar Paul McCartney’s later works with his voice restored to its youthful peak, the new creations show off how far this technology has come—and raise a host of ethical and legal questions.”
WIRED: Why Fake Drake Is Here to Stay
WIRED: Why Fake Drake Is Here to Stay . “We talk to Puja Patel, editor in chief of Pitchfork and cohost of The Pitchfork Review, about how AI is taking over our feeds and where it goes from here.”
The Verge: AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google
The Verge: AI Drake just set an impossible legal trap for Google. “The AI Drake track that mysteriously went viral over the weekend is the start of a problem that will upend Google in one way or another — and it’s really not clear which way it will go.”
BBC: AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song goes viral
BBC: AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song goes viral . “A song that uses Artificial Intelligence to clone the voices of Drake and The Weeknd has gone viral on social media. Called Heart On My Sleeve, the track simulates the two stars trading verses about pop star and actress Selena Gomez, who previously dated The Weeknd.”
Boing Boing: Service for finding new music that sounds like your faves
Boing Boing: Service for finding new music that sounds like your faves. “On Songs Like X, you can find new music that sounds similar to your favorite songs. Simply type in a name of a song you like in the search bar, and you’ll be presented with a list of songs that the site deems as similar.” I tried this using a New Orleans DJ named Big Choo. This site gave me better recommendations than Tidal.
New Yorker: Turning YouTube Comments Into Art
New Yorker: Turning YouTube Comments Into Art. “…a ‘web experience’ [Chiara] Amisola created this past Valentine’s Day… explores ‘the rawness of human intimacy and confession in the YouTube comments left under love songs.’ The page is minimal: each comment appears in large black text above the video in question, which plays inside a small circle that rotates like an LP.”
Mercury News: Arhoolie Records’ revered Mexican music collection is now online
Mercury News: Arhoolie Records’ revered Mexican music collection is now online. “[Chris] Strachwitz ended up compiling the Frontera Collection, the world’s largest private archive of Mexican and Mexican-American music. Last February, after two decades of work, Juan Antonio Cuellar digitized the collection’s final track, for a total of 162,860 songs. A former chef and member of a punk rock en español band, he started working on the project with no idea it would turn into his new calling.”
ReviewGeek: You Can Now Find Songs on Deezer Just by Humming
ReviewGeek: You Can Now Find Songs on Deezer Just by Humming. “Music streaming platform Deezer just made it a lot easier to find songs you don’t know the name of. In a blog post, the company announced its in-app song detector, SongCatcher, can now identify tunes hummed, whistled, or sung by the user.”