Music

So, how did Thom Yorke’s latest music-distribution venture go? Pretty well, it seems. The Radiohead-frontman’s second solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, achieved over a million downloads in six days via BitTorrent Bundle, according to the peer-to-peer network’s blog. Exactly how the numbers break down is a bit nebulous, though. BitTorrent says that those million downloads Continue Reading →

Radiohead fans woke up to a fun surprise recently when frontman Thom Yorke released a surprise new album on BitTorrent through its new “paygate” feature for Bundles. BitTorrent has work to re-brand itself from a pirate’s paradise to a legitimate place for artists to distribute their music. BitTorrent’s first bundles kept content behind a gate Continue Reading →

BitTorrent says it’s ready to help musicians and other creators start selling digital content. On Friday, the company announced a new “paygate” feature for Bundles, which are promotional packages of content shared through BitTorrent by publishers or the artists themselves. Even before officially launching the Bundle platform a year ago, BitTorrent was talking about the Continue Reading →

Earlier this year, Apple bought Beats Music and Beats Electronics for $3 billion. Since then, CEO Tim Cook has gone out of his way to rave about the Beats Music subscription service, which sells all-you-can-eat music for $10 a month. So why would Apple plan to shut down Beats Music, as a TechCrunch headline reports? Continue Reading →

Apple is working with U2 to develop a new music format that is designed to tackle piracy by making digital downloads of albums and songs a more attractive proposition, according to TIME magazine. U2 frontman Bono told TIME that he was optimistic the new digital music format will prove so ‘irresistibly exciting’ that it will Continue Reading →

Are you one of the people who complained about that new U2 album Apple gave you last week — the one it inserted into your cloud-based iTunes account without asking if you wanted it, and which would show up as “purchased” in your file history even if you never downloaded it? Then maybe this will Continue Reading →

If you haven’t already heard, Apple and U2 are giving away a copy of the band’s latest album “Songs of Innocence” to more than 500 million users to tie in with the launch of the iPhone 6 and Watch. The album is available to stream or to download from the iTunes store, but finding the Continue Reading →

Attention, Windows Phone users — Spotify has just opened up its free mobile experience to your platform. The music streaming company’s free, ad-supported service lets you shuffle play your playlists or an artist’s catalog, while also letting you browse any playlist on the service. The recent update also improved the look of search results and overall Continue Reading →

Can’t decide what song to listen to on your Sonos speakers today? You should start with “The Bridge Is Over” by Boogie Down Productions. That’s because you won’t need the $50 Sonos Bridge to stream music to the company’s speakers anymore—but you may still want to use one in many cases. Sonos just announced a Continue Reading →

It took a long time to get going, but streaming music is finally mainstream. It’s a business, too, generating more than $1 billion a year. That sounds like good news for the music labels, which have been waiting for digital music sales to replace the ones that disappeared after CD sales peaked 14 years ago. Continue Reading →