Number one: because it's effectively patting Taylor Swift on the head and saying 'shush now about streaming sites only making you a tiny, tiny bit richer';
Number two: because when was the last time you even remembered Tidal even existed?
Hats off to her for coming up with an advertising campaign for a dying platform in which she's invested while making it look like she doesn't care about money. It's evil, but stylishly evil.
Andrew McLan Fraser passed away on Monday at his home in California. He leaves behind his daughters Hannah and Jasmine Fraser, and their mother Ri, his sister Gail, brothers Gavin and Alex, and many friends and associates in the industry.
“A survivor of both cancer and AIDS, Andy was a strong social activist and defender of individual human rights.
Fraser was diagnosed HIV+ in the 1980s; his illness with Sarcoma followed soon after.
On his personal website, Fraser wrote frankly about his struggle with his sexuality. Conflicted between feelings and image, he went as far as planning a suicide - talking with a reporter who had helped her terminally ill mother die; arranging how he'd do it; putting his affairs in order. Amazingly, it was the detailed planning of his death that helped him past it:
[I planned] until, in my mind, the event had already happened, and I thought 'what the bloody hell did that solve?' Nothing. So finally, I had to come around to acceptance.
Fraser didn't find coming out easy; being wracked with pain didn't help, either. He says he had to find new reasons not to kill himself every day for three years. But he got through it, finally finding a place where, in his words, he could say:
fuck you, everybody; I'm not hiding any more
A lot of his obituaries will record his victories over cancer and AIDS. His survival as a gay man in an era when that brought a mountain of struggles, and over suicidal depression, should also be celebrated.
Fraser was 62. He co-wrote a song that actually lives up to the accolade iconic:
Fair swap, surely? Especially since your email address is being traded elsewhere in return for money a thousand times a day. Make it work for you today.
What's the equivalent of the fanzine/flexi combo which so delighted us in the late 1980s? Probably a fanzine with a download "attached", which is what you get from "the Fugazi-channeling" Horse Party, if you're happy to give them your address.
They insist they will turn up at your house and demand toasts and other breakfast goods. But you do get a free zine, and a free download of Inbetween.
Have you seen those black feather Christmas trees? It's like the Winterval is finally opening up to Goths. And the Goths are opening up to Christmas. Look:
Yes, Wayne Hussey does White Christmas. Here's a bit of his reason why:
O come all ye faithful………
Just wanted to wish a very merry Christmas and happy new year to you and your loved ones and as a token of my gratitude for your continued support for both myself and The Mission I have recorded a Christmas song just for you which is available as a free download from https://soundcloud.com/waynehussey/white-christmas
If only Bing was still around for a duet. That'd be a Christmas special.
I'm a little in love with the new Kate Nash, turned-around-in-a-day track:
I'm even more in love with the flicker of horror that creeps over the faces of people online as they play it. "Oh noes, this sounds experimental and isn't even pretty. Oh noes, oh noes."
Kate Nash is great. And has always been more than just pretty pop songs:
You can download Underestimate The Girl for free, unless you're all "but it doesn't have a chorus".
You know who else is about to release a new album? Bailterspace, that's who. The last one predates the start of No Rock - it's been thirteen years, an absence that has grown into puberty. Which makes Strobosphere pretty exciting.
It's not out until August, though, but in the meantime, they've snuck out a taste - No Sense:
Fancy a free download of Skinny Puppy playing live? Course you do. Sideline have a handy link to grab a version of Worlock delivered live on the German stage.
Bloody teenagers, coming round here making dreamy-lovely-lo-fi sounds and giving them away for nothing:
I don't know very much about them - Daria is doing guitars and vocals; Karol is doing drums; they're from Warsaw and... I don't know, you can make up the rest for yourself, probably, and it'd be as correct as anything I could tell you.
Here's something you might never have expected to live long enough to see: a cover of early-era Ministry's I Wanted To Tell Her. Dome by Holy Ghost, and yours for nothing more than a quick interact with a widget:
My first thought when I saw that Starbucks was bringing its free music download of the week offer to the UK was 'were they not doing that here?' I mean, it's half a bloody decade since they introduced it in the US, and they were quick enough to launch that horrible powdered instant coffee muck over here.
My second thought was 'they're still doing it in the US?' I've drunk a substantial amount of coffee in Starbucks in the US, and can't recall having seen an iTunes Pick of The Week promotion for at least two years and haven't been offered a download-redeemy card since... since my memory was sharp enough to hold on to the memory of when things like this happen.
Mind you:
Henceforth, customers visiting Starbucks coffee shops will be given an iTunes gift card that they can redeem on the iTunes Store within 60 days to grab the free download. The service kicks off with James Morrison’s In My Dreams.
There's King Creosote & Jon Hopkins; Sons And Daughters; Wild Beasts and - like all good K-Tel adverts would say - many, many more. It's free. What could go wrong?
It runs from Homebase's Peter Bjorn and John doing the title track, through to Computer Magic doing Take It Or Leave It. Go download, and remember to say "thank you, Stereogum".
(Am I alone in finding there something slightly creepy about this 'tell me you like me and I'll give you a present' set-up? It's a bit like a mother withholding supper until you tell mummy you love here.)
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