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Dec 7, 2024 | 
themusic.com.au | Chris Riva
Queen's Brian May and The Beatles (Credit: Justin Ma, Supplied) More The Beatles Arguing about rock music might be as old as rock music itself. And I’ve spent so much time partaking in that pastime that I’ve had the time to flip-flop my position on certain debates. Take the age-old Beatles-Rolling Stones discourse as an example. In my youth, I was firmly on The Beatles’ side. “The Rolling Stones would be nothing without The Beatles,” I remember saying.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
sherwood.news | Chris Riva
It’s 2006. You’re Jessica Simpson. You’ve released two gold albums, two platinum albums, and six top 40 hits in the last seven years. Your MTV reality show “Newlyweds”with your now ex-husband Nick Lachey has made you a household name. And you’ve just starred in the reboot of “The Dukes of Hazzard,” a box-office smash that grossed over $100 million. What should you do next?
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Nov 21, 2024 | 
cantgetmuchhigher.com | Chris Riva
If you’ve read about artificial intelligence and music in the popular press, you’ve likely heard of at least one company: Suno. A startup based in Massachusetts, Suno claims to be “building a future where anyone can make great music.” How? They allow you to enter a description into a text box — say, “afrocuban jazz song about cats” — and, in a matter of moments, they’ll return two full recordings that fit said description. Impressive? Yes. Somewhat frightening? Also, yes. Legal?
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
themusic.com.au | Chris Riva
More The Winstons Sometimes an artist knows when they strike gold, when what they’ve recorded is destined to be heard for generations. Usually, that’s not the case, though. Scores of artists tell stories of how they recorded a song as a throwaway, and it unexpectedly helped define their career. Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, for example, was recorded as filler for the group’s sophomore album. It’s currently their most popular song on Spotify and most played in concert.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
cantgetmuchhigher.com | Chris Riva
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
postingnexus.substack.com | Chris Riva |Julia Alexander
Hi! We’re changing things up this issue and I’m looking to get some feedback from the hundreds of you that choose to subscribe to this newsletter, which by the way — THANK YOU! In an effort to make it feel more like a newsletter and less like an essay that desperately needs a trim, I’m introducing a few new sections and shortening the main essay.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
themusic.com.au | Chris Riva
More Soft Cell Being a songwriter is hard. And I’m not just talking about the fact that writing great songs is no easy task. I’m talking about how the economics around songwriting have made turning it into a career a near impossibility. Songwriters don’t get paid upfront for their work. They only get paid via the royalties their songs generate after they come out. In other words, if your song doesn’t sell, you don’t get paid.
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Oct 13, 2024 | 
cantgetmuchhigher.com | Chris Riva
Can’t Get Much Higher’s link drop is a monthly series for paid subscribers where I discuss art, news, and stories that have gotten me thinking and laughing in the last 30 days. This month, we talk about a bunch of lawsuits, the death of TikTok’s music streaming service, music’s royal family, playlists generated by artificial intelligence, how John Philip Sousa played over 15k concerts, and so much more.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
digg.com | Chris Riva
Often when you hear people bemoaning the dangers of social media or the problems of music streaming, they point to one thing: "the algorithm." This makes sense -- algorithms do power our online experiences -- but it is also somewhat silly. An algorithm is just a very specific set of instructions. Here's an example. [Device dictating how tall you must be to go on a specific ride in Disneyland. Credit: MickeyVisit]Last week, I was in Disneyland with my girlfriend and our two friends.
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Sep 26, 2024 | 
flowstate.fm | Chris Riva
Today we have a guest recommendation from , a musician from New Jersey who works on analytics and personalization at Audiomack, a music streaming service. He writes , a weekly newsletter about the intersection of music and data. In 2019, I moved back home with my parents. I figured it would be for a few months. Then the COVID-19 pandemic started and a few months became a year-and-a-half.
