Music

Whether it’s during Bandcamp Friday or not, buying music sends more money to musicians than playing a subscription stream. So, it might be worth celebrating this event where Bandcamp waives its cut of the money you spend one last time for 2024 as it continues for the next seven hours or so.

Bandcamp has changed hands twice and had significant layoffs since the pandemic tradition started; we’ll see if it continues in 2025.

Even Amazon Music is getting in on the yearly recap trend, as its app will now show your top songs, artists, and podcasts of the year, along with other interesting stats under the “2024 Delivered” banner.

The satellite radio service has been available in the Model S and X since 2020 but was conspicuously absent from Tesla’s two best-selling models and electric truck.

Like the Apple Watch app, it’s part of Tesla’s 2024 holiday update, and SiriusXM’s offering a one-month free trial. Of course, Tesla Premium Connectivity ($9.99/month) or an active Wi-Fi connection is also required.

For the anniversary edition of her album, “Goodies,” Ciara removed her collaboration with R. Kelly, but the album includes a very funny mistake: the Windows pop-up sound.

Stereogum found a couple examples of fans playing their records and finding the error on the song “1, 2 Step.” I love it, personally.

A recently discovered performance of “Thompson’s Old Gray Mule” is now the oldest country recording in existence. The performer is Louis Vasnier, a Black artist from New Orleans.

The recording highlights how Black musicians have shaped the genre, despite the erasure of their contributions:

“Black artists by and large, who were the ones who performed and recorded, get wiped out of the picture because they say, ‘Well, it’s not really country,’” Martin says. “So ours is partly a project of reclamation.”

According to Shazam, that’s equal to 12 songs named for each person on Earth.

Nintendo added F-Zero X to the growing library of video game tracks on the Nintendo Music app. One of my favorites, “White Land,” is below in YouTube form (I’m also partial to “Port Town“). Just please avoid speeding while listening in your car.

Despite the glitches in its Tyson-Paul livestream that pulled in more than 60 million viewers, Netflix is pushing forward to another major live event with two exclusive NFL broadcasts on Christmas Day.

And now the streamer has announced that Beyoncé will perform at halftime of the second game, as the Houston Texans host the Baltimore Ravens starting at 4:30PM ET on December 25th.

If video game soundtracks are what you use to get through the workday, then FromSoftware has a gift for you. The soundtrack for Shadow of the Erdtree is now streaming in all the regular (and not so regular) places including Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, something called Deezer, and more.

Zuck worked with T-Pain on a new version of “Get Low,” but the song initially wasn’t playing for me and some Verge colleagues on his Instagram carousel.

Now, the song works for me on iOS, but not on desktop. Meta spokesperson Sienna La Rocca confirms that this isn’t a copyright issue, however.

Update: The song is working on iOS but not on desktop.

The latest version of the app now includes support for CarPlay and Siri, alongside “stability and performance enhancements” according to Apple.

It’s more surprising that this wasn’t already available. MacRumors notes that CarPlay support also briefly appeared in January before mysteriously vanishing just hours later. I’m glad they brought it Bach.

While interviewing Switched on Pop’s Charlie Harding on this episode of The Vergecast, David Pierce speculates that voice memo demos will become a distinct genre because people just want “lots of different experiences of this same kind of thing.”

And why not? As a songwriter, I’ve always been impressed with how good smartphone voice memos can sound, and who doesn’t have a strong opinion about at least one early demo from their favorite band?

At the Jack Dorsey-owned Block, employees were given “stern warnings” not to speak of Jay-Z, according to Fortune. Employees reportedly weren’t told why they couldn’t mention the rapper, who is also on Block’s board.

Block, purchased a majority stake in Jay-Z’s music streaming app Tidal in 2021. Tidal laid off more staff last month, but that may not be the end of this year’s cuts, Fortune reports.

Phil Elverum fuzzy guitars and crashing cymbals don’t really conjure “remix material” in my mind, but I love that he dropped his new record Night Palace along with a folder of all the stems, in case you were ever so inclined. Since his days under the moniker The Microphones, Elverum has embodied the DIY spirit, so I guess now you can do it yourself, too.

If you’re someone who loves to play Christmas music a full month before the actual holiday, great news: the music industry is trying to make Halloween music A Thing.

My friend group’s Music League theme for this week was Halloween-ish songs (among the submissions: The Specials, David Bowie, Death from Above 1979). What’s on your playlist?

There was a flurry of headlines earlier this week claiming vinyl sales were down 33 percent this year, which would have been the first decline in 17 years. Don’t fret, though: it turns out sales were actually up 6.2 percent — Luminate, the firm which handles most of the music industry’s metrics, changed its methodology at the beginning of the year.

In Luminate’s mid-year report, the company stated: “While the new modeled methodology more accurately represents the independent retail market, we do not have comparable historical data to provide an accurate year-over-year trend. Therefore, independent retail physical sales are not included in our H1 2024 vs. H1 2023 U.S. physical sales reporting.”

The Discogs blog has a full dive, including an explanation of the metrics change. Counting things: a never-ending challenge.