Back when The Subteens used to tour (and dinosaurs roamed the earth), we rolled into Chicago one afternoon and bellied up to the bar as per usual. Chatting up the bartender, I somehow got on the topic of Urge Overkill, how great they were and what a bummer it was that they broke up after Exit the Dragon.
Suddenly, like a scene from a movie, she announces that she’s friends with someone working on Nash Kato’s unreleased solo album and would we like to hear it? HELL YES! This is “Zooey Suicide,” the first song that came blasting out of the bar’s speakers.
Sadly, Debutante only sold around 5,000 copies and seems to have mostly been erased from the planet. He worked on this damn thing for two years, it’s just not fair.
“Fair use” is the right of the public to make reasonable use of copyrighted material in special circumstances without the Copyright Owner’s Permission. The United States Copyright Act recognizes that fair use of a copyrighted work may be used “for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.”
Multiple artists and labels are suing AI music companies like Suno. Round Hill Music says:
“We are against the idea that you can build a business worth billions on top of other people’s creative work and pay the creators nothing.”
Jason Isbell filed a class-action suit. He compared Suno to The Borg from Star Trek: Next Generation, coldly assimilating everything unique in its path.
“People feel really good when they’re creative,” Suno’s chief executive, Mikey Shulman, said in an interview. “The company exists to let people feel those warm and fuzzy feelings of being creative.” More than 100 million people have created songs with the service, Suno says, and two million people have subscribed to an upgraded plan that includes commercial rights to the songs they’ve created.
Sony, Universal, and Warner all sued Suno for copyright infringement in 2024. Warner has settled with Suno, BMG has signed a licensing deal with them, and Sony and Universal have signed agreements with other A.I. music companies. Having gotten scorched by Napster and other disrupters (50% contraction estimated in the early oughts), the record companies are in “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” mode.
The legislative director of United Musicians and Allied Workers is treating this as a threat to anyone below the level of musical superstar:
“No one has explained why it’s a good idea to start making music without musicians being involved.”
I’m enjoying the fact that the fake number one song is a macho white guy grievance tune. Just perfect, somehow.
Pluribus (stylized as PLUR1BUS) is an upcoming science fiction drama television series created by Vince Gilligan for Apple TV+. The series stars Rhea Seehorn in the lead role. She previously worked with Gilligan on the AMC series Better Call Saul.
Apple has ordered two seasons of the series for Apple TV+, with the series expected to premiere two episodes on November 7, 2025, for a nine-episode first season.
Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows an author who seems to be the only person immune to a new virus that turns its sufferers perpetually content and optimistic.
A nice documentary about Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin and their trip to Yeltsin’s hometown in Russia. They’re not around anymore (like Yeltsin!), but Polydor is re-releasing their first record for its 20th anniversary. I LOVED their record Pershing, but really all of their stuff was good shiny pop. Somehow they don’t include any of their music in the doc.
That’s getting the deluxe Reissue. Listen to Androgynous (Alternate Version) that apparently includes a few seconds of piano that were clopped from the album (?). Liner notes by the way cooler than you Elizabeth Nelson of the Paranoid Style.
