Remember relaxing on Sundays to read? No? Well, our grandparents would, and some of those cats lived to be 100—and could still crush steel pop cans like Titans! To help you similarly build a grip to make any pop can tremble, RCS Music News Weekly presents its first-ever Sunday Edition.
Zuck Is Coming for Your Ears
Unsatisfied with owning the lion’s share of our screen time, Mark Zuckerberg wants to get all up in our ears as well with three new products, per The Verge:
- Live Audio Rooms: This Clubhouse knockoff (slated for summer release) will also be integrated into Messenger.
- Soundbites: Think TikTok for audio added into Facebook’s newsfeed.
- Podcasts: Zuck’s new partnership with Spotify will let people stream podcasts right from their newsfeeds.
Zuckerberg’s summer-slam push into audio comes after Facebook pushed into video, juked its engagement stats, and cost hundreds of journalists their jobs.
Cody Coyote Wins Best Canadian Indie Video—and a Boatload of Tea!
This year, Dropout Entertainment’s Best Canadian Independent Music Video award went to Ottawa hip hop/electronic artist Cody Coyote. As part of Dropout’s bonzer prize pack, Coyote will receive:
- $500 from Toronto Creatives
- a $100 gift certificate from Long & McQuade
- a year’s worth of loose-leaf tea by the Canadian tea company Tea Squared
Want your own year’s worth of tea? Jump over to Tea Squared before April 30th, 2021 to enter.
BTS Is Headed to the U.S.—in Nugget Form!
U.S. fans of the Korean boy band BTS will soon be able to share in the band’s favorite meal. On May 26th, 2021, McDonald’s will roll out the band’s signature order: 10 Chicken McNuggets, medium fries, and a Coke. According to a Golden Arches’ press release, this is a “one-of-a-kind menu,” which seems unlikely, given how long fries, Coke, and nugget-form chicken have been on Mickey D’s menu, but hey. Who doesn’t love a taste of their favorite band in nugget form?
Chickens Got Talent!
To help fund chicken coops in urban communities to combat malnutrition, Chickens.org (a program of Capax World) will soon announce the 2021 winners of their Chickens Got Talent competition. (Yup, chickens.)
Since there were no talent restrictions on video entries (which closed April 23rd), RCS Music News Weekly presumes entries included singing… er, clucking. So, we felt the story qualified as music news—and reassurance.
Where musicians have long supported efforts to make the world a better place, it’s nice to know the chickens are on our side, and RCS Music News Weekly offers a 21-“bugock!” salute to our chicken allies (and feels torn about McDonald’s BTS McNugget pack).
People Still Care About Cover Art
Recently, someone on the Independent Musicians Network asked, “Has an album cover ever made you listen to an album?” Some said no but many said yes. Similar posts on Reddit and Quora show the same thing. If cover art appeals to someone, they feel the music will appeal to them.
“Album cover design is still an important factor in the marketing of music,” wrote one person on Quora. “That hasn’t changed. When you browse music in the iTunes store, or on your own device, you’re browsing primarily by cover art. If cover art had nothing to do with album sales, albums would all be the same generic cover.”
How Many Streams Does It Take to Buy a $1 Guitar Pick
Nathan Fleet has done the math. In a recent article by The Hamilton Spectator, the Hamilton-based musician calculated it would take 250 stream on Spotify (at $00.4 per listen) to buy a $1 guitar pick. But why read about the small payoff? Let Fleet tell you himself in his hilarious music video.
K-Pop Outsells Taylor Swift
CD sales may have tanked over the last 10 years, but global sales of physical K-Pop albums jumped a whopping 60% from 2019 to 2020.
The South Korean boy band NCT Dream alone sold 2.8 million copies of their album Resonance—more than doubling album-equivalent sales of Taylor Swift’s Folklore.
To support growing demand for K-Pop albums, the K-Pop fandom platform theQoos recently launched an online store for fans to pre-order albums, starting with NCT Dream’s first studio album, Hot Sauce.
Heady Numbers for Stationhead
The live radio platform Stationhead has reached 500,000 active users. Offering anyone the ability to host their own online radio show, Stationhead now has 6,300 hosts globally, and 2 million live and recorded streams went out in the first quarter of 2021.
According to Stationhead CEO and co-founder Ryan Star, “The future of audio has arrived,” which would seem to indicate some kind of differentiator from countless other audio streaming platforms. But perhaps RCS Music News Weekly is just being nit-picky.
The Amazing (But Creepy) Spider-Music!
Recently, scientists translated the construction of a spider web into “music.” Why? Said researcher Markus Buehler in a Phys.org interview, “You can really start to understand the environment the spider lives in.” For most people not involved in arachnid studies, the music confirms what they already knew. The environment is a creepy one, reflected in one YouTube comment: “Well, I guess my dreams are haunted for life.”
If you’re inclined to do the same, you can listen on YouTube.
Eminem Does Spring Cleaning
In Dylan Hennessy’s latest hilarious Eminem parody video, the rapper deliberates about spring cleaning, and discovers he can live with what he discovers about Machine Gun Kelly.
Hard to Believe the Contrast
Not too long ago, the rehearsal studios at Royal City Studios were humming with live music. Bands were laying down songs in the recording studio, and even Guelph mayor/drummer Cam Guthrie dropped by to lay down beats for “Long Train Running.”
Due to provincial shutdown orders, there’s simply quiet now in the studios and halls of RCS. Yet the doors are waiting to open once restrictions lift, and live music will sound again.
Indeed, Royal City Studios is currently planning a special live music media event and release party for Royal G Symphony (“Don’t Look Now”), and restrictions willing, we hope we can announce this soon and people can attend.
So, stay tuned for future RCS announcements on Facebook and Instagram. Or subscribe to Royal City’s mailing list to get RCS Music News Weekly delivered right to your inbox. Simply jump over to the RCS homepage to subscribe.
Until the thunder sounds again, stay awesome. We’re still here for rehearsals and recording—which you can pre-book online for post-lockdown use. Stay well, and may the gods of rock (or whatever music you enjoy) raise a mighty goblet to your fortune and health in these pandemically frustrating and difficult times.
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