Latest news with #Nirvana
Mint
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
How music discovery became predictable
If I could, I'd pay serious money to travel 20-something years back in time to experience Nirvana's ground-breaking album, Nevermind, for the very first time again. Having borrowed a cassette from a schoolfriend, I found an opportune time to go to my parents' room and use the two-in-one music system—a 'deck". This wasn't a parent-friendly record; on Smells Like Teen Spirit, the main guy, Kurt Cobain, screams about his libido repeatedly. While I'd heard one Nirvana song—Come As You Are, via a stray MP3 on someone's CD—I had little idea what was coming next: a sonic thunderstorm that would blow my teenage brain right out of my ears. All of this today sounds like gibberish. 'Two-in-one"? 'Cassette"? 'MP3"? In the early-to-mid-2000s, these were essential terms in the cultural lexicon. Music consumption and discovery, as with every generation prior and since, was for millennials too dictated by the prevailing technology of the time, and indeed its limitations. Only, that particular period is the most tumultuous in recent music history. It was an era of upheaval, transformation, and chaos, as the world shifted from the physical to the digital: cassettes were commonplace and affordable (a standard ₹125), but they were being phased out. CDs were a popular if rather more expensive format. These were found, neatly arranged by name and genre, in brick-and-mortar shops, imagine. MP3s, available for download online, became a convenient and free alternative, existing in a lawless, peer-to-peer digital jungle via file-sharing software Napster and the clones that followed. While no longer a complete novelty, digital music wasn't yet pervasive either. But it was gaining traction, leaving the industry in turmoil as bands lost significant revenue and labels' bottomline got wrecked. Everything was illegal, pirated by amoral music nerds and spread widely by internet anarchists. Starved as we were of a lot of current music that just wouldn't release in India via conventional routes, we hit the download button. These trends defined how young people discovered their music. You could go to a Planet M to window-shop, and you'd end up finding a random band or artist that could ruin your week or change your life. Grey market spaces like Palika Bazaar—an underground and 100% illegal market in the heart of Delhi—became a source for complete (pirated) discographies, sorted into digestible MP3 folders. Cable TV, pre-streaming, was another place to find music. MTV and Channel V and, later, a channel called VH1, would play music videos all day long. NO MORE BARRIER TO ENTRY Musical tastes, for millennials and those preceding them, were shaped by a range of eclectic factors. The most exciting among these were the happy discoveries. The life-changing accidents. A random untitled mix-CD from a friend's friend's friend. A mislabelled song on the pirate software Limewire. Something you stumble upon on VH1 while channel-surfing. The songs you've never heard before, that catch you by surprise. It's this feeling where a greater force takes over your being, and compels you to dig deeper, and find out everything about that band. You have no choice but to start a new obsession immediately. Much of these tools of discovery have now, for reasons good and bad, been rendered obsolete. And while it's tempting to romanticise the past, it was also genuinely exhausting to hunt for music. Nothing ever released here on time; they played the same 50 songs on TV; MP3s were mislabelled and impossible to sift through; downloads took hours, days, weeks; tapes were dying, CDs were pricey. Today, for the price of a single cassette, a hundred-and-bit rupees, I have access to Spotify's entire library of over 100 million songs. (A relevant counterpoint here is that you're only renting this music; it could disappear tomorrow.) There was a prolonged battle for the soul of music but, by the mid-2010s, streaming had won out, becoming the preferred mode of listening globally. The barrier to entry was decimated. There are dozens of streaming platforms—the chief ones being Spotify, YouTube Music and Apple Music—each one offering (to Indians) affordable prices for their premium versions and free versions with ads. A quick sidenote: streaming platforms are a net evil to society; they've done untold damage to artists by offering them literal peanuts and devaluing art, while training listeners to never pay for what they consume. It's legalised theft. The P2P MP3 era that pioneered digitisation, while not without its problems, had a sense of reckless freedom and idealism to it. That chaos and anarchism has been replaced by a cold-blooded capitalism where the artist gets shafted while the guy above him lines his pockets. Indeed, Spotify—the loudest player in the market—faces regular criticism and has been the subject of high-profile boycotts and walkouts. (They've all returned, hat in hand, as bands are left in a no-win situation, having to pick between fans and principles.) And yet, at the same time the tech has liberated the listener by opening up access in this way. It's all very messy. NEEDLE DROPS We'll come back to streaming since it's such an omnipresent force in the world of discovery. But the olden methods—cable TV, physical stores, and such—have either withered away or been re-interpreted in modern settings. Instead of Channel V late-night broadcasts curated by Luke Kenny, people are discovering music accidentally through 'needle drops" on TV/web series they're watching on second screens. This is a curious inversion; previously, shows would use popular, recognisable songs as a cheat code to signal a pre-determined mood to the viewer. Like how no medical drama could resist throwing in the awful How to Save a Life by the Fray for a while. Now, that arrangement has flipped. Songs on shows—which are experienced differently as the viewer has an existing emotional relationship with the show's characters, as well as visual cues for context—take on new meaning and serve as introduction to an artist. Excited, the viewers rush to YouTube to comment in solidarity. They search online for more needle drops. SEO-driven aggregator websites and click-hungry publications rush to compile a list of all the songs featured on a show, which is duly converted into playlists by fans. There's also the rather more controversial method of discovery: Instagram Reels. There can be an inauthenticity and, if I may, a dishonesty about music written expressly for the purpose of going viral on social media in 30-second teasers. But it works because we all spend an inordinate amount of time on social media. Often, these songs have inescapable hooks. The format of social media short-form videos is such that the same template is reused, recycled, and rejigged during its window of relevance. Just by repeat exposure, these songs can get stuck in one's head and lead the listener on to a path of greater discovery. A lot of music listening, thus, seems to have shifted online. And to the ever-present cellphone. While previously there were different avenues—computers, music systems, Walkman or Discman, iPods—a streamlining of technology has meant that the phone is the primary device now. By way of outliers, we do have vinyl fetishists with record players; audiophiles; music nerds going deep on centralised forums like Reddit or Discord, using the Bandcamp/SoundCloud online catalogues, even buying CDs directly from young, independent bands. But mainstream habits revolve very much around streaming. In physical spaces, too, you may—at a restaurant or a bar—come across someone pointing their phone at the speaker playing music. They're 'Shazaming" a song so they can hear it again. Shazam, an app that processes a song being played and provides all details related to it, has been around forever. But it really caught fire over the past decade, and was acquired by Apple in 2018. Previously, you'd have to memorise the lyrics to look up later, or hope to hear the song again. It's a nice reminder, again, that technology can be such a valuable asset in the process of discovery. And just as often a hindrance. LIMITS OF THE ALGORITHM Which brings us to the elephant. The algorithm. Recently, I discovered something called Spotify Blend. Users can 'blend" your profile with that of a friend's, and Spotify will do its algorithm witchcraft to create a custom, shared playlist incorporating both people's musical preferences. It even offers a 'match score" to see if your music tastes align, a quick and foolproof way to tell if the relationship is going to last. You can add up to 10 friends in a Group Blend, each with their unique taste profile coming together to create one giant khichdi playlist for everyone to parse through. This is a modern retelling of community exchange; people have forever shared their music with friends in group settings. Except that we have an additional friend in the mix here: the algorithm. Streaming services offer a series of playlist options, from user playlists to 'algatorial" ones. The ones driven by the algorithm are of particular interest here. On Spotify, you get Time Capsules, Discover playlists, homepage recommendations, autoplay options—the algo never sleeps. Multiple AI and machine-learning processes work simultaneously to create this entity. Based on research, theories, and information available, the technology analyses songs via content filtering—looking at a song in isolation, studying its metadata and such—and collaborative filtering, where it's placed within a larger context. User behaviour, search history, lyrical themes, compositional structures—they're all factored in to craft personalised recommendations. I've even noticed the algorithm sometimes picking up the key in which a song is composed, and playing a series of songs that all start in that same key. Regardless of one's principled opposition to streaming, these features aid the process of discovery and make it so much easier. The algorithm is sharp, well-informed, intuitive, and will instantly gauge a listener's interest, guiding them to new places. But it raises a couple of semi-philosophical questions. For one, why should I allow the machine to tell me what to listen to? There's a volatility attached to discovery—repeat trial-and-errors driven by human emotions and external variance. Streaming, with its robotic efficiency, can flatten that unpredictability into a horizontal structure leaving little room for experiments. It knows what I like, and it'll keep feeding me. More importantly, what about the music that even I don't know I like? At a time when my music habits exclusively comprised alt-rocker misanthropes, I stumbled, on MTV, upon a song called Surfing on a Rocket by French electronica/dream pop duo Air. It led me down a circuitous path of cool electronic music I'd never have found otherwise. Algorithms—on Netflix, on social media, on music streaming—can create bubbles and echo chambers. They keep feeding you versions of things you already like and engage with. And they hide you from a world of discovery that you don't even realise exists. Those avenues for happy accidents, while very much still around, can get constricted by the self-limiting nature of algorithmic excellence. It's a complex subject, riddled with questions around access, ethics, tech manipulation, listener behaviour, maybe some moral panic—as such, all discussions around art and consumption do eventually circulate within these idealism labyrinths. And conversations around the algorithm deserve critical examination without being tainted by generational bias. But what remains steady is that new generations find novel ways to access and consume music; it can feel alienating—even existentially distressing—to those on the outside. Maybe we're losing some recipes. But the music landscape is forever fluid and evolving. And people within it will always find systems that work for them. Akhil Sood is a Delhi-based writer.
Gulf Weekly
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gulf Weekly
Sophisticated flavours to savour
The Ritz-Carlton Bahrain's stunning French restaurant La Table Krug will open its doors to guests tonight, June 19. A delicious a la carte menu offers sensational flavours and an ambience of refined excellence, taking guests on an intimate journey through exceptional taste and timeless sophistication. It is available from Tuesday to Saturday, 7pm to 11pm. The five-star hotel will also host its Brunch Fiesta on Friday at Cantina Kahlo. Guests can savour a selection of mouthwatering dishes made with authentic ingredients, bursting with the delicious flavours of Mexican cuisine. Plus, a resident mariachi band will add to the lively atmosphere. It costs BD35 per person, inclusive of soft beverages and BD45 per person with selected beverages, on Friday, from 1pm to 4pm. Delight in the simple pleasures of life with an exquisite afternoon tea experience, including savoury sandwiches, freshly baked scones with artisinal jams and more. It costs BD34 per set, every day from 3pm to 7pm at The Ritz Gourmet Lounge. Start the week off with Cantina Kahlo's Fajitas Monday, where sizzling fajitas, paired with two delicious beverages, will burst with flavourful spices. The dining affair costs BD29, from 7pm to 10pm. Step into the vibrant world of Punjab at Nirvana and be enchanted by rich flavours and soulful rhythms as cherished traditions come alive. Immerse yourself in an authentic cultural journey where every moment invites you to connect with the spirit of Punjab. Priced a la carte, the menu is available from Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 3pm, and 7pm to 11pm at Nirvana. Meanwhile, guests can experience the taste of Italy at Primavera. The exquisite menu features gourmet pizzas, pastas, fresh seafood, and rich risottos, made with seasonal and local ingredients. End your meal with a signature tiramisu trolley – a sweet ending to a memorable dining experience. It is available from Wednesday to Monday, from 12.30pm to 3pm and 7pm to 11pm.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Ronnie Winter of Red Jumpsuit Apparatus blasts Donald Trump supporters
"If you're Christian and you're watching this and you voted for Donald Trump, shame on you," Winter, a self-identified Christian, said in the June 14 post. "You are not allowed to come to my shows. I don't want you there. Don't come to my shows." Winter's comments come as several celebrities have criticized the Trump administration amid sweeping deportation efforts targeting undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Stars react to ICE sweeps in LA: Jimmy Kimmel slams Trump, calls him 'arsonist with a hose' "Don't come to my shows because you're going to hear a lot of propaganda, and you're going to hear like the actual words of Jesus," Winter, 42, continued. "You're going to see a lot of acceptance from all areas of life and races, and you're just going to see a lot of harmony, OK? That's not what you're about, OK? Don't come. Refunds are available. Forever, don't come." Winter doubled down on his politically charged stance in a follow-up Instagram post on June 18. The post included a quote from fellow rock singer and Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, which read, "If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of a different color, or women, please do this one favor for us. ... Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records." "Voting for Trump doesn't make you a bad person," Winter wrote. "Who are you to judge when you directly go against the moral framework that you follow listed in the Bible? I say this (with) love (and) as a Christian; stop attempting to ostracize those you disagree with. "We are stronger together than separate. Let music bring people together (and) set aside their differences. Wishing you the best." 10 bingeable memoirs to check out: Celebrities tell all about aging, marriage and Beyonce Winter has served as lead vocalist for The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus since its 2003 inception. The emo rock group is best known for its 2006 hit "Face Down," which peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 24 on the Hot 100.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Iconic San Francisco hotel, which hosted rock legends David Bowie, Kurt Cobain, and others, to shut down
The Phoenix Hotel, a storied San Francisco institution that once hosted music legends like David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and Sinead O'Connor, will close its doors at the end of 2025. Since opening in 1987, the 44-room hotel in the heart of the Tenderloin has earned a reputation as the go-to spot for touring musicians and artists. Known for its retro design, neon signage and tropical courtyard surrounding a central pool, the Phoenix became a favorite of acts including the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Neil Young. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was so fond of the hotel that a piece of Phoenix Hotel stationery was found in his wallet after his death. The iconic hotel was founded by Chip Conley, then just 26, who transformed the former Caravan Lodge into what became San Francisco's first true rock-and-roll hotel. Conley, who later founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality, tailored the Phoenix specifically for bands on tour - offering free bus parking, discreet accommodations and services for road-weary crews. The Phoenix also helped usher in a wave of boutique hotels and remained a landmark in a neighborhood more known for its difficulties than its hospitality. Conley told the San Francisco Chronicle the hotel had been operating at a loss since the pandemic, and with the Tenderloin's persistent street challenges and the city's struggling hospitality sector, profitability was unlikely to return. For nearly five years, the Tenderloin neighborhood has faced a severe drug crisis, with drug-related incidents consistently more than double those reported in the city's second hardest-hit area, the San Francisco Standard reported. 'To be quite honest, it's not even just the lease terms, it's the nature of the neighborhood,' Conley said. 'We have come to a place where after 39 years - and I am turning 65 later this year - maybe it's time for the Phoenix to retire.' He added that while there is 'some hope and belief' that the neighborhood will improve, he hasn't seen much progress since the pandemic. 'Maybe if I had been smart, I would have bought the land a long time ago, but, at the end of the day, sometimes you have to say, "It's been a beautiful experience and it's time for it to have its fat lady sings opera moment," he said. The decision to close follows the San Francisco Baking Institute's purchase of the property for $9.1 million nine months ago. Conley said his team had 'cordial negotiations' with Michel Suas, the French pastry chef who leads the institute, about extending the lease, but ultimately decided against it. The Phoenix will stay open through the end of 2025 and close permanently on January 1, 2026. The new owners have not announced future plans for the site, and Conley said he doesn't yet know what will become of the building. Despite the looming closure, the hotel will mark its final year with a full calendar of events, including Pride weekend pool parties, live music nights and a Halloween send-off - all part of a farewell celebration honoring its legacy. While Conley hasn't ruled out licensing the Phoenix name and intellectual property for future use, the original hotel's closure signals the end of a unique chapter in San Francisco's history.
ABC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Triple j's Hottest 100 of Australian songs is a rare and special countdown
The triple j Hottest 100 has been appointment listening for music lovers for decades. The concept is simple: Australian music lovers vote for their favourite songs of the past year and triple j counts down the most popular 100 across a day of wild and wonderful radio. On the most special occasions, triple j pulls out the concept for a themed edition of the countdown, and occasions don't get much more special than your 50th birthday. As part of triple j's milestone celebrations this year, it's inviting us to vote for the 100 best Australian songs, a prospect that is filling us with equal amounts of joy and fear as we consider how we're going to choose our votes. It's not the first time we've experienced a special edition of the Hottest 100. Let's reflect on the rare occasions the countdown has broken tradition and gone out with a non-annual countdown. The Hottest 100 began as an "all time" countdown in 1989 and remained that way for three years. Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart took out the top spot in the first two years, only to be pipped by Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit in 1991, which was released just a couple of months earlier. The "all time" format reverted to an annual countdown in 1993 (there was no Hottest 100 in 92) and has been brought back twice since. In August 1998, triple j put out the call for the best songs of all time again, and the results were … well, a lot of them were pretty similar to what we saw seven years prior. Just like the last one, Nirvana took the top slot, while Hunters & Collectors nabbed second spot (where they'd sat in both 1989 and 1990) with their anthem Throw Your Arms Around Me. Just like in 91, The Cure were the most-voted-for artist, with five songs in the countdown (down from nine in 1991). So far, so much the same. But it wouldn't stay that way for long. Surprise Entry: Pauline Pantsdown — Backdoor Man (#92) Shoulda Been Higher: David Bowie — Heroes (#100) To mark the Hottest 100's 20th anniversary, this edition mirrored the original's "all time" format … to controversial results. Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit was voted number one for a third time (after topping the polls in 1991 and 1998), demonstrative of an outcome that was great for white men with guitars. But not so much anything else. Voters leaned into rock music, with very little electronic in the mix, and no rap or hip hop besides The Nosebleed Section by Hilltop Hoods at number 17, the highest charting of 13 Australian acts. Worse still, there was next to no women: zero solo female artists, and just seven acts featuring a female instrumentalist or guest singer. Yikes. While half of the list was made up of songs that had never appeared in a Hottest 100 before (and in some cases, never would again), it reads more like a Rolling Stone albums list, reinforcing a vintage-rock canon: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones. Curiously, the youth were to blame! From the half a million votes, the 19-21 age group was the largest voting demographic. "Seeing their favourites, you'd think it was a much older demographic," then-music director Richard Kingsmill told The Australian at the time. Surprise Entry: The Shins– New Slang (#72) Shoulda Been Higher: Midnight Oil — Beds Are Burning (#97) The only ever "albums" Hottest 100 was, in typical triple j fashion, a big old celebration of Australian music. Powderfinger nabbed the top spot with their 2000 album Odyssey Number Five, retaining the hold the Brisbane band had over the Hottest 100 for many years. They were the only band to have two albums in the list's top 10, with their 1998 record Internationalist (which is a better album) appearing in sixth spot. The list will make you marvel at the depth and quality of Australian music and, while there's a bit of recency bias (forgive me for claiming that not all of the 11 albums released in 2010 deserved a spot), the list is an enticing feast of Australian music that makes us wonder why we listen to anything else. Unlike usual Hottest 100s, this one was broadcast over the span of two weeks to ensure listeners got a good sense of the depth of the records. Surprise Entry: Gypsy & The Cat — Gilgamesh (#91) Shoulda Been Higher: The Go-Betweens — 16 Lovers Lane (#84) The first non-annual countdown to have a time stipulation saw audiences vote for songs released between January 1, 1993, and December 31, 2012. You know what that means? No Teen Spirit, no Joy Division, no Hunters & Collectors, hell The Cure — who'd dominated early all time lists — didn't get a look-in … It's interesting to see how the mood around certain songs and movements had changed over the years. Oasis topped the countdown with Wonderwall, but that song only managed to hit 12th spot in the 2009 count. You can see the trajectory of The Killers's Mr. Brightside through these lists: It was number 13 in its year of release, 38th in 2009's all time countdown, and it landed in seventh here. Would it go higher today? It wasn't the best showing for Australian songs, which made up a relatively modest 29 per cent of the countdown. Hilltop Hoods's The Nosebleed Section ranked best at number four, while of course Powderfinger scored two top 10 entries. Surprise Entry: Not many surprises here! The Kooks's Naive (#87) didn't make the countdown upon its release in 2006, so we'll say that. But it has since become an anthem … Shoulda Been Higher: Coolio — Gangsta's Paradise (ft. L.V.) (#85) Not so fun fact: This countdown was broadcast on March 14, 2020, right before COVID-19 forced most of Australia into lockdown. Pre-pandemic, it seemed the hardest thing voters had to contend with was choosing only 10 songs from across 10 years, rather than just 12 months. 2012 proved to be the "Hottest year", making up 20 entries in the poll, while 67 per cent of the list came out in 2014 or earlier. Half the fun was comparing how tunes had gained favour — with 12 songs jumping up in rankings from previous Hottest 100 appearances — or fallen out of it, with 78 dropping down. That included all previous Hottest 100 number ones making way for a new victor: Tame Impala. Kevin Parker's actually-it's-just-one-guy project had always performed well in the Hottest 100, including with four top 10 rankings from 11 entries, but The Less I Know The Better marked Tame Impala's first time at number one. (He'd return to the top slot in 2022, courtesy of a cover by The Wiggles.) Beating out international heavy-hitters like Arctic Monkeys, Kanye West, Lorde and local favourites Gotye, Flume and Angus & Julia Stone, Parker called the win the "most important thing to happen" to Tame Impala. For the rest of us, this special edition offered a compelling portrait of young Australia's shifting music tastes over a rapidly changing decade. Surprise Entry: Adrian Lux– Teenage Crime (#59) Shoulda Been Higher: Azealia Banks — 212 ft. Lazy Jay (#68) The latest non-annual Hottest 100 was a celebration of triple j's other big brand. Swelling from its origins as a humble, mostly acoustic mornings segment in 2004 to a blockbuster, internationally renowned platform, Like A Version got the Hottest 100 treatment. And Aussie artists dominated. Eighty-one songs in the countdown came from homegrown artists, the most of any Hottest 100 countdown. The likes of Lime Cordiale taking on Divinyls' biggest hit, A.B. Original rewiring a Paul Kelly classic, and King Stingray giving Coldplay a Yolŋu manikay makeover all reaching the pointy end. The people's top choice? Sydney trio DMA'S, who had just two acoustic guitars, a tender vocal performance, some chewing gum, and a dream. But their stripped-back take on Cher's 'Believe' was the clear frontrunner of the 840 eligible Like A Versions. Besides demonstrating how wildly the ingredients can vary to produce a successful cover, the LAV list shows how fun a themed Hottest 100 can be outside the tried-and-true recipe of voting on the year's hottest songs. Surprise Entry: grentperez — Teacher's Pet (#91) Shoulda Been Higher: Julia Jacklin — Someday (#79) The Hottest 100 of Australian Songs happens on triple j, Double J, triple j Unearthed and triple j Hottest on Saturday, July 26. Get all the info here.
