Latest news with #music
CNET
20 minutes ago
- CNET
Act Quickly to Nab a Pair of Our Favorite Headphones With 20% Off
We'd all like to own some of the best headphones, because why wouldn't you want better music or audiobooks? They can be pricey, especially if you're looking for things like high-quality noise-cancelling or other features. You can find deals that offset that though. Right now, there's a deal on that knocks 20% off the Edifier W830NB headphones as long as you use the on-page coupon. That brings the price down to $64, and given that these headphones are on two of our "best of" lists, that's an excellent price. The W830NB headphones look sleek, which is always a nice bonus for over-ear headphones. They offer a frankly absurd 94 hour battery life, and have some of the best noise cancelling we've tested, especially at this price. They even manage to squeeze in spatial audio, and an impressive sound quality as well. They're great whether you're listening to music, podcasts or even making calls. You can even fold them away when not in use for easier storage and better portability. Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money. There's no doubt in our minds that these headphones are worth it. Given how good they are and the fact that the discount is decent too, this is definitely one of the best headphone deals going on right now. Why this deal matters We review a lot of headphones here at CNET, so it takes a lot to truly stand out. The fact that these ones do so then, is worth paying attention too. We think these are incredible headphones at full price, so saving 20% is a no-brainer.
The Guardian
27 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘We get to press pause on real life' – why Glastonbury is the ultimate friends holiday
One morning at Glastonbury's Stone Circle, my friend AJ pointed towards a crowd of revellers and said 'Dalai Lama'. I laughed thinking it was some kind of offbeat joke. 'No,' he said, 'it's the actual Dalai Lama.' 'Sure,' I said. I never even turned around, it seemed simply too far-fetched that he would be at Glastonbury festival. The joke was on me though because it was the Dalai Lama. He was there meeting festivalgoers ahead of his speech later that morning. This is the anecdote I use to illustrate to people who've never been before why it feels as if anything might happen at Glastonbury festival. 'It was the actual Dalai literal Lama. At 6am. In a field!!' They're usually backing away slowly at this point. Unexpected encounters, memorable weather and meeting up with old friends are just a few of the reasons my love of Glastonbury has only grown over the years. We've gone from arranging to meet up under a comedy sign to using the Official Glastonbury app, powered by Vodafone, to share everything from lineups to where to find the best bagels. Glastonbury has been written about, filmed, mythologised, tweeted, TikToked and think-pieced to the point that every sentiment you reach for to describe how it makes you feel ends up sounding like a cliche. It simply can't be helped. It is all the things people say: a ritual, a reunion, a sacred space where we remember who we once were and honour who we've become (and yes, also a fun, strange party in a field), so forgive me if I start to sound like a cliche because for me and my friends, the annual pilgrimage to Worthy Farm has become sacrosanct. The year of the Dalai Lama was 2015, when we first made it a tradition. It wasn't my first Glastonbury but that year about 25 of us got tickets – all friends from university who'd dispersed to different parts of the country after graduating and who were giddy to be reunited, finally. A few of us – my closest group and I – pooled £25 each and bought a tent off eBay; it was weighty, ancient and pitching it required the building knowhow of a trained architect and the patience of a monk. Ten years on, though, it has seen us through a lot. It proved a haven in particular in 2016, the year of wild, torrential, biblical rain – if a tight fit. Our designated early arrivers had stomped through a sea of mud to reach our favoured site with it on their shoulders like a coffin. It was also the year when the Brexit results were announced. I was awoken on Friday morning by my friend Jamie's plaintive howls of: 'We're out, we're out. The pound has crashed and David Cameron's resigning.' I remember sitting on the hill behind the Park stage during one of the brief pauses in the rain, looking out across the whole site, that classic view – the Ribbon Tower, the flags, the tents scattered like old confetti. We were in our mid-20s, had entered the jobs market in the middle of the great recession and were only just starting to feel that our careers might actually go somewhere. At least we're here, we kept saying. At least we have this. That night – soaked, cold, tempted to burrow into the tent and stay there – we ventured out to see Stormzy then Kano headline the Sonic stage in Silver Hayes. It was such a big performance, defiant, full of bravado, we couldn't help but feel a renewed optimism. We hugged and screamed and danced. I left the set thinking that I would pay whatever it took, a hundred times over, to keep convening in this field, with these people, for as long as I possibly could. And, mostly, we have. Over time, we've celebrated engagements there, house purchases, new jobs. We celebrated friends moving countries, and coming back. We celebrated surviving a global pandemic. Pressing pause on real life, for those few days, we get to live in a technicolour bubble where joy is easy and time bends. We laugh more. We listen harder. We dance like idiots. We cry when the sun sets behind the Pyramid stage on Sunday. We remember that, beneath the bills and burnout, we are still the same people who sang through the thunderstorms, arms flung around each other. Connecting friends to the best of British summerVodafone has been connecting people to the places and things they love since 1984 – that's why it is The Nation's Network. Vodafone will make sure friends stay connected during their time at the festival by powering the Official Glastonbury app, with features including live location sharing, reliable coverage and free Connect & Charge facilities. In a new highlight for 2025, the app will even measure ticketholders' step counts so that friends can compare who has covered the most ground. And Vodafone is upping the ante by matching the average festival-goer's step count with donations of sims (to a max of 75,000) through its programme. As children have come along we've managed to incorporate them to a degree: in 2023, for instance, when my friend Sophie was pregnant we turned her 12-week ultrasound scan into a flag. It had the words MEET US AT THE FETUS written across the bottom. The flag hung above our tent all weekend like a beacon of absurdity and love. (We've stopped short at bringing any of them along because, quite frankly, I don't think any of us are brave enough.) Last year, I had a three-month-old at home and watched from my sofa but I'm back this year. A little older, a little softer, just as devoted. I'll be there with my boyfriend, my SPF50, Loop earplugs and the mild sense of dread that comes with being in your mid-30s and about to spend four nights on an inflatable mattress. We've also downloaded the Official Glastonbury app and shared our lineups. The location-sharing feature might actually save us this year – no more frantic texts saying 'by a flag' or 'left of the big speaker' while squinting at a man in glitter hot pants who looks vaguely like your friend from behind. There's something comforting about that – about being able to stay connected without stepping outside of the bubble. About knowing where your people are, even in the chaos. Because that's what Glastonbury has always meant to us: not the headliners, not the hype, but the simple fact of being together, in a field, once a year. Still showing up. Still choosing each other. And yes, I know, it's all a bit of a cliche. But like most cliches, it only became one because it's true. Vodafone, connecting you to Glastonbury this summerThe Official Glastonbury 2025 app is available now! Download the free app, powered by Vodafone
New York Times
29 minutes ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Barbra Streisand on the Duets That Define Her: ‘I Like Drama'
To Barbra Streisand, a duet isn't just a song. 'It's a dramatic process,' she said. 'It's wondering who is this guy in the song? Who is this girl? What's happening with them?' Figuring that out plays straight into Streisand's core identity as an artist. 'I'm an actress first,' she added. 'I like drama.' Small wonder she has performed character-driven duets so often, so creatively and with such commercial success. In October 1963, following the release of Streisand's debut album, Judy Garland invited her to appear in an episode of her TV show; their joint performance all but anointed the younger as her vocal heir. In the decades since, many of her highest-charting songs have been duets, starting in 1978 with Neil Diamond on their death-of-a-love ballad, 'You Don't Bring Me Flowers,' followed the next year by her diva-off with Donna Summer on 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough).' Both shot straight to No. 1. In the early 1980s, she scored two Top 10 Billboard hits with Barry Gibb, chased by a dalliance with Bryan Adams In 2014, Streisand issued an entire album of double billings titled 'Partners,' which teamed her with stars from the quick (John Mayer on 'Come Rain or Come Shine') to the dead (Elvis Presley via a vocal sample from the singer's 1956 recording of 'Love Me Tender'). Both that album, and its follow-up, 'Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway,' scaled Billboard's peak. Next week, Streisand, 83, will release a sequel, 'The Secret of Life: Partners, Volume Two,' featuring contemporaries of different musical sensibilities, like Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan, as well as younger voices including Hozier and Sam Smith. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Malay Mail
30 minutes ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
French streamer Deezer begins labelling AI-made songs, moves to protect artist royalties
PARIS, June 20 — French streaming service Deezer is now alerting users when they come across music identified as completely generated by artificial intelligence, the company told AFP on Friday in what it called a global first. The announcement by chief executive Alexis Lanternier follows repeated statements from the platform that a torrent of AI-generated tracks is being uploaded daily—a challenge Deezer shares with other streaming services including Swedish heavyweight Spotify. Deezer said in January that it was receiving uploads of 10,000 AI tracks a day, doubling to over 20,000 in an April statement—or around 18 percent of all music added to the platform. The company 'wants to make sure that royalties supposed to go to artists aren't being taken away' by tracks generated from a brief text prompt typed into a music generator like Suno or Udio, Lanternier said. AI tracks are not being removed from Deezer's library, but instead are demonetised to avoid unfairly reducing human musicians' royalties. Albums containing tracks suspected of being created in this way are now flagged with a notice reading 'content generated by AI', a move Deezer says is a global first for a streaming service. Lanternier said Deezer's home-grown detection tool was able to spot markers of AI provenance with 98 percent accuracy. 'An audio signal is an extremely complex bundle of information. When AI algorithms generate a new song, there are little sounds that only they make which give them away... that we're able to spot,' he said. 'It's not audible to the human ear, but it's visible in the audio signal.' With 9.7 million subscribers worldwide, most of them in France, Deezer is a relative minnow compared to Spotify, which has 268 million. The Swedish firm in January signed a deal supposed to better remunerate artists and other rights holders with the world's biggest label, Universal Music Group. But Spotify has not taken the same path as Deezer of demonetising AI content. It has pointed to the lack of a clear definition for completely AI-generated audio, as well as any legal framework setting it apart from human-created works. — AFP
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Coldplay to re-release nine albums on records made from recycled plastic battles
Coldplay are set to reissue nine of their albums on records made from recycled plastic bottles. The Viva la Vida band are continuing their environmental crusade by reissuing their material on EcoRecord LPs - which are claimed to reduce carbon emissions during the manufacturing process by 85 per cent when compared to traditional vinyl production. Jen Ivory, managing director of Coldplay's record label Parlophone, said: "We are incredibly proud to partner with artists such as Coldplay who share our commitment to a more sustainable future for music. "The shift to EcoRecord LP for their releases is a testament to what's possible when innovation meets intention. "It's not just about a new product, it's about pioneering manufacturing that significantly reduces environmental impact, providing fans with the same high-quality audio experience while setting a new standard for physical music production." The band are re-issuing their debut album Parachutes (2000), A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002), X+Y (2005), Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008), Mylo Xyloto (2011), Ghost Stories (2014), A Head Full of Dreams (2015), Everyday Life (2019) and Music of the Spheres (2021) in an eco-friendly manner. The LPs are made up of around nine recycled bottles, which are cleaned and process into small pellets before being moulded into records. Coldplay's most recent album - 2024's Moon Music - has already been released on an EcoRecord LP. The Clocks band are attempting to tour in an environmentally friendly way but frontman Chris Martin previously admitted there is still "quite a long way to go" to find a fully eco-friendly way to perform around the world. The 48-year-old singer told BBC Radio 2 in 2021: "We've been working with some amazing brands to see how we can cut down as much of the environmental impact as possible. "We still have quite a long way to go. But we've already come quite a long way." Coldplay teamed up with direct air capture pioneers Climeworks to ensure that their Music of the Spheres World Tour had a net-zero carbon footprint. They said in a statement: "Playing live and finding connection with people is ultimately why we exist as a band. We've been planning this tour for years, and we're super excited to play songs from across our whole time together. "At the same time, we're very conscious that the planet is facing a climate crisis. "So we've spent the last two years consulting with environmental experts to make this tour as sustainable as possible, and, just as importantly, to harness the tour's potential to push things forward. "We won't get everything right, but we're committed to doing everything we can and sharing what we learn. It's a work in progress and we're really grateful for the help we've had so far."
