"music" news, interviews, and features

News about music

  • Hands-on with the new mobile Sonos apps

    A decade after entering the field, Sonos leads the multi-room audio market, thanks in large measure to software controllers that make its hardware exceedingly easy for consumers to install and operate. Now the company is preparing to ship its first from-the-ground-up redesign of those controllers. Most Sonos users will be happy with the changes.

  • Get to know iOS 7: Music and iTunes Radio

    Some detractors criticised iOS 6's Music app for its reliance on album art. Cover art dominated its Playlists, Artists, Albums, Composers, and Genres screens, while its Songs screen eschewed any sort of art. The iOS 7 version takes a different approach.

  • Digital reading room: Rock 'n' read

    [As tablets get more powerful, with more memory and sharper-looking screens, their apps are getting a makeover. Increasingly, mobile apps employ multimedia--combining words, pictures, audio, and video--in new and interesting ways. In our Digital Reading Room series, we'll look at some eye-catching multimedia apps and tell you which ones deserve a place on your mobile device.]

  • IN PICTURES: Vivid 2013 (2) - Kraftwerk in 3D

    Vivid 2013 in Sydney was launched with a four-night run of two shows a night by the legendary German electronic band, Kraftwerk, running through one of their last eight albums each show and then playing a mix of material from the other seven albums. The whole 90-minute show featured projections on a screen behind the band which were viewed through 3D glasses, creating a 3D performance. ARN Editor-In-Chief, Mike Gee, was two rows from the front in the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Opera House for the first show. He captured these shots using just a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT4 digital camera. As ever Vivid is about the mix of technology and art. It is billed as a Festival of Light, Music and Ideas. And this was the perfect band to launch the event. Kraftwerk is renowned for its pioneering mix of art, technology and music. This is the second in a series of slideshows capturing this essential event that runs from May 24-June 10.

  • RIAA expands gold and platinum record awards to streamed music

    In another sign that music listening is expanding beyond the limits of CDs and digital purchases, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on Thursday that it would recognize music and music videos streamed from on-demand services as part of its Gold & Platinum award program. These services include Mog, Muve Music, Rdio, Rhapsody, Slacker, Spotify, and Xbox Music, as well as video streaming services such as MTV.com, Vevo, Yahoo Music, and YouTube. This is the first time that the program has recognized tracks in a non-sales format.

  • Apps for summer music festivals

    Summer is upon us, and so is music festival season. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to music fests all around the country, and for some, summer just wouldn't be the same without attending one of these mega events. With beautiful weather (most of the time), comraderie with other attendees, an interesting array of food and art, and of course killer bands, there's a lot to experience.