YouTuber Vocal Synthesis says rappers label Roc Nation filed copyright notices against their AI impersonations
Jay-Zs company Roc Nation have filed takedown notices against deepfake videos that use artificial intelligence to make him rap Billy Joels We Didnt Start the Fire and Hamlets To be or not to be soliloquy.
The anonymous creator of the YouTube-hosted videos, known as Vocal Synthesis, has said that copyright notices were filed by Roc Nation, stating: This content unlawfully uses an AI to impersonate our clients voice. The two aforementioned videos have been removed, though others remain, including one of the rapper taking on the Book of Genesis.
Vocal Synthesis said via a deepfake video using the ersatz voices of Barack Obama and Donald Trump that they had no malicious purpose and were disappointed that Jay-Z and Roc Nation have decided to bully a small YouTuber in this way.
The Guardian has contacted Roc Nation for comment.
Deepfake videos have already caused great controversy in political and celebrity circles, with California outlawing them in 2018, and Facebook banning them in January. The technology has most notoriously been used to create fake pornographic videos featuring famous actors the PornHub website banned deepfakes in 2018.
Deepfakes differ from so-called cheapfakes, which dont involve AI and instead feature re-edited footage with the aim of distorting the truth. Famous examples include a video of Nancy Pelosi doctored to make her look drunk, and one of Keir Starmer created by the Tory party for social media where he appeared unable to answer a question. Posting on Twitter this week, Donald Trump shared a fake gif of Joe Biden sticking his tongue out.
There are debates over the copyright implications of AI-created videos such as the Jay-Z performances, with digital access advocates Creative Commons arguing: It is ill-advised to force the application of the copyright system an antiquated system that has yet to adapt to the digital environment on to AI.
Last month, Spotify announced that as part of its coronavirus relief efforts it would soon add new fundraising features for artists on its platform. Today, the company is following through with the launch of “Artist Fundraising Pick,” a feature that allows artists to fundraise for themselves, their crews, or one of the verified music relief initiatives Spotify has already vetted through the Spotify COVID-19 Music Relief project.
At launch, Spotify is working with a small group of fundraising partners to make the donation process easier, including Cash App, GoFundMe, and PayPal.me.
Cash App is currently Spotify’s preferred method, as it has also established a $1 million relief effort for artists. When Spotify artists choose their “$cashtag” as their Artist Fundraising Pick and secure at least one donation of any size, they’ll receive an additional $100 in their account from Cash App up until a collective total of $1 million has been contributed. This works for artists in the U.S. and U.K., but Spotify users worldwide can donate through Cash App.
To use the new fundraising tools, artists (or Spotify for Artists admin users) will go to their Artist dashboard and click “Get started” on the banner at the top to submit their Fundraising Pick. This is a similar process as to how artists choose which track they want to display on their profile.
Once live, fans can donate to the cause through the artist’s profile. In addition to Cash App, PayPal is broadly available and GoFundMe is available in 19 markets.
If the artist chooses to raise for a music relief organization, they can select from those associated with Spotify’s existing charity project, which launched last month in partnership with MusiCares, PRS Foundation, and Help Musicians. It has now expanded to include a wider range of participating organizations, including several local options, and is continuing to grow.
Spotify says it moved to quickly launch this feature because it believed it was in a unique position to help artists raise money from a global network of fans. However, it cautions that it’s never built a fundraising feature like this before, and considers this a “first version.” Over time, the feature will likely evolve and update based on artist feedback.
“This is an incredibly difficult time for many Spotify users and people around the world — and there are many worthy causes to support at this time,” the company wrote in an announcement. “With this feature, we simply hope to enable those who have the interest and means to support artists in this time of great need, and to create another opportunity for our COVID-19 Music Relief partners to find the financial support they need to continue working in music and lift our industry,” it said.
Julian Casablancas is back on passive-aggressive form on an album of all-out pop and mid-paced fillers
What was onthe Strokes minds when they named their latest albumThe New Abnormal? Its anyones guess. Part of the appeal of this band has long lain in their inscrutability especially that of singer Julian Casablancas. Its in the way he hollers about something so oblique, spittle-flecked and sublime as to be beyond the ken of the average civilian, even as she pores over a lyric sheet.
No one in Camp Stroke, of course, foresaw the atypical, twilit times into which this album would arrive. But The New Abnormal does herald another unexpected state of affairs: one in which this bands long, slow, painful decline finally levels out a little.
These nine songs, two of them already released, arent all endorphin rushes that recall the Strokes imperial period, but they come closer than this benighted band have in ages to some kind of musical sweet spot.
Two decades ago, the fivesome hit upon a way to bottle grubby lightning, borrowing the attitude of the Velvet Underground and the double-helix guitars of Television (plus a soupon of the Cars and rather more Ramones) and made trapped-nerve rock music a legitimate fetish once again. After 2003, and the bands second album, Room on Fire, the co-conspirators gradually fell out with one another and into rock cliches, addictions and solo ventures, to audibly diminishing returns. The bands two most recent outings, 2011s Angles and 2013s Comedown Machine, went through the motions a little too obviously. The Strokes were great when they sounded prematurely jaded, less so when they had earned that status the hard way.
Now there is new-found energy, discernible in the form of a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting on the cover Bird on Money, the artists tribute to jazz horn player Charlie Bird Parker. There are out-and-out pop songs. A cessation of hostilities has been declared between Casablancass gnarlier meanderings in his side-gig, the Voidz, and the effortless, five-way synchromesh of peak Strokes.
Most of all, there is focus. Strangely, the jumping-off point for this late-life flicker is a barely concealed cover version. Bad Decisions, a knowing rewrite of Billy Idols 1981 hit Dancing With Myself, suggests the band might have actually had some fun knocking around in the same room together, rather than mere strained detente. (A series of between-song outtakes labours this point a little too hard, perhaps.) Moreover, Casablancas is back on rueful, passive-aggressive form, while the twin guitars of Albert Hammond Jr and Nick Valensi weaponise simplicity.
Without going to Shangri-La the Malibu studio where the album was recorded and blending in with the all-white decor, its hard to know exactly what the producer brings to this party. But the guru behind the faders here is Rick Rubin, a badass Buddha now less known for his early triumphs (producing Slayers Reign in Blood, signing Public Enemy, unleashing Beastie Boys) and more for his ability to fix stymied creatives. He is less a gilder of lilies than a trimmer of fat, and there is a clarity to The New Abnormal that commends it.
Album opener The Adults Are Talking is another giddy keeper, in which the details pop out brightly: pizzicato guitar, a weird backwards cymbal hiss, Casablancas swapping between croon and falsetto. Despite a random mutter of stockholders!, it all knits together.
With any band of this arc and scope, the task here is to taste the fresh fruit being thrown into the bowl of dubious backstage punch. Billy Idol is not the only 80s reference point: Eternal Summer is an unashamed yacht-rock track that pivots surprisingly towards Talking Heads.
What really stands out, though, is how Casablancas starts the song. When I think of you, he trills, in a soul-pop falsetto worthy of Janet Jackson; the frazzled, FX-laden outro instead recalls her brother Michael.
On Arctic Monkeys most recent album, Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino, Alex Turner blithely confessed his youthful fandom (I just wanted to be one of the Strokes, he sang). Casablancas unwittingly returns the favour here: fleetingly, he can sound like his disciple. The start of Not the Same Anymore shimmers like an echo of an echo that would have sat nicely on Tranquillity Base. Youre not the same any more, murmurs Casablancas, straight out of the Turner lexicon, Dont play that game any more/ Youd make a better window than a door.
The New Abnormal remains a frustrating listen despite its gleam. Faster tempos would have helped. Nothing says Will this do? more clearly than a mid-paced shuffle, of which there are a few. Some songs just dont gel. Why Are Sundays So Depressing? is, somehow, less than the sum of its discrete good ideas (the bow-wow-ing keyboard, the stuttering melody). Track titles such as Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus could have used a final edit. (The song itself starts with a cute keyboard brio reminiscent of Metronomy before turning into an odd disco jangle; its not at all bad, neither is it magisterial.)
You sense that the albums swaying crescendo of a closer, Ode to the Mets, carries a weight of significance. It really isnt about baseball. As ever, the lyrics provide few clues as to the target of Casablancass weary ire. I was just bored/ Playing the guitar/ Learned all your tricks/ Wasnt too hard, he sneers, as the band headily mix swagger and sentimentality. It all makes for an odd state of mind to get used to: the Strokes arent over yet.
The singer joined with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to provide shelter, meals and counselling for families at risk in coronavirus pandemic
Rihanna has donated $2.1m (1.67m) to the Mayors Fund for Los Angeles to assist victims of domestic violence affected by the coronavirus lockdown. The singers Clara Lionel Foundation joined with Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey to donate matching sums to the drive. Their donations will cover 10 weeks of support, including shelter, meals and counselling for families experiencing domestic violence during the pandemic in greater Los Angeles.
Alyson Messenger, a managing staff lawyer with the Jenesse Center, a domestic violence organisation in South Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times last month that the lockdown was a worst-case scenario for anyone in an abusive relationship: Compound that with the fact that access to services is more difficult than ever.
UN secretary general Antnio Guterres tweeted on 6 April: Many women under lockdown for #COVID19 face violence where they should be safest: in their own homes. I urge all governments to put womens safety first as they respond to the pandemic.
In Chinas Hubei province, the centre of the initial outbreak, domestic violence reports to police more than tripled in a single county, from 47 cases in February 2019 to 162 this year. A quarter of British domestic violence charities said that they could not effectively support abuse victims during lockdown owing to technical issues, inability to meet victims and staff sickness.
A statement announcing the donations by Rihanna a domestic abuse survivor and Dorsey said: Victims of domestic violence exist all over the world, so this is just the beginning.
Last month, Rihannas Clara Lionel Foundation previously joined with Jay-Zs Shawn Carter Foundation to donate $2m (1.59m) to support undocumented workers, prisoners, homeless people, the elderly and children of frontline health workers in Los Angeles and New York during the Covid-19 outbreak. She also donated personal protective equipment to healthcare providers in New York State, and gave $5m ($4m) to global organisations to protect healthcare workers and marginalised communities.
Her father, Ronald Fenty, has been recovering from coronavirus after spending 14 days inside the Paragon Isolation Center in Barbados. He told the Sun: I thought I was going to die. He said his daughter sent a ventilator to his home, which ultimately he did not need.
The 32-year old singer is the latest musician to mobilise in the effort to assist healthcare providers and people affected by coronavirus. Lady Gaga has curated the benefit concert One World: Together at Home featuring performances from such artists as Gaga, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Paul McCartney and Coldplays Chris Martin to be livestreamed globally and televised in the US on 18 April. The BBC will broadcast an adapted version the following day.
Musicians have been quickly turning to Twitch to support themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they’re no longer able to make money from live gigs and touring. Now Twitch is staffing up to turn this ad hoc use of Twitch into more of a formal product. The company today announced it hired Spotify’s Tracy Chan as its new head of Product and Engineering for Music.
Chan worked at Spotify for four years as director of Product Management. In this role, he was primarily focused on leading product strategy and development for Creator platforms and developing analytics tools for artists and labels, including Spotify for Artists and Spotify Analytics.
He joined Spotify in April 2016 after the streaming music company bought his photo aggregation startup, CrowdAlbum, in order to add to its growing set of marketing tools aimed at artists. Before CrowdAlbum, Chan worked at YouTube as a product manager, where he launched YouTubes’s Creator Platform and what’s now called YouTube Creator Studio.
Now at Twitch, Chan joins a growing music team headed by Twitch’s head of music, Mike Olson. Going forward, Chan will focus on evolving the Twitch experience specifically for live music and helping artists and fans better connect in real time, Twitch said in an announcement.
This is not Twitch’s first ex-Spotify’s to join Twitch with a focus on music. Earlier this year, Athena Koumis, formerly of XITE and Spotify, joined as the Music Partnerships Manager, the company notes.
Though many artists now performing on Twitch may already have followings on mainstream social platforms — like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — some have found it’s easier to make money on Twitch, reports have said. In addition, Twitch has made several efforts amid the pandemic to help onboard more musicians to its platform. For example, Twitch and SoundCloud recently announced a partnership that allows SoundCloud creators to start earning money from Twitch streams by fast-tracking their Affiliate status.
Once live on Twitch, the artists can generate revenue through subscriptions, direct donations, by cheering with Bits (an online tipping feature), by running ads on their channel and by linking to music and merchandise stores. They also can directly connect with fans via Twitch chat. Some have even taken advantage of Twitch features like raids, which redirect viewers to another live channel, and another that lets a channel broadcast another’s stream when they’re not live. Though designed with the gamer audience in mind, these have also proved useful for musicians looking to collaborate with others in order to grow their Twitch followings.
Though Twitch today is still best known for game streaming, it has been steadily expanding its live music footprint. Since the coronavirus breakout, Twitch has featured live musical performances from artists including John Legend, Diplo, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Lady Antebellum and dozens of others. Some of these were a part of Twitch’s 12-hour charity stream, Twitch Stream Aid, which benefited the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO powered by the United Nations Foundation.
In a statement, Chan spoke of the opportunity ahead at Twitch.
“I have spent my career building Creator tools and I believe there is a massive opportunity to help artists connect with their fans through virtual performances and live streaming, which is what led me to Twitch,” said Chan. “Across the board, and especially at this moment in time, we are seeing disruption in the music industry as artists are having to find new ways to both make money and interact with fans. As Twitch looks to expand its offerings for music creators and within the music industry as a whole, I am confident that together with the team, we will be able to build the necessary tools to support artists now and as they continue to explore their new virtual stage,” he said.
Olson, meanwhile, added that Chan’s hire comes at time when Twitch is heavily investing in building more product and monetization tools for music creators.
“Tracy is joining our team at a critical moment as we continue to see growing interest from both new and established musical talent joining Twitch,” said Olson. “His experience in developing video and music Creator tools will be invaluable to our team as we pursue new ways to support artists and connect them to their fans around the world.”
Written to an imaginary child about what it is to be a woman in this society, the singers seventh album is alternately intimate, sneering and sad, and lavished with gorgeous melodies
Laura Marling has described her seventh solo album as a kind of conceptual work. Song for Our Daughter, she says, is about trauma and an enduring quest to understand what it is to be a woman in this society. The songs are written to an imaginary child, offering her all the confidences and affirmations I found so difficult to provide myself. It has also turned up months earlier than expected. Scheduled for release in August the beginning of the annual three-month season when albums by major artists traditionally appear it has been brought forward. In light of the change to all our circumstances, Marling wrote on Instagram, I saw no reason to hold back on something that, at the very least, might entertain, and, at its best, provide some union.
The artwork for Song for Our Daughter. Photograph: Publicity image
However altruistic her intention, its quite a canny move: a lot of people have a lot of time on their hands right now, which may cause them to focus more intently on a singers work. Yet there is always the chance the opposite may happen. These are, as you can hardly have failed to notice, extraordinary, unprecedented times. There is no escape from whats going on in the outside world: to release an album now, an artist would have to be pretty confident theyd made something capable of cutting through the constant roar of news about the terrifying global crisis; something capable of subverting our natural inclination to react by turning to stuff we already know and love and find comforting. But a lack of confidence has never been Laura Marlings undoing: as so-called sensitive singer-songwriters go, she always cuts a remarkably robust figure. I have not a fuck to give, she snaps on opener Alexandra, and all the contents of Song for Our Daughter are distinctly less gooey and self-absorbed than an album offering advice to an imaginary unborn child might be in less assured hands.
Marling is still wont to change her accent with the frequency that some singer-songwriters change plectrums. Indeed, she sometimes changes accent in the middle of a song, as on Hope We Meet Again, where she keeps dipping out of the mid-Atlantic twang thats presumably necessary if youre going to write songs with words such as highway and momma in them, into the kind of cut-glass RP you might expect from someone who comes from Berkshire. The first song that lyrically fits with the advice-to-an-imaginary-child concept, Strange Girl, finds Marling singing in the Dylan-derived sneer she deployed on Master Hunter, from her album Once I Was an Eagle, with what appears to be a little of mid-70s Lou Reeds patent brand of bored contempt stirred in. Which is certainly a bracing way of delivering maternal counsel.
Laura Marling: Held Down video
In fact, it doesnt sound much like maternal counsel at all, more like Marling talking about her own past with an appealing roll of the eyes: Build yourself a garden and have something to attend / Cut off all relations because you couldnt stand your friends / Oh girl, please dont bullshit me. Certainly, its more successful than the title track, where the emotions she summons when imagining her daughter in some pretty grim situations blood on the floor, with your clothes on the floor, taking your advice from an old, balding bore tend to nothing sharper than sighing, well-I-tried-to-warn-you sadness. Its a song written by someone trying to picture what its like being a parent, and not quite pulling said picture into focus.
That said, the title track is extraordinarily beautiful, a quality it shares with the rest of Song for Our Daughter. One of the albums musical touchstones was apparently Paul McCartneys 70s albums, and whatever else you think about post-Beatles Macca, youd have a hard time arguing he was stingy with the tunes. And so it is here. The piano-led Blow By Blow, the gentle strum of For You, and the feedback-flecked Held Down are all lavished with gorgeous, effortless-seeming melodies.
The effect is heightened by the production. Its a highly polished piece of work, big on rich string arrangements and intricate harmony vocals. Theres a particularly striking moment when a swirl of voices all Marlings, multi-tracked to infinity rises up to underpin the line I love you, goodbye, on The End of the Affair. But its recorded in a way that creates a live feel, the lack of echo giving the illusion that Marling and her band are in close proximity to the listener. The effect is impressively punchy on Strange Girl, but on the songs that fill the albums second half, which are largely reliant on vocals and fingerpicked guitar, the production conjures a warm, fresh intimacy that feels welcome in a world of Zoom meetings and FaceTime catch-ups. Perhaps now is the perfect moment to release it after all.
This week Alexis listened to
Jon Brooks – Fonn Electronic auteur Jon Brookss new album How to Get Spring is pastoral and wistful: sonic lushness spiked with an aching hint of melancholy.
One World: Together at Home, streamed live on 18 April, will support UN response fund
Lady Gaga is to curate One World: Together at Home, a live-streamed and televised benefit concert in support of the World Health Organizations Covid-19 solidarity response fund and in celebration of health workers around the world.
The lineup includes Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, Lizzo, J Balvin, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Alanis Morissette, Burna Boy, Andrea Bocelli, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Elton John, John Legend, Kacey Musgraves, Keith Urban and Lang Lang.
The US talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert will host the event, which broadcasts live across the US television networks ABC, CBS and NBC, as well as being streamed online, at 8pm EST on 18 April.
BBC One will show an adapted version of the concert on 19 April, including exclusive performances from UK artists and interviews with frontline health workers. The details of the broadcast are yet to be announced.
Other celebrities expected to appear include David Beckham, Idris and Sabrina Elba, Kerry Washington, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Shah Rukh Khan and Sesame Street cast members.
The WHO and the social action platform Global Citizen have partnered to produce the event. The latters Together at Home series, launched last month, has featured performances from artists in isolation including Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello and Rufus Wainwright.
In a WHO press conference, Lady Gaga said she had helped to raise $35m (28m) for Global Citizen in the past week. She clarified that One World was not a fundraising telethon and would focus on entertainment and messages of solidarity, with philanthropists and businesses urged to donate to the Covid-19 solidarity response fund ahead of the event.
The WHOs general director, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said:We may have to be apart physically for a little while, but we can still come together virtually to enjoy great music. The One World: Together at Home concert represents a powerful show of solidarity against a common threat.
This article was amended on 6 April 2020. Lady Gaga stated that philanthropists and businesses were being urged to donate to the organisation, rather than fans as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.
The singer, who became famous during the swinging London scene of the 1960s and has had a respected (and occasionally troubled) career since, is said to be stable and responding to treatment, according to her representatives.
Her friend, the performer Penny Arcade, told Rolling Stone Faithfull had self-isolated following a cold, and then checked herself into hospital last Monday, where she tested positive for Covid-19. She has since contracted pneumonia.
Faithfull, who is 73, has had various health issues in the past. She suffered from anorexia during a spell of homelessness in central London in the early 1970s, when she was also addicted to heroin. In 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent successful surgery. In 2007, she announced she had hepatitis C, diagnosed 12 years previously. She also has arthritis, and has had other joint issues, including a hip injury which became infected after surgery and forced her to cancel a 2015 tour.
Apart from a decade-long fallow period following her 1960s breakthrough, she has steadily released music throughout her life. Her most recent album was 2018s Negative Capability, described as a masterly meditation on ageing and death in a five-star Observer review.
Council workers take advantage of the empty streets to spruce up the crossing featured on the cover of the Beatles 1969 album
The iconic Abbey Road zebra crossing made famous by the 1969 Beatles album of the same name has been repainted while the streets of London are empty because of the coronavirus pandemic.
A highways maintenance crew quietly repainted the normally busy zebra crossing on 24 March, the day after the prime minister ordered Britain to go on lockdown in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus.
A spokesperson for Westminster City Council said: This is a very busy zebra crossing and we repainted the line markings to ensure visibility and increased safety for drivers and pedestrians. Our contractors follow government advice on limiting the spread of covid-19, including social distancing and hand washing.
The government designated the crossing a site of national importance in 2010 and it can be altered only with the approval of local authorities. This London zebra crossing is no castle or cathedral but, thanks to the Beatles and a 10-minute photoshoot one August morning in 1969, it has just as strong a claim as any to be seen as part of our heritage, John Penrose, minister for tourism and heritage said at the time.
The cover for Abbey Road was shot at 11.35am on 8 August 1969, as John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr took a break from completing I Want You (Shes So Heavy) and The End, and Paul McCartney paused work on Oh! Darling. Standing on a step ladder in the middle of the road, photographer Iain Macmillan only had time to shoot six photographs on his Hasselblad camera given the oncoming traffic. McCartney selected the fourth image as the cover shot.
He parodied the theory on the cover of his 1993 live album, Paul Is Live, posing with a dog on the crossing. Pop cultural figures from the Simpsons to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Doctor Who have also re-enacted the image.
Stelios Kerasidis says his latest work is for people who suffer and isolate because of Covid-19
Move over Mozart, here comes Stelios Kerasidis. A seven-year-old Greek prodigy has penned an isolation waltz inspired by the pandemic.
The hypnotic, fugue-like melody has picked up more than 43,000 hits on YouTube since its launch last week.
Hi guys! Im Stelios. Lets be just a teeny bit more patient and we will soon be out swimming in the sea, he beams, perched on his piano stool, feet barely touching the floor. Im dedicating to you a piece of my own.
The work, his third composition, was written especially for people who suffer and those who isolate because of Covid-19, he adds.
Stelios Kerasidiss Isolation Waltz
Born in Athens in 2012 to Fotis and Agathe Kerasidis, both pianists who now teach him, Stelios first performed in public at the age of three.
In 2018 he played Chopins Waltz in A Minor at New Yorks Carnegie Hall, and last year he appeared at Londons Royal Albert Hall performing on Elton Johns famous red piano.
Stelios says his favourite pianist is the late Canadian Glenn Gould, best known for his technically demanding renditions of Bach variations.
The Greek has shown a flare for composing. His two earlier works were written for his sisters, Veronica and Anastasia, and like Isolation Waltz were met with critical acclaim.
Greece has been under lockdown for longer than most other European nations, the government having closed schools almost a month ago. Last week the government announced that swimming was also forbidden as the measures were ramped up.
The precautionary steps appear to be working: Greece has reported 79 deaths and fewer than 1,800 confirmed coronavirus cases, far fewer than some other countries.
Stelios, who is likely to be homebound for some time yet, has not hinted whether he has another composition up his sleeve.
