Spotify’s Original Content, Shazam Gets a Gameshow, Frank Ocean is Just Cruel and More

Just back from vacation, Liv Buli, the Data Journalist for Pandora's Next Big Sound shares what she's paying attention to, as she parses data while taking the cultural temperature. Liv often sees what matters before the rest of us; and shares it most Fridays on Hypebot .

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Hello world.Despite what I would describe as ungodly temperatures and 3000% humidity in New York (that is an official statistic from the National Weather Association I swear), I’ve had the chance to catch up from a nice long summer holiday in Norway, read a bit of news, and get back to my weekly summaries of what’s what in music and tech.

Oh hello. Have you missed me? First of all, TechCrunch’s Josh Constine pulls no punches (he rarely does) when reviewing the new original content videos from Spotify. There is more to come it seems, and they also launched their portal dedicated to video game music this week.

Spotify's first original videos are boring behind-the-music cartoons

Apparently Fox has picked up a new game show entitled ‘Beat Shazam,’ where contestants will face off against the app to name that tune (If only this were a competition in guessing b-movie actors, my brother and I would reign supreme).

Fox Orders Musical Game Show 'Beat Shazam'

Last week I wrote a story about how Frank Ocean could keep us waiting for the new album as long as he wants. It’s been yet another week. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH FRANK.Are Fans So Mad At Frank Ocean They Won't Listen To His New Album? Probably Not.In fact, according to Twitter, the internet is experiencing a veritable rollercoaster of emotions on the topic, expertly expressed in emojis. Frankly, I am surprised there aren’t more expletives (yes, I was pretty excited about that pun :smugbert:).

Twitter goes bonkers over the still-missing-in-action Frank Ocean album. Here’s a great feature on Chance the Rapper from the latest issue of Billboard. I was particularly interested to read not just about who he is and how he thinks about composing his music, but also his approach to making money in this business.“It’s not about the music being free. It’s about how it is displayed and made accessible and about artistic power,” explains Chance. “It was always about the artist-to-fan relationship.”

The New Pioneers: Chance the Rapper Is One of the Hottest Acts in Music, Has a Top 10 Album and His…

So I know this all went down a few weeks ago, but we have to talk about Instagram stories. Total Snapchat ripoff aside, now that we’ve had them for a few weeks, how do we feel about it? This lady is apparently NOT into it.

Your Instagram Stories are all boring | Hannah Jane Parkinson

And that’s all I’ve got for this week. If you’re in LA this weekend, Pandora is hosting their annual Summer Crush concert, with Daya, 5SOS and Fergie taking the stage. Since it’s timely (and let’s face it I am obsessed with Kim Kardashian), I’ll leave you with the video for M.I.L.F $. Buli out.