Apple gearing up for Beats 1 Radio debut

It may not be easy to get excited about a new radio station these days. But when it is the Apple-backed Beats 1 Radio component of the upcoming Apple Music service, we can expect a lot of interest.

Former BBC DJ, Zane Lowe, who makes up one third of the initial triumverate of DJs curating the sound of Beats1 (from NY, LA and London, you know, the epicentres of cool music), is hyping up his first on air interview. Lowe will be chatting up iconic rapper and known Dr. Dre cohort, Eminem, as his very first guest. How the world has changed. Eminem famously embarked on a lawsuit against iTunes back in 2009.

That case was eventually settled, and now Eminem is helping kick off Apple's biggest music play since it launched iTunes and the iPod over a decade ago.

In other Apple Music related news, Taylor Swift finally decided to allow her latest album 1989 on Apple's streaming music service after all. The pop star tweeted, "After the events of this week, I've decided to put 1989 on Apple Music...and happily so." Apple Music kicks off in the US on June 30.

Swift response: Apple to pay artists during Music trial period

Apple has reconsidered its initial approach to the Apple Music trial period after Taylor Swift wrote an open letter imploring Apple to pay musicians for their music during the three-month trial period that the new music service will be available for free.

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Taylor Swift won't release her '1989' album on Apple Music

Taylor Swift isn't just unhappy with how Spotify does its business. This time, she's refusing to work with Apple on its new streaming service, Apple Music. In an open letter addressed to the company, Swift reasons she doesn't want to make her 1989 album available on the service because they won't be paying the artists or producers during the three-month trial period when it launches. She says she's worried about the young talents who are counting on those initial singles to stay afloat. Swift thinks it's unfair for Apple to have people work for nothing  when they have money to spare. 

We're not sure what Apple would plan to do after this but the company has yet to respond to her letter. The company initially promised to pay higher than the normal rate to compensate for the trial period but we're wondering if that'll be enough if the big acts start to pull out their stuff. 

Source: Taylor Swift | Via: Engadget 

The Apple Beat: An Overview of Apple Music

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

What a lot of people tend to overlook is that because of iTunes, Apple is actually the number one music retailer in the world. The service celebrated selling 25 billion songs back in 2013, and it took over a decade to build that business which now is expanding to Apple Music.

Apple’s big announcement at this year’s World Wide Developer’s Conference was its new music service aptly titled Apple Music. 

The company that invented iTunes as well as revolutionized buying songs and albums digitally and which really started the iPod revolution a decade ago, had to react to the sudden shift of users buying music to using streaming services like Pandora (not in Canada), Spotify, RDIO, Google Play Music and various others. Here's what you need to know about Apple Music.

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