Random music news for Wednesday, May 21, 2025

This student did Reddit a favour by creating an anti-MAGA bot to engage the trollers. Can we have one for X, Threads, and Bluesky, please? Now on to music news for May 21, 2025.

1. After getting all pissy about Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce, manbaby Trump is mad at Arcade Fire.
2. Meanwhile, the American Federation of Musicians has released a statement regarding President Von Shitzenpants badmouthing of its members.
3. As tensions continue to rise between India and Pakistan, the Indian government has ordered domestic streaming music services to remove Pakistani music from their universe.
4. More legal drama: Salt-N-Pepa are suing Universal for not returning their masters after their contract was terminated.
5. What’s wrong with these women?
6. Bob Mould received an honorary doctorate from Macalester College. (Via Adam)
7. The latest thing people are doing to drive us crazy? “Barebeating.” Do NOT do this. (Yes, it’s a music-related story.)
8. Bono says the new U2 album “sounds like the future.”
9. Here’s an interesting concept: An app that allows artists to take requests during a show.
10. Spotify is sorry for showing how many people are listening to individual podcasts. Here’s why.
11. Adam Clayton of U2 is an investor in Roxi, another below-the-radar streaming music service.
12. Amazon Music has a new music search feature that’s supposed to provide more context. Here’s what that means.
13. Bluesky has a plan to take over social media. Let’s look at that.
14. Meta has a new generative AI feature. Given that the company is inherently evil, what could possibly go wrong?
15. What if Lynyrd Skynyrd had been around in 1654? Then they might have sounded like this.

BONUS: Check out this System of a Down drone footage.

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