How William Gibson keeps his science fiction real
Joshua Rothman,
The New Yorker

While a lot of sci-fi is obsessed with the distant future, one of the best authors of the genre takes a different approach. The New Yorker explains how William Gibson “has imagined the near future more convincingly than anyone else” to create his stories. That includes his concept of “cyberspace” that first appeared in his work in the early 1980s.

This summer, Apple created New Music Daily, a curated playlist with the latest and most popular tracks from around the world. Today, it’s launching a companion radio broadcast on Beats 1. The weekly show, “New Music Daily with Zane Lowe,” will feature interviews with artists, commentary and songs from the playlist. The first episode premieres today at 12PM ET (9AM PT) with guests Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

Taylor Swift is getting friendly with Spotify ahead of her new album, ‘Lover.’ Times have changed.
Tim Ingham,
Music Business Worldwide

Not too long ago, Taylor Swift shook off Spotify, pulling her entire catalog from the service and slamming music streaming as “a grand experiment.” Nearly five years later, amid a huge blow up with her former label, she’s mighty cozy with the Sweden-based company that went public in 2018. It looks like the two sides have put aside their bad blood — for now.

Everyone from Walmart to Target to eBay is coming for Amazon’s online shopping crown, and now its Christmas-in-July event is adding yet another wrinkle: a concert. Leading up to to the two-day Prime Day 2019 on July 15th and 16th, Amazon Music will put on a show — streamed live via Prime Video of course — with performances from SZA, Dua Lipa and Becky G, not to mention a little-known headliner, Taylor Swift.

Subscribers in 200 countries can tune in for the show July 10th at 9 PM ET. After it airs live, it will be available for replay for a “limited time,” and it will also tie-in with promos for other Amazon stuff. Previews planned for the stream include teasers for Jack Ryan, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Carnival Row, The Boys and Undone.

Also, Prime members are being encouraged to try the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription service with an offer that keeps the price at .99 cents per month for the first four months. Asking Alexa to play the Prime Day Concert playlist now will turn up selections from the featured artists, and once the show is on, the assistant can tune straight to the video for you.

Developing..

BBC Music will soon add content produced in the US, too. “There’s a huge amount of great music being produced in the US right now, and we’re excited to help connect those artists to our vast, music-hungry audience,” said Simon Frantz, the BBC’s US features managing editor. The BBC Music app, which launched in the UK in 2016, is still unavailable in the US. This means you’ll have access BBC Music on BBC.com for now, and with any luck, this is a sign we’ll see the app in the US before too long.