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Today’s Music News: Weird Kurt Cobain audio montage emerges

by Staff

November 04, 2014

Kurt Cobain's "Montage of Heck" was aptly named: the 1988 mix, made by a 21-year-old Cobain before Nirvana's debut album was released, includes everything from toilets flushing to William Shatner covering "Wild Thing." You can listen to the 15-minute audio collage at Consequence of Sound, if you dare.

It wasn't a big surprise that Taylor Swift's new album 1989 didn't appear on Spotify when it was released last week; many artists hold their music from streaming services for a while after release to force eager fans to buy the music outright. On Monday, though, Swift surprised the music world—and, seemingly, miffed Spotify to no end—by pulling her entire back catalog from the service. The shift, coming just as Swift is dominating headlines with the new album and a tour announcement, became the highest-profile conflict seen to date between a streaming service and a music artist. (New York Times)

After a furious day of rumors that Beyoncé was set to release a new surprise album, the truth has come out: on Nov. 24 Bey will release a "Platinum Edition" of her 2013 self-titled album, featuring two new tracks and four new remixes. (Rolling Stone)

Audio of Lorde covering Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody" on New Zealand radio at age 12 has emerged. (Billboard)

An emerging body of European law recognizes the "right to be forgotten": the right to request that unfavorable information about yourself be de-indexed from Internet search engines. Under that law, Croatian pianist Dejan Lazic has asked the Washington Post to un-publish a negative review of one of his 2010 performances. Lazic's legal footing for the cross-border request is very shaky, but the Post took it seriously enough to respond with an editorial saying, in part, that Lazic's attitude "torpedoes the very foundation of arts criticism" and "invalidates the primary function of journalism." (Consequence of Sound)

The Sun is reporting that Bob Geldof is considering recording a fourth version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" to raise money to fight ebola. The song, originally performed by a supergroup called Band Aid brought together by Geldof, was first released in 1984 to fight famine in Ethiopia. Subsequent versions, also for charity, were created in 1989 and 2004. (Billboard)

Bette Midler announced her first tour in over a decade. Supporting Midler's new album of girl-group covers, the tour will stop at the Xcel Energy Center on Nov. 24, 2015. (Billboard)

This year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade will feature performances by Sting (likely promoting his new Broadway musical), "All About That Bass" hitmaker Meghan Trainor, and Frozen songstress Idina Menzel, among others. (Billboard)

An IndieGoGo campaign has been launched in an attempt to raise the $250,000 required to save the steeple of the church in Athens, Georgia where R.E.M. played their first show in 1980. (A.V. Club)

Listen to the Morning Show’s music news roundup on the Current every weekday at 9:00 a.m. to hear our hosts discuss the latest music news.

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