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Today’s Music News: Minneapolis saxophonist goes viral with meta joke about new hat

by Staff

May 20, 2015

Minneapolis saxophonist Curt Oren is making national headlines with an increasingly absurd series of attempts to raise awareness about...his new hat. First, Oren and his friends thought it would be funny to get a hat reading CURT'S NEW HAT. Then, Oren got a t-shirt saying, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY NEW HAT? One thing led to another, and now there's an electronic billboard in Iowa saying, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CURT'S NEW HAT? The billboard directs people to a website where Oren is raising money for a nonprofit arts space in Iowa City. (BuzzFeed)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVjOUIoo6Q

At a New York event, Spotify announced a major expansion of its services with new interactive features, streaming video, and podcasts. (Billboard) Among the new Spotify offerings will be a number of podcasts from The Current's parent company American Public Media, including the Dinner Party Download, the Splendid Table, and reports from Minnesota Public Radio News.

Bruce Lundvall, longtime president of Blue Note Records, has died at age 79 after a battle with Parkinson's Disease. As head of the label from 1984 to 2010, Lundvall helped the iconic jazz imprint return to prominence. (Rolling Stone)

Kanye West says that he was "grossly over-censored" by ABC, which silenced a substantial portion of his Sunday night performance—which included St. Paul emcee Allan Kingdom—at the Billboard Music Awards due to concerns about profanity. (NME)

The latest music star to announce a memoir is one who really has a story to tell: Barbra Streisand will publish an autobiography in 2017. Streisand is the only artist to have a number one hit album in every single decade from the 1960s through the 2010s. (Billboard)

Ezra Koenig says that Vampire Weekend are working on a new album...but slowly. They're "just chilling," says Koenig, before starting to make progress in earnest on a fourth studio album. (Consequence of Sound)

There's a new full-length trailer for the controversial documentary Amy, about the late Amy Winehouse. The film, which Winehouse's family has distanced itself from after initially cooperating, is due for wide release in the U.S. on July 10. (Billboard)

Gawker has set the Internet straight on what was reportedly a $20,000 bottle of Champagne poured into a hot tub by Beyoncé in the new video for her Nicki Minaj collaboration "Feeling Myself." In fact, the price guide that seemed to indicate an astronomical price for the bottle was Photoshopped: the Champagne Bey was seemingly pouring out actually runs about $300.

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