Today's breaking news – Wednesday 29th February 2012
The Eagles threaten to sue Frank Ocean over Hotel California sample
One of the most perfect moments in Frank Ocean’s terrific ‘Nostalgia / Ultra’ mixtape came from his audacious flipping of the the riff from The Eagles’ megahit Hotel California on American Wedding, below. Frank Ocean wrote on Tumblr:
“Don Henley is apparently intimidated by my rendition of ‘Hotel California’. He threatened to sue if I perform it again. I think it’s fuckin’ awesome.”
Frank Ocean is currently working on three major projects: his own full debut album, the next Odd Future mixtape, due on the 19th March and an undisclosed project with Kanye West, as revealed through pictures posted online, above. It will be the second time that the guy we are calling our Brian Wilson with only a little exaggeration has worked with Kanye, having produced No Church In The Wild for the rapper’s album with Kanye West last year.
Azealia Banks may well be working with MIA on her new album
The Harlem rapper who took our small portion of the world by storm with 212 last year is readying an album, ‘Broke With Expensive Taste’ with Paul Epworth for release in September. She’s hinted that MIA will feature on it, Tweeting “Also got something cooking with @MIAuniverse !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. Azealia, one of the most interesting new rappers around, gives give Twitter, having previously called out XL Records, Iggy Azealia and Kreayshawn over the social network.
Main Attrakionz are previewing their new EP online
The wonderful San Francisco duo Main Attrakionz are releasing a new EP, called cLOUDLIFE, a reference to their cloud-rap sound and their forebears in the avant hip hop camp, cLOUDDEAD. It’s quite something, and contains a rare reference to Volvos in hip hop. Listen to the whole thing over at Spin.com.
DoYaThing, the track Gorillaz, Andre 3000 and James Murphy made for Converse, has an official video
The shoe-brand-directed collaboration has an official video, directed by the cartoon band’s Jamie Hewlett. We’ve already expressed our ambivalence about _Do Ya Thing, but this is news in our world, so you can make your own mind up below.
Apple to offer new music service
Apple, the technology company with a knack for completely changing the music world, is working on a new format. Called “adaptive streaming”, it’s a service for iCloud users that varies sound quality based on bandwidth and storage on your device, meaning that your music is constantly accessible, simply altering the sound-quality based on how you’re connecting to the Cloud. Anecdotally, we’ve already noticed something similar working for Spotify, with sound quality noticeably differing when you’re listening through a phone’s 3G or a laptop’s wifi.
It’s the second rumoured movement of Apple into sound quality technology – last month it was revealed that Neil Young was working on a higher-than-CD quality file with Steve Jobs before the tech-guru died.
