Tom Davenport

Composite lets you make scenery-inspired art with ease. It looks...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 11:11:20 +0000

Composite lets you make scenery-inspired art with ease. It looks fun.

Spotify pays more than 1p per stream - sometimes

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:40:00 +0000

Spotify receives a lot of bad press for its tiny streaming royalties.

At the last #sonicmeet, I told a skeptical Mike Hillier that Vienna Circle, a band whose second album I have been producing, have seen streaming payments in the pennies before. Sure, it’s no flattering payment, but it certainly looks better than the £0.000125 that many artists receive per play.

I just received an updated copy of Vienna Circle’s digital stats, and checked back to see if I was utterly mistaken that Spotify, or indeed another streaming service, really can pay more than the hallowed penny for a single track stream.

If it can, then suddenly streaming becomes a reasonably viable platform for the long term.

Take a look at your own last.fm stats and see how often you’ve played certain tracks over the last five years. Then scale that up to your lifetime. If streaming royalties are, on average, over half a penny, the number of plays could ultimately earn the artist more a traditional sale.

It turns out that Spotify really can pay up to 1.4p for a single track stream (that’s £0.0138). Napster and MySpace can fare better, with Napster up to 1.8p and Deezer paying almost 5p. Please note, these are not standard streaming rates. Most are far less, but I haven’t seen other figures to show they can also be this high. I can only presume it is the result of a fully paying subscriber streaming the tracks.

So what is the average rate overall?

At 1,975 streams, the average pay per stream for Vienna Circle is £0.0043. A fan would have to stream a song 184 times in their lifetime to effectively pay the artist the iTunes rate (not including Apple’s cut).

Of course, these rates pale in comparison to regular iTunes sales. Streaming income would never have given Vienna Circle the opportunity to invest in a second album, and they wouldn’t be able to claim a profit from just streaming for decades, if ever.

All in all, it seems worth further analysis, so subscribe to this blog and I’ll post some detailed analysis later. The second album, due in Spring, will be tracked extensively and sounds much better, so its analysis should be quite insightful. Alternatively, sign up to the Vienna Circle mailing list to hear about their second second album - I think bassist Jack is preparing some great studio videos of Monkey Puzzle House for subscribers right now.

Manhole Cover explodes in face with firecracker.

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:19:27 +0000

Manhole Cover explodes in face with firecracker.

chartier: Prevail, an upcoming game from Johnny Two Shoe, for...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:39:44 +0000

chartier:

Prevail, an upcoming game from Johnny Two Shoe, for iOS looks intriguing. I love how creative the iPhone and iPad game space has become.

via TouchArcade

Alex Cherney describes how he captured footage of this...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:47:59 +0000

Alex Cherney describes how he captured footage of this aurora:

After chasing it for more than two years I was finally rewarded with two displays of aurora australis (southern lights) within a week visible from Mornington Peninsula, not far from Melbourne. The nights were warm and clear and the Moon was not in the sky either — I could not have asked for better conditions.

An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 13:30:48 +0000

An unexpected side effect of the 2010 flooding in parts of Sindh, Pakistan, was that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters; because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water took so long to recede, many trees became cocooned in spiderwebs. People in the area had never seen this phenomenon before. (Courtesy: National Geographic)

At The Drive-In reunite. I react.

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:55:00 +0000

The band that changed my life is coming back from the dead.

I first saw At the Drive-In on the cover of Kerrang, a magazine that I had arranged a work placement with but had never read. I didn’t know anything about rock, even. I had about four months until I would walk in that office and have to feign some knowledge, and buying their magazine seemed a good place to start.

But there was a problem. Upon the cover was a sweating, wide-eyed lion of a man with an afro to match. Jesus Christ. I can’t get into this, I thought. This is not for me.

With the same issue was a CD, and I grew to like much of it. But only one song really affected me. It wasn’t emotional, nor was it a lyrical connection. It was the energy. My heart raced, and I wanted to jump and jab out my arms and stamp on everything. Sometimes I did. It was ‘Pattern Against User’ by At The Drive-In.

Relationship of Command was that feeling for almost an hour. It was their last and most aggressive release. Their previous records, notably Vaya and in/CASINO/OUT opened my eyes to the world of emo. True emotional hardcore, that is - nothing with black makeup or tattoos. Just great, heartfelt songwriting in a punk gown. Real emotional hardcore, as it should be.

I wanted to see them live so I could spazz out to this music freely, albeit with respect (because moshing was a big no-no at their shows), but as a 14 or 15-year-old, my mum wouldn’t allow it. Maybe I just didn’t know how to explain how much I loved them. This remains a regret.

But their split - rumoured to be in a haze of heroin and inter-member sex - left their legion of fans devastated.

The first website I became addicted to was their forum. I remember the mourning, which sounds ridiculous, but we congregated there because we so adored them.

Thankfully the first Mars Volta EP and album were just as energetic, and Sparta were a great live band. We got over the split, and moved on with our lives. I went to uni, had two children, and morphed all the way to being a journalist.

When I read today that the band were reforming, I didn’t believe it. I started tweeting people to point out that it was a hoax.

Then Jim Ward retweeted it.

Why would Jim Ward, guitarist of ATDI, retweet a fake message?

It became clear this was official. My girlfriend was calling me for dinner, but I couldn’t miss this unfold. Everything about my teenage years came flooding back, and even now my heart races like it did in my bedroom back in 2000.

So they’re playing Coachella, according to Antiquiet. They’ll probably play other gigs. Better now, by their mid-30s, than when they’re too old to spazz out like the old days. Maybe they’re selling out and need the money.

I don’t care.

I just want to be 15 again.

Best Amazon Review Ever

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:54:46 +0000

Best Amazon Review Ever

Handmade animation from Spike Jonze and Olympia Le-Tan.

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:00:21 +0000

Handmade animation from Spike Jonze and Olympia Le-Tan.

Christian Dubstep. Dubstep is over.

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:47:00 +0000

You have to hear this.

As eloquently put by Modeselektor on twitter:

Now you can buy Christian Dubstep on Amazon . It really does sell anything.

Highest bunk bed ever. It’s call bivouacking, though I...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:17:38 +0000

Highest bunk bed ever. It’s call bivouacking, though I prefer to call it ‘utterly mental’

Contender for “Best Christmas Decoration of All...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 21:43:24 +0000

Contender for “Best Christmas Decoration of All Time”

iTunes: How To Make Free iPhone Ringtones

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:58:42 +0000

iTunes: How To Make Free iPhone Ringtones:

Quick and easy guide I wrote for CNET UK on how to make free custom iPhone ringtones on a Mac. Takes minutes.

You really can get anything from Tesco these days. I can’t...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:06:41 +0000

You really can get anything from Tesco these days. I can’t count the number of times I’ve needed an assassin.

How to lose $2400 in 24 seconds.

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:31:49 +0000

How to lose $2400 in 24 seconds.

Male superhero Avengers drawn as women highlights sexism in comic culture

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:16:00 +0000

What if male superheroes were drawn in the same style as women are?

kevinbolk:

As promised, here’s the Avengers parody (namely of this promo image of the movie) I’d been working on. Those are some strong male characters. Am I right, ladies?

Here’s the original promo shot:

Follow @tomdavenport

The funniest Spotify playlist ever.

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:42:00 +0000

The funniest Spotify playlist ever.

The piss controlled video game, by Captive Media. You could not...

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:37:43 +0000

The piss controlled video game, by Captive Media. You could not make this up.

(via @danoliver)

Drawing a crowd - Crowdfunding infographic

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:10:00 +0000

How fast is crowd funding growing? How do the best platforms compare? What does the government think of crowd funding for business?

Click “Read More” to see the full infographic.

What the London underground tube map looks like if you...

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:43:00 +0000

What the London underground tube map looks like if you can’t use stairs.