From Blackpink’s eye-popping PUBG event to the ‘Car Thing’ fire sale, we’ve gathered the biggest music news of the week.
September is here. Before you go making Billie Joe Armstrong jokes, please know we have no patience for it. Green Day wrote a hit song about grieving a dead parent, so now they become a punchline for one month each year? Nope. We have no interest in that.
It’s weird how moving from August to September feels like an event where the transition between others months does not. Almost overnight, our culture shifts from summer to fall, and it’s suddenly cool to wear hoodies again. We aren’t complaining.
We are in the final phase of multiple developments months in the making. Before the next edition of this post is live, our team will have deployed said update and made it available to our global client base.
We cannot ease your workload or give you more hours in the day, but we can help you stay informed. Below you’ll find the biggest stories of the week, all covered by the best outlets in tech and entertainment. Click around, learn what’s happening, and use the weekend to prepare for the end of the month.
But let’s be honest. There is no way we can hope to cover everything that happens. If you see a headline we missed that people need to know, please do not hesitate to send james@haulix.com an email. We’ll include your links in the next update.
The Biggest Music News Of The Week
Millions watch Blackbpink perform in PUBG Mobile
The in-game concert was promoted globally in physical locations including Times Square in New York, with Vincent Wang, Head of PUBG MOBILE Publishing at Tencent Games, calling the tie-up with the K-pop group, “PUBG MOBILE’s biggest partnership yet.”
Running over two weekends in July, the “immersive audio-visual experience” was watched by 15.7 million viewers globally across the concert series.
Additionally, the music video for the track Ready For Love, which was released as part of the partnership, has now been watched over 146 million times since its launch.
The concert won the ‘Best Metaverse Performance’ at the MTV Video Music Awards over the weekend, from a shortlist that included Ariana Grande in Fortnite, Charli XCX in Roblox, and Justin Bieber in Wave.
TikTok Propels a Ghost Song From 2019 To The Top Of The Charts
Swedish rockers Ghost earn their first No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hard Rock Streaming Songs chart, as “Mary on a Cross” crowns the list dated Sept. 3.
In the Aug. 19-25 tracking period, the song vaulted by 48% to 4.9 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Originally released as part of a two-song single in 2019 (longside “Kiss the Go-Goat”, “Cross” has been revitalized in recent weeks due to a trend using both the original and an altered version of the song on TikTok.
“Cross” also debuts at No. 11 on Rock Streaming Songs.
Accessible Festivals Announces New Grant Program Giving Concert Tickets to Disabled Music Fans
Accessible Festivals has announced a new program to give free concert tickets to fans with disabilities. The Dan Grover Memorial Ticket Grant Program will provide tickets to major music festivals including Austin City Limits, Electric Daisy Carnival, Lollapalooza, BottleRock Napa Valley, Rolling Loud New York, Stagecoach, and more.
The program is spearheaded by Austin Whitney, founder of Accessible Festivals, and was inspired by his own experience attending concerts as a disabled person. A 2007 car accident left Whitney paralyzed from the waist down, causing him depression and anxiety. That year, he was able to attend the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, which helped him get through the difficulties of adjusting to life with disabilities.
“Ultimately my business life is all about working to improve festivals for people with disabilities and working promoters to reduce their liabilities and improve their businesses for all things ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act],” Whitney shared with Billboard. “At the end of the day, the mission of the company is very tied to a social purpose which is making helping people with disabilities find and attend music festivals which can be transformative events.”
Spotify Selling Remaining ‘Car Thing’ Inventory for $30
Spotify’s Car Thing had a short-lived life. Announced in spring 2021, the car accessory made it easier to interface with the Spotify app on your phone. It was of limited use, and as we noted in our review, it just made more sense to use your phone that you needed to have access to anyway. In late July this year, the music streaming giant announced that Car Thing would not be a thing anymore. Soon after the news, Spotify had a fire sale on the accessory, dropping it to $45—a 50% discount from its retail price. If you were patient and did not pull the trigger on the accessory, you can now get it for an even lower price.
Spotify is running a Back to School sale on the Car Thing, offering it for just $30. That’s a massive $60 discount off its $90 MSRP. If you are somehow still interested in the accessory, this is perhaps the deal you should not miss. With Car Thing no longer in production, the deal is unlikely to come back once Spotify exhausts its stock. Unlike the last deal, there’s no coupon code you need to use here. Just head over to Spotify’s store and buy the accessory.
