88-555: Fleet Foxes are an American indie folk band formed in Seattle , Washington, in 2006. The band currently consists of Robin Pecknold (vocals, guitar), Skyler Skjelset (guitar, mandolin, backing vocals), Casey Wescott (keyboards, mandolin, backing vocals), Christian Wargo (bass, guitar, backing vocals), and Morgan Henderson (upright bass, guitar, woodwinds, violin, percussion, saxophone). Founding members Pecknold and Skjelset have been
176-402: A "full Fox", Pecknold also admitted he "had to up my songwriting game for homeboy." However, when Pecknold posted a photo of the band minus Morgan on Instagram, he clarified that Morgan was one of three drummers involved in the new album, and that for the time being Fleet Foxes would consist of Pecknold, Skjelset, Wescott, Wargo, and Henderson as a "five-piece 'core band'", but they would still use
264-486: A CD to sell while on tour. In May 2008, the band chose to extend their North American and European tour until September in support of their forthcoming album. At this time Josh Tillman replaced Peterson on drums and backing vocals. Their first full-length album, Fleet Foxes , was released shortly afterwards on June 3, 2008. The album achieved similar critical success as the previous EP. Fleet Foxes received four out of five stars from Rolling Stone , which compared it to
352-421: A competitive threat to its new Myspace Videos service, the site in late 2005 banned embedded YouTube videos from user profiles, which was widely protested by Myspace users, prompting the site to lift the ban shortly after. There were a variety of environments in which users could access Myspace content on their mobile phones. In early 2006, mobile phone provider Helio released a series of mobile phones utilizing
440-576: A day. A year later, it was registering 320,000 users a day, and had overtaken Yahoo! to become the most visited website in the United States. ComScore said that a key driver of the site's success in the US was high "engagement levels", with the average MySpace user viewing over 660 pages a month. In January 2006, Fox announced plans to launch a UK version of MySpace. During 2006, MySpace launched localized versions in 11 countries across Europe, Asia and
528-474: A desire to release the album quickly, Pecknold did not enlist the help of bandmates Skjelset, Wescott, Wargo, or Henderson. The album was announced in September 2020; titled Shore , it was released on September 22. The album received universal acclaim, scoring 87/100 on Metacritic, and was listed among the best albums of the year by numerous publications. It is nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at
616-623: A distribution outlet for Fox studio content and missed the US$ 1 billion mark in total revenues. This resulted in DeWolfe and Anderson gradually losing their status within Murdoch's inner circle of executives, as well as DeWolfe's mentor Peter Chernin , president and COO of News Corporation, departing the company in June 2009. Former AOL executive Jonathan Miller, who joined News Corporation in charge of
704-399: A drummer for live performances and additional musicians for certain shows. Pecknold also said that the new material would be "a different vibe" compared to Fleet Foxes' previous output. On November 14, 2016, the band confirmed (via their Facebook account) that their new album was nearly complete. On December 25, 2016, Pecknold posted a photo on his Instagram account which showed four albums in
792-427: A higher price for the website, and the purchase was seen as a good investment at the time. Within a year, MySpace had tripled in value from its purchase price. News Corporation saw the purchase as a way to capitalize on Internet advertising and drive traffic to other News Corporation properties. After the acquisition, MySpace continued its exponential growth. In January 2006, the site was signing up 200,000 new users
880-483: A home recording set-up—including a laptop computer, microphone and guitar—was posted on the Fleet Foxes Facebook page with the caption "Step one." On June 16, 2013, an image of a broken mandolin with the caption "Step two" was posted. These images were later deleted, but led to speculation that the group was working on a new project, possibly a third studio album. On April 23, 2014, Robin Pecknold posted to
968-403: A new label for the band. The lead single, "Third of May / Ōdaigahara", was released the same day. On April 4, 2017, the band posted the album trailer for the new album on YouTube. The trailer briefly presents various songs from the album and shows some images while they were recording them. The video was made by Sean Pecknold, Robin's brother. On May 15, 2017, Fleet Foxes made their live return at
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#17327761031351056-548: A new redesign was announced, with no date given, making Myspace more visual and apparently optimized for tablets. The redesign was publicly released on January 15, 2013; by April 2013 (and presumably before), users were able to transfer to the new Myspace redesign. In June 2013, the redesign deleted all previous blogs, angering many users, and destroying information that would have been useful history in later years. VP, Business Development 2006–2009 VP Communications & Policy 2006–2007 Since early 2006, Myspace has offered
1144-425: A new site design on a limited scale, with plans to switch all interested users to the new site in late November. Chief executive Mike Jones said the site was no longer competing with Facebook as a general social networking site; instead, it would be music-oriented and would target younger people. Jones believed most younger users would continue to use the site after the redesign, though older users might not. The goal of
1232-529: A read-only mode of sorts, as no new articles have been published since early 2022, but media uploads seem to be working now. MySpace's official account has also sparked some new activity. However, most images on the site still seem to be broken, and existing songs also cannot be played. The terms of service of Myspace have not been changed by Viant. The privacy policy was last revised on 24 June 2024. From YouTube 's founding in 2005, Myspace users could embed YouTube videos in their profiles. Considering this
1320-402: A recommendation engine for new users that suggests games, music and videos based on their previous search habits. The security on Myspace was also enhanced, with the criticism of Facebook , to make it a safer site. The security of Myspace enables users to choose if the content could be viewed for "friends only", "18 and older" or "everyone". In October 2010, Myspace introduced a beta version of
1408-579: A service known as Myspace Mobile to access and edit one's profile and communicate with and view the profiles of other members. Additionally, UIEvolution and Myspace developed a mobile version of Myspace for a wider range of carriers, including AT&T , Vodafone and Rogers Wireless . In August 2006, Myspace began offering classified ads, a service which grew by 33 percent during the following year. It previously had an instant messaging tool called MySpace IM . Myspace used an implementation of Telligent Community for its forum system. Shortly after Myspace
1496-508: A space. The logo change was announced on October 8, 2010, and appeared on the site on November 11. In the same month, Myspace integrated with Facebook Connect – calling it "Mash Up with Facebook" in an announcement widely seen as the final act of acknowledging Facebook's domination of social networking. In January 2011, it was announced that the Myspace staff would be reduced by 47%. User adoption continued to decrease. In September 2012,
1584-419: A suburb of Seattle, and soon became close friends. Pecknold and Skjelset bonded over an appreciation of Bob Dylan and Neil Young and began making music together. Their parents influenced their musical tastes early on—Skjelset's mother Peggi was a keen listener to both Dylan and Hank Williams while Pecknold's father Greg was a member of The Fathoms, a local 1960s soul group. The two shared an interest in
1672-446: A team of programmers and resources provided by eUniverse. It was during this early period in June 2003, just prior to the birth of MySpace, that Jeffrey Edell was brought on as chairman of parent company Intermix Media. The first MySpace users were eUniverse employees. The company held contests to see who could sign up the most users. eUniverse used its 20 million users and e-mail subscribers to breathe life into MySpace and move it to
1760-503: A way to get users back. However, this may have backfired, as users generally disliked tweaks and changes on Facebook. In March 2011, market research figures released by Comscore suggested that Myspace had lost 10 million users between January and February 2011, and had fallen from 95 million to 63 million unique users in the previous 12 months. Myspace registered its sharpest audience declines in February 2011, as traffic fell 44% from
1848-462: A year earlier to 37.7 million U.S. visitors. Advertisers were reported as unwilling to commit to long-term deals with the site. In late February 2011, News Corporation officially put the site up for sale for an estimated $ 50–200 million. Losses from the last quarter of 2010 were $ 156 million, over double the previous year, which dragged down the otherwise strong results of News Corporation. The deadline for bids, May 31, 2011, passed without any above
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#17327761031351936-458: A year or so and toured Helplessness with us. Which we all weakly agreed to going through with, but it quickly became obvious he'd rather have just been doing that project instead, and I would have rathered that as well. So that tour I had to endure being around a lot of substance abuse, sabotaged shows, just general ill treatment, shit-talking, all while paying him for songs he didn't have anything to do with. It sucked! On June 15, 2013, an image of
2024-457: Is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it was the first social network to reach a global audience and had a significant influence on technology, pop culture and music. It also played a critical role in the early growth of companies like YouTube and created a developer platform that launched companies such as Zynga , RockYou , and Photobucket , among others, to success. From 2005 to 2009, Myspace
2112-641: The Billboard 200 . Following a three-year break, Fleet Foxes reconvened in 2016 to record their third album Crack-Up , which was released the following year on Nonesuch Records . This was followed by 2020's Shore , a de facto Pecknold solo album made without the involvement of his bandmates and released through the Anti- label. Though the group has experienced limited commercial success, their work has been consistently lauded by music critics , who have praised their lyricism and production style and often noted
2200-446: The 64th Annual Grammy Awards . On December 6, 2021, Fleet Foxes announced the release of a new live album entitled A Very Lonely Solstice . The album was released digitally on December 10, 2021. Vinyl and CD releases are scheduled for release in spring 2022 through Anti-. A Very Lonely Solstice is a recording of a virtual, pre-recorded video concert performance that was livestreamed at 9pm ET on December 21, 2020, coinciding with
2288-580: The CMJ Radio 200 Chart. The album achieved an average rating of 87/100 from 30 critic reviews on the aggregator website Metacritic . While the group enjoyed moderate success in the United States, Fleet Foxes was better received in Europe, selling over 200,000 copies in the five months following its release. The sales were matched with critical plaudits and their debut album won Uncut's first ever Music Award 2008 prize. Uncut' s editor, Allan Jones, said
2376-666: The Sasquatch! festival in May 2008, moved the band into the public consciousness, notably attracting attention from the European press for the first time. Sun Giant was released internationally on April 8, 2008, and the group's brand of folk, rock and pop, marked by their use of vocal harmonies, was well received by the press. Despite the warm critical reception, the group said that the EP did not represent their full ambitions, serving merely as
2464-495: The acoustic guitar melodies of traditional folk music with contemporary instrumentation. The genre has its earliest origins in 1990s folk artists who displayed alternative rock influences in their music, such as Ani DiFranco and Dan Bern , and acoustic artists such as Elliott Smith and Will Oldham . In the following decade, labels such as Saddle Creek , Barsuk , Ramseur, and Sub Pop helped to provide support to indie folk, with artists such as Fleet Foxes breaking into
2552-580: The pop charts with albums such as Helplessness Blues . In the United Kingdom , artists such as Ben Howard and Mumford & Sons emerged, with the latter band promoting the music style through their Gentlemen of the Road touring festivals. The success of acts like Mumford & Sons led some music journalists like Popjustice's Peter Robinson labelling this new British music scene as The New Boring or Beige Pop. A decade later,
2640-665: The winter solstice . The concert featured Pecknold performing an acoustic solo set inside the St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn. The album features performances of songs from Shore and older Fleet Foxes songs, as well as cover versions of two tracks. Indie folk Indie folk (also called alternative folk ) is an alternative genre of music that arose in the 1990s among musicians from indie rock scenes influenced by folk music . Indie folk hybridizes
2728-530: The "MySpace Dragon Hoard". Since early 2022, music upload and playback have been disabled on the website. On May 16, 2007, Myspace partnered with news publications National Geographic, the New York Times and Reuters to provide professional visual contents on its social-networking Web site. On June 27, 2007, Myspace launched MySpaceTV. On August 8, 2007, Myspace partnered with satire publication The Onion to provide audio, video and print content to
Fleet Foxes - Misplaced Pages Continue
2816-539: The $ 900 million three-year advertisement deal with Google, while being a short-term cash windfall, was a handicap in the long run, as it required MySpace to place even more ads on its already heavily advertised space, which made the site slow, more difficult to use and less flexible. MySpace could not experiment with its own site without forfeiting revenue, while Facebook was rolling out a new, clean site design. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe reported that he had to push back against Fox Interactive Media's sales team, who monetized
2904-589: The Americas, including MySpace China with Solstice. At the time, Travis Katz , senior vice-president for international operations, reported that 30 million of the site's 90 million users were coming from outside of the United States. The 100 millionth MySpace account was created on August 9, 2006, in the Netherlands. That same month, MySpace signed a landmark advertising deal with Google that guaranteed MySpace $ 900 million over three years, over 55% more than
2992-578: The Fleet Foxes' queue in his iTunes library: the first studio album Fleet Foxes ; the Sun Giant EP; the second studio album Helplessness Blues ; and an unknown third album entitled Ylajali . This led to speculation that the band's third album would: 1) be named after a character from Knut Hamsun 's novel Hunger ; 2) contain a photo from Japanese photographer Hiroshi Hamaya as the cover art; and 3) be released through Nonesuch Records , since
3080-517: The Google deal. The remaining 50% came from display advertising sold by MySpace's in-house sales team. In November 2006, Myspace announced a 50-50 joint venture with Softbank to launch the site in Japan. In mid-2007, MySpace was the largest social-networking site in every European country where it had created a local presence. By July 2007, Nielsen//NetRatings reported the company's "active reach", or
3168-464: The UK on Zane Lowe 's radio show on March 22, 2011. The Sub Pop record label released a downloadable music video of the track "Grown Ocean", with footage of the album's recording, on its website in support of the album. A 12" vinyl double A-side single of "Helplessness Blues" and "Grown Ocean" was released for Record Store Day on April 16, 2011. On November 1, 2011, Pecknold's brother, Sean Pecknold, released
3256-632: The United Kingdom, making it the first gold certificate record for UK label Bella Union . Their growing profile enabled the band to make televised appearances, playing on Saturday Night Live in January 2009. In 2009, they toured in Europe to favorable reviews; the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant said their show in Paradiso induced goosebumps. In 2008 and 2009, the band played globally ending
3344-579: The Wilma Theatre in Missoula, in which they performed nine songs from Crack-Up along with a selection of older material and a cover of " In the Morning " by Bee Gees . The band's live line-up included Matt Barrick of The Walkmen , who was also the most heavily featured of the three guest drummers who contributed to Crack-Up . Barrick did not become an official member. The new album also included
3432-412: The addition of the former Blood Brothers bassist Morgan Henderson on upright bass and woodwind instruments. The album, Helplessness Blues , was released on May 3, 2011, with a cover illustrated by the Seattle artist Toby Liebowitz and painted by Christopher Alderson. The title track was released via free download on January 31, 2011, and the album's fourth track, "Battery Kinzie", was premiered in
3520-699: The album "showed impeccable musicianship, and although you could trace its antecedents, it sounded totally unique. Fleet Foxes was just a glorious debut." The band sold out music venues for their tours of Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, reaffirming their growing popularity. At the end of 2008, Fleet Foxes was rated album of the year by Billboard ' s Critic's Choice and in Metacritic 's end of year best album round-up it appeared in 17 lists, topping six of them. Furthermore, it had sold over 408,000 copies in North America and over 100,000 copies in
3608-888: The band released another EP, entitled "Crack Up (Choral Version)"/"In The Morning (Live in Switzerland)", in collaboration with the Icelandic female choir, Graduale Nobili. Work began on a fourth studio album in late 2018, not long after the Crack-Up tour finished. On December 31, 2018, Pecknold teased several new demos online for an upcoming new album. Recording began in September 2019 at Long Pond Studios in Hudson, New York , and continued at other studios including Electro-Vox Recording Studios in Los Angeles. Pecknold collaborated closely with recording engineer Beatriz Artola during
Fleet Foxes - Misplaced Pages Continue
3696-632: The band's Facebook page that he had moved to New York to get his undergraduate degree at the Columbia University School of General Studies , a liberal arts college of Columbia University in New York City . On May 18, 2016, while answering fan questions on his Instagram account, Pecknold confirmed that Fleet Foxes were working on new material with drummer and frequent collaborator Neal Morgan , best known for his work with Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan . Describing Morgan as
3784-568: The band's use of refined instrumentation and vocal harmonies. The band's debut album was ranked by Rolling Stone among the best of the decade and was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . The band has been nominated for two Grammy Awards , the first for Best Folk Album in 2012 for Helplessness Blues and the second for Best Alternative Music Album in 2022 for Shore . Robin Pecknold and Skyler Skjelset both attended Lake Washington High School in Kirkland ,
3872-471: The band's vocal harmonies. With growing popularity on the local circuit, the band set about making their first album in early 2007, spending time in the studio with producer Ek in addition to recording material at home. However, funds for recording were tight, so the band members cobbled together what funds they had, which limited the time they had in the studio, and so the majority of the tracks were recorded in various band members' apartments, other spaces, or
3960-713: The basement of Pecknold's parents' house. Fleet Foxes were becoming increasingly popular and by late 2007, they had attracted over a quarter of a million song plays over two months on their Myspace site. Although the band had not released any of their recordings, they benefited from word of mouth exposure and their success soon translated into a record deal, signing with Warner Music subsidiary record label Sub Pop on January 18, 2008. The band's frontman, Robin Pecknold, attributes much of their success and popularity to illegal file sharing . The band tracked their second EP, Sun Giant , at Bear Creek Studio and performed overdubs and mixed at Seattle's Avast! Recording Co. , around
4048-716: The climb up—and signal to flee when it's time to get out." The volatility of social networks was exemplified in 2006, when Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launched an investigation into children's exposure to pornography on MySpace. The resulting media frenzy and the site's lack of an effective spam filter gave the site a reputation as a "vortex of perversion". Around that time, specialized social media companies such as Twitter formed and began targeting users on MySpace, while Facebook rolled out communication tools that were seen as safe in comparison to MySpace. In addition, MySpace had particular problems with vandalism, phishing, malware, and spam, which it failed to curtail, making
4136-574: The company for approximately $ 35 million. On February 11, 2016, it was announced that Myspace and its parent company had been purchased by Time Inc. for $ 87 million. On January 31, 2018, Time Inc. was in turn purchased by Meredith Corporation , and later that year, on November 4, 2019, Meredith spun off Myspace and its original holding company (Viant Technology Holding Inc.) and sold it to Viant Technology LLC. In August 2003, several eUniverse employees with Friendster accounts saw potential in its social networking features. The group decided to mimic
4224-545: The departure of key personnel (Myspace's COO, SVP of engineering, and SVP of strategy) to form a startup. Furthermore, the opening of extravagant new offices around the world was questioned, as Facebook did not have similarly expensive expansion plans but still attracted international users at a rapid rate. The changes to MySpace's executive ranks were followed in June 2009 by a layoff of 37.5% of its workforce (including 30% of its U.S. employees), reducing employees from 1,600 to 1,000. In 2009, MySpace implemented site redesigns as
4312-525: The digital media business, was in the job for three weeks when he shuffled MySpace's executive team in April 2009. MySpace president Tom Anderson stepped down while Chris DeWolfe was replaced as CEO by former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta . A meeting at News Corporation over the direction of MySpace in March 2009 was reportedly the catalyst for that management shakeup, with the Google search deal about to expire and
4400-460: The emergence of Facebook did little to diminish MySpace's popularity; at the time, Facebook was targeted only at college students. At its peak, when News Corporation attempted to merge it with Yahoo! in 2007, Myspace was valued at $ 12 billion and had more than 300 million registered users. On April 19, 2008, Facebook overtook MySpace in Alexa rankings. In May 2009, Facebook surpassed MySpace in
4488-421: The first 10 characters of the password converted to lowercase and stored without a cryptographic salt ). The exact data breach date is unknown, but analysis of the data suggests it was exposed around eight years before being made public, around mid-2008 to early 2009. In March 2019, Myspace lost all content before 2016 after a faulty server migration. As of October 5, 2024, Myspace has still been placed in
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#17327761031354576-419: The head of the pack of social networking websites. A key architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen, who helped stabilize the platform when Greenspan asked him to join the team. Co-founder and CTO Aber Whitcomb played an integral role in software architecture, utilizing the then-superior development speed of ColdFusion over other dynamic database driven server-side languages of the time. Despite having over ten times
4664-619: The label's logo can be seen on the album cover. In an email newsletter on January 1, 2017, production company Mason Jar Music confirmed that Fleet Foxes was working on a new album, since they contributed to the production. The album was called Crack-Up , after an F. Scott Fitzgerald essay of the same name . The album is a concept album and was recorded at Electric Lady Studios and Sear Sound in New York City. On March 7, 2017, Fleet Foxes announced their third studio album, Crack-Up , released on June 16, 2017, via Nonesuch Records ,
4752-525: The likes of the Beach Boys , Animal Collective , and Crosby, Stills & Nash , and a 9.0 out of 10 in a review by Pitchfork Media , sharing the website's album of the year rank with the Sun Giant EP. The Guardian was particularly complimentary, awarding the album five stars and declaring it "a landmark in American music — an instant classic". On June 24, 2008, Fleet Foxes went to No. 1 on
4840-483: The more popular features of the website. Within 10 days, the first version of MySpace was ready for launch, implemented using ColdFusion . A complete infrastructure of finance, human resources, technical expertise, bandwidth , and server capacity was available for the site. The project was overseen by Brad Greenspan (eUniverse's founder, chairman and CEO), who managed Chris DeWolfe (MySpace's starting CEO), Josh Berman, Tom Anderson (MySpace's starting president), and
4928-411: The music of Dylan and Brian Wilson . Pecknold played bass for Seattle's Dolour on a US tour in 2005, shortly before forming the first incarnation of Fleet Foxes. Originally going by the name "The Pineapples", a name clash with another local band prompted a change and Pecknold decided upon "Fleet Foxes", suggesting that it was "evocative of some weird English activity like fox hunting". Pecknold took up
5016-465: The number of developers, Friendster , which was developed in JavaServer Pages (jsp), could not keep up with the speed of development of MySpace and cfm . For example, users could customize the background, look and feel of pages on MySpace. The MySpace.com domain was originally owned by YourZ.com, Inc., intended until 2002 for use as an online data storage and sharing site. By late 2003, it
5104-421: The number of unique U.S. visitors. From that point, Myspace saw a consistent loss of membership. There are several suggested explanations for its decline, including the fact that it stuck to a "portal strategy" of building an audience around entertainment and music, whereas Facebook and Twitter continually added new features to improve the social networking experience. A former MySpace executive suggested that
5192-471: The official music video for "The Shrine / An Argument". Helplessness Blues was nominated as Best Folk Album at the 2012 Grammy Awards, held February 12, 2012. On January 18, 2012, after the band had finished touring for the album, drummer Tillman announced that he had left the band. He would go on to reinvent himself and record several albums as Father John Misty , notable for his ironic sense of humor in lyrics and media as well as often criticizing both
5280-444: The only constants through the group's history, with the former serving as leader and principal songwriter. The band came to prominence in 2008 with the release of their second EP Sun Giant and their eponymous debut album on Sub Pop , both of which met with widespread critical acclaim. Their sophomore album Helplessness Blues (2011) earned further praise and became their greatest commercial success to date, reaching number 4 on
5368-500: The option to access the service in different regional versions. The alternative regional versions present automated content according to locality (e.g., UK users see other UK users as "Cool New People", and UK-oriented events and adverts, etc.), offer local languages other than English, or accommodate the regional differences in spelling and conventions in the English-speaking world (e.g., United States: "favorites", mm/dd/yyyy;
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#17327761031355456-551: The percentage of the population that visited the site, was anywhere from 10 to 15 times higher in Spain, France and Germany than for runner-up Facebook; in the United Kingdom, MySpace led Facebook by two-to-one in terms of reach. On November 1, 2007, MySpace and Bebo joined the Google-led OpenSocial alliance , which already included Friendster, Hi5 , LinkedIn , Plaxo , Ning , and Six Apart . The alliance's goal
5544-610: The price News Corporation had paid to acquire the business. In exchange, Google received exclusive rights to provide Web search results and sponsored links on MySpace. When the deal was signed, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said, "When we looked at what was growing on the Web, all our internal metrics pointed to [MySpace] [...] It's important to move Google to where users are, and that is where user-generated content is." By October 2006, MySpace had grown from generating $ 1 million in revenue per month to $ 30 million per month, half of which came from
5632-445: The primary sonic distancing from the last record." He wanted the band to record very quickly, with "vocal takes in one go, so even if there are fuck-ups, I want them to be on there. I want there to be guitar mistakes. I want there to be not totally flawless vocals. I want to record it and have that kind of cohesive sound. Van Morrison 's Astral Weeks , to me, is the best-sounding album because it sounds like there were only six hours in
5720-399: The property before MySpace and its parent company eUniverse (now renamed Intermix Media ) were bought. In July 2005, in one of the company's first major Internet purchases, News Corporation purchased MySpace for US$ 580 million. At the time of the acquisition, the company was seeing 16 million monthly users and was growing exponentially. News Corporation had beat out Viacom by offering
5808-513: The record industry and society in interviews and on stage. Pecknold would later reflect on Tillman's departure during a Reddit AMA in October 2020: [Tillman] "quit" the band after recording drums for Helplessness , got into narcotics and made his first [Father John Misty] album while I was making Helplessness in Seattle. Then Sub Pop offered to put out his album, but only if he delayed it for
5896-583: The recording process. Upon the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic , Pecknold moved to New York City to be able to continue working with Artola. At this point, the majority of the music of the album was well-conceptualized, but the lyrics eluded Pecknold. He eventually developed the lyrics in part over the course of long drives in the New York countryside, and worked to finish the album in July and August 2020. Due to
5984-473: The redesign was to increase the number of Myspace users and the time they spent on the site. BTIG (.com) analyst Richard Greenfield said, "Most investors have written off MySpace now," and was unsure whether the changes would help the company recover. In November 2010, Myspace changed its logo to coincide with the new site design. The word "my" appears in the Helvetica font, followed by a symbol representing
6072-426: The reserve price of $ 100 million being submitted. It has been said that the decline in users during the most recent quarter deterred several potential suitors. On June 29, 2011, Myspace announced in an email to label partners and press that it had been acquired by Specific Media for an undisclosed sum, which was rumored to be as low as $ 35 million. CNN reported that the site sold for $ 35 million, and noted that it
6160-401: The role of principal songwriter, both singing and playing guitar, while Skjelset played lead guitar. The original lineup was filled out by Casey Wescott on keyboards and backing vocals, Bryn Lumsden on bass and Nicholas Peterson on drums and backing vocals. Pecknold's late-sixties pop style caught the attention of the Seattle producer Phil Ek and he helped them record their first demo in 2006,
6248-526: The same number of visitors, but somewhat more global users than MySpace. In May 2009, Facebook surpassed Myspace in its number of unique U.S. visitors. Since then, the number of Myspace users has declined steadily despite several redesigns. By 2019, the number of monthly visitors to the site had dropped to seven million. In June 2009, Myspace employed approximately 1,600 people. In June 2011, Specific Media Group and Justin Timberlake jointly purchased
6336-467: The same time in preparation for upcoming tours. Fleet Foxes began their spring tour with another Northwest band Blitzen Trapper on February 28, 2008. Before the recording of the EP, bassist Curran was replaced by Christian Wargo , whose voice, like that of his predecessor, would become an important part of the band's harmony blend. The band's performances, first at the SXSW festival in March 2008, and then
6424-530: The self-released Fleet Foxes EP. Ek was impressed with the band's songwriting, and on hearing Pecknold for the first time, noted, "It was obvious he had talent coming out of his ass." By late 2006 the Seattle press began to take notice of the band; Tom Scanlon of the Seattle Times stated that he was impressed with the band's lyrics and musical maturity. By the end of the year, Lumsden had been replaced on bass by Craig Curran, who would also handle many of
6512-446: The site seem inhospitable. These have been cited as factors why users, who as teenagers were MySpace's strongest audience in 2006 and 2007, had been migrating to Facebook, which started strongly with the 18-to-24 group (mostly college students) and has been much more successful than MySpace at attracting older users. News Corporation chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch was said to be frustrated that MySpace never met expectations as
6600-472: The site without regard to user experience. In 2012, Katz described how News Corporation had put significant pressure on MySpace to "focus on near-term monetization, as opposed to thinking about long-term product strategy," while Facebook focused user engagement over revenue. Danah Boyd , a senior researcher at Microsoft Research , noted of social networking websites that "companies might serially rise, fall, and disappear, as influential peers pull others in on
6688-697: The site. On October 22, 2007, Myspace launched its first original web series, Roommates , which intended to give its users a television-like experience with the interactive benefits of the Internet. On February 27, 2008, TMZ launched its web channel on MySpaceTV. On April 21, 2008, Myspace signed a deal with Byron Allen 's Entertainment Studios that brought programming such as the syndicated series Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen , Entertainers with Byron Allen , Beautiful Homes and Great Estates , and Designer Fashions & Runways to MySpaceTV. On March 10, 2010, Myspace added new features including
6776-654: The site. In late 2007, the site launched The MySpace Transmissions , a series of live-in-studio recordings by well-known artists. On March 18, 2019, it was revealed that Myspace had lost all of its user content from launch until 2015 in a botched server migration with no backup. Over 50 million songs and 12 years' worth of content were permanently lost. In April 2019, the Internet Archive recovered 490,000 MP3s "using unknown means by an anonymous academic study conducted between 2008 and 2010". The songs, which were uploaded between 2008 and 2010, are collectively known as
6864-437: The sounds of a brass quartet called The Westerlies. On October 10, 2017, the band announced the release of a new EP, entitled The Electric Lady Session , for Black Friday Record Store Day 2017. The EP was released on November 24 of that year, and is a collection of live performances of four songs from Crack-Up , originally recorded for their session at Fordham University 's radio station WFUV . For Record Store Day 2018,
6952-433: The terms "stomp and holler", "stomp clap hey", and "hoedown pop" were coined to refer retrospectively to such bands. In the late 2010s, artists such as Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker revived interest in the genre. Bridgers cites Elliott Smith as a foundational influence on her sound. Myspace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace ; also myspace ; and sometimes my␣ , with an elongated open box symbol )
7040-400: The tour in September with a final European leg. Pecknold said that he would have liked the album to be released in 2009; however, the band's touring schedule delayed rehearsals of the new songs until February 2009. These sessions took place in a rented house outside Seattle, but were mostly scrapped, losing the band $ 60,000 of their own money. Further delays ensued because the drummer, Tillman,
7128-417: The universe for that album to be recorded in. So I want it to have that feeling." The band eventually began recording in April 2010 in various locations (including West Hurley, New York) under the label Reciprocal Recording and decided to scrap the earlier idea of a fast recording (though according to the band many of the initial vocals were done in one take). The album features a new six-piece band line up, with
7216-503: Was "far less than the $ 580 million News Corp. paid for Myspace in 2005." Murdoch went on to call the Myspace purchase a "huge mistake", and Time magazine compared it to Time Warner 's 2000 purchase of AOL , which saw a conglomerate trying to stay ahead of the competition. Many former executives have gone on to further success after departing Myspace. On February 11, 2016, it was announced that Myspace and its parent company had been bought by Time Inc. On January 31, 2018, Time Inc.
7304-517: Was in turn purchased by Meredith Corporation , who went on to sell a number of Time Inc.'s assets, including (as it announced on November 4, 2019) selling its equity in Viant , the parent company of Specific Media, back to Viant Technology Holding Inc. In May 2016, the data for almost 360 million Myspace accounts was offered on the "Real Deal" dark market website, which included email addresses, usernames, and weakly encrypted passwords ( SHA1 hashes of
7392-434: Was scheduled to play a solo tour in Europe and North America throughout the 2009–10 winter. Pecknold later sent some demos to producer Phil Ek and expressed the hope that the second LP would emerge in late 2010. In December 2009, Pecknold said he wanted the new LP to sound "less poppy, less upbeat and more groove-based". He referenced the 12-string guitar sound from Roy Harper 's folk album Stormcock , saying, "That will be
7480-591: Was sold to News Corporation in 2005, the website launched a record label called MySpace Records , with JD Mangosing as CEO, in an effort to discover unknown talent on Myspace Music, a service onto which artists can upload songs, EPs and full-length albums. As of June 2014, over 53 million songs had been uploaded to the site by 14.2 million artists. Artists including My Chemical Romance , Nicki Minaj , Lily Allen , Taylor Swift , Lady Gaga , and Katy Perry gained fame and recognition through Myspace. As of 2010 over eight million artists had been discovered by users through
7568-433: Was the largest social networking site in the world. In July 2005, Myspace was acquired by News Corporation for $ 580 million; in June 2006, it surpassed Yahoo and Google to become the most visited website in the United States. During the 2008 fiscal year, it generated $ 800 million in revenue. At its peak in April 2008, Myspace had 115 million monthly visitors; by that time, the recently emergent Facebook had about
7656-445: Was to promote a common set of standards for software developers to write programs for social networks. Google had been unsuccessful in building its own social networking site Orkut in the American market, and was using the alliance to present a counterweight to Facebook. By late 2007 and into 2008, MySpace was considered the leading social networking site, and consistently beat out its main competitor Facebook in traffic. Initially,
7744-761: Was transitioned from a file storage service to a social networking site. A friend who also worked in the data storage business reminded DeWolfe that he had earlier bought the MySpace.com domain. DeWolfe suggested they charge a fee for the basic MySpace service. However, Greenspan nixed the idea, believing that keeping the site free was necessary to make it a successful community. MySpace quickly gained popularity among teenagers and young adults. In February 2005, DeWolfe held talks with Mark Zuckerberg over acquiring Facebook , but rejected Zuckerberg's offer to sell Facebook to him for $ 75 million. Some employees of MySpace, including DeWolfe and Berman, were able to purchase equity in
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