A Ten-Minute Silent Song Is Soaring Up the iTunes Charts

[Mebsat]

I'm not sure the issue is with CarPlay per se in most of these cars. I think it has to do with the way the cars mount USB drives and look for music.

I have a 2012 which does not support CarPlay at all but if I put in a USB stick with a folder full of MP3s, it will start playing. I think the iPhone basically mounts as a USB drive and the car starts playing out of the top folder which is iTunes/Apple Music, etc.

 

[IJ Reilly]

My neighbor plays this song on full blast all day long.

The air guitar solo is killer.

 

[ignatius345]

This is one of the most stupid things I've heard of in quite some time. If you want silence, there's this thing called the power button on your radio. As an alternative, you can hit the "play" button to pause your music too. Paying .99 for a blank file to play silence is the height of laziness. Astounding.

Eh. In about 5 minutes, I could make a silent track of any length, add it to iTunes, name it properly so it's got a lot of a's at the start, and sync it to my phone. So I'd never buy this myself.

But I also know plenty of people who *never* sync their phones with a computer and even if they did, would probably spend 30 minutes or more setting up Garageband, figuring out how to make the track... for a lot of people, the $1 is absolutely worth it for a one-click solution to a terrible design choice some dimwits made at the car stereo factory.

 

[mariusignorello]

So this is for lazy people who can't take free app like Audacity and make their own silent "music" file?
For those less intelligent but not lazy:
- Take any existing music file
- Open with Audacity and change the audio level to 0
- Save as aaaaaaaawhateveryouwanttocallit
- import into itunes

optional:
- sell on iTunes for $0.99
- profit

In regards to the selling of the song, I think Apple will stop it before 500 identical songs appear, but I like the creativity!

 

[dlemmon]

My car does this when it takes a while to load things on Spotify l, or the app was killed. The son it plays is counting crows "accidentally in love" which I now hate even more than before. I never wanted to use my iTunes songs because of a crappy 16gb storage. Now I have 256gb so I think I can afford to put a song I actually like ahead of the counting crows one. Or maybe I should go with silence.

 

[An_Excelent_Username]

Weird, still working for me.

Same, it shows for me.

 

[R10k]

So rather than just creating a blank track with Audacity (for free), people are paying 0.99 for... a blank track?

I have only one response.

Yes, because the vast majority of people in the world know how to use Audacity.

 

[Kabeyun]

The fact that Apple has not addressed this is deplorable.

How do you know this is Apple's problem? Different make cars have different behaviors. Either Apple software engineers included secret code for iPhones to implement different play algorithms for different makes, or this is an issue with cars' stereos.

 

[X5-452]

Plugging in my phone and hearing "The A Team" every single time drove me insane to the point where I bought a new car that had CarPlay to avoid this.

And no - I'm not joking. This song could have saved me $57,000

 

[alfonsog]

John Cage’s estate should get royalties from this song

 

[ApfelKuchen]

John Cage’s estate should get royalties from this song

Should Cage's estate also get a royalty the 3-5 seconds of silence between tracks? As someone noted earlier in the thread, Cage's silence wasn't really silent; it's a scored composition. The score, not the silence as such, is what was copyrighted.

The real trick here is that it's highly unlikely anyone would be able to legitimately copyright absolute silence; there's no "unique expression," and plenty of examples of prior art. They'd be as successful as someone trying to copyright plain, blank paper (well, they could copyright and/or trademark the watermark, or patent a process that produces a unique texture...).

 

[marine610610]

I've deleted or renamed music over this issue. It's beyond ridiculous and it drives me crazy. A dollar and a new track it is..I wonder if the silence is lossless audio?..

 

[PNutts]

OT: One more comment about the frustration of not having control over "auto-anything". I shouldn't have to power down or disconnect to not have music start playing. As other posters pointed out there are many reasons to have your phone paired to your stereo but not listen to music. But to the point, just because I get a phone call doesn't mean I want music to start playing when I hang up. Checking for firmware update for my car stereo now...

 

[uwdude]

Recently when I had a late model Corolla this raged me every time I started the car. I knew it wasn't Apple's fault, but I would have liked to strangle whoever programmed the head unit software to make it do that.

 

[gerbilmaster]

For some vehicles, when an iPhone is plugged into the car's USB port music playback begins automatically, and it always starts in alphabetical order at the top of the user's iTunes library. Because of this, many users will hear the same song, usually beginning with an "A," over and over again each time they plug their iPhone into their car. This week, a potential solution to that problem has been soaring up the iTunes charts in the form of a ten-minute silent song called "A a a a a Very Good Song" [Direct Link].

Created by Samir Mezrahi, the song allows users a full nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds to find the song they actually want to hear after connecting their iPhone to their car through USB. Mezrahi is charging $0.99 for each download of the music-less track, although Apple Music subscribers can simply add the song into their library for free.

A a a a a Very Good Song launched on iTunes on Wednesday, August 9, and as of the writing of this article it sits at #46 on iTunes' Top Songs chart. The song has climbed 21 spots in under a day, when Engadget reported that it was at #67 early on August 10. If it continues to climb, the song will surpass artists like Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, and Miley Cyrus.

For any CarPlay users, or for those who connect to their vehicle through Bluetooth, the automatic iTunes playback phenomenon is not as much of an issue. For those who do face the problem, it's been discovered within a wide array of different brands and car systems. As one Redditor pointed out, for users who don't have an Apple Music subscription and who would prefer not to pay $0.99 for a ten-minute silent track, they can also make a silent recording of their own and add it to iTunes.

Article Link: A Ten-Minute Silent Song Is Soaring Up the iTunes Charts

uhhhhh, doy. obvs solution is to buy a new car that does not do this when you plug in.

 

[hotgril]

This is one of the most stupid things I've heard of in quite some time. If you want silence, there's this thing called the power button on your radio. As an alternative, you can hit the "play" button to pause your music too. Paying .99 for a blank file to play silence is the height of laziness. Astounding.

If you want to hear your nav or whatever from your iPhone on your car speakers, silent songs are the only way on some cars (e.g. 2010 Honda Accord). I always played music just to hear the nav, but I don't mind it enough to make my own silent one.
[doublepost=1502575099][/doublepost]

How do you know this is Apple's problem? Different make cars have different behaviors. Either Apple software engineers included secret code for iPhones to implement different play algorithms for different makes, or this is an issue with cars' stereos.

I think the old iPod interface does this. Cars that say "iPod" (as opposed to "iPhone") input always have this problem.
[doublepost=1502575262][/doublepost]

So this is for lazy people who can't take free app like Audacity and make their own silent "music" file?
For those less intelligent but not lazy:
- Take any existing music file
- Open with Audacity and change the audio level to 0
- Save as aaaaaaaawhateveryouwanttocallit
- import into itunes

optional:
- sell on iTunes for $0.99
- profit

$1 is worth it if it takes you, say, 15 minutes to figure out how to do this, and you make at least minimum wage.

 

[melody-nyc]

For some vehicles, when an iPhone is plugged into the car's USB port music playback begins automatically, and it always starts in alphabetical order at the top of the user's iTunes library. Because of this, many users will hear the same song, usually beginning with an "A," over and over again each time they plug their iPhone into their car. This week, a potential solution to that problem has been soaring up the iTunes charts in the form of a ten-minute silent song called "A a a a a Very Good Song" [Direct Link].

Created by Samir Mezrahi, the song allows users a full nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds to find the song they actually want to hear after connecting their iPhone to their car through USB. Mezrahi is charging $0.99 for each download of the music-less track, although Apple Music subscribers can simply add the song into their library for free.

A a a a a Very Good Song launched on iTunes on Wednesday, August 9, and as of the writing of this article it sits at #46 on iTunes' Top Songs chart. The song has climbed 21 spots in under a day, when Engadget reported that it was at #67 early on August 10. If it continues to climb, the song will surpass artists like Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, and Miley Cyrus.

For any CarPlay users, or for those who connect to their vehicle through Bluetooth, the automatic iTunes playback phenomenon is not as much of an issue. For those who do face the problem, it's been discovered within a wide array of different brands and car systems. As one Redditor pointed out, for users who don't have an Apple Music subscription and who would prefer not to pay $0.99 for a ten-minute silent track, they can also make a silent recording of their own and add it to iTunes.

Article Link: A Ten-Minute Silent Song Is Soaring Up the iTunes Charts

[doublepost=1502582415][/doublepost]This is the most ridiculous solution ever - and even more shocking is that people actually PAID for it. No offense, but the only people foolish and lazy enough to actually spend money buying this 10-minute silent track must be millennials - lazy, entitled, "I can't do anything for myself" millennials. If this is such a huge deal for you, just make a silent recording yourself! But no, they can't take time out of their busy "texting" and "facebook-friending" day to make the track for themselves. ... Speaks volumes about this generation.

 

[Smigit]

This is an issue with head units, specifically they don't keep enough state around to start where you left off. I suspect they're sending the wrong command - they're sending "start playing", instead of "resume playing."

I dunno, I've always felt it was an iOS issue. Maybe what I'm experiencing is different though. 98% of the time in my car it does resume the last track. It fails and starts at track 1 only if my iPhone has been rebooted (or upgraded), in which case it reverts to track one.

As above, maybe this is just different and it's standard for playback to revert after a reset, but I don't feel it should and in my case the car playback seems entirely dependant on an operation I've performed on my mobile device alone.

 

[DeepIn2U]

So rather than just creating a blank track with Audacity (for free), people are paying 0.99 for... a blank track?

I have only one response.

lol ... the audacity

 

[Kabeyun]

I think the old iPod interface does this. Cars that say "iPod" (as opposed to "iPhone") input always have this problem.

Plausible enough, and of course, if true, still a car problem rather than an Apple problem.

 

[tbobmccoy]

[doublepost=1502582415][/doublepost]This is the most ridiculous solution ever - and even more shocking is that people actually PAID for it. No offense, but the only people foolish and lazy enough to actually spend money buying this 10-minute silent track must be millennials - lazy, entitled, "I can't do anything for myself" millennials. If this is such a huge deal for you, just make a silent recording yourself! But no, they can't take time out of their busy "texting" and "facebook-friending" day to make the track for themselves. ... Speaks volumes about this generation.

Not sure GiFY has a strong enough statement for this. Did you miss the part where it said Apple Music gets it free, or did you just want to bash on an entire group of people to make yourself feel better?

 

[Col4bin]

I have Apple Music, listen to it in my car always, and I have no idea what the author of this article is talking about.

 

[hotgril]

Plausible enough, and of course, if true, still a car problem rather than an Apple problem.

Well, I don't get why the iPod interface does this in the first place. It was equally annoying to plug in an iPod and have a joke song my friend made called "Aaaahhh" play first.
[doublepost=1502613217][/doublepost]

Dude u should be the kind of person who never goes 2 Restourants cause u can make the meal at home. Plz dont be cheap n buy thiz peace of art. Support our artists 2 make a better world u know what i mean? Its just 1 usd gosh

Dude, I can eat all week for $25, and it's healthier than what restaurants serve.

 

[Da_Hood]

For all the "its your car maker" people, iTunes on my desktop plays "Hells Bells" AC-DC, Back in Black, every time I launch it, then proceeds to shuffle. Its seldom an inconvenience, but a short coming of iTunes in that it knows its in shuffle mode but HAS to play the first track in the library before hand.

 

[hotgril]

For all the "its your car maker" people, iTunes on my desktop plays "Hells Bells" AC-DC, Back in Black, every time I launch it, then proceeds to shuffle. Its seldom an inconvenience, but a short coming of iTunes in that it knows its in shuffle mode but HAS to play the first track in the library before hand.

For some period of time, I think iOS 9, the only way to play all music (not in a playlist) without any accessories was to force-kill the music app then tell Siri to play music. It then behave kinda like you described.

I really don't get it; the iTunes on Mac and the iOS music app should have been perfected years ago. But if anything, there are more problems than ever, and they keep changing things that were perfect before. Like the newly added annoying and unintuitive way to bring up the shuffle/loop controls in iOS (drag up on album artwork, why???). I legit had to Google how to shuffle my music, wtf. I just want to go back to iOS 6 at this point.