Zane Lowe Announces Launch of New Beats 1 Shows from Haim, Major Lazer & Eric Prydz

[MacRumors]

Apple Music DJ Zane Lowe has recently begun discussing the upcoming shows for a few artists on the Beats 1 radio service, including hour-long series centering around Haim, Major Lazer, and Eric Prydz. Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Lowe discussed how difficult it was to essentially build an entire radio station from the ground up in just a few months, along with the challenge he and his team faced in gathering enough talent to fill his idea for weekly shows.

"[And] I've spent so much time trying to elicit information from musicians," he continues. "Knocking on doors and hoping for 30 minutes or an hour. That's hard! That's really hard! So we thought, 'What would happen if we convinced them, the artists, to invest in it and create their own platform? What road might that take us down?' And now, 70-80% of what goes to air is made by people who make music."

"We knew a lot of the people were only available for a short amount of time. So we were immediately thinking about how it was going to end, which got us to the idea of doing it all in seasons. Once we decided to do that, as challenging as that can be, it created a far more exciting prospect."

The original programming blocks put into rotation after Apple Music's launch included shows from Elton John, Pharrell, and Dr. Dre. Today's announcement confirms that users will be able to look forward to a new slate of shows coming this fall, with Major Lazer's "Lazer Sound" launching on Friday, October 2 at 6 p.m. Eastern.

A week later, Eric Prydz's show will debut and alternate Friday's with "Lazer Sound." The slot for the band Haim -- which is composed of a trio of sisters from southern California -- has yet to be announced, but Lowe hinted at a show filled with the group's brand of "infectious" music coupled with personal stories about their upbringing. Ultimately, Lowe plans to keep Apple Music and Beats 1 on a path of unique diversity among its music offerings and programmed shows, and thinks that's what ultimately makes the service unique for its users.

"You're either going to get this really intimate, closed door experience (Homme, St. Vincent), or a very genuine depiction of the banality and craziness of being in different hotel rooms and bus stops (WRTJ)," Lowe says. "I love that. There doesn't have to be a barrier between us and artists, it can be just as creative of a pursuit as designing your stage set or t-shirt design. Seeing how people have used that has been really, really cool. It's like, let's give people all the options, so they can choose. Let's give them the best, easiest place to hear what they love and maybe find out a thing or two."

When Apple Music launched over the summer, it was met with a somewhat mixed reaction, balancing praises of its convenience and robust offerings but hampered by its UI and layout, among other launch issues. Many of those who initially signed up for Apple Music and received its three-month-long free trial will soon have to decide whether to commit to paying its $9.99 per month charge or cease using Apple's new streaming music service.

A report from August suggests many of the service's initial users have already begun to stop using it even before their free trial ended. Fortunately for those interested in the radio aspect of Apple Music, Beats 1 and its upcoming shows are available without a subscription.

Article Link: Zane Lowe Announces Launch of New Beats 1 Shows from Haim, Major Lazer & Eric Prydz

 

[J.L.Photography]

I'd love to listen!........ If the apple music stream didn't pause or freeze every other 5-10 minutes...

So disappointed, love the app otherwise.

 

[Corrode]

I think the live radio is a cool idea but it's all pop music at the end of the day which doesn't appeal to me. I'll continue to subscribe to Apple Music though, because I love their album selections.

In other news: their playlists are awful. Songza still takes the cake in this regard.

 

[darkknight14]

Pay day for Apple next week!

 

[xlost6]

Cool. I really like Zane's show when I'm getting ready for work. It's good background noise. I'm planning to keep my subscription after the trial anyway.

 

[whyamihere]

Gotta get some kind of news out there to keep people from dropping it next week!

 

[stridemat]

I really enjoy both Zane's and Julie's show. Both fit into my evening in the UK very well and the music is right up my street.

Glad they are getting a new batch or artists in. Good to keep the UK day time shows fresh

 

[mw360]

Think I'm going to stick with it. The app is a confusing UI disaster, but I've enjoyed what it's served up for me.

 

[Nunyabinez]

This whole area is a mystery to me. The reason I got a portable music device in the first place was so that I didn't have to listen to the radio. I don't know if it's my age or simply my style of consuming music, but when I want to listen to music the last thing I want is to listen to anyone talk. Period.

And why do you need someone to curate your music? Maybe I'm hyper-critical, but I don't want to listen material that I don't really like. And no one is going to be able to get me 100%.

And do you really need this to find new music? I have friends that recommend stuff and I can look at iTunes and see artists and new releases. It seems like $10 a month to play stuff that I already bought just to hear a few new tracks and artists doesn't make sense.

I know everyone is different, but I've spent 20 years collecting music and curating my own library. I don't need some hipster to do it for me.

BTW Match is great and would be awesome if they could fix it so that I didn't have albums with 9 out of 10 songs matched and a way to tell it "no, I actually did want the explicit version."

 

[navaira]

You just put me off trying if Match now works with more than 25k tracks in the library.

"Lowe hinted at a show filled with the group's brand of "infectious" music coupled with personal stories about their upbringing" sounds like a great show for hardcore fans of Haim and absolutely nobody else. As for Eric Prydz and Major Lazer I really get exposed to them enough when I go to the mall.

All I want is a service that will seamlessly integrate with my library WITHOUT ALTERING IT and offer me new music based on my listening habits including last played date and amount of plays (hint for AM: if I played Homogenic yesterday from my library I don't want it offered in For You). This is all I want. I spent the last ten years happily not listening to radio. I don't need another radio station not to listen to. I'm glad for all Beats One fans that they found something original and unique, more power to ya. To me personally though Apple Music doesn't do what it should do, and instead does a lot of things that it doesn't need to or shouldn't do.

 

[Xenomorph]

I'd love to listen!........ If the apple music stream didn't pause or freeze every other 5-10 minutes...

So disappointed, love the app otherwise.

Apple Music has been driving me insane. The pausing and stopping of music is just too much.

Out of anger, I paid 99¢ for a 1-day Pandora pass to see how well it worked. It played just fine - until I landed on a screen for skipping too much. Yup, even paid Pandora accounts have limited skips.

 

[phunkidude]

Coming from Rdio I'm spoilt by a great interface. I think I'll stick with AM for now as I quite like Beats 1 and I find the quality and choice to be slightly better than Rdio.

 

[lunarworks]

This whole area is a mystery to me. The reason I got a portable music device in the first place was so that I didn't have to listen to the radio. I don't know if it's my age or simply my style of consuming music, but when I want to listen to music the last thing I want is to listen to anyone talk. Period.

Personally, I don't like terrestrial radio because it's full of commercials and most stations tend to have extremely narrow playlists.

Beats 1 is different in that regard. Plus, there's already other stations I listen to on the net, so it's a welcome addition for me.

And why do you need someone to curate your music? Maybe I'm hyper-critical, but I don't want to listen material that I don't really like. And no one is going to be able to get me 100%.

Of course no one's going to be able to get you 100%. But they might just turn you onto something new. Skip the other stuff.

But hey, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing.

 

[Nunyabinez]

Of course no one's going to be able to get you 100%. But they might just turn you onto something new. Skip the other stuff.

But hey, if it's not your thing, it's not your thing.

Obviously, I'm in the minority on this as it seems that most people are debating the merits of Apple Music vs. Pandora, etc. rather than monthly access versus ownership. I just hope that Apple will always continue to cater to the few of us who still want to own our music but stream it too rather than renting it.

I am also a former professional musician so that probably makes me a little weird in my music habits. I tend to choose a few albums (not songs) to rotate through, listening from start to finish. Much of what I listen to I like to imagine was made with that in mind. For example, I'm on a Dream Theater binge now and think of those as albums as a single cohesive experience. Yeah, it's weird but that's me.

 

[efktd]

wait, who are these artists? who, who and who????

jk, i'm not one of those forum members that isn't with the times. Waited somewhere around 10 years to catch Eric Prydz... Awesome show!

 

[tkukoc]

Not interested in Apple Music at all. It's nothing new and adds nothing new to the music system that has already been in place for a long time. 99% of these guys don't know anything about music. They just toss out what they deem to be cool or what should be "in" rather then being honest. I don't need to hear the same story from the same artist on 12 different radio stations. It needs to be exclusive and the questions should be completely different where yes.. it throws the artist for a loop and requires them to think on their feet. There's not one show that does that now, they are all the same. And with that... my rant about the music biz is over.... for today anyway.

 

[jimthing]

Outside of the radio function, Apple Music sucks.

It screwed my library right up (and gazillions of other users, from reading a LOT of forums trying to find solutions to get it to work!), so much so I had to turn it off and restore from backup. Metadata completely deleted, artwork deleted, track audio different to track name, even Match users having their OWNED ripped music being matched to Apple Music DRM'd catalogue instead of iTunes Match DRM-free catalogue (under "iCloud Status" they should have been "Matched" or "Uploaded", not "Apple Music"!).

If this is Apple's 'solution' to future media management, then count me out, for sure.

Cancelled accordingly.

And I'm really annoyed, as if it worked properly, I'd love to use such an integrated service: own collection with subscription collection.

Why oh why, did Apple not SANDBOX users own data and metadata (following their very own sandboxed apps philosophy!), instead of thinking their software teams could make decisions on behalf of users who do not want them to – especially when such software entirely cocks it up!

Complete and utter shambles. Seemingly like a lot of Apple's crap software and cloud offerings the last few years. Hardware good, software and services bad.

 

[lunarworks]

Obviously, I'm in the minority on this as it seems that most people are debating the merits of Apple Music vs. Pandora, etc. rather than monthly access versus ownership. I just hope that Apple will always continue to cater to the few of us who still want to own our music but stream it too rather than renting it.

I am also a former professional musician so that probably makes me a little weird in my music habits. I tend to choose a few albums (not songs) to rotate through, listening from start to finish. Much of what I listen to I like to imagine was made with that in mind. For example, I'm on a Dream Theater binge now and think of those as albums as a single cohesive experience. Yeah, it's weird but that's me.

Ah, I'm sorta the opposite. I can't stay still enough to listen to a whole album. Haven't been able to since the '90s.
I love my songs individually.