Bono recently sat down with Irish broadcaster RTE for a show called Meaning of Life to talk about religion and faith. He also talks about his parents' marraige and what that meant to him.  Here's a preview.

And speaking of being available, Bono took Michelle Obama down to the pub for a pint of Guinness. Or something.  I guess they were both bored of the G8 yakking.

Or maybe they were.

On June 18, 1987, Depeche Mode rolled into the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, to play the final show on their "101" tour, which was in support of Music for the Masses.  Exactly 60,452 people turned up to see this cult band (hah!) perform.  A live album and a documentary (shot by the legendary D.A Pennebaker) were made the same night.

And one more thing came out of the event:  the thought that maybe, just maybe, this weird thing called "alternative music" wasn't so negligible a thing after all.  A few years later, alternative would launch its asault on the mainstream and take over.  The stirrings of that coup were seen that night in Pasadena.

(Via Slicing Up Eyeballs)

Between about 1999 and 2004, there was a lot of exceptional music made by a lot of talented artists – many of whom might not have been given the opportunity to record prior to that time. It was an incredibly rich period for music production. Some utterly fantastic records were released.

They may not have had anything like the promotional budget similar acts might have enjoyed just five years earlier – but they were recording and releasing like never before – and in every greater quantities. More and more great music.

But what we think of now as the core power tools for promotion and dissemination online simply did not yet exist.

This five year period between – for the sake of argument – Napster, and Chris Anderson’s identification of the phenomenon he called The Long Tail (in a Wired editorial in October 2004) represents a significant and important gap: a chasm between two entirely different music industry ecologies.

The tools for composition and production had leapt ahead. The tools for authorised and legitimate promotion, distribution and consumption were yet to be established.

And as a result, there is a five year period of popular music culture that represents an incredibly rich seam of fantastic independent music, much of which never had the opportunity to find its audience.

It’s an incredible gulf. A deep trench between the old music business and the new music business. A Grand Canyon of digital music.

Read the whole article and then tell me what you think.

New in 6.0: Auto Tagging, available only on the iPad, can be toggled on/off on the home screen. Auto Tagging allows Shazam to recognise music and media around you automatically, but it can’t recognize what you’re saying.

New on iPhone in 6.1:
○ Shazam Pulse – Find fresh new music and preview from the trending real time charts
○ Friends – Smoother loading 
○ New look tab bar:
-Settings is now located on the top left of the home screen
-When a Friend tags, they appear in the tab bar
-Chart updates are displayed in the tab bar

New on iPad in 6.1:
○ Easier to delete tags from Favorites, tap edit then select tags
○ Improved stability in Friends feed

New on iPhone and iPad in 6.1:
○ Shazam Pulse – Discover new music by sampling of what’s being tagged right now. To find it on your iPad, swipe right on the home screen. To find it on your iPhone swipe right in Pulse.

What's with the list of elements?  Is she a chemistry fan or something?

Well, sort of.  But mainly, she's he's a fan of Biggie Smalls.

Let's go to the periodic table and substitute the chemical symbols for each of the elements, Breaking Bad-style.  When the code is cracked, you get:

(F) fluorine, (U) uranium, (C) carbon, (K) potassium, (Bi) bismuth, (Tc) technetium, (He) helium, (S) sulfur, (Ge) germanium, (Tm) thulium, (O) oxygen, (Ne) neon, and (Y) yttrium.  String it all together and you get "FUCK BITCHES GET MONEY," which are lyrics from the Biggie Smalls/Jr. MAFIA song, "Get Money."

Good one, Jessica.  Good one.  Read more at The Huffington Post.  Thanks to John for the link.

Just as the band was about to perform, the woman collapsed on the grass. Her friends immediately rousted the paramedics, but there was nothing they could do.  She was pronounced dead at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.  The cause of her death isn't known yet, but it doesn't look suspicious.

At the same time, those "modern security and safety features" didn't seem to be in full effect at the show. What concert doesn't search bags for glass bottles these days?

Read more at The Daily Record.