Friend-to-friend: Valotte still sounds unnervingly like John Lennon singing a bunch of okay-ish songs.

Twitter #Music -- the music-discovery service from the people who brought you #SomaliDirectionersLoveZayn-style declarations of collectivist fandom love -- rolled out this week, and people are . . . not especially happy with it. A blunt summary of the problems with it was passed around among tech-liberal-arts-blog types over the weekend.

The Popular pane is useless to anyone over the age of 17. Emerging seems to simply be the inverse of Popular and is therefore equally hopeless. Swipe over to Suggested and we're finally getting somewhere, save for the fact that the secret sauce of what makes an artist "suggested" is completely opaque . . .

. . . which just about covers all the means of music discovery in the app. But the real problem with Twitter #Music and social-music apps more generally is simpler and not about design at all: Do you like your friends' taste in music to begin with? All your friends?

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Lauren Wise

You know what I like . . .

It looks like all these Record Store Days are paying off. In 2012, global sales for vinyl records hit $171 million, their highest point since 1997 -- the same year that Hanson's "MMMBop" topped the charts.

This Saturday, April 20, marks the sixth annual Record Store Day, when artists and labels dish out rare and exclusive releases to fans that results in a sort-of major shopping day on the musical calendar.

There are lots of reasons to love vinyl, especially heavy metal vinyl -- besides the fact that you can play them backwards and get the messages Satan wants you to hear.

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Timothy Norris

By Brett Koshkin

As the corpses of corporate music retail chains like Tower Records and Blockbuster Music litter dying strip malls, Amoeba Music thrives as an independent juggernaut with three California-based stores the size of supermarkets. Amoeba has been a celebrated shopping destination for West Coast music aficionados for more than two decades and is a place that shines a light on small artists and labels, giving fledgling releases an audience and, in many cases, much-craved sales they might not attain in big-box stores. A large part of Amoeba's charm is the thousands of used records that are given a chance at a second life. But the store's latest move has left some music lovers and industry professionals scratching their heads.

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So this one time, my college roommate was gonna buy this album. It came in two formats: CD and MP3. The CD version was a few bucks cheaper. I argued with my roommate that a CD was a better deal because you also got a physical copy of something, but he went for the MP3 download anyway because he didn't want to wait and didn't want more shit cluttering up his life.

That was my first thought when I heard Amazon's new AutoRip program. Now, if you buy specially marked compact discs from the Internet giant, you get the MP3 version instantly, for free. No waiting! But what's the fucking point?

See also:

Why Is There So Much Indie Rock on Television?
My Stolen MP3 Collection Got Stolen
MAN-CAT's Pussy Cola Antics Grabbed Attention of Pepsi's Lawyers

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By Dave Good

It's hard not to notice: Indie bands seemingly soundtrack just about every sitcom, film and television commercial today. But why? Influential music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas swears it's not just about cheap labor.

"It's far more of a creative decision than a monetary one," she says. "We're picking out the kind of music that the characters in the show might listen to."

Patsavas worked on the music for The O.C., known for breaking indie bands, as well as Grey's Anatomy, Roswell and The Twilight Saga, the latest of which comes out Nov. 16. Since 1998 she's run her own Pasadena-based music company, Chop Shop Supervision, which became its own record label five years ago.

See also: Indie Rock Is Worth Hating
See also: My Stolen MP3 Collection Got Stolen
See also: Hydra Head Records: A Personal Recollection

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"Don't rock the boat, sink it!" commands the anonymous scribe behind I Hate Indie Rock, a fiery Twitter account that has been launching crust-punk-tinged salvos at publicists, nostalgia and vapidity in the indie rock realm. The account has been around only since October, and at this point, the feed has devolved into a rather entertaining broad-stroke fuck-all fest. It has still managed to draw the intrigue, both serious and not, of a number of music critics and sites.

See also: Why You Shouldn't Hate Indie Rock

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My house got robbed over the summer and among the items taken were my laptop and iPod.

I had backed up none of my data. I would estimate I lost somewhere around 12,000 songs. It also feels safe to estimate that 95 percent of my MP3 collection was not purchased. It obviously sucked at first, losing years of acquisitions overnight and not having music always at the ready, but I made peace with it much faster than I expected. It's hard to mourn the loss of something that didn't really belong to me in the first place.

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Gary Copeland, courtesy of Torche

Torche

See also: Packrat, Boyfrndz, and Feuding Fathers Help Make Math Rock Look Easy
See also: Henry Rollins Won't Tell You Who to Vote For (But He Really Thinks You Should Vote)
See also: Keith Morris of OFF! On That Time The Band Got Arrested For Taking Used Cooking Oil in Phoenix
See also: Six Desert Metal Bands You Need to Hear

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By Paul T. Bradley

This week, Hydra Head Records founder Aaron Turner announced the label's closing. The L.A. metal imprint -- by way of Boston and New Mexico -- is home to first-rate acts including Torche, Botch, Cave In, Harvey Milk and, occasionally, Converge. Co-founder Aaron Turner says that they'll stop putting out new music after December and then continue clearing out their back catalog for debt-servicing purposes.

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