After a few minutes, Kesha emerges on camera, clad in a beige Joy Division shirt, her blonde streaked hair damp and pulled back. On the wall behind her is a framed copy of Rolling Stone with her face on the cover. She grins, buzzing with energy, ready to get into …
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‘A Billion Streams and No Fans’: Inside a $10 Million AI Music Fraud Case
Almost no one hits it big in music. The odds are so bad it’s criminal. But on a late spring evening in Louisville, Kentucky, Mike Smith and Jonathan Hay were having that rare golden moment when everything clicks. Smith was on guitar. Hay was fiddling with the drum machine and …
Read More »60-Hour Dance Sessions, Simulated Sex, and Ketamine: Inside the World of Hardcore VR Ravers
It was one of O’Rourke’s first times doing drugs, but he didn’t hold back. Armed with cannabis edibles, cocaine, ketamine, and booze he partied for nearly 12 nights consecutively last August, during which time he claims to have raved for 60 hours straight—all without ever leaving his apartment. (He did …
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