Chuck Berry, along with opera director Peter Sellars announced today as winners of the Polar Music Prize. Why? In its citation for Mr. Berry the award committee wrote that “every…
Category: <span>Pop Music</span>
What makes the mega-hit “Happy” by Pharrell Williams so darned….happy? Been wondering that question myself, so it was nice to see a story in the Guardian that puts the question…
It’s the first day of Spring on the Calendar, and time to celebrate with some shades of happiness. First up, the brilliant opening credits to Portlandia, the wacky ode to…
Intriguing post in Choralnet the other day pointing out some famous faces who’s sung in their high school and/or college choirs. If you’ve got an entry to the list (and…
Great love fest and concert last night for the ever-dignified and charismatic Harry Belafonte, the “High School drop out getting an Honorary Degree from Berklee.” At the age of 87,…
Easily the longest article I’ve ever seen in Billboard, but absolutely riveting. Further proof that the Fab Four virtually invented the “modern” music industry (at least, pre-Interwebs). And, it…
Funny blog post today by Bob Boilen of All Song Considered about Bad Band Names…a perpetual source of amusement for musicheads. What got Bob going was a band called The…
Any resemblance to Mike “I Was Just Thinking….” Barnicle is purely coincidental…. Kind of amazing to hear the wall-to-wall media coverage of the New York Philharmonic’s trip to North Korea….startling…
I am perhaps the only person in the blogoverse to look at this and think immediately of the shape-note singing tradition that was developed in America in the 19th century.…
Yesterday I noted that the incredible popularity of Guitar Hero (and its new cousin, Rock Band) has helped to spur sales of the “real” instruments in music stores. While the evidence isn’t yet conclusive on that front, there’s no questioning what the games are doing for the digital-download business…That’s right – Guitar Hero is a more efficient way to sell your music than iTunes. But put the two streams together is a powerful combination…and we’re talking about Legal downloads. Who knows what the effect is in the P2P world?…