Music
Elsa Davis Never Expected Her Play “Bulrusher” To Become An Opera
The original version, about a Black baby girl found drifting in a basket along a river, premiered off-Broadway in 2006 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Though she herself is a singer-songwriter and actor, Davis “had no designs on making an opera” — until composer Nathaniel Stookey approached her. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN) Source […]
Ravyn Lenae, genius of melody: ‘What’s left out of love songs is the growth on the other side of a breakup’ | R&B
Many pop music videos are an excuse for gorgeous styling and showboating choreography, but for the US psychedelic-R&B singer Ravyn Lenae, the stakes were rather higher on her latest shoot. She wrote the song One Wish about her absent father and then, to clean the slate of their fractious relationship, cast him in the video as […]
John Eliot Gardiner Is Completely Repentant — Isn’t He?
“I was very dehydrated. … I didn’t strike him too hard. I did nonetheless cuff or biff a young singer. … There is no excuse. Provocation yes, but not an excuse. … There has to be a degree of forgiveness and tolerance.” Not entirely convinced? Neither is the interviewer. – Financial Times Source link
‘Looks like £400 a month. That can’t be right!’ Readers on their music spending | Music
Rising overheads and stagnating fees have made it increasingly difficult for bands to make a living from touring. Meanwhile, consumers’ habits are changing as they weather a cost of living crisis. Music fans speak about how much they spend on music in an average month and how those habits have changed. ‘Eight CDs and half […]
The music industry is engineering artist popularity – listeners are right to be angry | Music
For months, one question has been plaguing pop fans: why is Spotify playing me the same songs over and over again? Every other week, a post goes viral on X asking why Chappell Roan’s Good Luck, Babe!, or Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso, or Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather, are constantly being put into a user’s […]
Martin Phillipps, founder of New Zealand rock band the Chills, dies at 61 | Music
Martin Phillipps, the founder of the New Zealand rock band the Chills, has died at the age of 61. Phillipps’ death was announced on Sunday on the band’s’ social media channels. “It is with broken hearts the family and friends of Martin Phillipps wish to advise Martin has died unexpectedly,” the post read. “The family […]
Sonos Admits Its Recent App Update Was a Colossal Mistake
When setting up my Sonos home theater system, I had a persistent problem. I was trying to add a Sonos wireless subwoofer to my network, but according to Sonos’ mobile app, the Sub was nowhere to be found. The app would throw a “Could not connect” message, or—even weirder—show me that I was trying to […]
‘It brings you back’: the suburban choir helping people living with dementia reconnect | Dementia
Leigh Scully looks to her husband, and asks: “Have you been enjoying singing, darling?” “Music. Music. Music. I love it,” Peter Scully says, with a smile and a drumbeat between each word. Peter, who is living with dementia, fell in love with the Everly Brothers when he was a young teen. “When they were in […]
The US jazz icon with a controversial legacy
Getty Images With the release of new, previously unheard live recordings from the BBC, questions remain over Louis Armstrong’s complicated and controversial career and persona. More than half a century after the death of Louis Armstrong, fans and critics are still arguing over his name. Is it pronounced Lewis or Louie? In some ways, this […]
‘A life too immense for only one book’: Cher announces two-part memoir | Cher
Cher’s two-part memoir finally has a release date. Cher: The Memoir, Part One will be released on 19 November by Dey Street Books, an imprint of the William Morrow Group at HarperCollins Publishers. Part Two will follow in spring of 2025, the publisher announced on Wednesday. “After more than 70 years of fighting to live […]
Playing for survival: the blind Japanese woman keeping a music tradition alive | Japan
Rieko Hirosawa sits on a stone bench outside her home, tunes her instrument and takes a deep breath. She unleashes an impossibly high note while her bachi plectrum slaps the three strings of her shamisen, a traditional instrument. Combined, they slice through the stillness of an oppressively humid afternoon. If her neighbours were wondering if […]
Jack White: No Name review – terrific surprise album is his most White Stripes-esque solo release | Jack White
Customers at Jack White’s Third Man Records shops in London, Nashville and Detroit received a free gift with their purchases on Friday – a white-label vinyl album with a generic sleeve, titled “no name”. The record was not the work of the Chicago rapper, but rather a surprise release from White himself, available only to […]
Ukraine music festival back despite war
2 days ago By Andrew Rogers, BBC Newsbeat Getty Images Before Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the festival looked pretty much like any other big music event around the world. This was the main stage in 2019. How do you stage a music festival for 25,000 people when you’re under threat from a potential Russian missile attack? […]
Megan Thee Stallion review – positivity bootcamp with a rapper on fire | Megan Thee Stallion
Most pop stars are minted through trial by fire: are you really an A-lister if you haven’t weathered some kind of scandal, tragedy or faux-cancellation? Even by those standards, though, Megan Thee Stallion has had a hell of a few years. After shooting to fame in 2019 with a string of singles that brandished her […]
Berklee College of Music makes Jim Lucchese fifth president
Boston native and former music executive Jim Lucchese was named the fifth president of Berklee College of Music. Lucchese will start his tenure at Berklee after around 20 years working in the music industry. He most recently worked as CEO for the music event startup Sofar Sounds. He also led Spotify for Artists, a program […]
So good, so good, so good: Destiny’s Child’s greatest songs – ranked! | R&B
20. Temptation (1999) There is no getting around the fact that Temptation is a deeply weird idea on paper: a dreamy ballad about contemplating infidelity (“I’ma write your number in the palm of my hand / Oops, I forgot I got a man”) with a melody stolen from the children’s song This Old Man. But […]
Country Music Is Hot Again (And Fans Are In Charge)
Across the musical universe, country is cool again. This year, for the first time, the country festival Stagecoach sold out before its better-known mainstream counterpart, Coachella. – The Wall Street Journal Source link
Jack Black puts Tenacious D ‘on hold’ after bandmate’s Trump shooting comment | Music
Jack Black has put his rock duo Tenacious D on hold following an onstage comment made by his bandmate Kyle Gass, which seemed to support the assassination of Donald Trump. Gass was celebrating his birthday during a concert in Sydney on Sunday, with a cake presented to him on stage. Black told Gass to make […]
Reviving Hollywood glamor of the silent movie era, experts piece together a century-old pipe organ
DETROIT — A massive pipe organ that underscored the drama and comedy of silent movies with live music in Detroit’s ornate Hollywood Theatre nearly a century ago was dismantled into thousands of pieces and stashed away. The Barton Opus, built in 1927, spent four decades stored in a garage, attic and basement in suburban Detroit. […]
‘I sexed it up’: 1970s disco queen Asha Puthli on Warhol, Dali and influencing Donna Summer | Pop and rock
In February 1971, Asha Puthli was sitting with Andy Warhol and friends at Max’s Kansas City, a New York club nightclub and restaurant, when the DJ played her new single. It was a cover of Marvin Gaye’s Motown classic Ain’t That Peculiar with Peter Ivers Group. Excited by what he heard, Warhol asked the singer […]
School in Spain revives art of church bells rung by hand
JOANETES, Spain (AP) — Xavier Pallàs plants his feet on the belfry floor, grips the rope, and with one tug fills the lush Spanish valley below with the reverberating peal of a church bell. Clang-clong! Clang-clong! Clang-CLONG! The swinging bronze bell resonates with each strike of the clapper, filling the small stone tower with an […]
Stewart Copeland: ‘The Police’s recording sessions were very dark. We beat the crap out of each other’ | Music
Why is [the Police’s 1983 album] Synchronicity being reissued [as an expanded box set] now? Dmitry-SThe Police had an epiphany courtesy of the Beatles’ documentary, Get Back. Each of us learned, in our separate ivory towers, that the final master isn’t in any way diminished by showing the sketches or demos along the way. Ghost […]
The Strad News – Cellist Antonio Meneses diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer
Read more news stories here Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses has announced that he has been diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and has stepped down from his concert and teaching engagements with immediate effect. He made the announcement on social media on 7 July: ‘Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses, one of the […]
Tanglewood Opens for the Summer, With Change in the Air
But he remains a curiously modest interpreter. He doesn’t achieve the architectural discipline that colleagues who similarly try to get out of the way of the music can impose, nor does he draw out sufficient clarity or detailing of consequence along the way. Friday’s “Eroica” Symphony was typical: solid but unremarkable. Sunday’s Strauss, the 78th […]
‘We knew a banjo house record would annoy the techno bores’: how the Grid made Swamp Thing | Culture
Richard Norris, songwriter, programmer I met Dave Ball after I went to interview Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle for Strange Things Are Happening magazine, and we ended up making Jack the Tab, the UK’s first acid house album, under the guise of “various artists”. On the second day in the studio Gen brought in Dave. […]
The Composer Who Changed Opera With ‘a Beautiful Simplicity’
He was as much a vessel as an originator of the great change. “There were many people working on naturalizing the prevailing styles, and sort of domesticating them,” Stephen Wadsworth, who directed “Iphigénie en Tauride” at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007, said in an interview. Other opera composers, writers and impresarios around the same time […]
Meet the Woman Behind Laufey’s Romantic Style: Her Twin Sister, Junia
“Are you Laufey?” A fan approached the table at a cafe in the East Village, hoping for a picture with Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay), the musician beloved among Gen Z listeners for her nostalgic combination of pop and jazz. The woman dining there had the singer’s middle part, her mannerisms and her retro-femme style of dress. […]
Orquesta Akokán: Caracoles review – joyous Cuban dancehall | Music
Cuban music and its labyrinth of rhythms are never far away, though they rarely escape from the Latin scene to wider acclaim, as the veterans of Buena Vista Social Club managed 20 years back. Signed to Daptone, a label that has helped reanimate the soul music of a previous era, Orquesta Akokán have done much […]