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Opinionated
1. james rhodes The Guardian has a short profile/interview of the first classical soloist to be signed to Warner’s rock label. He sounds like a swell guy, and I don’t want to make any judgments on his music without hearing it, but a couple things mentioned in the interview make me curious. Rhodes is also…
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Björk Project Part 2: Debut
They’re terribly moody And human behaviour Then all of a sudden turn happy But, oh, to get involved in the exchange Of human emotions Is ever so, ever so satisfying -Björk, “Human Behavior” Listening to Björk’s Debut in the context of her other records, as I did, provides several modes of interpretation. I was struck…
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Björk Project Part 1: Prelude
Like most thinking people, he admires Björk… -Alex Ross, writing on Esa-Pekka Salonen That extraordinary statement is found in Alex Ross’ new book, Listen to This. In another chapter, he profiles Björk, presenting her as a rare artist with a unique aesthetic that borrows freely from many musical traditions while still retaining its own identity.…
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Seal
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ERwcNbwSI] The moment good taste knows itself, some of its goodness is lost. – C.S. Lewis It is an under-appreciated truth that listening to music changes your ears. With every new piece of music you listen to, you gain more points of reference that you can then apply to pieces you have never heard before. This is…
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Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
I’ve been brooding on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs for a little while now. I wanted to review it, but found it very hard to pin down, and then the moment passed. But I do want to to note how surprised I was at the different sound that Arcade Fire uses on this record as opposed…
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Michael Torke – The Yellow Pages
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcYAPAi9K8k&start=60&autoplay=1] Michael Torke’s The Yellow Pages (1985) is a movement from a three-piece work called Telephone Book. It takes a simple, upbeat musical phrase and develops it slowly, modulating and employing variations on the phrase. Torke’s music falls somewhere in the grey area between Minimalism and Post-Minimalism; he began composing when Minimalism was beginning to…
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Steve Reich – Nagoya Marimbas
I’ve been putting together a mix CD for a person that asked me to give them some classical music. Because I’m a music nerd, I’m putting together a listening guide as well with historical context, a little information on the composer, and some things to listen for. I don’t want it to be too technical,…
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Good for music?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w] OK GO’s breakout success came after an extremely popular homemade music video was uploaded onto YouTube. Quirky music videos became their shtick. Remarkably, when they released a new(-ish) single, “This Too Shall Pass,” their label, EMI, decided to make the video un-embeddable and issue takedown notices when it popped up on YouTube. The band…
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Fan Taxonomy and High Fidelity
High Fidelity is available to stream on Hulu right now. High Fidelity is a movie about musical biography, and I’ve always been tickled by this because it’s an integral part of my musical biography. I didn’t listen to a lot of pop music growing up. The only genre of music that I know from my…
