popular music
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On “Going Classical”: Popular Music Played With Orchestras
It seems as if there always comes a time in the life of a rock band or pop artist to team up with a symphony orchestra. Usually this involves re-arranging songs for strings, winds, and percussion. Move over electric guitar, bass and drums: we’re going classical. Recently I saw Peter Gabriel perform with an orchestra Continue reading
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On Music and Advertising: Weezer’s Tour de France Izod Commercial
I can’t seem to get enough of the Tour de France. A recent convert to the event, I sit transfixed in front of the screen, watching the peloton flow across the French countryside, up and down mountains, over winding roads and through picturesque towns, past lavender fields and 12th-century churches while the English ESPN commentating wizard Phil Leggett provides non-stop Continue reading
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On The Trickle Down Of Electronic Dance Music Aesthetics: The Cases Of Rihanna and Britney Spears
Until relatively recently, it used to be the case that your favorite pop songs made the transition to the clubs when they were remixed by a well-known remixer/producer or DJ. The club remix of your favorite pop song is an exercise in democratizing it to the demands of the dance floor, which almost always involves squashing the song to the Continue reading
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On The Posthuman Soul of James Blake
For many months now I’ve been hearing about this young English musician/DJ/singer James Blake. The BBC cited him as a musician to watch in 2011 and Blake just released his first full length album, James Blake. This self-titled recording is a striking collection of pared-down songs comprising mostly auto-tuned/processed voice, analog keyboards or piano, and the most Continue reading
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On Musical Desiring-Machines
The notion of “desiring-production” and “desiring-machines” comes to us from the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972). For Deleuze and Guattari, desire is imagined as a kind of mechanical thing, a desiring-machine that acts as a circuit breaker in a larger matrix of machines it is connected to. Not Continue reading
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Digging4Gold: Record Collecting or Pilfered Music?
Imagine for a moment that you are an explorer traveling to West Africa in search of new soundworlds to capture and bring with you back home. You’ve come equipped with a recording device and a mind open to cultural difference; in fact, you’re open to being changed by your encounters abroad “in the field”, as an anthropologist would call Continue reading
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Musical Memes: A Bassline Travels
In a recent (and fascinating) New York Times article on the resurgence of soul music among young and mostly white singers (“Can a Nerd Have Soul?“), we’re reintroduced to The Supremes’ 1960s Motown classic, “You Can’t Hurry Love.” Propelling that uptempo hit is James Jamerson’s 8-note bass line (with a rhythm kinda like: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, Continue reading
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