Music

Grammies and grandpas

February 12, 2012

Tonight was the first time I’ve watched the Grammies in quite awhile. It was kind of a geriatric affair, wasn’t it? Tony Bennett and Glenn Campbell and Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney. There was Diana Ross. And get a load of Reba McEntire, a caricature of herself with some new facial surgery. Sheesh, attack of [...]

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Paul Simon strikes another chord

October 21, 2011
paul simon

Sometimes a song gets lodged in your head and loops there endlessly for the rest of the day. Today it’s “She Moves On,” the underrated masterpiece from Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints album in 1990. As songs go, it’s a great one to have stuck on repeat. A lot better than, say, “Achy Breaky [...]

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Crappy music, reasonably priced

July 2, 2011

Does anybody use CDs anymore? For anything? I’m asking because I have about a thousand of them, most still in boxes, and the ones I’ve unpacked I can’t remember actually putting in a CD player at any time in the past four years. I’m wondering if I should even bother unpacking the rest. This saddens [...]

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Christian rock, Cuban style

March 30, 2011

During our stay in Havana we met a young guy named Pepe, who is the drummer for a Christian rock band. That genre is sort of rare in Cuba, not least because the Christian thing is not favored by the government and such bands are therefore denied access to state venues and state television. Pepe [...]

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Imagine no nostalgia

December 9, 2010
john lennon

I suppose I should have posted a ruminative thumb-sucker about the anniversary of John Lennon’s death, but really: Let’s give it a rest. Even a card-carrying baby-boomer such as myself eventually grows weary of the nostalgic navel-gazing we’ve all been indulging in since, oh, about 1975. Is there anything new to say about Lennon, or [...]

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Long live the dancin’ divas of Motown

November 24, 2010

For your holiday enjoyment, here’s a fun little video that honors the queens of Motown with some great editing and some major license with Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” Funny thing is, this is better than Beyonce’s original by quite a bit. I love it.

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What is good is not country

November 20, 2010

As part of my continuing drive-by attacks on contemporary country music, I turn now to “Way Out Here,” a Josh Thompson tune that enjoyed a few weeks on the country charts earlier this year. I heard it the other day. It’s intended to be one of those all-American anthems of blue-collar pride and independence, but [...]

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I got your Beatles right here

November 16, 2010

You know, I’ve always loved the Beatles, but I can’t get real excited about now being able to buy their songs on iTunes. Since Apple had hyped this development as the Second Coming of Christ, I’m a little disappointed. I had expected something really big — like, say, a miniature iPad with a built-in phone. [...]

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Still on the charts? That’s crazy.

September 22, 2010

Driving across this great country of ours over the summer, I was struck by something — about two million gut-filled insects on the windshield. But I was struck by something else: What the hell’s the deal with country music these days? I know: If I don’t like it, I shouldn’t listen to it, right? But [...]

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Music for a song? That’s theft

April 8, 2009

I’m not outraged that Apple has bumped the price of its music downloads a cool 30 percent, a move followed a day later by Amazon and then by Wal-Mart. I’m not sure why they don’t raise the price 50 percent, or 100 percent, or 1,000. The music industry is on the ropes, after all, and [...]

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