My first musical memory is watching Arthur Fiedler’s Evening at Pops with my dad when I was 2 or 3 years old. I don’t remember anything other than the closing credits, where sad music played over images of the theater emptying. Somewhere, there is a recording of me crying hysterically because that closing sequence devastated me. Yet I was hooked…. Read more »
If you drive around Baltimore, you might see a homemade sign advertising Tuff Tony’s new single on YouTube. I saw one on Sinclair Lane the other day and from comments on the video, they are all over. The song isn’t great, but as it sinks in, there is a catchiness that is harder to resist (and forget) as it goes…. Read more »
“More Love,” vocalist/violinist Lili Haydn’s new single from her forthcoming album of the same name name, reminds me of the Scorpions’ ode to the fall of communism, “Winds of Change.” No, I don’t think the CIA wrote Haydn’s latest single. It does however have a very similar hook despite a very different arrangement. It is also a song that comes… Read more »
Released: February 6, 2012 In 1902, French film pioneer Georges Méliès released the groundbreaking science fiction short Le Voyage dans la Lune, known in English as A Trip to the Moon. This is the source of the famous clip where the man in the moon is hit in the eye by a rocket. Taken in its time, it is a… Read more »
Released: February 26, 2021 Years ago, my friend Kelly and I would listen to music and dance for hours on the roof of his Greenwich Village apartment building. It was a celebration of music and movement and friendship on starry Saturdays when we had no money or cloudy Mondays when the city that never sleeps was sleeping. Looking back, dancing… Read more »
Released: February 26, 2021 One thing that is exciting about good dance music is its ability to manage energy, whether it is a DJ set or an individual artist’s record. “Don’t Leave Me This Way” is a great example. Whether you’re listening to Harold Melvin, Thelma Houston or the Communards, the song kind of simmers and then just soars at… Read more »
Released: 1985 The Paul Stolper Gallery is showing the video for Thursday Afternoon in their front window and on their website (with a helpful write-up) from February 24 through March 15, 2021. Reverb Machine has an interesting analysis of the music. Thursday Afternoon is a single piece of music (60 minutes on album or 82 minutes in the video) that… Read more »
Released: February 8, 2021 Akira Ifukube is best known for composing the scores for Godzilla movies. Of course, I only know this, because I googled him, being unfamiliar with his work prior to Reilo Yamada’s recent recording of his Ritmica Ostinata. It’s interesting, because nothing about this composition made me think of old Japanese horror films known more for bad… Read more »
Released: November 22, 2019 Amelie Lens’ first mix for Fabric opens with the kind of ebb and flow that makes me love electronic dance music. The ambient soundscape in “Theory of Relativity” drops into a beat that makes your heart rush a little faster, and the retro techno melody of “Limits of Real” builds and evolves and builds and evolves… Read more »
Released: December 1978 When I think of Kenny Rogers, I think of a storyteller. He wasn’t known for being a songwriter, and a 2020 Billboard article quotes him as saying, “Most (of the story songs that writers sent me) were stupid and not well-written, but boy, when you found a good one, it made it all worthwhile.” There are some… Read more »