Music

There are plenty of reasons to prejudicially favor the “original” recording of a song, even when it may not be the “best” version. American pop music has a long and ugly history of artistic appropriation and theft, after all. Sometimes the original version of a song captures a historical moment or the spirit of a…

There’s a lot of music to love, and just as much to hate, from the 80’s.  I love most of the 80’s top-40 pop, but I hate the synthesizer sound. I love most of the glam-rock power ballads, but never really got into the quirky, moody “alternative” stuff. I love 80’s R&B and hip-hop, but…

Nina Simone, perhaps one of the most unique female voices of all time, famously refused the label of “jazz,” once commenting that it was “a white term to define black people.” Instead, she called her sound “black classical music,” emphasizing her virtuosity as a pianist over her stellar talent as a singer, the latter of…

“Karaoke” is a portmanteau of two Japanese words, kara (“empty”) and oke (“orchestra”). The first karaoke machine was invented by Daisuko Inoue in 1971, and it has since become a staple of nightlife across the globe. The idea of providing music lovers an instrumental version (an “empty orchestra”) of their favorite songs is genius, really, and I…

The transition from the late-60’s to the early-70’s was a tumultuous time in this country. We were quagmired in a directionless and immoral war. The economy was stagnant, on the precipice of a major recession. At home, domestic society was fraying at the seams. Women, Blacks, and the LGBT community were fighting for progress against…

I’m not sure if this counts as cheating in the unwritten #30DaySongChallenge Rule Book, but I’m picking one of my own songs for today. Like a lot of amateur songwriters, my songs have always tended toward the autobiographical, though I’d like to think that the stories and sentiments are universalizable. But even the songs that…

Here’s the thing about anger: it’s complicated. If expended in the wrong direction, or if indulged for too long, it can be futile, all-consuming, and self-defeating. You can’t concentrate. You lose sleep. You eat crappy food. You’re truculent and prickly. You bite when you should only bark. On the other hand, if well-managed and judiciously…

Today’s pick was a hard one for some reason. At dinner last night with my girlfriend and her step-mom, I told them what today’s prompt would be and asked for suggestions. They were much quicker on the draw than I was, thankfully, because I had pretty much stalled at “Billie Jean.”  (We’re exactly one week…

I’m not a big fan of the category “guilty pleasure” when it comes to music. Unlike other pleasures, which can lead to illegal, immoral, or unhealthy actions, there isn’t anything about taking pleasure in music that ought to make one feel “guilty” as far as I can tell. You like what you like. Taste is…