Music

  • The Perfect Eerie Piano Scale

    In honor of Halloween, Consequence of Sound has collected what they deem the “10 Essential Horror Movie Scores.” Following Scorsese’s argument that music and film are intrinsically tied, “[b]ecause there’s a kind of intrinsic musicality to the way moving images…

  • Song of the Day: “8 (circle)”

    It takes courage and artistic vision to take risks with music that has already won you commercial success, but lasting artists persist in doing just that. Bon Iver’s third album, 22, A Million, supports this view. The familiarly warm and affecting…

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    Mood Music

    At Largehearted Boy, essayist, literary experimentalist, and scholar Mary Capello shares an annotated playlist for her new essay collection, Life Breaks In (University of Chicago Press). She describes mood as the “companion and muse” for her writing: If there is…

  • Swinging Modern Sounds #76: American Songbag
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    Swinging Modern Sounds #76: American Songbag

    In the broadest sense, I think of this work as being about the stuff of life: excitement, love, disappointment, pride, nature, cities, war, loneliness, work, class distinction, communication.

  • These Small Little Containers

    I think that poets and songwriters have a lot in common because a songwriter really has to be a poet first. That’s how we live our lives. It’s the same kind of thinking. … [W]e put our stories into these…

  • This Week in Posivibes: Jerry Goldsmith’s Chinatown

    Light in the Attic Records is reissuing Jerry Goldsmith’s 1974 soundtrack to the movie Chinatown in a limited release of 2500 copies. The reissue comes on gold vinyl, with album art by Sterling Hundley and layout by Jay Shaw. The soundtrack was…

  • The Rumpus Interview with Lee Clay Johnson

    Lee Clay Johnson discusses his novel Nitro Mountain, growing up with bluegrass musician parents, and what people are capable of under the right set of circumstances.

  • Jay Z Nominated for Hall of Fame

    Jay Z became the first rapper to be nominated to the Songwriters Hall of Fame this weekend, when he was named as a potential 2017 candidate alongside Madonna, Bryan Adams, George Michael, Gloria Estefan, Cat Stevens, Sylvester “Sly Stone” Stewart, Kenneth “Babyface”…

  • President Obama’s Block Party

    The President and First Lady hosted BET’s Love And Happiness: A Musical Experience on the White House’s South Lawn this weekend, adding to the long list of musical moments rounding out Obama’s final term. At one point the President spotted in the audience and…

  • Oasis Hijinks

    The latest news in Oasis ridiculousness is a throwback: apparently, according to Danny Boyle, Noel Gallagher confessed he turned down the opportunity to get on the Trainspotting soundtrack because he mistakenly assumed the movie was about “train spotters.” Bummer to miss out on being a part…

  • Le Tigre Reunites to Say “I’m With Her”

    Le Tigre released what they announced would be a one-song reunion: a pro-Hillary track aptly titled “I’m With Her.” Although there is some mentioning of the need to get Trump out of our political reality stat, Kathleen Hanna’s lyrics focus on Clinton’s qualifications…

  • Song of the Day: “I Want You”

    Allegedly covered and sampled by musicians as diverse as Madonna and Diana Ross to Mary J. Blige and Robert Palmer, the innovative single “I Want You,” off Marvin Gaye’s 1976 album of the same name, branches out from the Motown sound that typified…