By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
Joshua Bell graces the DC Metro, and almost no one notices. This is an amazing read.
See the follow-up thread, as well, for a longer recording of Bell.
What does music look like? The Shape of Song is an attempt to answer this seemingly paradoxical question. The custom software in this work draws musical patterns in the form of translucent arches, allowing viewers to see--literally--the shape of any composition available on the Web. The resulting images reflect the full range of musical forms, from the deep structure of Bach to the crystalline beauty of Philip Glass.
Listening to Lang Lang, I think of the absurdist pundit Stephen Colbert, who promises not to read the news to his viewers but to feel the news at them. Lang Lang feels the music at you, in ways both good and bad. He advertises his love of performing simply by the way he charges onstage, and he creates a giddy atmosphere as he negotiates hairpin turns at high speed. Stereotypes to the contrary, you wish at times that he were a little more impersonal.
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There’s something almost surreal in the sight and sound of a twenty-six-year-old playing with such unerring sophistication. Listening blind, you might take Biss to be an elderly gentleman of Budapest or Prague, one who has a faint childhood memory of what life was like before Hitler and TV. Sometimes I found myself wishing, perversely, that he would do something peculiar or crude, just for the sake of variety. Lang Lang is the kind of performer you really want to hear when he has grown up a bit and settled down. Biss, on the other hand, may someday wish to take a few more risks, to push against the flow of the music that he understands so well. Then again, why would he want to play differently when he is so close to perfection?
Originally best-known as an Italian-born model who had affairs with Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, Bruni has matured into a remarkably talented and self-possessed singer-composer-guitarist. Her debut album, sung mostly in French, could best be described as neo-chanson. Bruni's whispery, wobbly, husky voice, wryly deadpan delivery and introspective lyrics recall Francoise Hardy, Barbara, Jane Birkin and Nico. But unlike her forebears, who so often posed as waif-like child-women and doormat-like victims of passion, Bruni remains firmly on top. Her lyrics can and do celebrate true love but she also praises the delights of female sexual empowerment in no uncertain terms, as on J'en Connais ("I've Known A Few"). Musically, the tunes range from folk Français to echoes of le jazz hot to bluesy torch numbers. The spare, mostly acoustic instrumentation is unfussy and atmospheric, while the I-couldn't-care-less ambience is occasionally punctuated by chimes, insouciant whistling or an impudent, sly giggle.
Carla Bruni is an Italian supermodel and this is her first album. Like Milla Jovovich's debut, this caught everyone by surprise. It's a very good effort, far beyond what one would have expected. It's an acoustic and intimate album, and the songs are from her own harvest. She also plays guitar. The talented French guitarist Louis Bertignac produced the album. Although she's Italian, most of the album is sung in French with some Italian touches, like in "Le Ciel Dans une Chambre." The result is a kind and smooth album that mixes folk and chanson Française in equal parts. Although she's not breaking any new ground, the result is compelling.
Linked here is a live version, with concert video. You can also listen to the album version, for which there is no video.
Her new album, No Promises, is out now (in the US, via import).
This is very direct and physical party music ... It's music that is conducive to dancing or doing other carefree things in the sunshine ... [but] below the surface is a lot more than anyone's basic idea of a good time. The blend of styles -- a dense, often chaotic collage of garage from the U.K., dancehall from Jamaica, crunk from the Dirty South, electro and hardcore rap from New York, and glints of a few others -- is unique enough to baffle anyone who dares categorize it.
It's the best kind of pop album imaginable. It can be enjoyed on a purely physical level, and it also carries the potential to adjust your world view.
... irresistible, yet mysterious ... a contagious vocal chant that sounded simultaneously jubilant and menacing ... fleeting glimpses of hip hop (especially crunk), ragga, bhangra, reggaeton, '80s electro, and even punk rock ... her own, highly unique, bastardized form of pop music is the extraordinary end result.
The lead single from Freeland's debut album is ... We Want Your Soul which has been getting massive plays in the clubs.
The most surprising remix out of the bunch, Ed Rush & Optical take the original and speed it up past the 160 bpm mark for a drum'n'bass remix. It sounds like a crossover between rock and drum'n'bass, something which I haven't heard since Roni Size/Reprazent's last album ...
You can hear and watch the original for comparison.
HIP-HOP: Beyond Beats and Rhymes | PBS Independent Lens
Topic: Music
2:15 pm EST, Feb 18, 2007
Filmmaker Byron Hurt, a life-long hip-hop fan, was watching rap music videos on BET when he realized that each video was nearly identical. Guys in fancy cars threw money at the camera while scantily clad women danced in the background. As he discovered how stereotypical rap videos had become, Hurt, a former college quarterback turned activist, decided to make a film about the gender politics of hip-hop, the music and the culture that he grew up with.
This program airs tonight on some PBS stations; its official premiere is on Tuesday.
Watching “Independent Lens” is like going into an independent bookstore —— you don’t always find what you were looking for but you often find something you didn’t even know you wanted.
That's how the New Yorker piece ends. I also like how it begins:
Cable news has a habit of treating viewers like children on a long car trip.
