Reposting in loving memory of FOW’s late great Adam Schlesinger, a casualty of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic: If you know or remember alternative rockers Fountains of Wayne at all, it’s most likely for their massive[…]
Category: Music
“We All Try”: Philosophical Music
Repost from 2015 Hip-hop singer Frank Ocean is well-known to march to the beat of a different drummer, and nowhere is that more apparent than in We All Try, a lovely and plaintive existential humanist[…]
The Dangerously Talented Miriam Makeba
Repost: Parisian audiences famously rioted at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Although often cited as evidence that the audience simply didn’t understand what they were hearing, the opposite is arguably true –they recognized[…]
We Invented the Remix, Part II
Last time, we looked at hip-hop sampling as a outgrowth of African polyphony, a way of creating something new by placing a different and contrasting line over the original. But there is more to it[…]
Black Music As Philosophy: We Invented the Remix, Part I
Hip-hop music is unique. It has been multiracial from the start, and it has been embraced and naturalized all over the globe, and yet it still retains a basic, unbreakable connection with its natal black[…]
Not Playing the Background
Out of all the great black American talents, the ones who have arguably fared the best are the singers and musicians. While it may only be a fraction of what they deserve, they have at[…]
Columbus Invitational All Stars
This year Invitational Arts is proud to present the Columbus Invitational All Stars Competition at Downtown High School, September 20th, 2018. Come cheer for your favorite local artists as they compete head to head! 6pm[…]
In Memory of the Queen of Soul
The late, great Aretha Franklin, who, until her death on Thursday was perhaps the world’s greatest living singer, was the undisputed Queen of Soul, but she was a master of many genres. She grew up[…]
Alt Classical: The Innovators
Reposted from 2015 This week brings a new installment of my series on alt-classical music –music that combines the instrumentation, elegance and sophistication of classical music with the vitality of newer and more modern approaches[…]
WC Handy: That Random Minor Note Part II
Last time, we looked at Janelle Monae’s self description as “the random minor note you hear in major songs” and hinted that was somehow related to the artificiality of the even-tempered Western European scale. But[…]