作譜

I love this headline:

Jason Mraz Sifting Through Crap To Put Together New LP

If his first album is any indication, he’s going to be sifting for a long, damn time.

A score for one of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s string quartets was auctioned for $2 million. That’s chump change compared to Michael Jackson’s income from his stake in Sony publshing.

A piece composed by Claude Debussy in exchange for coal receives its US premiere.

Debussy wrote the piece, titled “Les Soirs Illimines Par L’ardeur Du Charbon” (“Evenings Lit By Glowing Coal”), as payment for a supply of coal to last during the winter of 1917, i.e. during World War I. The score remained at the bottom of a trunk owned by the coalman for whom the piece was written.

The work was auctioned shortly after its discovery in 2001 and has since been performed in Europe.

Here it is — the Favorite List 2003.

I don’t call it a Best of 2003 list because that superlative is always so dangerous.

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Rather than post individual entries from one news source, I figure put all three in one post.

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The Grammy nominations were announced today, and I was so ready to unleash the snark.

But as I scrolled through the bottom of the page, I made a startling discovery.

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Justin Guarini dropped from his label?

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The other side of the pop equation. As if anyone didn’t see it coming. For any of them. (Tamyra got dropped, and she didn’t even release anything.)

How frightening to know so much about a show that I don’t watch.

In other news, Clay Aiken has bad hair and big ears.

This search result won’t qualify as a Googlewhack, but when I did a quoted search on “black indie rock bands“, I got a single result to a Billboard magazine site, which requires registration.

I’m doing a Black History Month theme for February’s Musicwhore.org reviews, and I want to spend a week featuring black artists performing music not usually considered “black”. I’ve so far got Audra McDonald (a theater singer) and Living Colour (a metal band).

Why should I be shocked and surprised there are no (widely known) black contemporaries of, say, Death Cab for Cutie or Spoon? Of Caitlin Cary or Wilco?

Name me a black artist who doesn’t perform jazz or blues or hip-hop or urban pop. Name me a black artist who does perform indie rock, country, punk or metal.

(I already know about Charley Pride, Fishbone and Bad Brains, so they don’t count.)

Now there’s a twist.

EMI has decided not to pursue the purchase of Warner Music Group. Instead, the label is being bought by Edgar Bronfman, former chief of Universal. In essence, Warner is turning into an independent label.

On the surface, this news is strange — it bucks against consolidation. But given Bronfman’s former bosses, what’s to say Warner won’t get swallowed up by the largest label in the world somewhere down the line?

I guess this answers my previous question. Tack on a bunch of remixes of other people’s songs to the Queer Eye theme song, and you get an over-glorified CD maxi single.

Kind of like that Alanis Morrissette song, “Uninvited”, that was sold as a soundtrack to some Nicolas Cage move. (Sarcasm alert.)

Quote: “‘As we have been able to introduce better taste and sensibilities in living to prime time television, we will be able to introduce great music to a new audience,’ Scout executive director of creative services Rob Eric says in a statement.”

Note to self: Write about how you should not trust gay men¹ with your music collection.

¹Or straight men working on a gay-themed television show.