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Let The Computer Find Music You’ll Like

Most indie artists don’t have budgets to market their music. But new software is helping to connect musicians with potential audiences. “Software pushes independent artists’ songs through the Internet to the people with matching tastes, exposing their music to the people most likely to become fans. Each time the programs run, they download more songs for users to play and rate on a scale from one to five stars. The ratings help the software match each user to others who have parallel likes and dislikes. Once a match has been made, the software sends people songs that others with similar tastes have rated highly.”

CPB Expands Its Look At Tomlinson

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s inspector general is expanding his investigation of corporation Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson to include a look at how former Republican National Committee co-chair Patricia Harrison was installed as the new CPB president.” The investigation is part of the continuing public and political backlash against Tomlinson, who has made a crusade out of his belief that PBS is biased toward left-wing interests.

ABT’s Leading Lady To Retire

Amanda MacKerrow is retiring from American Ballet Theatre this week. “McKerrow’s performance of the title role in Giselle tomorrow will cap a career of uncommon distinction. She has interpreted just about every leading role in ABT’s repertoire of story ballets… She rocketed to worldwide renown in 1981 when, at 17, she became the first American ever to win a gold medal at the famed Moscow International Ballet Competition.” She danced with ABT for 23 years.

Quit Trying To Explain The Slump

What’s behind the Hollywood box office slump? No one knows, and don’t let anyone tell you they do, says Mick LaSalle. Yeah, the movies stink, but they always have, haven’t they? And yes, the ads and trailers are annoying, and the tickets cost too much, and c’mon, $8 for popcorn?!, but still… the fact remains, no one really knows what’s causing the slump, and it’s possible that, when the dust clears, it’ll just turn out to have been one of those unexplainable things that happens in the world sometimes. Or maybe not.

But… But… But We Hate The French, Don’t We?

“The tyranny of name brands. The cult of celebrity. A consumer culture inflamed by advertisers who rely on sex to seduce.” It’s all just so terribly American, circa 21st century, isn’t it? Well, no, it’s all so 18th century French, actually, and a new book points out that, despite the current unpopularity of all things French among a certain sector of the American population, much of our current popular culture and its materialist trappings can be traced back to the influence of Louis XIV.

Mpls Music School Getting A New Home

Two things have been as sure as death and taxes in the city of Minneapolis recently: riverfront development, and massive new buildings for local arts groups. Now, the city’s largest community music school is leaping into the fray, announcing plans for a gleaming new headquarters in the heart of the developing river district on the northern edge of downtown. MacPhail School of Music would add 10,000 square feet of usable space under the plan, which will cost $12.5 million, and would, for the first time, have a modern building with air conditioning and a proper performance space.

C’mon, There’s Enough For Everyo… Oh. I Guess There Isn’t.

A California legislator recently introduced a bill which would have allowed all the money collected by special license plates touting the state’s rich arts community to go to the arts. But under California law, state environmental agencies get a cut of all vanity plate revenue, and proponents of that system saw the arts plate, which would have been an exception to the rule, as a threat. The bill was killed off last week in committee, leaving California’s state arts board last in the nation in per capita arts spending.

Well, As Long As Everyone’s Making Plenty of Money…

The recording industry may still be vehemently opposed to any music distribution technology that doesn’t generate loads of cash for the industry, but even as CD producers continue to rail against file swapping and piracy, they’ve been making nice with a new generation of online distributors known as “audio bloggers.” Why the discrepancy? You’ve probably already guessed. The industry views audio blogging as a potentially lucrative tool which has the power to galvanize record sales.

When The Music In Your Head Won’t Shut Off

There’s a brain disorder that results in a patient having musical hallucinations – one “hears” music clearly inside the head when nothing is playing outside it.There is “recent work by neuroscientists indicating that our brains use special networks of neurons to perceive music. When sounds first enter the brain, they activate a region near the ears called the primary auditory cortex that starts processing sounds at their most basic level. The auditory cortex then passes on signals of its own to other regions, which can recognize more complex features of music, like rhythm, key changes and melody. Neuroscientists have been able to identify some of these regions with brain scans, and to compare the way people respond to musical and nonmusical sounds.”