What accounts for the phenomenal success of an artist like Norah Jones? “There are sociological explanations. Critics point out, accurately, that young artists like Jones, who is twenty-five, and Josh Groban and Michael Bublé are selling soothing songs by the seashore to a much older audience. These artists’ faith in melody and acoustic instruments ostensibly provides evidence that not all musicians below the age of thirty are getting tattooed with runic symbols and sending viruses to each other on tiny, inscrutable batphones. Record companies have agreed to think that the older audience is their pot of gold. This is half science—the percentage of records being bought by listeners above the age of thirty is growing—and half hearsay.”
Blog
Why The Whitney Gets A Pass?
“This year’s Whitney Biennial may have escaped serious censure in part because there’s no one at the Whitney to kick around anymore. In keeping with its sorry tradition of revolving-door directors, the museum lost its former head, Maxwell Anderson, last September and its affable new one, Adam Weinberg, bears no responsibility for this survey’s selections. No one has yet been churlish enough to pummel the triumvirate of earnest, low-profile young female curators who made this year’s picks.”
A Grey Response To Black And White Laws
The public is getting increasingly irritated with Big Music’s attempts to tighten copyright. EMI’s recent move against Danger Mouse and the Grey Album “was a spectacular backfire in the war over what’s fair when the muse runs afoul of copyright law in the Digital Age. Technology is making it easier than ever to sample and rework recordings, and to the chagrin of entertainment companies and some artists who hold copyrights, the public is showing little sympathy for their efforts to control original works.”
Sony And McDonald’s Team Up On Music Deal
Sony and McDonald’s are discussing a music deal. “The two companies have been hammering out the details of a pact in which McDonald’s would provide fast-food diners with free songs from Sony’s online music store, Sony Connect.”
Indie Times At SXSW
This year’s SXSW fest in Austin Texas was a raucously independent event. “While few of the 1,261 acts booked to perform during the conference’s four nights of showcases would object to selling a million albums, the festival’s tone was one of modesty and realism as participants shared advice on how to sustain a career with CD sales in the thousands, not the millions, and with a full calendar of performances rather then video shoots. Most bands were more concerned with having gas money to get to the next show than they were with the major labels’ bugaboo, Internet downloading.”
MTT: Brilliant And Brash
Michael Tilson Thomas has made a career of doing the music he believes in. “I very much like the idea of the past, present and future being connected. Because I knew so many composers, hearing them sing their own music in their own voices had a huge influence on me. You learn so much about a person from hearing them sing. So I had to work backward with composers I never met, ones who died 200 years before I was born, to create a voice, a clear expressive point of view.”
Dark Times For Animators
“For decades, Southern California was the ultimate destination for self-described ‘animation geeks’ — kids who worked from homemade flip books and cel collecting to get there. But shifts in the industry — a growing appetite for computer-generated graphics and the chronic issue of outsourcing — have eliminated 1,000 jobs in the last three years. It’s a frustrating time for animators.
Hytner’s Reinvented National Theatre
Nicholas Hytner has become a star leading London’s National Theatre. “From the start his regime has been charged with a dynamism of purpose, a desire to redefine the National and its role, not just in theatre but the country as a whole. ‘A national theatre has never been more necessary because the very word national is up for grabs and the concept is fraught with possibilities’.”
Our Culture Through A Wagner Filter
The English like their mythologies to work out, to resolve themselves. But Wagner doesn’t let you do that. “Bluntly, he’s a critical component of our culture. We are compelled to make sense of why Wagner deploys myth to prove our own moral uncertainties.”
Wanted – A Dead Body (Must Be Able To Act)
A London theatre is conducting an unusual casting call – for a dead body. “The consent of the donor of the body is being sought beforehand and the production team aim to treat the subject of death with absolute seriousness, challenging modern taboos about a condition that comes to everybody at some point. Called Dead: You Will Be, the play requires a dead body to ‘lie in state’ throughout the proceedings.”