Rap has clearly established itself as a major cultural force. “What’s less clear – but no less true – is that rap’s cultural ascendence happens to coincide with the music’s creative bankruptcy.”
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Baltic Sea – An Archaeological Paradise
Searchers are finding hundreds of beautifully preserved ships in the Baltic Sea, making it an “archeological paradise.” “Politics and nature have conspired to preserve the secrets of the Baltic. The Cold War seriously hindered exploration, and the low salt content of the Baltic waters kept away the shipworms that feast on wooden wrecks.”
Beyonce, Hiphop And Yo-Yo Ma At the Grammys…
Beyonce and Hiphop rule at the 47th Grammy Awards. “For best classical album, two recordings of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 were competing. The version conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas won over Mr. Boulez’s, though the Boulez album took the honor for best orchestral performance. Winning three awards was Yo-Yo Ma’s Obrigado Brazil.”
Classical Independents Day
It looks like classical recording has died – if you look at the gimmicky, anemic “big” labels. But the smaller independent labels are producing some good stuff. “It’s that emphasis on repertoire rather than cult celebrity that marks out the independents from the corporate big boys. And how they’ve grown.”
The End Of Grammys As We Know Them
Enjoy Sunday’s Grammys? Well, lock it away in memory, because “while it may look like any other recent Grammy telecast, this one will be historic. It will be the last to be driven by MTV music videos, compact-disc sales and broadcast radio. Technology is going to change the Grammys, just like it’s changing everything else about the recording industry. By this time next year, legal music downloading, music DVD sales and Internet and satellite radio stations will greatly influence the Grammys.”
If We Bribe You Will You Buy A Book?
Can Australian readers be bribed into buying books? “Books Alive began as the Government’s antidote to the GST’s bite into book industry revenues. From July 31 to August 15, backed by a $1.85 million advertising campaign, booksellers hope to tempt customers with $5 editions of six popular books, available with the purchase of another book.”
Those Slow-Moving Canadians
National Ballet of Canada director James Kudelka on the difference between Canadian and American dancers: It hardly needs mentioning that work like this is harder to do in a cold climate, and Kudelka believes that the weightier, slower look of Canadian dancers may actually have something to do with things like thicker blood and winter lethargy. ‘We’re less energetic than American dancers. Balanchine got dancers from Texas and Florida and California, where it was always summer. The bodies from the Midwest got left on the tarmac’.”
BBC To Invest Heavily In New Arts Ventures
The BBC says it will spend £8 million on new arts programming in the next year and a half, representing “the biggest single new commitment to the arts on British TV. The BBC currently spends £50m on arts coverage.”
That’s Great (Isn’t It?)
Charles Murray attempts to quantify greatness. Is such a thing a good idea? Is it even possible? Denis Dutton believes so: “We take pleasure in watching an athlete break a record, hearing a soprano in full flight, or reading a philosopher of depth and insight. Human accomplishment is the ultimate spectator sport. Apply as much historical analysis to it as we wish, and we’ll not unlock all its mysteries. The continuous capacity of genius to surpass understanding remains a human constant.”
TV Networks Flop Around Trying To Reinvent
You can smell the desperation in the air. “Network television — battered by years of audience defections to cable channels and fearing the devastation that personal video recording machines like TiVo could wreak on advertising, its only revenue source — is beginning to embrace tactics considered heretical just a few years ago as it struggles to keep viewers tuned in and attentive.”