Category: music

“If they’re not canceling their tours, small acts are banding together, stuffing themselves into smaller vehicles or cutting short their tours. The tough choices being made at the bottom of the music industry food chain are just one more hit to the business already reeling from declining album sales because of digital music.”

The Millennium Dome was a huge bust for the purpose it was built. But “since then the former Millennium Dome has become the most popular music venue in the world, with the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Spice Girls selling out its 20,000-seat arena.”

San Francisco Opera’s free Friday night simulcast of Gaetano Donizetti’s tragic warhorse “Lucia di Lammermoor” drew about 23,000 people to AT&T Park, according to Opera estimates.

“The story of how the song first captured the public’s attention, later became a part of the game and then became an enduring hit, is as fascinating as a knuckleball is frustrating.”

CD sales are down 10 percent this year. But finally some (temporary) good news. In the past two weeks, it’s been like the old days, with a couple of mega-seller albums…

The Pearl River Piano Company last year made 100,000 pianos. It “says it’s now the world’s largest: 3000 staff work on eight production lines, and it feels more like a car factory than a place making things as delicate and tactile as pianos.”

“There, in a comfortable fold-down seat with a slight smell of popcorn in the air, I watched Anna Netrebko lie on her back, dangle her head down into the orchestra pit, and sing Bellini like her heart was on fire. Are there words for this?”

“Tactile memory is our window on the intimate sensual relationship that a musician has with his or her instrument. Because they’re made from wood and other climate-sensitive materials, most instruments end up with a unique touch, sound and personality. Like lonely singles, musicians dream of a perfect match by which the sum of man and music machine is greater than the parts.”

“Before file sharing tipped over the music business, bands used to tour in support of a record. Now they tour to get the dough to make a record. Cheap recording technology, along with all manner of electronic distribution, means that bands don’t need to sign with a giant recording label to get their music out there.”