Category: music

“It’s official: Nobody, from the mighty executive to the humble songwriter to the savviest analyst, has a clue what’s going on in the music industry.Chaos continues to be the guiding principle in every facet of the pop landscape, as veterans and upstarts alike grapple with the unraveling of old business models and a deeply uncertain future.”

When a composer dies young, what is lost? Had Schubert reached the age of 50 rather than dying at 31, would we now have a much-expanded trove of his greatness? Bernard Holland isn’t so sure: “Life spans measured in years don’t take into account how fast we live them. Composing at the speed of life (forgive me), Schubert at 31 was like any normal musical genius at 65.”

Beijing constructed its new $40m egg-shaped performing arts center as part of a larger plan to turn itself into a true 21st-century city. But while the venue itself may be a smashing success, local critics say that Beijing audiences have a long way to go…

“Bluntly, Naxos will go where others fear to tread. The practical philosophy of making and selling records of classical music is this: if it’s obscure, nobody plays it. If nobody plays it, nobody gets to know it. If nobody knows it, do not record it because it’s uneconomical and you won’t be able to sell it. Unless your name happens to be Klaus Heymann and your company is Naxos.”

His holiday album “Noel” was the top-selling album of the year…

NBC’s choir competition was a ratings winner last week. “Each of the four episodes of NBC’s “Clash of the Choirs” did better. The best night of the series that featured celebrities cobbling together singing groups had 8.3 million viewers, Nielsen said.”

“Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered — almost always for the worse. Engineers do that by applying dynamic range compression, which reduces the difference between the loudest and softest sounds in a song.”

“The protest song has arrived at an odd place: more necessary than ever, and more marginal, too. The under-the-radar quality of modern tunes of dissent points to an artistic problem. Compared with so many topical diatribes that came before, too many rely more on bile than beat.”

There’s just too much evidence to the contrary, writes John Terauds. In Toronto, concerts sell out routinely, and there’s excitement abou what comes next. “Look at the brisk classical music and opera ticket sales in Toronto, and you can only conclude that it’s because the quality must be good.”

“Included in the collection are about 50 of Feather’s ‘Blindfold Tests,’ where he interviewed greats like Benny Goodman with their eyes covered, an effort to promote fair critiques of new strains of jazz based on how they sounded, not who was playing them.”