Do The Beatles Still Rate?

It’s been 36 years since the Beatles made their last album. Terry Teachout wonders: “What was it that made these four musically untutored pop stars stand out in such high relief from their contemporaries? And has their music proved to be of lasting interest, as their admirers of four decades ago predicted it would?”

A Grand Unifying Theory Of Music History

Historian Richard Taruskin has grand ambitions for his 4000+ page history of music. “He maintains that this is the first history of music which not only relates what was done but how and why. He aims, he writes, to present a social history of music; that is, he attempts to place the development of music in the general culture of the place and time it was created, to describe it in its social setting, to explain its genesis and its significance for the composers’ contemporaries and at times for their posterity.”

The New Art History

“College art-history textbooks are undergoing an extreme makeover. Publishers and editors, stung by criticism that they have lost touch with their young readership and driven by market forces that may have little to do with fresh artistic scholarship, are literally rewriting art history—more often and more aggressively than ever before.”

Success Is Nice, But It’s Not Really The Point

Former eBay president Jeff Skoll has crafted a niche for himself as a different kind of Hollywood mogul. “After cashing out of eBay with $2 billion in his pocket, he started Participant Productions, a movie company that had a remarkable burst of critically acclaimed films last year… If you notice a lack of boneheaded action, smarmy romance, and brain-dead comedy, it’s because Participant’s mission was to make not blockbusters but messages – movies that promote social and economic justice.”

US Congress Considers Full Assault On Free Use

A reform of the Trademark Act would prohibit artists from using company marks in any way. “The Act would give companies considerable leverage in preventing artists and photographers from employing their marks in images by claiming the mark is being ‘diluted’. The bigger the company, the more famous the trademark, the easier it will be to prevent you guys from using it. National companies with highly recognizable marks would have more leverage than any single creator or small business and would easily outspend any of you to prevent your using their mark.”