“KZLA’s sudden and unannounced demise leaves America’s two most populous cities, Los Angeles and New York, without country music stations. In Los Angeles, longtime country fans and station employees wondered at the logic of ending country radio in their city, which ranks in the top two for album sales and where concerts for big-name country artists repeatedly sell out.”
Tag: 08.20.06
In A New World Of Niches, Mass Culture Still Reigns
“True enough, the digital revolution has demonstrated the allure of thousands of tiny online affinity groups, many with real emotional meaning. In the music world, blogs and sharing sites are creating their own mini-communities of like-minded listeners. But that is happening underneath a continuing longing for a mass culture. The desire to listen to what the other kids are listening to, even when it’s lousy stuff, is as fundamental as speech and song themselves.”
Treating Movies Like Rock Music
“Future Cinema is about approaching film in a multi-faceted way, treating it like music, which has always been paired with performance art and live theatrics. Fabien Riggall’s view is that if bands get to take their gigs out of stadiums and into bars, clubs and galleries playing alongside other kinds of artists, why shouldn’t films?”
How Hip-Hop Caught On
“Hip-hop’s artistry – including martial arts-style acrobatics, furious legwork and body parts isolating in complex polyrhythms – is gradually being recognized by major presenters.”
Bill Rauch Tabbed To Run Oergon Shakespeare Festival
“Before launching a successful freelance career several years ago, Rauch spent two decades guiding the Cornerstone Theatre Company, a Los Angeles company he co-founded. Cornerstone collaborates with diverse communities to create shows rooted in timely concerns such as the plight of laid-off steelworkers and the role of religion in American life.”
A Computer That Can Replace The Human Orchestra?
“A program developed in Vienna mimics human musicians in the performance of greats such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart so convincingly that a casual listener to Classic FM would be unable to tell the difference. Perhaps more importantly, it allows notes – 1.5 million different sounds, to be precise – to be combined in new ways, so that composers can make new music on their laptop without needing to hire an orchestra.”
In the UK: Rethinking Basic Education
The British government has announced tough new reforms for English schools in a back-to-basics approach. “We are changing the way we measure performance and toughening up the English and maths GCSEs to ensure that young people master the three Rs. In addition, coursework, which counts towards GCSE grades, will be overhauled in a bid to eradicate pupils cheating by using the internet, helping each other or receiving parental help. More work will be done under exam conditions at school.”
Ex-Getty Chairman Returns Some Of Questionable Book Advance
“The Getty Trust, one of the world’s richest cultural and philanthropic organizations, said Friday that David P. Gardner, a former chairman, had agreed to repay approximately $99,000, or about half of the compensation he had received for work on an unfinished book commemorating the trust’s 25th anniversary. The book contract, which was canceled in March, is thought to be part of a continuing investigation by the California attorney general’s office into allegations of financial improprieties at the trust.”
Rethinking Art’s Creative Capitalization
“Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has delivered $5 million in shots of adrenaline to nearly 250 artists, and in the process is creating a new template for private arts funding, using a mix of old-style grant-making and post-dot-com venture capitalism to re-imagine the relationships among artists, funders and markets.”
Critical Choice (And That Is?)
There’s been a lot of chatter lately about whether movie critics still matter and whether they have any impact on movie box-office success. But “no critic in his/her right mind believes that a bad review will have any major impact on the box office performance of a motion picture whose introduction to thousands of theaters has been preceded by months of entertainment coverage and marketing promotions. We don’t assume that readers look to reviews for an absolute gladiatorial go-ahead, either. Most of us have heard of the Internet and are aware of the phenomenon of word-of-mouth.”