Tag: 09.05.03

The Censorship Of Space

Kyle Gann writes that music criticism has been reduced to shorthand that renders it toothless. “We critics are told that it’s up to us to defend classical music in the public marketplace – but the newspapers have taken away our tanks, bazookas, and machine guns and left us armed with garbage can lids and pea shooters. The space crunch is everywhere, in every publication. It used to be, when I’d write for the New York Times, they’d ask me one of the sweetest questions a writer can hear: ‘How many words do you need?’ No longer. Articles that would have once garnered 2000 or 2500 words now get half that. And according to what editors tell me, this is true across the board.”

911 – Same Old Hollywood

Who said pop culture was forever changed after 911? “If you see a movie now, there’s no longer any question that it originated after the Twin Towers came down. And this past summer, it seemed like there were whole movies that stood as direct arguments against all those things we believed back in the fall of 2001. Movies will become less frivolous? ‘Charlie’s Angels 2: Full Throttle.’ Movies will become less violent? ‘Bad Boys 2.’ It’s not important that those movies weren’t smash hits. They did well enough, and what’s more important is that Hollywood believed, post-9/11, that such movies were what American audiences wanted.”

Dance In The Face Of Tragedy

On September 11, 2001 the dancers of American Ballet Theatre were in Kansas City. They decided to perform anyway. “They begin to move. Each step they take is a step that dancers have taken for 300 years. Every step binds them to centuries of tradition and, by extension, to all the women and all the men who struggled to create what is lovely. At the close of the nation’s most dreadful day, they give us a stay against reality; in the wake of devastation they give us Order. In the wake of brutality they give us Grace. In the wake of horror they give us Beauty. In the face of senselessness they give us meaning. These wraithlike creatures are spiritual warriors. What the terrorists sought to take from our world is precisely what they return to it.”

The RIAA’s New Man

Mitch Bainwol is the new head of the Recording Industry Association of America. “One Democratic operative describes him – apart from his ever-present Blackberry – as ‘the world’s least hip-seeming guy.’ Hipness is not part of the RIAA job requirement, even if he’s the new Washington voice of the music world’s hottest acts. Representing the interests of the nation’s largest recording companies – and to a certain extent their stable of artists – with unparalleled zeal is the primary mission. collective picture emerges of Bainwol as someone who has the rare combination of steely-eyed resolve, uncanny intelligence, a friendly attitude, the ability to tell it like it is and the tact required to achieve compromise when necessary.”

Universal Strings For CD Price-Cuts

Universal’s plan to cut the suggested retail price of its CD’s comes with some strings that won’t endear it to retailers. “Universal’s cut turns out to be a complex proposal that comes with many conditions for retailers. In order to get a wholesale price cut, retailers would have to make concessions to Universal. Those concessions include such items as guaranteed shelf space and special promotions for the company’s releases.”

Discount Pressure Influenced Universal?

Universal’s price cuts sound good, but the company was likely influenced in its decision by discount chain stores. “Universal executives downplay the notion that giant discounters directly forced the world’s largest record label to lower the wholesale price of most CDs by 25% and the suggested retail price by as much as 32%. But it was certainly more than coincidence that the amount Universal suggests consumers will now pay for its CDs — around $10 — is the same one that has become common in the weekly circulars distributed by big chains such as Best Buy.”

Susan Chilcott, 40

Soprano Susan Chilcott, considered one of Britain’s brightest young opera stars, has died of breat cancer at age 40. “Among the first to pay tribute to the singer, who died at her home in Timsbury, near Bath, was the Royal Opera House’s music director, Antonio Pappano. ‘We are all devastated… She was surely one of the shining stars on the international opera scene’.”