music

Detroit — a city that used to speak of polished metal, futuristic gleam, and positivity, a veritable wonder of modernity. Detroit — one of the driving forces behind the rise of the…

“It’s like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules.” – Steven Wright A few days ago, a quite welcome email from Amazon.com appeared in my inbox. Yet I felt outraged.…

As artists gain fame and notoriety, stories start to swirl about them, creating myths, dramas, and legends. But let’s dial it back to July 5th, 1954 for just a few…

The first Sony Walkman was released 35 years ago next week, on July 1st, 1979 in Japan. The cassette tape portable music player was a revolution at the time. Sure,…

Here’s a quick cultural pop quiz. 1.) Do you know who Vladimir Horowitz was? 2.) When was the last time you listened to Brahms’s 5th Symphony? 3.) How do you…

A group of six Iranians, arrested on Tuesday for filming a video tribute to Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy,” has been released on bail, reports from Tehran suggest. Police chief Hossein Sajedinia…

Almost 50 years ago, a media thinker and professor named Marshall McLuhan coined the catchphrase “global village.” Today that phrase remains an apt way to characterize not only the Internet, but the…

You might think that a career comeback for British R&B singer Amy Winehouse is a bit unlikely, since she died from alcohol poisoning in 2011. But billionaire Alki David plans to…

We live in an age where it’s very easy to blurt out whatever comes to mind and reach a worldwide audience. But as Voltaire — and Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben —…

“As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working…