MTV used the relatively new technology of Snapchat to announce the nominees for this year’s Video Music Awards. It’s good to see MTV embrace the new, especially since the acts it has nominated for Best New Artist at the VMAs frequently don’t have very lengthy careers.
What do you do when your career as a rock star is fading? You start making music for kids. Here are a few bands that now produce kiddie rock.
While CD sales continue to plunge, the sales of old-fashioned vinyl records have actually risen in the past few years. Why? Records offer a certain warmth, magic…and weirdness. Here’s a look at some of the kookiest wax in Uncle John’s collection.
The Bee Gees continued to rack up hits until disco waned in popularity in 1980 and took them with it. The trio moved into songwriting (notable hit: the 1984 #1 hit “Islands in the Stream” by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers), but in the mid-‘80s wanted to make a performing comeback. Solution: form a supergroup by adding a fourth member.
Think you’ve got the answer? Keep reading to see if you nailed it.
Some Broadway shows are getting a lucrative post-Tony “bounce” as summer tourists flock to New York City. Almost nobody flocked to these misbegotten musicals.
English is a constantly changing language, with new words entering the lexicon from other cultures, the news, science…and even music.
At the recent 68th Annual Tony Awards, one of the recipients set a new Tonys Record. Here’s what Audra McDonald did, along with some other award-show record holders.
Wham! was one of the most successful groups of the 1980s. While George Michael went on to lasting solo success with more serious music (and some tabloid scandals), his former bandmate just couldn’t catch a break.
What do the words “summer bomb” make you think of? Fireworks? Big-budget movies that flop at the box office? Here’s a look at what might be the biggest summer bomb of all—the 1990 attempt to tour across the U.S. a gigantic, multimillion dollar production of …an opera.
If you’re not familiar, Eurovision it’s kind of like American Idol, if it were judged by the songs as much as the performers and comprised entries from dozens of nations.
How some social crusaders used Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” to satirize life in the South American country. In order to draw attention to the urban decay and not-quite-lackluster living conditions in Brazil, host of this summer’s World Cup, activists Leticia Bastos and Amanda Abreu recruited students from Pontifica Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul for a pitch-perfect parody of “Happy” called “Porto (Unhappy).”
It was 20 years ago this week that frontman Kurt Cobain took his own life. Here are some Nirvana facts you might not have known about the one of the most influential bands of their generation.
Some of the most beloved and popular songs were written for and first appeared in movies, even if the movie itself has been completely forgotten (e.g. you probably know “Lullaby of Broadway,” but probably don’t remember Gold Diggers of 1935). The Academy Awards recognizes movie music with the Best Song prize. In retrospect, sometimes the right song wasn’t always given the Oscar. Here are some songs that should have won Oscars.
Trivia about the hall of fame of pop and rock, ahead of the induction ceremony in a few weeks.
Fifty years ago, The Beatles landed in the United States and their fame has never left. The Beatles were the first, the best, or the most at a lot of things, but even within the band, there were singular achievements.
On February 9, 1964, Beatlemania took the U.S. by storm—that’s the night the Beatles played for the first time on the top-rated The Ed Sullivan Show. Here’s a look at that iconic episode, which aired 50 years ago this week.
The Ed Sullivan Show was a variety show, and the Beatles were one of the first times the show had booked a rock n’ roll act. The rest of the show’s running time was filled with the usual array of Sullivan performers: comedians, performances from a Broadway musical, and even a magician.
Musicians often write songs about other musicians—the Commodores’ “Night Shift” is about Jackie Wilson, for example. And sometimes, the musicians who had songs written about them cover those very songs.
• The Barenaked Ladies’ hit “Brian Wilson” isn’t the most respectful song about the songwriter and major creative force behind the Beach Boys. The song references Wilson’s period in the ‘70s when agoraphobia, drug addiction, and obesity kept him housebound. The chorus of “Brian Wilson” is: “lying in bed / just like Brian Wilson did.” Still, Wilson thought “Brian Wilson” was a pretty good song. When he began recording music and touring again in the 1990s, he made the song part of his set list. A version appears on his 2000 live album Live at the Roxy Theatre.
