|
|
|
AP / Pat Wellenbach
|
By Larry Gross — We live in two simultaneous but radically incongruous realities, where undemocratic arrangements negotiated in the 18th century contend with commercial media industries that covet the enlightened youth.
|
|
Developing an appreciation for jazz is partly a matter of understanding how it is influenced by other forces of life, as this review of a new book by Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux notes, and how the music plays—and breaks—with form.
|
|
By Aram Sinnreich — From that moment during the Renaissance when someone first decided that a painter was more than just a craftsman with an easel, the whole idea of the Artist-with-a-capital-A has required an entire mythology just to make it seem plausible.
|
|
Today on the list: Pop as porn redux, what college freshmen don’t know, a CNN anchor argues on behalf of “Ground Zero mosque” bigots, and why President Obama’s speech on the matter was actually quite shrewd.
|
Flickr / notsogoodphotography (CC-BY)
|
Twenty-eight-year-old German singer Nadja Benaissa faces prison time for allegedly having unprotected sex with multiple partners without informing them that she has the virus that causes AIDS.
|
|
Today on the list: What Robert Reich wants to do about jobs, why liberals don’t win and how Oxytocin increases trust (guess that explains modern politics, Whole Foods and Rush Limbaugh).
|
|
A new collection of writings by one of America’s greatest self-described Jewish atheists distills the essence of his half-century defense of civil liberties and jazz—the nation’s most original and influential art.
|
Flickr / shaho (CC-BY-ND)
|
Iran’s Islamic government has long had a fairly dodgy relationship with music, but just in case the crackdowns and dearth of public performances weren’t making things clear enough, the country’s supreme leader announced that teaching and promoting music is “not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic.”
|
AP / Frank Augstein
|
Nineteen people were killed in a crowd panic at a free German dance music festival. Officials have launched an investigation into the deaths, which reportedly occurred after authorities repeatedly were warned about dangerous conditions. About 1.4 million people attended the event in Duisburg.
|
|
The YouTubes are filling up with videos of teenagers engaging in the disturbing use of recreational drugs—in the form of digital music files. Buzzkill. We’re not sure which is more embarrassing—getting “high” from an audio recording or worrying about it.
|
Photo illustration based on a photo from kremlin.ru
|
Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber invited fans to pick the destination of his next tour. Some clever hooligans over at 4chan decided to hijack the vote and send the teen heartthrob to—where else?—North Korea. With a day and change left to vote, the Hermit Kingdom was beating out second-place Israel and third-place Poland by a few thousand votes.
|
AP / Alex Brandon
|
By Larry Blumenfeld — David Simon’s HBO series “Treme” picks up on a theme that courses through the show: the longstanding tension between the city’s culture bearers and its powers that be. That tension has ratcheted up, or at least has grown more pointed, since 2005.
|
|
Today on the list: Teens report Facebook fatigue, Israel’s crackdown on boycotts, and where have all the protest songs gone?
Posted on Jul 1, 2010
READ MORE 
|
|
Today on the list: The Supreme Court-bound argument for gay marriage aims to win over every justice, why one author says monogamy is unnatural (just in case), the sound of sadness as identified by scientists, and more.
|
|
Secret FCC meetings, what it’s like to be a Canadian doctor, why modern art is in your head, and what science has to say about the best vacation ever—all after the jump.
|
AP / Island Records
|
Bob Marley built his legendary legacy on messages of unity and social justice, but, although some more ardent devotees might disagree, a new biography argues that he had his flaws and complications. Human, in other words.
|
|
How Sarah Palin says she would have dealt with the oil spill, why white people in Santa Monica are dodging immigrant police, and why the EPA is after the Amish.
|
Wikimedia Commons / Hero of sorts
|
If his music is any indication, Thom Yorke’s not exactly possessed of the most optimistic mind-set, but the Radiohead singer may be onto something when he says that the record industry as we know it is about to implode.
|
|
Why researchers say lesbians make the best parents, how the Internet is affecting your brain, and why Americans are no rugged individualists. All this and more on today’s list.
|
|
What happens when you mix a massive oil spill with a hurricane? When Obama finally decides to negotiate with the Taliban, what will he ask for? And how did Jane Austen become such a big celebrity? Answers to these and other vexing questions after the jump.
Posted on May 27, 2010
READ MORE
|
|
We’re all on Prozac, Stravinsky gets arrested for messing with the anthem, Twitter is taking over the world (and Larry’s List) and the Dalai Lama is introduced to the Green Party. Will the world survive today’s list? Not as we know it.
Posted on May 24, 2010
READ MORE
|
|
Chinese swingers head to jail, Australia hunts down and grounds the founder of WikiLeaks, and David Lynch does Dior. All this and more on today’s list.
Posted on May 19, 2010
READ MORE
|
|
A whistle-blower tells the news show that BP has another troubled oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Also in this episode: L.A.‘s visionary young maestro, plus Andy Rooney complains about something.
|
|
By Amy Goodman — More than just a brilliant singer and actress, Horne was a pioneering civil rights activist, breaking racial barriers for generations of African-Americans who have followed her.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
By Eugene Robinson — Lena Horne, who died Sunday at 92, was an infiltrator and one of the most significant American entertainers of the 20th century.
|
|
Shirtless gyrations? Check. All-male soldier crew in sweaty Afghanistan? Check. Fingers tracing other men’s sternums? Check. Looks like a normal day for our troops in Afghanistan in this fascinating remake of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video opera.
|
vimeo.com
|
By John Cheney-Lippold — M.I.A.’s controversial nine-minute, banned-from-YouTube music video fails to show that discrimination is about real, historical inequalities.
|
|
Ambassador Tom and the Mortgaged Youth are sick and tired of your black president talking down to little girls and the Supreme Court. They just want their freedom back, America.
|
Graham Nash
|
By Mr. Fish — I’d gone to Atlantic City in August of 2009 to see Crosby, Stills and Nash to be reminded of the exquisite outrage that they, along with Neil Young, had so famously hurled into the hellish maelstrom that was the Vietnam War…
|
|
Now that Ricky Martin is “a fortunate homosexual man,” it’s time to revisit Barbara Walters’ cringe-inducing 2000 interview with the singer, who then declined—about 20 times—to tell Ms. Walters and her millions of viewers whom he bangs, he bangs.
|
theonion.com
|
A lot of people have said in recent weeks that the space agency simply lacks the chutzpah that put a man on a moon. Figure out global warming? Boring, they say. The Onion has come up with a satirical solution that just might blow your minds: Project Spaceman, the David Bowie-inspired Glam Space Program. (continued)
|
|
Four years after Katrina, New Orleans struggles against the odds to preserve its unruly spirit through its unique musical legacy.
|
|
After the jump: A comprehensive roundup of why the Democrats suck, the all-white basketball league and how classical music can be used as punishment for schoolchildren.
Posted on Jan 22, 2010
READ MORE
|
Wikimedia Commons / Wiki edit jonny
|
Simon Cowell is leaving Fox’s ratings monster to launch an American version of “X Factor,” which will allow older performers to compete with the kiddies. Cowell said “we’re hoping to find the American version of Susan Boyle,” the homely Scottish singer who exploded to international stardom with a stint on “Britain’s Got Talent,” another Cowell show.
|
|
The “God Hates Fags” people have a new villain: Lady Gaga. On today’s list, hear their song, find out how the rich cope with meltdown, and explore whether a Siamese twin would be libel for a murder committed by his conjoined brother.
Posted on Jan 7, 2010
READ MORE
|
|
This satirical Onion headline says it all: DEA Recruits Lil Wayne to Use Up All Drugs in Mexico.
Posted on Dec 29, 2009
READ MORE 
|
|
Twas the night before Christmas, and ... eh, screw it. Enough of Christmas. Here are the newsy bits you’ve been craving more than that pumpkin pie: The Simpsons, torture, gay marriage, crime-fighting music and more.
Posted on Dec 24, 2009
READ MORE
|
|
Can someone explain how über-Mormon Sen. Orrin Hatch came to write a Hannukah song? Oh wait, Jeffrey Goldberg just did and took all the fun out of it. Better to not know, and watch the video after the jump.
|
AP / Joerg Sarbach
|
By Robert Fisk — Music and Islam have a dodgy relationship. I guess it’s really all to do with that most jealously guarded commodity, the human soul, over which music exerts such passion.
|
nytimes.com
|
It was a sonorous synthesis of computer science, musical innovation and some of the best kind of product placement imaginable when Stanford University professor Ge Wang convened the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra on Thursday. Here we have a group of people who have figured out how to play compositions including Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” (performed near the end of this YouTube clip) on their smartphones.
|
Wikimedia Commons
|
Victor Jara, acclaimed Chilean singer, was tortured and killed in 1973 during the U.S.-directed coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. He was to be reburied in Santiago Friday after hundreds of people paid their final respects. The body had been exhumed in June to clarify how he died. He had been shot more than 30 times.
|
|
We’re kicking off a new feature. Get the best of the Net from Larry Gross. Tonight: Internet for Nobel Prize, secrets of the Kremlin, augmented reality art, charges against nude model dropped, and more.
|
Flickr / ilkerender
|
The New York Philharmonic was all set to fly into Cuba and jam, until the Treasury Department decided the patrons footing the bill couldn’t go. That’s pretty insulting to Cuba, considering that the same posse of musicians and rich people was cleared for a trip to North Korea.
|
Flickr / mikedarnell1974
|
Leonard Cohen performed in a soccer stadium near Tel Aviv on Thursday over the objections of activists who want artists and entertainers to stay away from the Holy Land. Unlike Madonna, as The Washington Post points out, Cohen donated his earnings to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation and managed to avoid wrapping himself in the Israeli flag.
|
|
You may have caught rapper and megalomaniac Kanye West hijacking the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, but did you see him shout at the president during last Wednesday’s speech to Congress?
|
AP photo / Jacqueline Larma
|
By Chris Hedges — The commercial exploitation of Michael Jackson’s death was orchestrated by the corporate forces that rendered him insane. He was infected by the moral nihilism and personal disintegration that are at the core of our corporate culture. He was a reflection of us in the extreme.
|
View older articles:
< 1 2 3 >
View the most popular tags overall?
|
|
Greenland’s Great Melt Is Pinned On Climate Change
 . '/' . substr('9780805083385',-6,3) . '/' . '9780805083385' . '.jpg'; ?>)
Newsletter 
Like Us
Follow Us
Get Our Feed
