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Tag Archives: pop

Doctorin’ The Top Forty

Saturday, August 14, 2010

In 1988, a pair of British acid house DJs named Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, variously known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (The JAMs), The Timelords and The KLF, had an improbable number one hit with “Doctorin’ The Tardis.” The track isn’t so much a song as it is an early mashup. Aside [...]

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INXS needs you tonight

Sunday, July 11, 2010

I’m pretty sure that “Need You Tonight” by INXS was the last song I fell in love with through commercial radio. I would never have admitted it, and I couldn’t have articulated why, but oh yes, in middle school this track hit me exactly where I lived. It still sounds as fresh today as it [...]

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Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

This song represents a lot of firsts for Michael Jackson. It was the first single from Off The Wall, and the first recording MJ made that he had complete creative control over. Many of his hits were written by Quincy Jones or Rod Temperton or the guys from Toto, but Michael wrote this one himself. [...]

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What does live music mean in the laptop era?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

This weekend my electronica band Revival Revival is doing some shows for the first time in many months. We’ll be doing a lot of what my non-electronic-musician friends consider to be cheating. The lead vocals and guitar will be live, as will some of the synths. Everything else will be canned, recordings played back from [...]

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Le Freak, c’est chic

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Meet guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers, one of my favorite musicians in the world. He founded Chic along with the late bassist Bernard Edwards, and he’s on Twitter. Nile Rodgers has led an action-packed life. As a teenager, he played with the Sesame Street band, and then with the Apollo Theater house band, where he [...]

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Imogen Heap and artificial harmony

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Here’s a live rendition of Imogen Heap’s song “Hide And Seek.” It’s introduced by Zach Braff, but don’t let that dissuade you from watching.

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Apache makes you go hmmm

Sunday, January 17, 2010

DJ Kool Herc likes to say that The Incredible Bongo Band’s version of “Apache” is the national anthem of hip-hop. Its famous drum and percussion break reliably put bodies on the dance floor through hip-hop’s prehistory and has been sampled untold numbers of times. Here’s the break: [Audio clip: view full post to listen] On [...]

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Up with remixes and mashups

Monday, January 4, 2010

Couple of exciting memetic hybrids circulating around the web right now. First, here’s a techno track using samples of Pixar’s Up, which is one of the best and saddest movies ever. Thanks Mike for alerting me to the remix’s existence. Remixing songs is all well and good, but remixing movies, that’s where it’s at.

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Avatar is totally unoriginal but still pretty cool

Monday, December 28, 2009

I don’t get to movie theaters much. But as part of the new family plan to enjoy ourselves on Christmas, I went to see Avatar in 3D with a bunch of relatives. I went in intending to dislike it, and came out having thoroughly enjoyed myself. So much for my hipsterish snobbery. What’s interesting to [...]

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Bitter Sweet Symphony

Monday, November 23, 2009

One of the biggest copyright failures of copyright law ever is the The Verve song “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” The distinctive string sample comes from an orchestral arrangement of “The Last Time” by The Rolling Stones. Doesn’t sound much like the Verve, does it? The two bands do share a taste in the I – flat [...]

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