music

Björk Is Tired of “Rednecks” Ruining Iceland.

“The 21st century is the century where the old patriarchies just don’t work. Everyone is tired of them, including men,” said Björk. She has been thinking about the end of the world a lot lately.

Specifically, she has been thinking about what will happen to the world if a group of politicians doesn’t hurry up and act to save the planet from destruction. “We are overwhelming the planet,” she said.

David Byrne: flying the flag for colour guard.

When the Talking Heads legend saw a high school team twirling flags he felt that it was an undiscovered folk art – so he got a collection of musicians to perform with the teams in a rare, exciting performance.

When David Byrne calls you to ask a favour, promising that, “you’ll never do anything like this again,” it’s hard to say no. That’s how the legendary former Talking Heads frontman convinced Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys, Money Mark, Nelly Furtado, St Vincent, Tune-Yards, Zola Jesus and more to create music to accompany a live colour guard performance.

John Malkovich turns his hand to music – in frightening style.

The actor’s rendition of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave has been set to music and remixed by musicians ranging from Yoko Ono to OMD. ‘If someone has an idea, I’ll collaborate with them,’ he says.

Composer Eric Alexandrakis had an idea. He had written an ambient piece of music called Cryogenia X and decided that he wanted – or perhaps needed – actor John Malkovich to read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave over it. “He just has a certain creative vibe that I admire and aspire to,” said Alexandrakis. “He’s very diverse and does what he wants and he does it as well as it possibly can be done.”

Ork records: the hidden side of New York punk.

Everyone knows the Ramones and Talking Heads, but a host of obscure bands were integral to the CBGBs scene – and now their records have been rediscovered.

In the beginning there were three record labels putting out music from America’s burgeoning punk scenes. There was Bomp! In Los Angeles, Titan in the midwest, and, in New York City, Ork records.

In the Name of Hip-Hop: Celebrating 25 Years of Public Enemy.

Public Enemy’s terse, hard-edged Yo! Bum Rush the Show introduced the world to the new and smoldering hip-hop group with a cohesive and effective album. The album seamlessly blends Chuck D’s spit-fire delivery with Flavor Flav sizzle, Terminator X’s scratching and Vernon Reid’s hard-rock guitar. The band’s producers, the Bomb Squad, build irresistible hooks out of harsh, even irritating sounds, scratching noise out of seemingly nothing, layering sirens, car alarms and spoken word samples into the music. Not that the pioneering skill was appreciated at the time. Joe Brown of The Washington Post wrote that “Public Enemy’s mean and minimalist rap is marked by an absolute absence of melody — the scary sound is just a throbbing pulse, hard drums and a designed-to-irritate electronic whine, like a dentist’s drill or a persistent mosquito.”

An Interview with Meshell Ndegeocello. “I Have the Same Birthday as Michael Jackson. He Is My Cosmic Brother.”

Meshell Ndegeocello found fame in the early ’90s, with a few radio hits, including the witty, strident track “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night).” The video was indelible: Ndegeocello, head shaved to zero, in a stark white tank top and suspenders, alternately reprimanding and caressing her bass like a beloved but disobedient child. 

Her bass playing over her twenty-year career has maintained a decidedly sui generis rhythm, giving her music—and her covers of songs by musicians like Prince and Nina Simone—a dazzling bounce and an emphatic pop that’s so precise you can almost hear the air between the note and the string.

Paula Abdul On Whether She'd Ever Return To American Idol, Touring With NKOTB, And Her Obsession With Scandal.

Paula Abdul was the best judge on American Idol. She also put out a string of chart-busting hit songs in the '80s, like "Straight Up" and the ultimate break-up anthem, "Cold Hearted." Once a Laker Girl, she channeled her choreography skills into putting together the iconic moves in Janet Jackson's "Control" and "Nasty" videos and the wedding dance in Coming to America, racking up Emmy Awards and VMAs along the way. In short, she's a mega-star.

Inside Steinway Piano’s secret underground vault.

Deep in the basement of the Steinway Piano factory on Steinway Street in Astoria, Queens, a man presses his thumb to a small biometric scanner attached to the wall in a darkened hallway next to a nondescript door. After recognizing the thumbprint as belonging to Todd Sanders, a vice president at the company, the door clicks open to reveal another hallway. A few feet away sits a steel vault door. Once that is opened, a digital voice rings out: “Access granted. Welcome, Mr. Sanders.” As the door opens, a spotlight shines down on The Vault’s jewels—six gorgeous Steinway pianos.

East Village Radio: a one-time pirate station's road to redemption.

From humble beginnings broadcasting from a New York restaurant, East Village Radio became a launchpad for names like Mark Ronson before falling foul of licensing laws. Now, it’s been born again.

East Village Radio’s origin story goes something like this: back in 2003, Frank Prisinzano, the owner of the restaurants Supper, Lil’ Frankie’s, and Frank, had a little extra money, a little extra space, and a big passion for radio and he decided to do something about it.

Duran Duran: 'If we were starting now, we wouldn't be a five-piece band'.

Almost 40 years since they formed, and after a string of era-defining hits, Duran Duran – who recently released their latest album, Paper Gods – are working hard to ensure they remain relevant to today’s pop fans.

John Taylor and Nick Rhodes founded Duran Duran almost 40 years ago – 37, to be precise. It’s the kind of longevity that could make anyone, in any industry, jealous, and in the music industry it’s practically unheard of (no one’s talking to you, Rolling Stones, move along).

Beat Boys: The Rise of the Superstar DJ.

Have we entered a new golden age of electronic dance music — or, as Deadmau5 asserts, are DJs just glorified button-pushers?

Name a DJ from the 1980s. Go ahead, we’ll wait. Fast forward to the 2012 Grammy Awards when electronic music and the men (more on that later) who make it were everywhere. Deadmau5 showed up on the red carpet wearing his trademark mouse head with Skrillex’s phone number scrawled across his t-shirt. Producer and DJ Skrillex won not one, but three Grammys. In a special performance superstar DJ David Guetta brought the beats while Lil Wayne and Chris Brown provided vocals.

Danny Elfman onstage: 'It was the most intense fear I've felt in my career'.

John Mauceri had an idea. He had conducted the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for 16 years, and was well-versed in the music of films. He and composer Danny Elfman had worked together when Mauceri had conducted the orchestra on some of Elfman’s work from his long, illustrious, almost symbiotic relationship with director Tim Burton. The music got Mauceri thinking: what if they mixed Burton’s artwork, fresh from a retrospective at Museum of Modern Art in New York City, with the music it inspired?

Danny Fields: the coolest guy you've never heard of – until now.

In his diary, Andy Warhol wrote that he would love to film Danny Fields’ life story. The artist died six weeks later, but now Fields’s life has finally arrived the screen in a new documentary called, Danny Says.

You may not have heard of Danny Fields, but you definitely know his friends. As well as hanging out with Warhol, Fields helped launch the Doors into superstardom, palled around with Nico, Edie Sedgwick, and Alice Cooper; was the first person to play the Ramones to Lou Reed; was friends with Linda McCartney despite helping end the Beatles’ touring career; introduced Iggy Pop to David Bowie, and was immortalized in the Ramones tune Danny Says.

9:30 Club: the hardcore venue that hosted the president.

The famously stinky Washington DC music den, now 35 years old, was a crucible for the local hardcore scene – and even hosted the Clintons.

How many times have I been to the 9:30 Club? Thousands,” says Ian MacKaye, frontman of Minor Threat and Fugazi and founder of Dischord Records. MacKaye first stepped foot in the club in July of 1980 to see a Bad Brains show and has been a regular, both onstage and off, ever since. This year, the 9:30 Clubis celebrating its 35th anniversary, marking the occasion with a party (a three-day World’s Fair exhibition) and a big book – a 264-page oral and pictorial history of the club called 9.30 – the Book.

Johnny Marr on the Smiths, ‘The Messenger’ and Going Solo After All These Years.

Johnny Marr is one of the most talented guitar players of all time — and he has the resume to prove it. Marr’s intricate and dynamic guitar work can be heard in the works of The Smiths (of which he was a founding member), The The, Electronic, the Cribs, and Modest Mouse. He’s collaborated with artists ranging from Eddie Vedder to Oasis to Billy Bragg to Talking Heads and helped write the score for the film Inception.

An Interview With Enya “I find it’s important to go to the studio to try and kind of live with all my inspirations for a while.”

It’s hard not to picture Eithne Ní Bhraonáin entombed in velvet and surrounded by a coven of comforting witches who have trained butterflies to gently flutter their wings in rhythm with the sound of a babbling brook. Bhraonáin, who is better known by her far more easily pronounced stage name, Enya, makes music to astral-project to. In 1988, Enya had a massive, if somewhat inexplicable, hit with the song “Orinoco Flow.” At a time when Phil Collins’s “A Groovy Kind of Love” and George Michael’s “Faith” were topping the charts, “Orinoco Flow” was like a fat gust of fresh air tumbling over the Irish Sea. It blended Enya’s otherworldly voice with heavy production, world music, Celtic undertones, and a fluid rhythm quite unlike anything else out there. The song hit number one in the United Kingdom, a position it held for three weeks before ceding its title to its musical opposite—Robin Beck’s “First Time,” a hair-metal-inspired slow jam made famous in a Coca-Cola ad.