Category Archives: music history

March 9, 2016

You can accomplish a lot in 90 years. George Martin just passed away, and my thoughts are with his family and loved ones. Some of you younger kids have probably never heard of George Martin. He’s a good name to look out for if you’re browsing through older music; he produced and arranged music forContinue reading “March 9, 2016”

January 11, 2016: David Bowie

David Bowie died on Sunday at the age of 69. In an age of macho bullshit rock & roll, he moved fluidly between styles of music, fashion, and taste, while writing great songs and lyrics. If you haven’t listened to much of Bowie’s music, 1969 – 1983 is recognized as being his “peak” period, but heContinue reading “January 11, 2016: David Bowie”

October 30, 2015

I don’t usually listen to Franz Liszt (liszten?), but the other day I went ahead and decided what the heck. There’s just something about piano music of this era, around the mid-nineteenth century. People like Liszt and Chopin were taking piano to entirely new realms. Tonalities began to blur, Debussy would soon be exploring AsianContinue reading “October 30, 2015”

July 17, 2015

This just popped into my head, displacing “Thank You For Being a Friend,” the theme song to “The Golden Girls.” Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Dawn. There was a point in the early to mid-seventies where pop songs became so hook-laden that they were almost annoyingly catchy. You hear it for the first time inContinue reading “July 17, 2015”