Category Archives: music

Holding On to Dreams

Dolores O’Riordan, the Cranberries Singer, Dead at 46 (Rolling Stone) Kurt Cobain’s body was discovered on the final Friday of my last spring break in high school. I can still remember waking up late that afternoon (it was spring break, after all), and turning on MTV when they were supposed to be airing their daily top ten video countdown. They were in the middle of Nirvana’s Unplugged performance of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World,” which was certainly a great song and video, but…

Read More »

Exploration Versus Programming

Google Play Music All Access: search giant launches rival to Spotify (guardian.co.uk) I’ve had three “Internet radio stations” since I launched the .org back in 2000. The first was from a very primitive service that I could never program right; no matter what I did, it just kept churning out classical music all the time, so I hardly ever used it. The second was programmed through Launchcast when it was still a part of Yahoo!, and that worked a lot better for me, even introducing…

Read More »

Bound to the System

“Fifty Shades of Grey” sparks marketing mania (Reuters) Thanks to its inclusion in a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic online video anthology, I’ve had the Lonely Island’s song “Threw It on the Ground” stuck in my head on and off for about a week. (Let me add here, as an aside, that I’m majorly bummed that I couldn’t make the pony con that’s going on in Ohio this weekend.) As I teach and encourage my students to question their assumptions, and not to let those…

Read More »

As You Can See, He’s Not Senate Material

Here’s Scott Brown’s Staff Mocking Elizabeth Warren With The “Tomahawk Chop” (Slate) Tori Amos somehow managed to stay totally off my radar when she started her solo career with Little Earthquakes. It was only in 1994, after Under the Pink came out (the greatest non-Björk album of all time), that I became aware of her. I quickly came to appreciate her amazing musical skills, but I admit that at first I was drawn to her more controversial material just for how it rankled some people. Although…

Read More »

.musecast Episode 6: A Musical Interlude

With me mentioning my history of music fandom when I blogged about the convictions and imprisonment of the Russian punk group Pussy Riot, I figured I could take some time to discuss where my musical tastes have led me throughout the years, including more self-incriminating anecdotes about my history as a fan of rap music in the 80s. More pictures from the University of Toledo accompany my wavering voice (darn seasonal allergies.) [Season 1 of the .musecast is currently offline due to blip.tv shutting down.…

Read More »