I have a nerve inside of me to do this. And I have no idea where it comes from, except that it might come from God. No one knows. | | | | A section of "The Mile-Long Opera" on the High Line, New York, Oct. 3, 2018.
(Iwan Baan/The Mile-Long Opera) | | | | |  | “I have a nerve inside of me to do this. And I have no idea where it comes from, except that it might come from God. No one knows.”
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| | rantnrave:// Normally when we talk about the longest this or the longest that in music, we're talking about time: hour-long songs, days-long performances, etc. THE MILE-LONG OPERA, which is being staged on New York's HIGH LINE through Monday, is a conventional 90 minutes or so in length (the exact time is up to each viewer), but it goes long in another way, taking place along the entire mile-and-a-half length of the elevated park. It's one of the most beautiful, sad and mesmerizing public art pieces I've ever seen, and without a doubt the longest. The piece, created by composer DAVID LANG and architect LIZ DILLER with a libretto by ANNE CARSON and CLAUDIA RANKINE, is subtitled "a biography of 7 o'clock," and it's literally a meditation on early evenings and dining tables. It's performed by 1,000 singers culled from community choirs throughout New York City (along with a scattered crew of window washers who I think, though I'm not entirely sure, are acting as a sort of silent, judgmental Greek chorus). The piece is also a meditation on a city's neverending growing pains. And an astounding feat of staging and logistics. Even more than processing lines like "funny how walking changes everything," which are repeated like mantras as you amble through the performance, I found myself, a day later, trying to figure out how two choirs, performing a cappella and stationed about a mile apart—only one of them with a visible leader—could sing that line perfectly in tune with each other. At a different point along the way, I saw a singer briefly pull a tuning fork out of his pocket, and if that's part of the secret, color me gobsmacked. An astonishing performance. If you're in New York, go. If you're not, you can experience it here... Taking a cue from the MOTION PICTURE ACADEMY, the RECORDING ACADEMY has invited 900 new members to its voting ranks, all of them "female and/or people of color and/or under 39," according to BILLBOARD. That's the most visible result so far from the still ongoing work of the Academy's Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion, established after this year's controversial GRAMMYS ceremony, and it's a much-needed and welcome one... The fourth version of A STAR IS BORN series opens in theaters today, and the advance press is high on the film and especially on LADY GAGA in a role previously played by JANET GAYNOR, JUDY GARLAND and BARBARA STREISAND. Is it too soon to wonder who'll star in #5?... FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS: LIVE IN LONDON premieres Saturday on HBO... Violinist VIJAY GUPTA and composer/conductor MATTHEW AUCOIN are among the recipients of this year's MACARTHUR FOUNDATION "genius grants"... Violinist LEILA JOSEFOWICZ wins the AVERY FISHER PRIZE... Musicians giving back: CHANCE THE RAPPER. And—go back three links—Matthew Aucoin... CONAN O'BRIEN's house band plays its final number... Bye bye SUGE KNIGHT... Dead clubs... It's FRIDAY and that means new music from ERIC CHURCH, SHECK WES, LIL BABY & GUNNA, CAT POWER, PETITE NOIR, TWENTY ONE PILOTS, TUNDE OLANIRAN, STEVE PERRY, MEWITHOUTYOU, MOLLY BURCH, F***ED UP, MOZZY, PHOSPHORESCENT, T.I., GHOSTFACE KILLAH, KIKAGAKU MOYO, ALUNAGEORGE, SIGALA, HIGH ON FIRE, EARTH SHIP, DAVE EAST & STYLES P, ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, DOYLE BRAMHALL II, KT TUNSTALL, ADRIANNE LENKER, KRISTIN HERSH, MARCUS KING BAND, JIM JAMES, MARC E. BASSY, JERUSALEM IN MY HEART, HAERTS, CURSIVE, WINDHAND, COHEED & CAMBRIA, SWEARIN' and the A STAR IS BORN soundtrack... RIP BEN DAGLISH. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | WBGO.org |
| How Ellington was recorded off the air in ‘32, and where that disc has been for the last 86 years, is a fascinating story. But it’s just one facet of what we’ll unpack in this installment of Deep Dive. | | |
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| As the London club ends its influential twin mix-CD series, we analyze all 200 sets to see which songs and artists were played the most, plus many more Fabric Factoids. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Taking its first steps since forming a Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion earlier this year, the Recording Academy has invited 900 music creators to join as voting members in an effort to build a membership more reflective of the diverse creative community. | | |
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 | Vulture |
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 | Pollstar |
| What has been mostly a Wall Street suggestion was revived last week when SiriusXM announced it would acquire Pandora in an all-stock transaction worth $3.5 billion. This triggered some equity analysts to reiterate their opinions that a merger is not only sensible but inevitable. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| After a stream of successful collaborations, two rising rappers decided to make a whole album together. | | |
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 | uDiscoverMusic |
| Every year, critics and so-called experts ask: is rock music dead? Not with a new breed of young talents aiming for legendary status. | | |
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 | Music Business Worldwide |
| Twickets founder Richard Davies on recent moves in the live music sector. | | |
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 | Song Exploder |
| In this episode, Chan Marshall breaks down the song "Woman" and what it means to her, as she tells the story of how she made it in Miami and Los Angeles over the course of a few years. | | |
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 | Mixmag |
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 | The Washington Post |
| All Things Go is the namesake of what started in 2006 as a website, back in the halcyon days of music blogging. The All Things Go guys were simply trying to carve out their own corner of the Internet, pushing their favorite music out into the world. Carly Rae Jepsen and Maggie Rogers headline the festival in its fifth year. | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| To hear proprietor Bryan Ling recall it, the new high-fidelity vinyl bar In Sheep’s Clothing wasn’t part of the plan for his new Arts District venture. He knew he wanted a pizzeria, but the space he coveted was a little bigger than he needed. | | |
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 | Dazed Digital |
| We’re not going to convince anyone that the nightlife we love is worth saving, if we keep pretending it’s something clean and wholesome. | | |
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| Music Business Worldwide |
| Robb McDaniels talks MBW through the resurgence of one of dance music's biggest brands. | | |
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 | OffBeat Magazine |
| I’ve mentioned so many times how we in this city take music and our musicians for granted: not only consumers, but many music venues and folks in the hospitality industry. | | |
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 | NPR |
| The Blink-182 hit was a surprise in 1999: a raw look at suicide and depression from a band more known for naked antics and fart jokes. Two decades later, it stands as an unlikely salve for survivors. | | |
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 | Popula |
| The state song of West By God Virginia is John Denver’s “Country Roads.” It is also a fraud. | | |
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 | NPR Music |
| The 28-year-old polymath from Boston discusses his new award, his precocious youth and how he perceives all human language as a form of musical communication. | | |
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 | Musiqology |
| Sometimes a song sticks in your head for days or weeks or months, reverberating around your skull and senses. This phenomenon--which goes by many names including "sticky music," "Involuntary Musical Imagery," and "earworm," the most common usage--has been the subject of a number of rigorous scientific studies in recent years. | | |
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 | The Undefeated |
| Blazing a new path in ugly celebrity, West is a thought leader in that regard. | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | | | From "Wanderer," out today on Domino. |
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