How Christopher Young Unlocked the Puzzle of a Classic Horror Score on a Shoestring Budget The 1980s didn't invent the horror movie genre, but there's little denying that horror movies characterized the '80s in a way that remains influential. For m…
Avishai Cohen is a genre-bending player, composer, and collaborator. Born in Israel in 1970, he has emerged as one of the most important bassists in contemporary jazz. Cohen began his musical journey on the piano at age nine, but switched to the ba…
While cleaning out some old browser bookmarks, I came across and re-read a 2009 New York Times profile of Lloyd Barnes. Barnes, with his Bronx-based studio and record label, Wackie’s, created a hub for Jamaican music in New York and made Barne…
Hate is often seen as being a deep emotion. This depth sometimes alludes to the fact that hate is a deeply held emotion and/or that hate is buried deep within us. Kendrick Lamar's use of the diss trac…
The Unholy Trinity of Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, and... Prince? Love them or hate them, comic book and superhero media have been an inescapable feature of our culture for decades. The phenomenon reached a fever pitch in the 2010s with the staggerin…
What do 'It's a Wonderful Life,' 'Star Wars,' 'Back to the Future,' 'The Nightmare Before Christmas,' 'The Lion King,' 'Looney Tunes: Back in Action,' 'Harry Potter,' and 'Stranger Things' have in common? The answer: One of the most recognizable pi…
When considering the most current discoveries in astronomy one may not think about Hip-Hop. However, over the course of its first fifty years, Hip-Hop artists have rhymed about the movements of the sun, moon, and stars in multitudinous songs and fre…
How One of Hollywood's Most Legendary Composers Blazed His Own Trail When ranking the greatest film score composers of the 20th Century, you'll unanimously see the name 'Bernard Herrmann.' The famed film composer was born in New York City in 1911 …
Photo: Dave M. Benett/Getty Images Admittedly very late to the game, my introduction to Death Cab for Cutie (DCFC) was their 2015 single “The Ghosts of Beverly Drive”. Its driving rhythm, and the breakdown about two-thirds of the w…
Twenty five minutes into the 2022 documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) Noel Gallagher, late of Oasis, says, “There’s a great quote from someone…’Vinyl is like the poor man’s art collection.’&r…
If you've watched old black-and-white sci-fi and horror movies, you've probably heard a theremin, even if you didn't know what to call it at the time. To meet the surging demand for film scores in the 1930s, recently immigrated European classical m…
Recently, I came across the documentary Beware Mr. Baker (2012), by filmmaker Jay Bulgar. It's about the musical career and life of Ginger Baker. Baker first made a name for himself as the drummer for Cream, the British rock group from the 1960s. W…
Nagisa Ōshima's movie "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" is the perfect anti-Christmas film for those who feel like spending their holiday pondering the relativity of good and evil, right and wrong in the world we live in. Despite the fact that the mov…
On October 27th, after a break of almost a year and a half, Catalan artist Marina Herlop released her new album Nekkuja. As she speaks about the album – working on it was a process of finding and affirming the inner light. She also talks about…
If you followed the horror movie genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the name “John Carpenter” was inescapable. Renowned for crafting suspenseful atmospheres and composing spine-tingling scores in his films, Carpenter was Hollywood&…
Pop’s newest icon is called Chappell Roan and we are literally witnessing the birth of a new category of a queer superstar with her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. It has been a hot minute since we’ve been gifted suc…
Nigeria's rich and diverse musical landscape is not limited to just Afrobeat, Highlife, or Hip-Hop. It also boasts a unique and vibrant genre known as "Nigerian Cruise Music." This sub-genre provides a refreshing escape from the hustle and bustle of…
“We may certainly see God in all arts and in all sciences, but in music alone we see God free from all forms and thoughts.” - Inayat Khan Inayat Khan, the S…
After making its name in cutting-edge animation with early classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Walt Disney Company became the household name for family-friendly entertainment. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, The Walt Disney…
Photo courtesy of Pirelli and Annie Leibowitz Quoting "Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine" is an easy way not to stop smoking with Allen Carr and start an article on Patti Smith. It is trivial but at least she wasn't called the godmo…
Image generated in collaboration with StarryAI This past month’s celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop, which occurred on August 11th, 2023, marked the anniversary of when DJ Kool Herc threw the first Hip-Hop jam at 1520 Sedgwick Ave…
Reneé Rapp, whose song “Too Well” became the quintessential Gen Z anthem in the span of a couple of months, has soared to stardom with astonishing speed. Rapp’s trajectory changed dramatically in the past few years. From le…
Image courtesy of Lukas Göök / Pixabay The conveyance of moral theories such as error theory are not commonly associated with the musical genres of hip-hop and rap. Yet, a particular form of error theory is readily found within the lyrics…
It’s difficult today to imagine the impact the movie Alien had when it first debuted at midnight, May 25th, 1979, on the opening night of the fourth annual Seattle International Film Festival. It’s so entrenched in our collective …