Content tagged with “music” under “The Interesting List”

“ The now-legendary acoustic performance at the 1989 MTV Music Awards which gave birth to MTV Unplugged. After the over-the-top glam rock of the 80s, this was nothing my generation had seen before. As a bonus, you get the see the strength of Sambora’s vocals, which are remarkable. ”

“ A professional drummer hears a song for the very first time – with the drums removed – and invents up a drum part on the spot. ”

“ A look into why a pop song probably wasn’t plagiarized which becomes a lesson on music history and the creative process itself. ”

“ Streaming pays the artist by the song, not by the minute. So two shorter songs pay more than one longer song. ”

“ Some guy takes the normally-upbeat theme from Friends and turns it into a moody power-ballad. ”

“ A screencast history of the Wikipedia page for the heavy metal umlaut which traces how the page was developed and changed over time. ”

“ A boogie woogie pianist sits down at a public piano in a train station and performs. The dexterity and complexity of this style of music is amazing. (I’ve never understood the muted response of the crowd in this video. I would be going nuts…) ”

“ Exactly who gets credit for writing a song is a complicated process and fraught with mild fraud and, occasionally, quasi-extortion. ”

“ A cellist plays a single part of the Inspector Gadget theme, records herself, then plays another part against the recording of the first part, until she has all eight parts played by herself. ”

“ This is the first image ever posted to the web. It has been at this same web address since 1992. The image depicts a comedy musical group formed at CERN, where the web was invented. ”

“ It turns out that ‘macaroni’ was a state of mind. ”

“ The backstory of how one of the most recognizable people in the world went out for an anonymous beer. ”

“ The opening number of the 2013 Tony awards with Neil Patrick Harris as host which will probably remain unequaled for sheer spectacle and tongue-in-cheek self-references. ”

“ Two kids out of college get a musical all the way to Broadway where it flops spectacularly. This is how it happened, and what happens after you flame out. ”

“ An oddly haunting performance art piece consisting of people acting on a spinning platform, set to Frank Sinatra. ”

“ A ‘full orchestral’ music box from the late 1800s that plays all instruments for a piece of music from an interchangeable cylinder. ”

“ In 1972, an Italian singer recorded a song which lyrics that were meant to sound like English, but were in fact nonsense. He sought to prove that Italians would love anything that sounded like English. ”

“ A time-lapse of a Rammstein stadium show being set up over the course of a week. The logistics of this are just incredible. ”

“ Wonderful documentary about the history and heyday of Studio 54, a disco in late 70s NYC that took the genre to new heights, before it all came crashing down. Told by Ian Schaeger, one of the two men behind the club. ”

“ A humorous rap video about how a cartoon is animated turns out to be quite informative. ”

“ An amazing performance of a classic George Harrison song on ukulele. The finger speed at the climax has to be seen to be believed. ”

“ Twenty years ago, the way the sound systems at outdoor music concepts was completely changed. This changed how the music sounds, but also how the stages were designed. ”

“ Detailed dissection of the recent court case against Katy Perry, with lots of counter-examples and explanations of why this has broader implications to the world of art, and why the expert witness in the case might have done damage to musicians everywhere. ”