Sailing By Ear
An essay on music and family, sparked by the author’s realization that his speakers sucked.
Showing 25 articles matching physics of music.
An essay on music and family, sparked by the author’s realization that his speakers sucked.
He created the template for contemporary hit-making, made Ace of Base the biggest group in the world, and mentored the most successful songwriter since the Beatles. Why have you never heard of Denniz Pop? Excerpted from The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.
John Seabrook Slate Oct 2015 1h Permalink
On Jonny Greenwood:
Greenwood is an anomaly: a musician who made his name with a rock band and who is now embraced by the modern-music establishment as an actual, serious composer. The night before the Alvernia session, he was onstage in an aircraft-hangar-size room at a steel plant in Krakow, performing the minimalist composer Steve Reich’s “Electric Counterpoint” for an audience that included Reich himself, as part of a weeklong new-music festival, Sacrum Profanum. (Reich is a fan; he praises Greenwood’s decision to have the string section play with guitar picks on “Popcorn Superhet” as “the first new approach to pizzicato since Bartok.”) He wasn’t the only performer at Sacrum Profanum with pop-music credentials — the bill also included the techno provocateur Aphex Twin and Adrian Utley, from the trip-hop band Portishead. But he was the only guy from a superfamous rock band whose singer has appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone.
Alex Pappademas New York Times Magazine Mar 2012 15min Permalink
A profile.
Laura Snapes The Guardian Sep 2018 25min Permalink
“Thug is alone even in a room full of people. He is unapproachable. He radiates volatility. I can't even imagine him making actual, on-purpose eye contact with another human. Looking into a person's eyes—seeking some kind of a connection—is an admission of neediness, and Young Thug would rather be shot dead in the street than need a thing from another human being.”
Devin Friedman GQ Feb 2016 20min Permalink
The artist discusses her latest record, Biophilia, science and music education.
Up until she developed a vocal-cord nodule a few years ago, Björk made a point of not investigating how that instrument worked. “With arrangements and lyrics,” she says, squinting over her coffee, “I work more with the left side of my brain. But my voice has always been very right brain. I didn’t try to analyze it at all. I didn’t even know until I started all this voice work, two years ago, what my range was. I didn’t want to let the academic side into that—I worried the mystery would go.”
Nitsuh Abebe New York Feb 2012 10min Permalink
Uncovering Southern California’s country music roots.
Elisabeth Greenbaum Kasson Los Angeles Times Magazine Jun 2011 10min Permalink
On life with amnesia and the role that music plays in memory.
Oliver Sacks New Yorker Sep 2007 30min Permalink
When James Brown died on Christmas Day 2006, he left behind a fortune worth tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of dollars. The problem is, he also left behind fourteen children, sixteen grandchildren, eight mothers of his children, several mistresses, thirty lawyers, a former manager, an aging dancer, a longtime valet, and a sister who’s really not a sister but calls herself the Godsister of Soul anyway.
Sean Flynn GQ Apr 2009 50min Permalink
“Like they said in Step Brothers: Never lose your dinosaur. This is the ultimate example of a person never losing his dinosaur. Meaning that even as I grew in cultural awareness and respect and was put higher in the class system in some way for being this musician, I never lost my dinosaur.”
Zach Baron GQ Jul 2014 20min Permalink
The Grateful Dead’s afterlife.
Nick Paumgarten New Yorker Nov 2012 50min Permalink
A jailhouse interview.
Paul Solotaroff Rolling Stone Mar 2018 25min Permalink
A conversation.
Tom Jackson Gay Letter Apr 2019 20min Permalink
A profile.
When we're introduced, I spend a long moment trying to conjugate the reality of James Brown's face, one I've contemplated as an album-cover totem since I was thirteen or fourteen: that impossible slant of jaw and cheekbone, that Pop Art slash of teeth, the unmistakable rage of impatience lurking in the eyes. It's a face drawn by Jack Kirby or Milton Caniff, that's for sure, a visage engineered for maximum impact at great distances, from back rows of auditoriums.
Jonathan Lethem Rolling Stone Jun 2006 50min Permalink
“The first point he makes several times is that his new album will appeal to everyone; the second is that he is a changed man who’s grown up and calmed down. All I can say with certainty is that Brown is a stranger to the concepts of modesty and consistency.”
Decca Aitkenhead The Guardian Oct 2013 15min Permalink
On Michael Jackson’s talent.
John Jeremiah Sullivan GQ Sep 2009 20min Permalink
Britney Spears works Vegas, bitch.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner Matter Jun 2014 30min Permalink
An interview with Meek Mill.
Nikole Hannah-Jones New York Times Magazine Mar 2019 10min Permalink
The search for Guns N’ Roses’ elusive guitarist.
Art Tavana L.A. Weekly Oct 2016 Permalink
The artist at 85.
Luke Dittrich Esquire Jan 2012 15min Permalink
Richard Hell after Lexington.
Amanda Petrusich Oxford American Nov 2017 20min Permalink
The last breaths of pop music, memories of having a stroke and the war over Airbnb in New York — the most-read articles this week in the new Longform App, available free for iPhone and iPad.
The end of the rock star era.
David Samuels n+1 Sep 2014
“When I woke up hours later, I really believed I had been in those mountains hiking — that it was not a dream. And I really had lost my voice. I had lost my words. I was unable to say, ‘I am trapped in my brain’ or, ‘My memories are mixing with imagination.’”
Christine Hyung-Oak Lee Buzzfeed Sep 2014 20min
When Carmen Segarra was hired to examine Goldman Sachs for the New York Fed, she bought a small recorder and began taping her meetings. Here is what she found before she was fired.
Jake Bernstein ProPublica Sep 2014 25min
Sam Simon made a fortune from The Simpsons. Now, diagnosed with terminal cancer, he is racing to spend it.
Merrill Markoe Vanity Fair Sep 2014 25min
The war over Airbnb gets personal.
Jessica Pressler New York Sep 2014 25min
Sep 2014 Permalink
Joan Didion versus the boys on the bus:
American reporters “like” covering a presidential campaign (it gets them out on the road, it has balloons, it has music, it is viewed as a big story, one that leads to the respect of one’s peers, to the Sunday shows, to lecture fees and often to Washington), which is one reason why there has developed among those who do it so arresting an enthusiasm for overlooking the contradictions inherent in reporting that which occurs only in order to be reported.
Joan Didion New York Review of Books Oct 1988 40min Permalink
On the 1988 presidential election and the boys on the bus.
“American reporters ‘like’ covering a presidential campaign (it gets them out on the road, it has balloons, it has music, it is viewed as a big story, one that leads to the respect of one’s peers, to the Sunday shows, to lecture fees and often to Washington), which is one reason why there has developed among those who do it so arresting an enthusiasm for overlooking the contradictions inherent in reporting that which occurs only in order to be reported.”
Joan Didion New York Review of Books Oct 1988 40min Permalink
Jimmy Carter pardoned Peter Yarrow for what he did to a 14-year-old girl in a D.C. hotel room in 1969. But the Peter, Paul and Mary star is accused of sexually assaulting others, too.
Gillian Brockell Washington Post May 2021 15min Permalink