John Schaefer

Although William Schuman died in 1992, his heyday as a composer was in the middle of the century – the 40s through the 60s. At that time, composers who wanted to be taken seriously wrote music of great, brow-furrowing complexity. Atonality was the rule – melodic, tonal music like Schuman’s ...

A lot has already been written about whether an Obama-led capitol city will have a different, hipper feel, merely because of the influence of the young, basketball-playing, Blackberry-addicted president with the iPod loaded with hip hop. Short-term, this isn’t a hard argument to buy – right now, Obama is this ...

As mid-life crises go, picking up a musical instrument seems to me a little more sedate than, say, buying a vintage Corvette or having an affair with someone half your age. Although Jasper Rees, in his book I Found My Horn, makes it sound pretty intense. This is being reviewed ...

Music and humor have proven to be difficult bedfellows. It’s very easy to slip slide away into the realm of the “novelty” record – you know, the kinds of things that Doctor Demento based his radio show on for years. Setting witty verse to music risks obscuring the words, ...

When composer/musician/producer Quincy Jones joined us on November 14’s Soundcheck, he said the next conversation he had with the newly elected president, Barack Obama, would be to plead for a Secretary of the Arts. (There are no six degrees of separation with Quincy Jones – he knows everybody.) It ...

The Beatles and the Stones were always about more than the music. Maybe that’s not how they intended it, but that’s how society made it. Parents – including my own – in the 60s and 70s may have objected to the music on purely aesthetic grounds, but I suspect it ...

Times are tough. But you know what? Times are always tough for someone. If we start using that as an excuse to stop supporting the arts, if we allow orchestras, opera houses, jazz clubs, dance programs and the like to fold up their tents, we pay for that down the ...

I don’t play pool a lot; but occasionally I’ll find myself in a bar with a pool table and might attempt a game or two. A few years ago, a friend and I went to the local brewpub in Park ...

Motown and Stax. The two great labels of American soul and R&B. There is really no good way to prove that one label was better than the other – but that won’t stop us from asking the question. After all, this is the fun part of being a fan. Sports ...

In Mozart’s day, his place at the banquet table was between the valet and the cook – because while Mozart may have been a composer of singular genius, he was also essentially a servant, part of the household staff of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Author Tim Blanning, in his book ...

This weekend, we have dueling world music festivals happening here in NYC. The Mondo Mundo event at the Hiro Ballroom on Saturday and SOBs on Monday; and the GlobalFest, which takes place on three different stages at Webster Hall on Sunday. (And which we’re webcasting ...

Today we ask a couple of our critic-friends what they’re looking forward to in 2009 in the worlds of pop, rock, and classical music. This might just be the best time of the year, because looking forward to something is often better than actually getting it. This can be true ...

There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the state of the music industry – much of it, I should say, coming from inside the music industry. But even casual observers have to worry – if only to wonder whether their favorite musicians will have to ...

If you have kids, you know why the idea of kids music makes otherwise reasonable people start screaming like lunatics. Whether your kid listens to Barney, Raffi, or Mozart, you will end up listening to it too - over ...

The new year opens with some pretty dour economic news, and as often happens, the arts become something of a canary in the coal mine. When times are tough, it seems to affect arts organizations early, and disproportionately. Especially smaller organizations. Here in NY, I think immediately of the New ...

I think we were all surprised yesterday at the strong reactions provoked by our segment on Auto-Tune, the little software program that corrects pitch but which, when used as a “special effect,” produces that weird, warbling, almost robotic sound ...

During our annual Critics Week last week, at least two or three of our guests alluded to Auto-Tune, with one, Jody Rosen of Slate.com, referring to 2008 as The Year of Auto-Tune. You may not know what Auto-Tune is, but you have heard it. A lot. Auto-Tune is essentially a ...

Wow, talk about shooting fish in a barrel. The WORST music of the year? Where does one start? At least Jim DeRogatis, our favorite critical crank, is restricting his list to things that have had some public exposure ...

Debashish Bhattacharya

So remember on Tuesday when we were asking whether critics were irrelevant or irreplaceable? And I said that there were a few old-fashioned print critics, like Jon Pareles of the Times, that I still found important and useful? ...

Today Anne Midgette gives us her take on the best Classical music releases of 2008. Now, I’m not a particular fan of year-end lists – wait, that’s not right; I enjoy seeing other people’s, but I hate doing my own. And here’s why – say I compile the list ...