John Schaefer

Today’s another installment in our occasional series we call “Who’s On Top – And Who Should Be.” It’s the second part of the title, of course, that’s more interesting. Yeah, AC/DC’s second week at #1 is kind of interesting, if only because of ...

When I was a kid, around 8 or 9 years old, someone in my neighborhood in Queens tried to form a marching band, recruiting kids from Richmond Hill and Woodhaven to play one of three sets of instruments: there would be, ...

After the euphoria of the night before, many Americans woke up this morning with a) a hangover and b) the sobering realization of the enormity of the problems facing our new president. Obama has seemed clear-eyed about the challenges ahead, but he ...

Democracy seems such a basic part of our culture as Americans that it comes as a shock to find that it’s actually quite hard to define. Almost every communist or socialist dictatorship used the word as part of their country’s official name: the German Democratic Republic wasn’t democratic West Germany, ...

Folkways Records did many things, but chief among them was proving that Big Bill Broonzy was right: “They’re all ...

When I was in high school, I found a record by a comedian I’d never heard of – someone who was apparently big in the 50s – named Stan Freberg. Even though I didn’t get all the references to what were apparently pop culture figures and phenomena of the an ...

I’m betting you’ve never heard of Tra La La Blip. Neither did I, until their founder emailed us yesterday. This rural Australian collective makes electronic pop; and all of ...

I’ve been thinking about this whole super fan thing. I like a lot of artists and bands – some I like a real lot. But I would never consider myself a ...

Wal-Mart has become the 600-pound gorilla in the music business. It is the country’s single biggest seller of CDs (antique silvery round things that contain collections of songs – in the 20th century, it’s how we used to get our music before ...

So Usher is designing and selling lingerie – for men. Opera star Renee Fleming helped design a new perfume, “La Voce by Renee Fleming,” unveiled on opening day of the current Met Opera season. Jennifer Lopez has a new line of clothing, as well as perfume; The RZA of Wu-Tang ...

So Tin Pan Alley is for sale, and people who haven’t thought about Tin Pan Alley in decades, and people who’ve walked past those buildings on West 28th Street for years without ever noticing them, are suddenly up in arms. When I read that the buildings were for sale – ...

In the mid-70s, the song “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian was unavoidable. Since it wasn’t a song I liked, I never looked any further into what she’d done. If I had, I might’ve learned that almost ten years earlier, in the mid-60s, she’d had another hit song – a far ...

I’m glad that so many musicians are getting involved in this presidential campaign, and gladder still that so many are supporting the same candidate I like. But I must confess to having mixed feelings. The idea of ...

No, I wasn’t watching when MTV famously launched its network with the Buggles’ version of the song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” But a friend who lived in south Jersey had cable (NYC was one of the last places on earth to be wired for cable), and I spent a ...

In the NY Times recently, Anthony Tommasini wrote about how he supports the idea of modern opera, of contemporary composers trying to extend and even reinvent the opera tradition for modern times and for modern America particularly. He also wrote ...

It’s a happy coincidence that today, the opening of WNYC’s fundraising drive, brings Dana Gioia, the chairman of the NEA, to our studio. After all, WNYC and the NEA both survived tough times in the early 90s, when New York’s mayor wanted to get rid of one and political conservatives ...

Recently, a reporter doing a story on music during hard times asked me if I agreed with the notion that music gets darker and moodier when the economy tanks. I thought of the Great Depression hit, “Brother Can You Spare A ...

Buena Vista Social Club, the group of elderly Cuban musicians who’d been rescued from obscurity and poverty by a record made almost by accident, has become such a phenomenon that it’s difficult to remember how it all happened. The World Circuit Recording, Ry Cooder’s trip to Cuba (he told us ...

It really did seem like a good idea at the time. Invite listeners to write lyrics, pick a winner out of the handful or couple of dozen entries, have a band perform the song in the studio… everyone has fun, no one gets hurt, everybody goes home happy.

That ...

I like the fact that mega-selling artists like Jay Z and Lil Wayne will apparently appear on anyone’s record, anywhere, anytime. It shows that these guys, even though they’ve “made it” and probably don’t need the additional work and exposure, still enjoy going into the studio and playing nicely with ...