During the Great Depression, music often served to cheer people up. More recent economic downturns gave us the dark sounds of punk and grunge. Today, we'll look at the correlations between music and the economy with Eric Weisbard, critic and curator at the Experience Music Project. Also: Kayhan Kalhor, an Iranian composer and virtuoso of the kamancheh, the Persian spike-fiddle, has been a member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project. He shares his own cross-cultural music, as featured on the new album, "Silent City."
Do bad economic times make for better music?
The bullish Clinton years gave us trite boy bands and carefree pop hits, while the late 70s spawned punk. But the Great Depression also spawned plenty of happy-go-lucky songs meant to inspire escapist fantasies. Today, a look at the correlations between music and the economic cycles with Eric Weisbard, a ...
Soundcheck's Songwriting Contest
It's time to crown a (new) winner in Soundcheck's first-ever songwriting contest. After a technical disqualification last week, the first-place award now goes to our runner up, "Che Guevara Monday" by Sam Mastandrea. Soundcheck blog: read the winning lyrics
Kayhan Kalhor live
Virtuoso kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor started performing with Iran’s National Orchestra of Radio and Television when he was 13. He left the country after the Islamic Revolution, lived in Canada and the US, but now is back in Iran. He joins us to talk about the state of music in ...
Music and the Economy
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 ...