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Soundcheck

Tuesday, January 22, 2008
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  • Mozart picture

    Classical Music's Perfect Pitch

    Classical music was once used by advertisers to convey elegance and luxury. Increasingly, it signals humor and fun. Today, a look at how advertisers use Mozart to sell sneakers and Verdi to hawk televisions. Our guests include Karl Jenkins, a composer whose works span both the concert stage and ads for companies like Delta and Debeers. Also: Jazz bassist Ben Allison and the members of his quintet, Man-Size Safe, perform live in our studio.

Classical music: the new jingle?

Classical music can exist and even thrive outside the concert hall. In advertising, for instance, it's increasingly commonplace. Today, Karl Jenkins, a composer whose music has been featured famously in ads for Debeers and Delta Airlines, joins us to explain the genre's appeal to marketers.

Karl Jenkins's Web site
Video: Watch Lynx deodorant ad with Jenkins' "Dies Irae"

Ben Allison and Man Size Safe

Jazz bassist Ben Allison named his new quintet "man-size safe" after reading an article in the Washington Post about just such a piece of furniture that Dick Cheney keeps in his office, and whose contents were unknown to all but the vice-president himself. He joins us today with the members of Man-Size Safe, who perform live in the studio.

Ben Allison's web site

audience

Soundcheck Smackdown: When Contemporary Met Classical

Soundcheck

Like vegetables stuck into a delicious meal, contemporary classical music is forced on concert audiences before they are allowed to enjoy their Brahms. So says humorist, critic and author Joe Queenan. Today, Queenan and John Berry, Artistic Director with English National Opera, join us for a Soundcheck Smackdown debate on the merits of contemporary music.

musical clouds

You Are What You Hear

Soundcheck

Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi takes us through some of the most famously botched song lyrics in rock history. We’ll explore why the words we make up are usually more interesting than the real version. Then, listeners confess their favorite and most embarrassing reinvented lyrics.

Leave a comment: Give us your favorite set of misheard lyrics! Were you disappointed when you learned the actual words?

Rosanne Cash and Mark O'Connor

Soundcheck

For her, he was a father. For him, he was a boyhood hero. For the nation, he was an icon. Singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash and composer and violinist Mark O'Connor join us to talk about how Johnny Cash has inspired their musical collaboration. And they will play live.

Katy

Soundcheck's Summer Song Poll

Soundcheck

Every year, popular and critical opinion somehow converge to settle on a "summer song." In 2007, it was Rihanna's "Umbrella." The year before, it was "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. The practice stretches back to the very dawn of pop radio. Yet defining the essence of a "summer song" is a bit elusive. We enlist the help of Blender editor at large Lizzy Goodman -- and of our Soundcheck listeners, in an online poll.

Cast your vote: Soundcheck's Summer Song Poll 2008

Can't decide? Check out audio and video clips of the contestants here.

Our blog: John Schaefer asks what makes a good summer song,

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