John Schaefer

There are so many ways that Barack Obama has made history that it almost seems silly to point to another one, but just look at how much music and art has been directly inspired by him, both during the campaign and in the wake of his election to the Presidency. ...

Every day I write stuff on the Soundcheck blog, usually because I’ve thought a bit about the subject of the show. Today I just didn’t feel like it. It’s not that I’m lazy, or slothful. It’s not because I haven’t thought long and hard about today’s program. I have. Quite ...

Daniel Handler has sold over 55 million books, mostly under his pen name Lemony Snicket, so it's not the like the guy needs to take on side jobs. But he does.
First, it was the songs written with Stephin Merritt (of the band Magnetic Fields, and others) for ...

Making fun of the French has become almost a national pastime. (Saturday Night Live in 1989: this week the Berlin Wall fell and East and West Germany were reunited. In a related story, France offered to surrender.) It's really not fair, but let's face it, sometimes the French just make ...

Rock needs U2. Rock music has always been about larger than life characters, big sounds, over the top emotion and drama (on stage and off) - everything writ large, on an arena-sized scale. And the iconic rock acts have ...

Last summer, I began working on a documentary film about an Iranian mystic and musician named Ostad Elahi. A number of neuroscientists have taken note of Elahi's music and the way he intended it to act upon a person's state of consciousness, and it seems that this man's mystical ...

Philosophers, spiritual leaders, and economists can all debate the topic of "greed" - is it the root of all sins, as St. Paul once wrote, or is it simply a form of self-interest, and therefore a part of our biological imperative to self-preservation? What's wrong with wanting it all, and ...

When ABBA sang "Take A Chance On Me," it was clearly a piece of light, romantic fluff. Today, it's a business proposition. As musicians look for new business models (you might've heard rumors that the old business model ain't working so well anymore), some are going straight to the fans ...

The story of Chris Brown's alleged assault of a woman -- a woman that many believe to be his girlfriend, the the even more popular singer Rihanna -- may be news, but it's not new. Sadly, musicians are as prone to domestic abuse as anyone else. James Brown's treatment of ...

The American Music Center's survey of composers is a typical good news/bad news affair. Most composers described themselves as working more now than ever before, yet the average income is only $45,000 - which might not be too bad in lots of places, but for the composers concentrated in ...

Last week, we started our series on the Seven Deadly Sins in music with the #1 sin on the sin charts: Lust. That was an easy one - it's hard to imagine any body of songs in any style that doesn't contain a few songs, at least, about gettin' ...

As so often happens, this year's nominations for the Academy Awards are full of "what were they thinking" moments. For me, the biggest oversight is in the nominations for best original score, where Carter Burwell's music for In Bruges didn't get a nod, despite being so integral to the ...

New York, NY —

For two years and $159 million, Alice Tully Hall has undergone a complete renovation. The new Tully has towering glass walls that open onto the corner of 65th street and Broadway. The interior is simple and intimate, and includes an adjustable stage that can be ...

Alice Tully Hall is in exactly the same place as it always was; the renovation was unable to change the "footprint" of the hall within the larger building, or to move walls or even seats. These restrictions make the changes that have been made all the more impressive. The vaguely ...

I was a little concerned that today's Smackdown, about the singer known simply as Morrissey, might be one of those 'small circle of friends' kinda things. Interesting to fans of his band The Smiths and no one else ...

Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast. It's also great for shaking your butt. And so, we begin our mini-series on music inspired by the 7 Deadly Sins with the first and most fun of them - lust.

Strangely, I don't hear a whole lot of lust in ...

So in short order, we learn that Sirius XM satellite radio is going to file for bankruptcy, and that Muzak, the company whose very name has become a generic word for insipid background music, has already filed for bankruptcy.

I won't miss either one. I just don't spend enough ...

Class in violin instruction under the direction of the WPA Federal Music Project in New York ...

No, I'm not really going to do a top 10 list about top 10 lists. For one thing, I can't think of 10 good reasons to do these lists. But I can think of one: I know they're silly, but music lists serve the same purpose as sports lists - ...