Speaking of the 1980s, one can’t leave out industrial music. I don’t know what it was about the sound, but it grabbed me hard in my radio station days. I started my shows with Antagonism by Skinny Puppy nearly every week as I recall. What it was about them, specifically,…
-
-
One name that emerged from Yellow Magic Orchestra in my musical archive is Ryuichi Sakamoto. I think of him like an Andy Warhol of music; he has many songs with one-word titles that sweep across the acoustic canvas like Mr. Warhol’s works — unique, quirky, and at times creepy —…
-
Kraftwerk’s ‘Computer Love’ came out in the early 1980s, but for me, the future arrived in 1978. To be an ‘urban’ R&B radio station, WDAS-FM out of Philadelphia was more progressive back then; I didn’t realize it until other stations, like WRTI-FM, which had been a major source of jazz,…
-
Who’d have thought it … we’ve now entered the future. There was a time that the future was much earlier; looking back on it now, it’s pretty funny. The personal computer age was a mile marker for a world many of us never imagined. I always wanted my own Jetson’s…
-
Happy 2020! Before we get into all the future-talk to come, I would be remiss to not begin (again) the musical journey with some seasonal sounds. It is a rare person who hasn’t heard the soundtrack for ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, with all the amazing music therein. However, there’s more…
-
As we prepare to celebrate the end of 2019, I am taking a moment or two to relax. I’ll wrap the Must Be the Music series as a kick-off to 2020. Blessings to each of you now and all the year through!
-
One thing that goes well with gospel music from the 1950s and 1960s is organ music. It is true: I am a fan of the pipe organ and take great pleasure in hearing one that is well-played, as they often are in churches. Robert Götzfried offers a photographic exploration of…
-
Back when jazz was my second heartbeat, gospel was likely my first. My Nana, my dad’s mom, was my caregiver before I started school. She often sent me upstairs to put a stack of records on for her. She liked it when I made a mix (I guess I was…
-
I mentioned Donald Fagen yesterday, which made me go back in time. Do you remember the library? I mean, when we had card catalogs and dusty books with moth-eaten pages and a section just for kids and storybook time and the library lady who wore her glasses on a chain…
-
I think this will be the last hip-hop related post in the series. No promises, but that’s how it feels today. It seems the 1980s were quite the era for hip-hop from all over. It’s likely because that’s when television got in the mix with cable and MTV. However, I…