Tag: 04.28.03

Who’s Got The Top Top 40 List?

A new British Top 40 chart has the BBC fighting two commercial companies. “Before the arrival of the internet, BBC Radio 1’s Top 40 countdown on Sunday afternoons – based solely on single sales – was the pre-eminent chart. But now commercial companies believe it is vital to take airplay and internet listening into account because online music piracy is widespread and teenagers are often long bored of a single by the time it is released in the record shops.”

Stolen Van Gogh, Others Recovered…Maybe Damaged

Detectives investigating the theft of £1 million of artwork from the Manchester art gallery recovered three paintings after an anonymous phone call. “The Whitworth Gallery’s three paintings, works by Picasso, Gauguin and Van Gogh, are thought to have been damaged by heavy overnight rain. The extent of the damage, and the authenticity of the works, is still being assessed by experts.”

Wanted: More Accuracy In Bestseller Charts

Why is a new Top 40 music chart needed to determine which music is most popular? Many think the current system measuring only CD sales, is inaccurate and open to manipulation. “The use of radio airplay as a criterion is contentious: the playlist is compiled by radio-station programmers. And one area not yet factored in by any of the charts is arguably the most important for the music industry’s future: internet sales.”

Theft Was Meticulously Executed

The theft of three paintings from the Manchester gallery was meticulously planned and executed. “With no noise, no fuss and no suspicion, thieves had entered overnight and coolly strolled out with £1m worth of work. The only sign of the drawings by Gauguin, Picasso and Van Gogh were the blank spaces left on the white wall of a ground-floor gallery, where the frames had hung side by side.”

Bard’s New Gehry

Bard College’s new Frank Gehry-designed 900-seat adaptable auditorium “is an inviting and intimate place to hear music. The simple décor is handsome, with smooth concrete walls, wood-paneled balconies and a soft-hued wooden proscenium (retractable to accommodate the staging of opera and theater works). On first hearing, it’s hard to assess fully the work of the acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota.

State Poets Laureate Convene

A first-ever meeting of American states’ poets laureate gathered in New Hampshire. “There was an aura of self-congratulation about the conference, with many of the poets extolling what they said was poetry’s newfound power. Many said the best thing that ever happened to them was the postponement by the first lady, Laura Bush, of a White House poetry conference this year after she learned that the invited poets were sending antiwar poems to one of the scheduled participants, Sam Hamill, who was organizing a protest. “Ever since Laura Bush, my readings have been crowded,” said Grace Paley, poet laureate of Vermont and, at 80, a rabble-rouser. “Even if they’re not about the war, they’ve been crowded.”