“For the first full sales week following Prince’s death on April 21, five of his albums were in Billboard’s top 10, at Nos. 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. Only Beyoncé’s Lemonade kept him from the top. Billboard says no artist has had that many albums in the Top 10. Prince had 19 discs in Billboard’s top 200, beating a record of 14 previously set by the Beatles.”
Tag: 06.01.16
When The Language Of Of Art Became Americanized
“Even today, music fans ask why British soul singers sound so American. Why do Paul McCartney, Adele, Mick Jagger, and Elton John take on a Yankee tone when they shift from talking to singing? And it’s not just music. The same patterns of influence and dissemination can also be traced in movies, novels, and other creative fields.”
Two Neuroscientists Try To Figure Out A Microprocessor (It Doesn’t Go Well)
Last week, the duo uploaded their paper, titled “Could a neuroscientist understand a microprocessor?” after a classic from 2002. It reads like both a playful thought experiment (albeit one backed up with data) and a serious shot across the bow. And although it has yet to undergo formal peer review, other neuroscientists have already called it a “landmark paper”, a “watershed moment”, and “the paper we all had in our minds but didn’t dare to write”.
US Senate Scrutinizes Private Museums Over Taxes
“The US has 43 private art museums, the second-most of any country, according to a recent survey by the collector database Larry’s List. The 11 museums on Hatch’s list alone have assets totalling $1.6bn, according to their 2013 federal tax returns.”
Laurie Anderson: ‘I Didn’t Want To Be The Artist Who Was Playing Concerts For Dogs. Now I AM The Artist Who Does The Concerts For Dogs.’
“So we did the show [for the first time] and we thought a few hundred dogs would show up. Thousands. They were all up the steps to the Sydney Opera House. … And there are a lot of Australian dogs who just. Want. To. Rooooock.”
The Lonely Island: How Andy Samberg And His Bros Changed Comedy, Online And On TV
“1. Cut a hole in a box.
The Lonely Island disrupted the distribution and aesthetic of filmed comedy.”
Seth Meyers And The Staff Of ‘Saturday Night Live’ Pick The Greatest Lonely Island Digital Short Of All Time
“In March of [Andy] Samberg’s final season, Seth Meyers, SNL‘s head writer at the time, had an idea: a bracket, voted on by the staff of the show, to determine the greatest digital short of all time.” As it turned out, one of the most popular of them all (over 150 million online views) didn’t even make it past the first round of voting. (And “Andy Popping Into Frame” didn’t even make the ballot, so feh!)
European Union Youth Orchestra Saved By Order Of EU President
“Last month, the EUYO announced that it would close this summer after EU funding was withdrawn.” Weeks of protests followed, and on Tuesday it was revealed “that President Jean-Claude Juncker had asked commissioners to find ‘immediate solutions that can be sustainable.'”
New York Times Drops Its ArtsBeat Blog
The number and frequency of posts on the blog had been falling rapidly in recent weeks; since the most recent redesign of nytimes.com, most of the content that would have appeared on ArtsBeat has simply been posted directly to the site’s main Arts page.
After Six Years, Oakland Ballet Gives Its Artistic Director A Full-Time Job
“Oakland Ballet Company Artistic Director Graham Lustig, who has run the company part-time since his appointment in July 2010, will join full-time in September. The expansion of Lustig’s role signals an improvement in the financial position of the respected but beleaguered company, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015.”