Tag: 10.07.20

Why We’re Finally Getting More Recordings Of Black And Female Composers: It’s Just Easier To Make Them Now

The key, writes David Patrick Stearns, is that there are “far more numerous entry points. … The era of self-produced recordings, ushered in by LSO Live!, allowed major symphonies by major artists to be delivered at a lower price, so buyers could take a chance on something they only might want to hear two or three times. The world has also become populated by boutique labels that will issue all manner of recordings, often handed to them ready-made by the artists with no overhead cost, and issued with a curatorial sensibility that’s considerably less narrow than major labels of the past.” – WQXR (New York City)

Why Can’t Amazon Figure Out How To Create Good Video Games?

“Any veteran of the video games industry will tell you that good games are products of miracle. … Yet Amazon’s total inability to excel in gaming is remarkable. Breakaway wasn’t its first fiasco, or its last. After more than a decade of concerted effort, the tech company that brute-forced its way to dominance in books, retail, and cloud computing has failed to produce a single successful big-name title.” Why? As one former employee put it, “There’s this hubris. We’re Amazon. We can do it all. We can spend our way to success.” – Wired

Reddit’s ‘Am I The Asshole?’ Is Addictive. It May Also Be Making The World A Better Place.

“You start reading AITA posts before bed instead of doomscrolling the news because here, at least, it feels like your opinion matters. … It’s a place where accountability actually exists, even if only in the form of branding someone right or wrong in one absurd situation. It’s also a place for growth: Sometimes posters return to talk about how their lives changed — almost always for the better — because of the advice they got from thousands of anonymous strangers. … AITA might [now] be the largest public forum for conflict resolution on the planet. ” – The Ringer

John Luther Adams On What Makes His Music Tick

“Musically, I came of age in a time when there was this ongoing war between smart music and pretty music. And one of the things that I discovered was that it’s a false dichotomy. … The construction of the music, the intellectual care, the mathematical rigor, the algorithmic detail — all that is essential, even if you don’t hear it or you choose not to listen to it. … Music can be intellectually airtight and still sock you in the belly or grab you by the ears or seduce you, ravish you.” – The Nation

At 40, Edward Watson Figured He Could Keep Dancing And Dancing. And Then …

“At 41 it all went wrong.” (There was a ruptured ligament, then a broken foot. Then the pandemic put a stop to the new Wayne McGregor Dante Project he would star in. So he’s up and retired, aged 44.) “It becomes very revealing how much you’ve put your body through. What I’ve done for the last 30 years, it’s not normal to do that to your body. But it is possible.” – The Guardian

Back To The Museum – But Alas It Had Lost Its Charm

Phil Kennicott: “I had thought I might escape the outside world for a few hours, shut out the chaos and crisis. But in room after room, the vast majority of the objects were mute and meaningless, and only those that somehow referenced other periods of crisis spoke with clarity. I had entirely lost my ability to experience art as escape.”- Washington Post