Category Archives: Reception
Lady Gaga’s social network
Lady Gaga went from nowhere to everywhere in just 18 months due to many factors—not least, to her unprecedented and canny use of social networking. Gaga used Internet tools to craft her personal mythology, and continues to use them to … Continue reading
Filed under Mass media, Popular music, Reception
Carnatic Music Idol
The “Idol” television format has gone global, and since 2004 an Indian version has featured amateur singers of popular Indian film songs. Seeing this, the producer Subhashree Thanikachalam (left)—who had already pioneered three successful television series focused on Indian music—decided to … Continue reading
Filed under Asia, Mass media, Reception
Performing Arts in America 1875–1923
Performing Arts in America 1875–1923, a website of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, captures a glimpse of the beginning of the modern age, when a combination of technological advances and societal freedoms led the way to … Continue reading
Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Dance, Reception, Resources
The Wanamaker organ
A National Historic Landmark valued over $57 million, the Grand Organ of Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia has 115 ranks, six manual keyboards, and hundreds of other mechanical controls. Designed by the renowned organ architect George Ashdown Audsley, it … Continue reading
Filed under Instruments, Reception
Kumbaya: A song’s evolution
Having served as a beloved anthem during the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, Kumbaya now serves as an easy punch line in jokes about naïve idealism. Various theories regarding its provenance have circulated, including a report that it was … Continue reading
Filed under Black studies, Curiosities, North America, Reception, World music
The first Mozart monument
Rovereto claims the distinction of being both the first stop in the series of trips that Mozart undertook in Italy—he arrived with his father on Christmas Eve in 1769—and the first city to erect a monument in Mozart’s honor. The … Continue reading
Filed under Classic era, Reception
Karaoke and class
Karaoke challenges the hegemony of the status quo by breaking down the received rules of cultural production and challenging binary notions of high vs. low art, live vs. recorded performance, and amateur vs. professional performers. In so doing, karaoke engenders … Continue reading
Filed under Mass media, Performance practice, Popular music, Reception
Ringtones redux
Cell phone ringtones have been the subject of scholarly investigation for at least a decade; approaches to them have ranged from the practical to the postmodern. The earliest academic study that we know of is “On the ringtones of cell … Continue reading
Filed under Curiosities, Popular music, Reception, Science
