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The big brassy strut begins – everyone knows this means the end. I wore out three copies of the single (bigger sound, brighter mastering) of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York,” putting the final exclamation point on literally thousands of parties in ’80s and ’90s. When Frank came in, the …

9/11 was an event of such magnitude that it altered time itself, sitting like a gigantic roadblock on the normally smooth procession from the past to the future. I wrote the following on the 6-month anniversary of 9/11, on 3/11/02: The six months passed since September 11 seem paradoxically both …

I love, no, I ADORE the title of this story in the Chronicle of Higher Education: “How Social Science Can Reduce Terrorism.” I can picture ever so vividly a phalanx of tweedy, tastefully mustachioed psych, sociology, history, and poli sci profs locked arm-in-arm, meerschaum pipes perpendicular to resolutely clenched jaws, …

This is an upbeat pop-rock CD from Connecticut singer-songwriter Melissa Mulligan. The best songs, especially “Dark Horse” and “Janie,” could be radio hits, and Mulligan’s maple-syrup voice reminds one of the sometimes underrated Paula Cole’s. “Borrowed Wings” is another catchy number, with airier, Sarah McLachlan-ish vocals. “Girl,” a dramatic rocker …

Queen Latifah’s latest album, out September 28th, is an excursion into classic covers (and the cover above isn’t so bad either). Having conquered hip-hop, television, and film, the Queen is now taking on herself, so to speak, with The Dana Owens Album (produced by Arif Mardin and Ron Fair), wherein …

When I was a DJ on Cleveland commercial modern-rock station The End in the mid-’90s, I could never for the life of me figure why we played Hootie and the Blowfish. What on earth is “modern-rock” or “alternative-rock” about the chronically pleasant, strummy, poppy folk-rock of Blow and the Hootiefish …

This ruling is foolish, counterproductive, counterintuitive, and shows an egregious lack of understanding of what sampling actually IS: A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that rap artists should pay for every musical sample included in their work — even minor, unrecognizable snippets of music. Lower courts had already ruled that …

David is still large and in charge, 17 feet tall, the most famous sculpture in the world, ever strong and youthful: Michelangelo’s famous sculpture David is celebrating its 500th birthday in Florence, where it was first unveiled on 8 September, 1504. The Italian city will showcase nine months of festivities …

And now New Orleans musicians will have one: She rode to the lounge in a pink limousine, cradling the box that held her husband’s ashes. Inside the bar, under a ceiling of paper stars, she placed the box on a table that would serve as a shrine: There were candles, …

Can a U.S. president “create” or “lose” jobs in the private sector? From the campaign rhetoric you’d think the leader of the free world has merely to focus his mighty brow upon the issue and jobs can be summoned from clay or a rib like Adam and Eve (“Watch yourself …