Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The problems with music

The music magazine Blender has published an entertaining feature called The 50 Worst Things Ever to Happen to Music. One good excerpt, among many:

25. Tribute Albums

Don’t die. If you do, a dozen artists who ripped off all your ideas while you were alive (and one of whom will almost certainly be Sheryl Crow) will record overly reverent, roundly uninspired versions of your songs for a tribute album. This album will be ignored and/or quickly forgotten, or will spur a revival in your music that you won’t be around to enjoy and profit from.

The list is all about pop music, but I'd add a bit about classical: The Decline of Audience Etiquette. There's the ringing cellphone, the snoring, the hearing aid gone berserk (I suppose that one's excusable), and the fidgeting that seems to peak when the music is deliciously pianissimo. The worst offenders seem drawn to New York's Avery Fisher Hall, where I watched one woman riffling through multiple shopping bags looking for who-knows-what.

Posted by Evan Hughes at 01:15 PM

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