Few music videos in 2015 caused as much of a stir as “Hotline Bling” by Drake, the cover star of the latest issue of W Art. Watch, as Bryan Cranston, Amy Schumer, Kristen Wiig, Seth Rogen, and more celebrities, try to top the song that spawned a thousand memes with a dramatic reading of the megahit.
A Bad Lip Reading of Star Wars
Here’s the latest in the hilarious Bad Lip Reading, this time featuring Star Wars. Darth Vader keeps texting Leia, while Ben continues his quest for the Pickaxe of Cortez. Listen for the voices of Jack Black, Maya Rudolph, and Bill Hader, too.
Here Are The 100 Biggest-Selling Albums Of All Time
This week, Michael Jackson’s Thriller crossed the 30 million-mark in the US, edging out longtime sales rival, The Eagles. Unless something changes in the Don Henley-Glenn Frey camp, this could be the leader for a while. Fun Fact: In 2009, Thriller was added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, the first music video ever selected.
Live Music Measures Up: An Economic Impact Analysis of Live Music in Ontario
This month, Music Canada released the first comprehensive study of the live music industry in Ontario. Live Music Measures Up: An Economic Impact Analysis of Live Music in Ontario provides critical data and information that will help guide decision-making within the sector, in government and other allied stakeholders.
“This report provides a comprehensive picture of the benefits live music brings to Ontario. In fact, it only enhances our understanding of data collected in our 2012 economic impact study, and cements what we know about Ontario as a powerhouse for the music industry. It shows that a vibrant music scene drives value in many important ways, including job creation, tourism development, brand building and artistic growth. With the new data from this study, we now have the necessary benchmarks to measure and support its growth. Live Music Measures Up allows us to look at live music through a new lens, and to better understand how critical it is to the entire music ecosystem.” says Graham Henderson, President of Music Canada.
The economic profile is organized into four key areas: revenue, audience, economic impact, and future outlook. The key takeaways are as follows:
- Revenue: Live music companies in Ontario generated $628 million in revenue from live music activities in 2013 as well asprofits of $144 million. Artist management revenue from Canadian artists totalled $34 million in 2013, 54 percent of all artist management revenue, and Canadian artists generated $75 million in ticket sales.
- Audience: In 2013, 558 festivals across Ontario sold a total of 15.7 million tickets, representing 7 million unique visitors. Ontario’s 616 venues have a combined capacity of 3.6 million. The 775 promoters operating in the province in 2013 promoted 81,600 shows, which sold a combined total of 5.4 million tickets.
- Economic Impact: The total economic impact of live music in Ontario’s economy is $1.2 billion. Live music companies in Ontario were responsible for $484 million in total expenditure in 2013 and contributed $432.4 million in taxes to all levels of government combined. The economic impact of live music companies includes 10,500 full-time equivalent jobs, and tourism activity accounts for an additional 9,520.
- Future Outlook: Survey respondents reported that access to tax credits and other forms of government funding, along with the availability of local Canadian talent, were the factors that most positively impacted their company growth. And 83 percent of live music companies in the province expect revenue growth within the next two years.
You can download the report here.
What does ‘perfect sound’ look like? Inside the bizarre science of concert hall design
There are all kinds of theories about what makes a room sound good. One of the leading researchers in the field compares concert hall acoustics to tasting wine: some characteristics are easyily classifiable, but perception and taste are part of the equation, too. Another has suggested that understanding the way sound reflects in a room, not the shape of it, is the critical component to good concert hall design.
But the craziest theory comes from a researcher named Zackery Belanger. He thinks that acoustics is primarily a geometric problem, a theory so radical that he was forced out of his Ph.D. program because his advisor disagreed with it.
“Most people think you just do some computer simulations and out comes the answer,” he told me. “It’s as if we started off with a plane that flew really well and we didn’t understand the science beneath it.”
Right now, the main way places like concert halls are studied is by measuring decays in sound. Researchers play a test sound from a stage and then place microphones around a room to try and understand what happens to the sound when it travels.
Belanger thinks that’s all wrong. He believes that it may be possible to predict almost everything about the way a room will sound by how much its surface area deviates from the surface area of a perfect sphere, like Boston’s Mapparium. The idea here is that the total surface area of a room is more important to the way sound waves bounce around it than any particular characteristic on its own. So you can swap out chairs or carpeting or puffy jackets and it doesn’t really matter so long as it all adds up to the right number.
Via Fusion
Hear the World Foundation 2016’s Calendar Features Tina Turner, Naomie Harris, Wim Wenders And More
Hear the World foundation puts together a celebrity calendar every year featuring its celebrity ambassadors as part of an effort to raise awareness and support for people with hearing loss all over the world.
This year’s calendar will feature Tina Turner, Rosamunde Pike, Theo Hutchcraft, Naomie Harris and Wim Wenders, to name a few. Other ambassadors featured will be similarly recognizable names among the “Who’s Who” of the cinema, music and fashion worlds. Star portraits always speak a thousand words and the Hear the World 2016 calendar is a powerful collection of shots photographed by legendary Canadian musician and Ontario native, Bryan Adams.
As well as running a long-term campaign to raise awareness, the foundation primarily focuses on providing aid. In particular, it supports projects that support children with hearing loss by giving grants to groups looking to run hearing healthcare programs globally. These programs, which vary in length and broad objectives, ultimately enable children to hear, which in turn allows them to develop at an appropriate rate for their age and to gives them access to school education. All proceeds from the calendar go to the Hear the World Foundation in support of these grants and hearing healthcare projects. The Foundation has supported more than 60 projects across five continents since 2006, and it has already given countless people the chance of better hearing.
Watch André Rieu Perform A 50-Year-Old Waltz Written By Anthony Hopkins Who Is In The Audience
One of the nicest people I’ve worked with, André Rieu & His Johann Strauss Orchestra recently performed “And The Waltz Goes On” in Maastricht, composed by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Yes, THAT Anthony Hopkins. The Silence Of The Lambs, The Mask of Zorro, Nixon, and Amistad actor who wrote this piece of music almost 50 years ago.
Hopkins was a musician before taking on the acting world. He graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and this must have been a superb night for him to see, and hear, his own composition being performed.
2016 Inductees for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced
The names of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 2016 Inductees have been released. They are:
Performer Category:
- Cheap Trick
- Chicago
- Deep Purple
- N.W.A.
- Steve Miller
The 31st Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, presented by Klipsch Audio, will take place on Friday, April 8, 2016 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York for the second time. HBO will broadcast the ceremony in spring 2016.
Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first recording. The 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Performer Inductees were chosen by more than 800 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, as well as the aggregate results of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s online fan vote. The top five artists, as selected by the public, comprised a “fans’ ballot” that was tallied along with the other ballots to determine the 2016 Inductees. Three of the top five artists from the fans ballot will be inducted in 2016.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, will also open a special exhibit on the 2016 Inductees in conjunction with the 2016 Induction Ceremony.
Klipsch Audio, a leading global speaker and headphone manufacturer, is a strategic partner and presenting sponsor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and its Induction Ceremony events. Klipsch’s renowned products deliver the power, detail and emotion of the live music experience throughout the iconic museum.
Tickets will go on sale to the public in February. A limited number of pre-sale tickets will be available for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members in advance of the public sale date. To be eligible for the member pre-sale, you must be an active Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member by December 31, 2015. Exact sale dates and ticket information will be announced in late January. Details available at www.rockhall.com. To receive Induction Ceremony updates, announcements and ticket information, sign up for the Rock Hall’s e-newsletter atwww.rockhall.com/e-newsletter, follow the Rock Hall on Facebook, Twitter (@rock_hall) and Instagram (@rockhall) or join the conversation at #RockHall2016.
About the 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees:
CHEAP TRICK
Inductees: Bun E. Carlos, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, Robin Zander
Cheap Trick had perfected an extremely individual yet classic rock and roll band sound by the time it released its first album in 1977. It has never changed it much. It didn’t need to. Cheap Trick’s records and concerts display a singular musical consistency over almost 40 years. Remaining interesting, sometimes hilarious, in that way is also pretty much unparalleled – and indispensable to understanding them. Cheap Trick is led by Rick Nielsen’s classic and perpetually fresh guitar and the sweet power of Robin Zander’s vocals. The group’s original line-up with Tom Petersson on bass and the amazing Bun E. Carlos as the powerhouse drummer influenced pretty much every other hard rockin’ band that came afterwards. They somehow bridge the gap between the fierce clowning of early punk and the accidental-on-purpose humor of metal, without ever sounding a bit like either. Their first five albums –Cheap Trick, In Color, Heaven Tonight, Dream Police, All Shook Up – made in a rock and roll tsunami from 1977 to 1980, are about as great as any such sequence in rock history and they hold up beautifully all these years later. Their American breakthrough, Live At Budokan, is in the running for best live album of all time. Some of their studio albums are better than others, but they have never made anything like a bad one. And they will all rock you ’til your eyes bulge out. Promise.
CHICAGO
Inductees: Peter Cetera, Terry Kath, Robert Lamm, Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, Walter Parazaider, Danny Seraphine
Fusing jazz and rock together in a time when the Beatles were still crashing onto the American shores and psychedelic rock was taking over the basements of teenagers; Chicago Transit Authority broke onto the scene unapologetically in 1969 with their self-titled double album,Chicago Transit Authority. A brazen mix of soulful rock, pop and jazz coupled with protester’s chants from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention; the album received critical acclaim and later produced the classic singles “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” and “Beginnings.” As the band began touring, under pressure from the city of Chicago, they shortened their name to simply, Chicago, and later released their second self-titled album,Chicago, in 1970. The center track, “Ballet For A Girl In Buchannon,” is a seven-part, 13-minute suite of pure melodic perfection composed by James Pankow who merged his love of classical, long song styles with Chicago’s signature sound. It yielded two unexpected singles “Make Me Smile” and “Colour My World” that quickly took the charts by storm reaching the Top Ten on Billboard’s Hot 100. From their inception through to the late 1970’s, Chicago mastered the art of making melodic jazz tinged rock with a keen pop sensibility. The group had a long string of jazz-rock mega hits including: “Make Me Smile,” “Saturday In The Park,” “25 Or 6 To 4,” “Feelin Stronger Every Day,” “If You Leave Me Now” and many others. Chicago’s early lineup created such an unmistakable sound and their inclusion into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is not only well-deserved, but an honor that has been overlooked. With over 21 Top 10 singles, 5 consecutive Number One albums, 11 Number One singles – fans that stretch across the globe and countless bands that have followed in their wake, Chicago’s legacy is unquestionable.
DEEP PURPLE
Inductees: Ritchie Blackmore, David Coverdale, Rod Evans, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Jon Lord, Ian Paice
If there were a “Mount Rushmore Of Hard Rock” it would only have three heads: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. They are the Holy Trinity of hard rock and metal bands and Deep Purple’s non-inclusion in the Hall is a gaping hole which must now be filled. Deep Purple combined outstanding musicianship with dozens of FM radio smashes. Three separate incarnations of the band have made spectacular albums culminating with Deep Purple In Rock, which along with Led Zeppelin II and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid, CREATED the genre of hard rock music. Deep Purple have sold over 100 million albums and their flagship track “Smoke On The Water” eclipses “Satisfaction,” “Born To Run” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” as the Number One Greatest Guitar Riff Of All Time. It is the riff that inspired tens of millions of guitarists to pick up the instrument and only Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony gives it a run for the money as far as recognizability and badassed-ness. Genius guitarist Ritchie Blackmore fused countless powerhouse riffs with a deep knowledge and appreciation of classical music. Keyboardist Jon Lord kept pace on the classical and rock fronts and cemented the guitar/keyboard axis that defined the band’s sound and along with Zeppelin and Sabbath gave birth to an entire genre. Ian Gillan’s vocal range was unparalleled and the boiler room rhythm section of Roger Glover and Ian Paice cemented the classic lineup. Original vocalist Rod Evans and the David Coverdale/Glenn Hughes line-ups also created masterpieces of their own. Deep Purple are and were a band of supremely talented musicians and songwriters. They are one of the titans and pioneers of their genre, and one of the hardest pillars in the Temple Of Rock. Their groundbreaking albums and ear drum breaking live shows are the stuff of legend and make them long overdue for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
N.W.A.
Inductees: DJ Yella, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren
Unexpected. Shocking. Flawed. Revolutionary. Worthy. N.W.A.’s improbable rise from marginalized outsiders to the most controversial and complicated voices of their generation remains one of rock’s most explosive, relevant and challenging tales. From their Compton, California headquarters (once a leafy oasis of upwardly mobile African-American success, by the time of the group’s 1986 inception the city’s traditional woes of segregation, failing schools, unemployment, mass incarceration and gangs were now joined by militarized law enforcement, crack cocaine and Reaganomics) Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren and DJ Yella would — by force of will and unrelenting tales of street life — sell tens of millions of records, influence multiple generations the world over and extend artistic middle fingers to the societal barriers of geography, respectability, caste, authority and whatever else happened to get in their way. As enduringly evergreen as the Beatles and as shockingly marketable as the Sex Pistols, N.W.A. (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) made a way out of no way, put their city on the map and solidified the disparate elements of gangsta rap into a genre meaty enough to be quantified, imitated and monetized for generations to come. But two decades before Rolling Stone would rank them 83rd on their “100 Greatest Artists Of All Time” list, they were just five young men with something to say. Five men, at least twice that many opposing points of view among them and well over a hundred million records collectively sold over the last 29 years, N.W.A. and its extended family tree of platinum satellites (J.J. Fad, The D.O.C, Above The Law, Michel’le, Yo-Yo, Da Lench Mob, Del the Funky Homosapien, Hieroglyphics, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Nate Dogg, The Dogg Pound, The Lady of Rage, Bone Thugsn-Harmony, 2Pac, Westside Connection, Eminem, 50 Cent, The Game, Kendrick Lamar — an unmatched assemblage of talent) helped set the stage for hip hop’s emergence as one of this planet’s most dominant musical life forms.
STEVE MILLER
Inductee: Steve Miller
Steve Miller was a mainstay of the San Francisco music scene that upended American culture in the late Sixties. With albums like Children Of The Future, Sailor and Brave New World, Miller perfected a psychedelic blues sound that drew on the deepest sources of American roots music and simultaneously articulated a compelling vision of what music – and, indeed, society – could be in the years to come. Then, in the Seventies, Miller crafted a brand of pure pop that was polished, exciting and irresistible – and that dominated radio in a way that few artists have ever managed. Hit followed hit in what seemed like an endless flow: “Take The Money And Run,” “Rock’n Me,” “Fly Like An Eagle,” “Jet Airliner” and “Jungle Love,” among them. To this day, those songs are instantly recognizable when they come on the radio – and impossible not to sing along with. Their hooks are the very definition of indelible. Running through Miller’s distinctive catalogue is a combination of virtuosity and song craft. His parents were jazz aficionados – not to mention close friends of Les Paul and Mary Ford – so, as a budding guitarist, Miller absorbed valuable lessons from that musical tradition. When the family moved to Texas, Miller deepened his education in the blues, eventually moving to Chicago, where he played with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and Paul Butterfield. In recent years, Miller has immersed himself in the blues once again. And, as always, whether he was riding the top of the charts or exploring the blue highways of American music, he is playing and singing with both conviction and precision, passion and eloquence, and making records that, quite incredibly, are at once immediately accessible and more than able to stand the test of time.
Rapper Killer Mike interviews U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
On November 23rd, 2015, rapper and political advocate Killer Mike sat down with Senator Bernie Sanders at The SWAG Shop in Atlanta, GA to discuss topics like healthcare, gun control, education, democratic socialism, drug policy and how to increase the voter turnout among young people.
