Portal:Music

The Music Portal

Grooved side of the Voyager Golden Record launched along the Voyager probes to space, which feature music from around the world

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

Music often plays a key role in social events and religious ceremony. The techniques of making music are often transmitted as part of a cultural tradition. Music is played in public and private contexts, highlighted at events such as festivals and concerts for various different types of ensembles. Music is used in the production of other media, such as in soundtracks to films, TV shows, operas, and video games.

Listening to music is a common means of entertainment. The culture surrounding music extends into areas of academic study, journalism, philosophy, psychology, and therapy. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and publishers of sheet music and recordings. Technology facilitating the recording and reproduction of music has historically included sheet music, microphones, phonographs, and tape machines, with playback of digital musics being a common use for MP3 players, CD players, and smartphones. (Full article...)

General images -

The following are images from various music-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  The Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)
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  US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)
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  An HMV record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in 2013 (from Album era)
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  Two musicians of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), Shanghai Museum (from History of music)
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  Beyoncé (2016) popularized the surprise-album strategy of the 2010s. (from Album era)
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  A young man browsing through a record store in Bonn, West Germany, June 1988 (from Album era)
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  A studio engineer working with an audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)
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  Notation indicating differing pitch, dynamics, articulation, and instrumentation (from Elements of music)
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  Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400 BCE), the oldest of the Hurrian songs (from History of music)
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  J. S. Bach (from History of music)
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  A smartphone displaying playlists on Spotify, 2010. The streaming service became a dominant and redefining platform for music consumption through the decade. (from Album era)
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  Frank Sinatra (c. 1955), an early pop album artist (from Album era)
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  The portable Discman CD player, which was released in 1984 and precipitated the displacement of LPs (from Album era)
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  The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
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  Musicians working in a recording studio (from Music industry)
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  Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
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  An example of mechanically printed sheet music (from Music industry)
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  c. 379 CE Bas relief of Sassanid women playing the chang in Taq-e Bostan, Iran (from History of music)
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  Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
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  Clara and Robert Schumann (from History of music)
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  Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
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  Frances Densmore at the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 where she was recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this picture, Mountain Chief is listening to a recording. (from Music industry)
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  An audience watching a concert (from Music industry)
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  Taylor Swift, a longtime adherent to album-era rollouts, surprise-released her albums instead in 2020. (from Album era)
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  A radio broadcasting system from 1906 (from Music industry)
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  The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei (from History of music)
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  A Rhodes College student listening to the 1969 Yes LP on campus, c. 1970 (from Album era)
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  As LPs fell out of favor to CDs, hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)
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  The logo for Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)
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  A live musical performance at Cologne Pride, 2013 (from Music industry)
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  Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
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  Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
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  Alleluia nativitas by Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)
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  Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from History of music)
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  The Beatles (1964) have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
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  The Japanese boy band Arashi, who had the world's best-selling album (5x20 All the Best!!) in 2019 (from Album era)
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  An LP record on a phonograph (from Album era)
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  A young couple listening to music on an iPod Mini, 2006 (from Album era)
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  Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
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  Sheet music for part of the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (from History of music)
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  A musician in a recording studio (from Music industry)

Featured articles -

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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  Monteux during his conductorship of Les Ballets Russes, c. 1912

  
  
  Pierre Benjamin Monteux (pronounced [pjɛʁ mɔ̃.tø]; 4 April 1875 – 1 July 1964) was a French (later American) conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in 1907. He came to prominence when, for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company between 1911 and 1914, he conducted the world premieres of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and other prominent works including Petrushka, The Nightingale, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, and Debussy's Jeux. Thereafter he directed orchestras around the world for more than half a century.
  
  From 1917 to 1919 Monteux was the principal conductor of the French repertoire at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1919–24), Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra (1924–34), Orchestre Symphonique de Paris (1929–38) and San Francisco Symphony (1936–52). In 1961, aged eighty-six, he accepted the chief conductorship of the London Symphony Orchestra, a post which he held until his death three years later. Although he was known for his performances of the French repertoire, his chief love was the music of German composers, above all Brahms. He disliked recording, finding it incompatible with spontaneity, but he nevertheless made a substantial number of records. (Full article...)
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  "Candy" is a song by American rapper Foxy Brown featuring American singer Kelis, released by Def Jam on August 21, 2001, as the third single from her third studio album Broken Silence (2001). A dance-pop and R&B track, it was produced by the Neptunes duo Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams, who co-wrote the song alongside Brown and Juan Manuel Cordova. Brown raps on the verses while Kelis, a frequent collaborator with the Neptunes, performs the hook. The song was recorded in Virginia Beach and mixed in New York City. "Candy" premiered at the Broken Silence listening party in June 2001, and although it did not receive an official music video, a portion of it was played in the video for the album track "Tables Will Turn".
  
  The song is about cunnilingus. While this sexually explicit content marked a continuity with Brown's earlier material, it set "Candy" apart from the rest of Broken Silence, which tended toward more introspective subject matters. According to critics, the single has elements of 1980s music, dance music, and new wave music and a more pop sound than Brown's previous albums. (Full article...)
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  "Jihad" is a song by the American thrash metal band Slayer which appears on the band's 2006 studio album Christ Illusion. The song portrays the viewpoint of a terrorist who has participated in the September 11, 2001 attacks, concluding with spoken lyrics taken from words left behind by Mohamed Atta; Atta was named by the FBI as the "head suicide terrorist" of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center. "Jihad" was primarily written by guitarist Jeff Hanneman; the lyrics were co-authored with vocalist Tom Araya.
  
  "Jihad" received a mixed reception in the music press, and reviews generally focused on the lyrics' controversial subject matter. The song drew comparisons to Slayer's 1986 track "Angel of Death"—also penned by Hanneman—which similarly caused outrage at the time of its release. (Full article...)
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  "Eyes of the Insane" is a 2006 song by the American thrash metal band Slayer, taken from the band's 2006 album Christ Illusion. The lyrics explore an American soldier's mental anguish following his return home from the second Gulf War, and are based on an article titled "Casualty of War" in Texas Monthly magazine; they were written by vocalist Tom Araya during pre-production for the album. The song was generally well received by critics, and also peaked at No. 15 on the Danish singles chart.
  
  The accompanying music video by the Tehran-born Armenian director Tony Petrossian was recorded in the Los Angeles area in August 2006. The film is presented as a close-up of the soldier's pupil and iris, which reflect disconcerting images of war-themed horrors, flashbacks of his home, wife and children, and ultimately images of his death. "Eyes of the Insane" was used on the soundtrack to Saw III, and won an award for the Best Metal Performance at the 49th Grammy Awards. (Full article...)
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  Arular is the debut studio album by British recording artist M.I.A. It was released on 22 March 2005 in the United States, and one month later in the United Kingdom, with a slightly different track listing. In 2004, the album's release was preceded by two singles and a mixtape. M.I.A. wrote or co-wrote all the songs on the album, while collaborators included Justine Frischmann, Switch, Diplo, Richard X, Ant Whiting and Greg "Wizard" Fleming.
  
  The album's title is the political code name used by her father, Arul Pragasam, during his involvement with Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups, and themes of conflict and revolution feature heavily in the lyrics and artwork. Musically, the album incorporates styles that range from hip hop and electroclash to dancehall, baile funk, and punk. M.I.A. created the basic backing tracks using a Roland MC-505 sequencer/drum machine given to her by long-time friend Frischmann. (Full article...)
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  Tank Girl is a 1995 American post-apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Rachel Talalay and written by Tedi Sarafian. Based on the British comics series created by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, the film stars Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, Ice-T, and Malcolm McDowell. Set in a drought ravaged Australia years after a catastrophic impact event, it follows the antihero Tank Girl (Petty) as she, Jet Girl (Watts), and genetically modified supersoldiers called the Rippers fight Water & Power, an oppressive corporation led by Kesslee (McDowell).
  
  After reading an issue of the Tank Girl comic she had received as a gift, Talalay obtained permission from the comic's publisher Deadline to direct a film adaptation. She selected Catherine Hardwicke to be the production designer, and worked closely with Martin and Hewlett during the making of the film. Tank Girl was filmed primarily in White Sands, New Mexico, and Tucson, Arizona. The film's critically praised soundtrack was assembled by Courtney Love, and the Rippers' makeup and prosthetics team was headed by Stan Winston. Winston's studio were so enthusiastic about the project they cut their usual prices in half to meet the film's budget. (Full article...)
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  Page 53 of Olney Hymns showing the first stanza of the hymn beginning with "Amazing Grace!"

  
  "Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn published in 1779, written in 1772 by English Anglican clergyman and poet John Newton (1725–1807). It is possibly the most sung and most recorded hymn in the world, and especially popular in the United States, where it is used for both religious and secular purposes.
  
  Newton wrote the words from personal experience; he grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by others' reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant insubordination. He was pressed into service with the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy. While this moment marked his spiritual conversion, he continued slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether. Newton began studying Christian theology and later became an abolitionist. (Full article...)
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  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (top left) and The Five (counter-clockwise from bottom left): Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

  
  
  In mid- to late-19th-century Russia, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and a group of composers known as The Five had differing opinions as to whether Russian classical music should be composed following Western or native practices. Tchaikovsky wanted to write professional compositions of such quality that they would stand up to Western scrutiny and thus transcend national barriers, yet remain distinctively Russian in melody, rhythm and other compositional characteristics. The Five, made up of composers Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, sought to produce a specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training. While Tchaikovsky himself used folk songs in some of his works, for the most part he tried to follow Western practices of composition, especially in terms of tonality and tonal progression. Also, unlike Tchaikovsky, none of The Five were academically trained in composition; in fact, their leader, Balakirev, considered academicism a threat to musical imagination. Along with critic Vladimir Stasov, who supported The Five, Balakirev attacked relentlessly both the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which Tchaikovsky had graduated, and its founder Anton Rubinstein, orally and in print.
  
  As Tchaikovsky had become Rubinstein's best-known student, he was initially considered by association as a natural target for attack, especially as fodder for Cui's printed critical reviews. This attitude changed slightly when Rubinstein left the Saint Petersburg musical scene in 1867. In 1869 Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev; the result was Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced. When Tchaikovsky wrote a positive review of Rimsky-Korsakov's Fantasy on Serbian Themes he was welcomed into the circle, despite concerns about the academic nature of his musical background. The finale of his Second Symphony, nicknamed the Little Russian, was also received enthusiastically by the group on its first performance in 1872. (Full article...)
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  Fauré in 1907

  
  The French composer Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) wrote in many genres, including songs, chamber music, orchestral pieces, and choral works. His compositions for piano, written between the 1860s and the 1920s, include some of his best-known works.
  
  Fauré's major sets of piano works are thirteen nocturnes, thirteen barcarolles, six impromptus, and four valses-caprices. These sets were composed during several decades in his long career, and display the change in his style from uncomplicated youthful charm to a final enigmatic, but sometimes fiery introspection, by way of a turbulent period in his middle years. His other notable piano pieces, including shorter works, or collections composed or published as a set, are Romances sans paroles, Ballade in F♯ major, Mazurka in B♭ major, Thème et variations in C♯ minor, and Huit pièces brèves. For piano duet, Fauré composed the Dolly Suite and, together with his friend and former pupil André Messager, an exuberant parody of Wagner in the short suite Souvenirs de Bayreuth. (Full article...)
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  "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. First released as the final track on Dylan's seventh studio album, Blonde on Blonde (1966), the song lasts 11 minutes and 23 seconds, and occupies the entire fourth side of the double album. The song was written by Dylan and produced by Bob Johnston. The recording session began at 6 pm on February 15, 1966, at Columbia Studio A, Nashville, Tennessee, but Dylan worked on the lyrics for several hours while the experienced Nashville session musicians hired to accompany him stood by. Four takes were recorded in the early hours of February 16; the final recording was released on Blonde on Blonde. The music is a waltz in 6/8 time.
  
  Some writers have concluded that the song refers to Joan Baez, although most agree that it was composed for Dylan's wife Sara Lownds. Dylan refers to writing the song for his wife in his track "Sara" (1975). Commentators have pointed to literary allusions in "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" which include William Blake's 1794 poem "The Tyger", Algernon Swinburne's 1866 poem "Dolores", and verses of the Bible. (Full article...)
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  Rossini as a young man, c. 1810–1815

  
  
  Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.
  
  Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell. (Full article...)
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  "I Need You" is a song recorded by American socialite Paris Hilton. Michael Green produced the song and co-wrote it with Hilton and Simon Wilcox. Heiress Records released it as a digital download on February 14, 2018. A version of the song leaked in 2010, but Hilton said she re-recorded portions of the vocals and instrumental as a dedication to her fiancé Chris Zylka. It is a doo-wop and pop ballad that features holiday-related puns about love. Green based the single's style on 1950s music.
  
  Critics praised "I Need You", partially as a departure from Hilton's previous dance-oriented and EDM songs. The single peaked at number 32 on the Dance Club Songs chart, Hilton's fifth appearance. A music video, directed by Zylka, was released on February 14, 2018, through Hilton's YouTube account. Inspired by Marilyn Monroe's performance of "I Wanna Be Loved by You" and Jessica Rabbit, the music video features Hilton wearing lingerie, posing in a bed covered with red rose petals, and popping out of a cake. Critics described the bed scene as a homage to the 1999 film American Beauty. Remixes by other artists, including Hector Fonseca, were released to promote the track. (Full article...)
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  "I'm God" is an instrumental song by the American producer Michael Volpe, known professionally as Clams Casino, and the British singer Imogen Heap. Volpe created "I'm God" in 2009 by sampling Heap's song "Just for Now" (2005), after learning of her through a friend. Volpe sent the track to American rapper Lil B; the instrumental is featured on a song of the same name on Lil B's debut album, 6 Kiss (2009). Volpe self-released "I'm God" in 2011 and, in 2012, it appeared on his Instrumentals 2 mixtape. Following years of unsuccessful attempts to clear the sample usage, it was officially released on streaming on April 24, 2020, appearing on Volpe's Instrumental Relics compilation.
  
  A cloud rap song, "I'm God" is noted for its ethereal and dream-like aspects. It received a cult following on the Internet, being unofficially reuploaded by fans to social media, including in the form of a music video that incorporates clips from the French film Perdues dans New York (1989). "I'm God" went on to be influential to the cloud rap genre. It was certified gold in the United States. (Full article...)
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  Freak Out! is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on June 27, 1966, by Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, it is a satirical expression of guitarist/bandleader Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture and the nascent freak scene of Los Angeles. It was the second rock music double album ever released, following Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde just one week earlier, as well as the first double debut album by a rock artist. In the UK, the album was originally released as an edited single disc.
  
  The album was produced by Tom Wilson, who signed the Mothers, formerly a bar band called the Soul Giants. Zappa said many years later that Wilson signed the band to a record deal under the impression that they were a white blues band. The album features Zappa on vocals and guitar, along with lead vocalist/tambourine player Ray Collins, bass player/vocalist Roy Estrada, drummer/vocalist Jimmy Carl Black and guitar player Elliot Ingber (later of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, performing there under the pseudonym "Winged Eel Fingerling"). (Full article...)
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  OK Computer is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 21 May 1997. With their producer, Nigel Godrich, Radiohead recorded most of OK Computer in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic mansion of St Catherine's Court in Bath in 1996 and early 1997. They distanced themselves from the guitar-centred, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, The Bends. OK Computer's abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and eclectic influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work.
  
  The lyrics depict a dystopian world fraught with rampant consumerism, capitalism, social alienation, and political malaise, with themes such as transport, technology, insanity, death, modern British life, globalisation and anti-capitalism. In this capacity, OK Computer is said to have prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life. The band used unconventional production techniques, including natural reverberation, and no audio separation. Strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. Most of the album was recorded live. (Full article...)

Selected pictures

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  Fervaal

  Illustration credit: Carlos Schwabe; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Fervaal is an opera with a prologue and three acts by the French composer Vincent d'Indy. Fervaal is the son of a Celtic king and is destined to be the last advocate of the old gods. His mission is to save his homeland from invasion and pillage, but in doing so he must renounce love. This illustration, by the Swiss painter Carlos Schwabe, relates to the 10 May 1898 premiere of the opera at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris. Here, Fervaal is depicted ascending a mountain while carrying the body of his beloved Guilhen at the end of the opera, as the pagan gods and their worshippers fade out of existence with the dawn of Christianity.
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  Les Troyens

  Illustration credit: Antoine Barbizet; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Les Troyens (The Trojans) is a French grand opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz, with a libretto written by the composer himself based on Virgil's Aeneid. The score was composed between 1856 and 1858, but Berlioz did not live long enough to see the work performed in its entirety. The first two acts were performed separately under the title La Prise de Troie. This picture shows the cover of the first-edition vocal score for La Prise de Troie, published in 1863.
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  Franz Lehár

  Photograph: Bain News Service; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Franz Lehár (1870–1948) was an Austro-Hungarian composer mainly known for his operettas, the most successful and best known being The Merry Widow. He also wrote sonatas, symphonic poems and marches.
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  Griselda (A. Scarlatti)

  Manuscript: Alessandro Scarlatti

  Griselda is an opera seria in three acts by the Italian composer Alessandro Scarlatti. First performed in 1721, it is based on the story of Patient Griselda from Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron. The libretto is by Apostolo Zeno, with revisions by an anonymous author. This manuscript copy by Scarlatti, held at the British Library, is of act one, scene one.
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  Henrik Freischlader

  Photograph: Stefan Krause

  Henrik Freischlader (b. 1982) is a German blues guitarist and singer. He began his career in 1998, and established his own label, Cable Car Records, in 2009.
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  Lina Rafn

  Photo: Jepsen

  Lina Rafn (b. 1976) is a Danish singer, songwriter and producer active with the band Infernal. She had previously been a VJ on the show The Voice TV Danmark.
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  Carl Nielsen

  Photograph: Georg Lindstrøm; restoration: Adam Cuerden

  Carl Nielsen (1865–1931) was a Danish musician, conductor and violinist, widely recognized as his country's most prominent composer. Initially playing in a military band before attending the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, he premiered his Op. 1, Suite for Strings, in 1888, at the age of 23. His early music was inspired by composers such as Brahms and Grieg, but he soon developed his own style. By the time of his death, he had produced 419 known works; some of these, such as his opera Maskarade (1906), have become integral to Denmark's national heritage.
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  Bessie Smith

  Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
  
  Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, her parents died when Smith was young, and she and her sister survived by performing on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career began in the 1920s, until an automobile accident ended her life at age 43.
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  Simon Neil

  Photograph: Achim Raschka

  Simon Neil (b. 1979) is a Scottish vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. Born in Irvine, he established the band Biffy Clyro in 1995 with James and Ben Johnston. He has also played with JP Reid of Sucioperro in Marmaduke Duke, using the pseudonym "The Atmosphere", and started a solo career.
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  Louis Armstrong

  Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and Sun

  Louis Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo" or "Pops", was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser and as a scat singer.
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  Hayley Williams

  Photograph: Sven-Sebastian Sajak

  Hayley Williams (born December 27, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She serves as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and occasional keyboardist of the rock band Paramore. Born in Meridian, Mississippi, Williams moved to Franklin, Tennessee, at the age of fifteen after her parents divorced. In 2004, she formed Paramore alongside Josh Farro, Zac Farro, and Jeremy Davis. The band currently consists of Williams, Farro and Taylor York. They have released five studio albums: All We Know Is Falling (2005), Riot! (2007), Brand New Eyes (2009), Paramore (2013) and After Laughter (2017).
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  Thelonious Monk

  Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.
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  Frédéric Chopin

  Photo credit: Louis-Auguste Bisson

  The only known photograph of Frédéric Chopin, often incorrectly described as a daguerreotype. It is believed to have been taken in 1849 during the degenerative stages of his tuberculosis, shortly before his death. Chopin, a Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era, is widely regarded as one of the most famous, influential, admired and prolific composers for the piano. He moved to Paris at the age of twenty, adopting the French variant of his name, "Frédéric-François", by which he is now known.
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  Médée

  Graphic: Giuseppe Palanti

  Médée is a French-language opera by the composer Luigi Cherubini. Set in the ancient city of Corinth, Greece, it features a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman and is based on Euripides's tragic play Medea and Pierre Corneille's play Médée. The opera premiered in 1797 at the Théâtre Feydeau in Paris. The long-lost final aria, which Cherubini appears to have deleted from his original manuscript, was discovered by researchers from the University of Manchester and Stanford University by employing X-ray techniques to reveal areas that the composer had blackened out.
  
  This picture shows the title page for a vocal score of the 1909 hybrid version of Médée.
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  Billy Strayhorn

  Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Billy Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, best remembered for his long-time collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington that lasted nearly three decades. Though classical music was Strayhorn's first love, his ambition to become a classical composer went unrealized because of the harsh reality of a black man trying to make his way in the world of classical music, which at that time was almost completely white. He was introduced to the music of pianists like Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson at age 19, and the artistic influence of these musicians guided him into the realm of jazz, where he remained for the rest of his life. This photograph of Strayhorn was taken by William P. Gottlieb in the 1940s.

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Today's Birthdays

Birthdays in Music: November 21

• Fairuz, (born Nouhad Haddad) Lebanese singer, turns 90.
• İdil Biret, Turkish pianist, turns 83.
• Lonnie Jordan, (born Leroy Jordan) American multi-instrumentalist for War, turns 76.
• Rainer Bruninghaus, German pianist, turns 75.
• Livingston Taylor, American singer and songwriter, turns 74.
• Peter Koppes, Australian guitarist for The Church, turns 69.
• Brian Ritchie, American vocalist for Violent Femmes, turns 64.
• Steven Curtis Chapman, American Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter, turns 62.
• Björk, (born Björk Guðmundsdóttir) Icelandic singer with The Sugarcubes, turns 59.
• Francis Macdonald, Scottish drummer for BMX Bandits, Teenage Fanclub, turns 54.
• Kelsi Osborn, American country music singer with SHeDAISY , turns 50.
• Tobias Sammet, German singer with power metal act, Edguy, turns 47.
• Kim Dong Wan, Korean singer with Shinhwa, turns 45.
• Ryan Starr, American singer of American Idol fame, turns 42.
• Carly Rae Jepsen, Canadian singer-songwriter, turns 39.

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