pop
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Do you know who I don’t envy? Pop stars. Out of all the careers or aspirations one can hold in the music business, none holds a candle to the sheer amount of stress, anxiety, work, and all-encompassing human problems that one will endure to simply make it as a pop artist. Rockers, jazz artists, and…
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While I was writing about “Korea’s Madonna”, mentally, my mind going elsewhere, as well, thinking about that other Madonna: the late, great, Minako Honda. Putting myself, mentally in their shoes, I kept thinking about how as a young woman (especially of that ‘80s era) all the nonsense they must have gone through to simply: a)…
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You know, some days I’m grateful I have a platform to highlight music that others might pass on. It’s why you get to hear albums like the late, great, Chika Ueda’s いつも 2人で (Always 2 People). While others might describe it as “more adult contemporary pap”, think of it as milquetoast, and file it under…
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“Old-fashioned she might be, dated like last year’s pop-song…”, so too, must I take it inspiration from the late, great Clifford T. Ward to reaffirm some of the power in easy listening. On my latest mix for LYL Radio, I try to present a drifting set of music, a song cycle of sorts, that looks…
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There’s something I really admire about Naples’ own Teresa De Sio’s way of thinking. When I went around digging through interviews to find a little more about the backstory for 1988’s Sinderalla Suite, I encountered Teresa’s fuller story. In it, Teresa painted a much bigger picture than I was expecting.
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I have a confession to make. I have a distinct aversion to “girl” singers. I like my male singers to sound like adults. I like my female singers to sound like adults, too. Basically, I can’t stand when someone plays the role of a tart (with no irony), no matter what gender normative noun they…
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Cover Photography by @krstnshtlv As a writer, one always has floating on one’s head drafts of things to cover. For various years I’ve always wanted to really tell the story of the music of Brazil’s Minas Gerais region, post-Clube Da Esquina. That’s part of the reason I chose to focus intently on it for my…
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We could only be so lucky to age as well as EG and Alice’s 24 Years Of Hunger has. Now, it seems, I have to be the next one carrying the torch forward to promote this forgotten Pop masterpiece. In 1991, it was an unlikely blip on England’s music radar, appearing in a bright flash,…
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Guest Mix by Klas Trollius Editor’s Note: I thought about what FOND/SOUND reader Klas states below: “connected to place-making (by creating a certain atmosphere, specific to the time and place of a recording) and displacement (by transporting you to a mental, perhaps fleeting place in your own mind)” and it made me truly understand his mix, in…
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How many second acts can one artist get? Franco Battiato might already be in his 10th or more. At the time of this release, 1995, Franco was a 50 year old man — keep that in mind. Unworried by what was out there, unhurried to prove anything, Franco Battiato (once again) came out of nowhere…
ambient art pop art rock balearic brazilian electro-acoustic england environmental music experimental folk-rock fourth world Funk fusion japan jazz minimalist neo-folk neoclassical new age walearic