Yearly Archives: 2021
Growth Industry: UK Vinyl Album Sales Increase For 14th Year
More than 5m vinyl albums have been bought in the UK over the past 12 months, up 8% on sales in 2020 and the...
Remember Rebuses?
These picture/word puzzles, sort of like charades on paper, were very popular in the mid-20th century and even had a game show (Concentration) based...
Why Historians Are Taking Video Games Seriously
 “The attention paid by the game developers and their historical consultants to details of both the actual and social geography of these urban settings...
What’s The Point Of New Year’s Resolutions If Time Is Already Determined?
If all moments of time exist, does that mean that my staying in bed every morning in 2022 instead of going for a run...
Why Obama-Era Pop Culture Seems So Dated Now
As millennials age into the solid middle of the culture here at the end of 2021, they’re getting to experience that disorienting slip with...
Big Tech Is Betting This Will Be The Next Big Cultural Thing
After 15 years of riding a boom in mobile computing that has turned tech’s biggest companies into giants worth trillions of dollars, the power...
Betty White, 99
A trailblazer and pioneer in media, Betty had the longest running career for any woman in TV prior to her death -- starring in...
A Comprehensive List Of Arts And Entertainment Figures We Lost In 2021
It's a long list. - BBC
Has King George III Gotten A Bum Rap?
The unlucky British King is the great villain of the USA's founding narrative, portrayed as both hapless and tyrannical. That's not a completely false...
How Artificial Intelligence Is Being Used In Making Music
The use of AI in music is here today, and while its contribution is still small, it will likely grow. If you take that...
Yes, Representation On Screens Makes A Difference — And Not Only With Actors
"It's about more than who you see on screen, she said, but how those characters are written. And who's doing the writing. And what...
2021’s Jazz Critics’ Poll: The Year’s Best Jazz
In being asked to stand in for clubs, concert halls, and festivals so frequently these last two years, recordings are still being asked to...
Is Susanna Mälkki About To Be Named Music Director At A Big US Orchestra?
The Times's Joshua Barone says she's "one of the world's top conductors." The LA Phil's CEO says "Susanna has to be at the top...
Lincoln Center Was An Enormous Urban Renewal Project. What About The People Who Were...
The Lincoln Center complex, which opened in 1962, was a citadel. Critics noted that it was designed to separate itself from the Black and...
After A Painful Hiatus, The Mummers Will Be Strutting Down Philadelphia’s Broad Street This...
Omicron is spreading, sequin prices have gone up, and it may well rain; nevertheless, after last year's cancellation, the Mummers Parade is going ahead,...
After 35 Years, One Of America’s Best Ballet Schools Is Getting A New Director
Peter Stark, a former principal at Washington Ballet, has had students flocking to him as he taught in Maryland, then Orlando, then Boston; he...
On Broadway This Year, Design Was Pulling A Lot More Weight Than It Should...
Jesse Green: "It seems to me that designers, bringing evermore astonishing prowess to bear, too often outshine the work they are meant to support....
So, What Goodies Are Going Into The Public Domain In 2022?
Among the properties that adapters can now use free of charge are A.A. Milne's original Winnie-the-Pooh, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, the debut poetry...
Here’s One Place Where High-Tech Firms Are Willing To Give To The Arts
For years, aesthetes and directors of development have been frustrated by the lack of interest that software industry execs have shown in directing their...
This Nightclub Will Get Energy From The Heat Of Customers’ Dancing Bodies
"This month, (Glasgow nightclub) SWG3 and geothermal energy consultancy TownRock Energy will begin installing a new renewable heating and cooling system that harnesses the...
Uffizi’s Director Wants Museums To Use Art To Address Social Ills
"Eike Schmidt, the director of Uffizi Galleries since 2015, … says it is now crucial for museums to play a role in highlighting the...
How The Pandemic Has Changed Cities (Perhaps For Good)
Even with those opinions on the books, the pandemic—or really, the haphazard response to it—has shifted people’s perceptions of what a city can be. -...
TikTok Is Now The World’s Most-Trafficked Website (Beating Out Google)
Regardless of where it sits, TikTok is no joke when it comes to popularity. It had a surge of growth during the pandemic which...
Seattle Musician Shares The Scoop On Streaming: 80,000 Plays = $90
“I just mean to really expose what these numbers mean and what they don’t mean." After splitting the revenue with a collaborator, those...
Ways To Think About Death (It Might Not Be So Bad?)
This is not an argument that death is not bad. This is the titular argument that death is probably not as bad as you...