I'm behind on this, but it's worth noting: Springsteen inducts U2 into the Hall of Fame: Oh, my God! They sold out! Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old … [Read more...]

CLASSICAL Brahms Viola Sonatas, Kashkashian and Levin (ECM 1997) Leon Fleisher, Two Hands (Vanguard 2004) Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto, Lazar Berman, Abbado, LSO (Columbia, 1976) Brahms Second Piano Concerto, Rudolf Serkin, Szell CSO (Sony) Mahler Second Symphony, Claudio Abbado, Chicago (DG) … [Read more...]

I agree that there's a far "cooler" sensibility alive in today's pianists, but the "newness" is a stretch (Pollini epitomized cool a generation ago), and the influence of rock is a wayward swipe: "But there is something more going on now. The new coolness seems generational: a contemporary, … [Read more...]

Among the new titles in Continuum's 33 1/3 series, Erik Davis's treatment of Led Zep's ZOSO walks the line Xgau called "genius dumb": Of all the guitar heroes from the 1960s, Jimi Hendrix took this transformative potential the furthest, both onsteage and in his obsessive and almost extraterrestrial … [Read more...]

I Can See For Miles and Miles [RA] Pete Townshend on Petra Haden in today's Boston Globe: "I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time," Townshend said in a lengthy e-mail interview. ''What Petra does with her … [Read more...]

from Billboard's new blog, PostPlay: The RIAA's False Mathematics Here's another great post by Barry Rotholtz on The Big Picture. He takes a look at the paid subscription models like Rhapsody and Napster-To-Go and shows that the actual P2P losses to the industry are much much smaller than the … [Read more...]

from Artifice Eternity: You know your surround sound system is good when the semi-psychotic, spouse-abusing British actor/writer who lives upstairs confronts you in the hallway and screams that you are "A PATHETIC LITTLE MAN!" with "ABOMINABLE TASTE IN MUSIC!" And I didn't even have it turned up … [Read more...]

Fortune salutes Women Don't Ask in its 75 Most Smartest Books list: Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (2003). The first book to adequately explain the dramatic differences in how men and women negotiate and why women so often fail to ask for what … [Read more...]

Stephen J. Ducat on W.'s Texan manhood in Buzzflash: "I think a complex combination of factors determines this. Not all cultures and all historical periods evidence this kind of femiphobia. But we’re seeing a number of factors, not the least of which is a kind of backlash against feminism and the … [Read more...]

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: from SKL, on Mel Harris's WEST WING appearance: "Nobody in the U.S. Senate has hair like that..." DEPT. OF EX-SQUEEZE ME? I don't know when defending Albert Goldman became critical "chic," but it doesn't wash. His pop journalism is not "criminally underrated," it's idiotic on any … [Read more...]

"...I thought one of the rewards of becoming rich was not having to Warholinate your art..." I saw some of this, but checking the blogs, here's my favorite report so far: "White trash cred expires after the first award, Hils...." Where are the jokes about Sydney Lumet's daughters? Props to RW for … [Read more...]

To pay tribute to Johnny Carson, Rolling Stone reruns its 1979 interview by Timothy White. How's that for lame? Me, I come out somewhere inbetween Kenneth Tynan's New Yorker profile and Harry Shearer's Credibility Gap food fight. Which is to say, Thomson has the last word. And here's my favorite … [Read more...]

from the GRAND POOBAH OF THE DISMISSIVE FOOTNOTE, I give you Luc Sante on Dylan: "Chronicles works so well in part because in writing it Dylan apparently found a formal model to adhere to or violate at will, and if he did not have in mind any specific nineteenth-century account of callowness and … [Read more...]

Hooked up my new Airport Express downstairs, put it through the old Sony receiver and KLH bookshelfs I just had refurbished and it sounds nice and warm and cushioned. The drawback to AX is: it will broadcast only to your computer or to the remote location, not both. There will probably be a hack for … [Read more...]

Eat your heart out, Bill Flanagan. ALWAYS GOOD FOR A QUOTE: George Michael, in today's NYTimes: George Michael says pop music is dead. Speaking yesterday at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he presented his autobiographical film "George Michael: A Different Story," he said, "I think my … [Read more...]