According to copyright expert Wendy Gordon, the judge bungled his instructions to the jury. From there, the outcome was inevitable.
Through his music, Lead Belly rejected the stereotype that country music was the domain of white artists, while blues music was reserved for blacks.
Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives
Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection depicts the fully-formed artist – a blues musician, yes, but also a performer of string-band, country and pop songs.
‘Real Love’, originally written by John Lennon, gets us hooked on Monty.
John Lewis
There’s no holding back now: the gloves are well and truly off in the run up to Christmas as major advertisers continue their fight for a slice of your seasonal spend. Over the past few weeks, audiences…
Mark Ryden’s art for Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous.
Augusto Podrido/Flickr
The album cover for Michael Jackson’s album Dangerous was painted by American pop-surrealist artist Mark Ryden. In it, he depicts a world in which the boundaries between human and animal, living and dead…
Too cool for cash.
Yui Mok/PA Wire/Press Association Images
On September 9, U2 released their new album, Songs of Innocence. Not quite in the normal style: they are offering it as a free download to all 500m iTunes users. Lead singer Bono described the release…
Swift is privileged, as only apex predators are, with the ability to pick and choose from any (cultural) food source.
EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga
In the same week American rapper Nicki Minaj released Anaconda, a music video dedicated to celebrating “the butt”, US singer-songwriter Taylor Swift released a video, Shake It Off, accidentally dedicated…
It may have raised eyebrows for some, but it is entirely appropriate for Taylor Swift to be writing an article for the Wall Street Journal. Over the past few years she has appeared regularly in the Forbes…
Sia refuses to use her body to sell her music.
Laurence Barnes
Australian singer-songwriter Sia’s new album 1000 Forms of Fear has been released internationally today, accompanied by a deluge of media reporting her story: she’s one of a handful of the most successful…
Dr David Glowacki is a highly-respected research fellow of the Royal Society, and expert in non-equilibrium molecular reaction dynamics – no, me neither – but is also our newest, and arguably most unlikely…
When William S Burroughs returned to New York City in 1974, after two decades of peripatetic rambling, dubious pleasure and restless escape, the rising rock poet Patti Smith expressed her deep pleasure…
The Grammys, that great annual showcase of the American popular music business, may not rank quite with the Oscars. But there is no doubt, that in the prize-giving season, this jamboree of self-congratulation…
Arctic Monkeys are certain to feature in this year’s most voted songs.
AAP Image/MG Promotions
Australia’s national youth station, Triple J, has come in for some criticism lately, with a spate of articles accusing it of homogenising Australian music tastes or excluding too many local acts from the…
The Grammys are about selling the industry, as much as its products.
EPA/Paul Buck
On Sunday, “music’s biggest night,” the 56th Grammy Awards, will be held in Los Angeles – no doubt with the customary level of humility and circumspection so characteristic of the music industry. Commentators…
PSY is far from the only player in the global rise of K-pop.
Michael Nelson/EPA
A little over a year ago, South Korean singer PSY galloped onto the global pop circuit singing about “sexy ladies” in the Seoul suburb of Gangnam. What followed were a flurry of articles (some going as…