Here’s a roundup of stories on music and the classics that might be of interest to fans:
- The post Are music startups killing online music fandom? examines social aspects of music sharing, or the lack of them. “Honestly, I think I discovered more new music when MySpace was the only game in town for burgeoning bands to share tunes. Thanks to Facebook, I know how little most of my social circle and I have in common when it comes to music preference. More broadly, I think the music startup explosion hasn’t really done much to promote new music discovery at all, but mostly encourages an echo chamber of musical tastes where friends and acquaintances share the same small pool of artists, bands, and songs with each other.”
- While most documentaries about bands tend to recount the history of the group, one of Rolling Stone’s selections for Seven Best New Music Documentaries of the Year was So Color Me Obsessed, which focuses on people fannish about the group. “It’s not just about the Replacements,” Bechard says. “It’s about how any band affects you and becomes almost part of your family.”
- Music mashups are pretty common but it’s less common when the setting is classical. “[T]he Met is breathing new life into the charming form of the pastiche as a way to celebrate Baroque opera’s renewed popularity.” The Enchanted Island opens on New Year’s Eve in New York City and “places the four lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Prospero’s island from The Tempest. It’s all set to the music of the greatest Baroque master composers.”
- Similarly, a life of cosplay isn’t that common, particularly when it is as a long-dead author. But one fan “is a hit with locals in her hometown on Keighley, West Yorks – near Bronte homeland Haworth” particularly as her efforts help direct tourists to the local Bronte sites. The Telegraph notes “Locals regularly stop to compliment her on her unusual style as she struts her stuff doing her food shopping, or while munching on a Big Mac.”
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