Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
She wrote the song “9 to 5” for that movie and it is also one of her most popular songs. “9 to 5” is not only a catchy tune, but the lyrics highlight workplace issues that are very relevant in both the 80’s and today. I would highly recommend giving the song a listen!
The Music Library has more resources available than physical items. We’re highlighting some of our digital resources, and including information about them as told by our student employees.
Here is what student manager Cole (class of 2021) had to say about this resource:
“Music Online’s Popular Music Library is exactly what it sounds like: an online repository of popular music from around the world, all tagged with the appropriate metadata to make the site an effective research tool. Something I appreciate about Music Online’s collection is the emphasis placed on international works. The site is filled with recordings of songs I have never been exposed to, across all genres and in various languages. Many of the works archived are not available for sale online, so the site can be a valuable resource if one is looking for an obscure, elusive track.
When I first opened Popular Music Library, I was immediately greeted by the album Babies Go Pink Floyd, one of the works featured on the rotating carousel of new arrivals.
I immediately clicked on it to find out what exactly I was seeing. Each album is displayed as a waveform, with vertical lines separating individual tracks. The music player is accompanied by a sidebar of details and the track listing, with each track accompanied by the appropriate metadata. After some listening and further digging on the site, I learned that Babies Go … is a series of albums, originally sold in the UK, that rework popular music acts into soothing lullabies. Some of my favorite editions include: Babies Go The Cure, Babies Go Led Zeppelin, Babies Go Shakira, and, of course, Babies Go Radiohead, the music player for which, in an apparent (and humorous) technical oversight, presents a flat line and reads, “Waveform temporarily unavailable.”
Though Babies Go … probably won’t be often used as research material, I like to imagine it as a testament to the diversity of material collected for your listening in the Popular Music Library.”
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today we’re featuring a collection of feel good indie/alternative music curated by Music Library student assistant Allison (class of 2022).
Allison says:
This is a great playlist for if you’re in a good mood or if you need some extra pep in your step. Especially great when it’s sunny out.
Genre: Indie/alternative
The Music Library has more resources available than physical items. We’re highlighting some of our digital resources, and including information about them as told by our student employees.
Here’s what student manager Abby (class of 2021) had to say about this resource:
“QwestTV is the first ever streaming service dedicated to Jazz, Soul, Funk & World Music. Created by Quincy Jones and curatedbyothermusiclegends, this service contains hundreds of concerts, documentaries, archives, and exclusive content. And with the “My List” feature, you can keep track of all your favorites. On top of premium streaming video, QwestTV also offers articles, interviews, and album reviews written by professional journalists and renowned jazz experts. With content spanning decades, this service is a powerful research tool and just an all-around awesome resource for any music lover.”
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today we’re featuring a collection of film soundtrack music curated by Music Library student manager Colin (Class of 2021).
Films have been my go-to source of entertainment for years. In high school, my friends and I became heavily invested in the awards season of movies, in which we tried to watch every film that was nominated for Best Picture by the Academy. Movies are not measured for enjoyability by their success winning awards, nor do awards automatically make a movie “good.” Rather, this activity was something that my friends and I enjoyed doing, and exposed us to a lot of new films and directors. Particularly interesting for us in watching films was hearing the soundtrack, as all of my friends and I were involved in my school’s music program. We loved talking about the scores of films, and the impact that specific songs have through their leitmotifs or influence on the narrative. For example, we were obsessed with the soundtrack from La La Land, because, well let’s be honest; who can’t tap their foot or hum along with the songs when listening to its music?
Richard Wagner had a great influence upon the film industry and its scores due to his methodical approach to writing operas, in which the music he composed enhanced the narrative through the use of leitmotifs, or short musical phrases that indicate the appearance of a character or narrative theme. This concept was recognized by the film industry, and was expanded on by different film composers, specifically Max Steiner who is known as “The Father of Film Music.” Steiner was heavily influenced by Wagnerian musical concepts, and would incorporate leitmotifs, non-diegetic sounds and other elements that enhanced the musical experience in movies and their relation to narratives. Since Steiner, films have grown to incorporate songs into their soundtracks that are either specifically written for the movie from a preexisting band, or the rights are bought from a band to include their song in the movie. The songs themselves share the same focus that Steiner envisioned for his films, in that songs are used for a narrative purpose in order to advance the plot, express the emotions of a specific character, and/or give credibility to the environment in which the film or a scene takes place.
A sampling of films scored by Max Steiner
With this playlist, I wanted to highlight songs used in films that transcend just their immediate presence in the film. The rules of this playlist are rather loose, in that the songs included may have been written for the specific movie in which they are famous for being in, or written before the movie and added to the soundtrack and become a staple song for the film. I have included highly popular choices that the general film-viewing population would agree with, such as “My Heart Will Go On” in Titanic and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” in The Breakfast Club. However, I have also offered some of my personal choices of songs that I believe greatly enhance the movie and urge audiences to listen to the song outside of the filmic experience, but do not necessarily have the history or popular recognition by audiences. I hope that choices like “Slip Away” from Booksmart and “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again” from Rocketman will expand your music and film libraries. I have organized the songs in order of their film’s release date, and my personal choices begin with “Send Me on My Way” from Matilda. And this playlist does not feature any instrumentally focused soundtracks that typically appear in large blockbuster films, but rather individual songs focused on lyrics. I hope you enjoy this eclectic playlist and relive some great film experiences through music!
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
What happens when three of the most influential guitarists alive, each from different eras of popular music, sit down for a day to swap stories and riffs? That’s the question at the heart of Davis Guggenheim’s 2008 documentary It Might Get Loud, starring Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin), The Edge (of U2), and Jack White (of The White Stripes). Although the three musicians come from differing backgrounds and generations, the film explores the three men’s lives as they’ve revolved around their shared fixation: the electric guitar.
In proportion to the total runtime, footage of the three’s meeting, dubbed “The Summit,” is relatively sparse. Instead, the film documents each of the musicians in and around their respective homes, piecing together their personal narratives, playing and recording styles, and musical philosophies. The film crew follows Jimmy Page to Headley Grange, a former workhouse-turned-recording studio whose interior acoustics can be heard on Led Zeppelin IV. The Edge visits the secondary school in Dublin where he co-founded U2 with his childhood friends. The film opens on Jack White assembling a rudimentary one-string guitar from plywood and a glass bottle on the porch of his Tennessee farmhouse. Guggenheim constantly moves between these three strands, allowing the guitarists to tell their own very different stories while revealing the subtle similarities in their lives that drove them all to the electric guitar.
My favorite moment in the film comes when The Edge delves into his playing philosophy. Known for his extensive use of reverb and delay, The Edge is sometimes criticized for playing his pedal board more than his guitar. Hearing him explain his methodology reveals the sheer creativity at work in creating his sounds, despite not “shredding” in the same vein as White and Page. At one point, The Edge plays the riff to “Elevation,” in which his guitar undulates between an indefinite number of notes. He then strips the effects and reveals the riff to be simply two notes, the space between filled with reverb, delay, and distortion. While this style of play rubs some the wrong way — such as those who consider effect pedals “cheating” to hide technical deficiencies — the great strength of It Might Get Loud is in capturing the dialogue between three pillars of guitar styles. In the film’s introductory sequence, Page admires The Edge as a “sonic architect,” a powerful compliment coming from the man most often placed beside Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton in conversations of electric guitar greatness.
The Music Library has more resources available than physical items. We’re highlighting some of our digital resources, and including information about them as told by our student employees.
Music ID offers over 60 years (1950 – present) of international chart data for popular music recordings.
Here’s what student manager Abby (class of 2021) had to say about this resource:
“One of our research tools that I find particularly interesting is Music ID. This resource compiles over 100 years of global music industry data in an incredibly easy-to-use platform. The site itself is divided into three analytical topics — most popular, most profitable, and most impactful. It’s fascinating to see the difference between the three, especially with the site’s ability to separate song, album, and artist. And with data going back as far as 1900, not only can you discover some great old songs you may have never heard of but also a comprehensive meta-narrative of popular music itself, and by extension its cultural impact.”
And here’s what student manager Colin (class of 2021) had to say about this resource:
“A resource I like and that I have used for a paper before is Music ID. Specifically, Music ID Data‘s database has information on over 5,000 different charts, tracking music popularity in countries all over the world based on the popularity of artists and their songs on these different charts, as well as on platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Shazam. This resource is best utilized by examining overlapping chart data to analyze the popularity and trends that follow an artist, whether it be through a new album release or from a popular single track. To use this platform you type a keyword into a search bar, such as the latest Super Bowl Halftime Show artist “The Weeknd,” and select the different measures you wish to analyze. From there, the website will bring you to a graph that details the artist’s popularity based on the measures you selected. For example, you can simply click “The Weeknd” as an artist and you can see his trend in the U.S. Billboard Top 100 artists over the years in which Music ID has effective data. To utilize this resource further, you can start applying additional filters, specifically on singles he has released like “The Hills” and “Can’t Feel My Face,” to effectively observe how the popularity trends of his songs affect the popularity of himself as an artist. Music ID Data has a lot of information that can be applied to many different artists across the world and is an amazing research tool when needing to find graphical trends as evidence for reference support.”
The Music Library has more resources available than physical items. We’re highlighting some of our digital resources, and including information about them as told by our student employees.
All Music offers biographies and discographies in all genres
Here is what student assistant Danny (class of 2023) had to say about this resource:
“A digital resource that I found very interesting was called “All Music.” This research guide was very helpful, for you can search just about any album, artist, or song and get not only some information about it, but what album it was connected to, reviews, the year that it came out, and reviews about it.
This guide is especially helpful to learn more about artists and the albums they have released. For instance, let’s say you just found out about a new artist. You can look them up on AllMusic and access their discography. (Some even have links that will allow you to hear samples of songs!) You can also see lists of similar albums and songs that you can check out if you want to hear more music that sounds similar to the artist you’ve searched for.
Finally, there is a new release radar, a discover tab, and articles related to current news that can be extremely helpful if you want to keep track of the day-to-day goings-on in the music industry.”
And here is what student assistant Ryan (class of 2022) thought about the AllMusic Guide:
“Allmusic.com is an incredibly broad music database that has information on all kinds of music, from B.T.S. to R.E.M. The website features Discover sections that can help you find music based on genre, mood, and even lyrical content.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Erik Satie has long been one of my favorite composers for his ability to blend together subtlety and expressiveness to create an ambiance unlike any other artist. In his day, Satie struggled greatly to find support for his music, but his friendship with composer Claude Debussy proved valuable when Debussy offered to orchestrate two of Satie’s three “Gymnopédies”. Among Satie’s earlier works, Debussy saw great potential in “Trois Gymnopédies” and his orchestrations are still performed today, although Debussy disliked the second of the three and never orchestrated it. In this CD recording by the New London Orchestra, conductor Ronald Corp attempts to elucidate the same subtleties Debussy loved so much in Satie’s work with his orchestrations of Gymnopédie no. 2 as well as “Trois Gnossiennes”. This CD also features recordings of some of Satie’s ballets: Parade, Mercure, and Relâche. Each was met with mixed reviews at their debuts, but are now considered to be some of his finest works.
Erik Satie in 1920
I love to listen to Satie, especially the Gymnopédies, while I read or do work. Music historians often credit Satie as being one of the precursors to modern “ambient music”, and it’s easy to see why. Satie’s music lends itself equally well to thoughtful listening as it does to background enjoyment. If you’re looking for a CD to help you relax after a long week or accompany a good book, I highly recommend the New London Orchestra’s collection of recordings.
Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today we’re featuring a collection of Indie Covers by Music Library student manager Cole (Class of 2021).
Cole says:
“I’m a huge fan of musical covers; seeing how great artists interpret one another’s work is purest joys of being a music fan. There are, of course, certain covers that everyone knows (Jeff Buckley’s cover of John Cale’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s original “Hallejulah” comes to mind). But I have a particular affinity for covers done by indie artists. I love seeing how smaller acts put their own unique spin on familiar songs, dancing on the line between fidelity and novelty. Collected below are some of my favorite covers by indie and alternative artists.”
Richmond native Lucy Dacus graduated from Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School and attended Virginia Commonwealth University. She is also one third of the indie supergroup boygenius, alongside Julien Baker and Pheobe Bridgers.
Bonus: Punch Brothers – “Reptilia” (originally by The Strokes)
This is one of my favorite covers, though it was never formally released and cannot be included in the Spotify playlist below.
