The Echo Nest Fanalytics

At the core of just about everything we do here at the Echo Nest is what we call “The Knowledge”. This is big pile of data that represents everything we know about music. To build ‘The Knowledge’ we crawl the web looking for every bit of info about music. We find music blogs, artist news, album reviews, biographies, audio, images, videos, fan activity and on and on. This gives us a huge set of raw data that represents the global conversation about music. Next, we apply a set of statist

Rare gems of Madan Mohan unearthed in ‘Tere Bagair…’ (IANS Music Review)
By Ruchika Kher Album: “Tere Bagair…”; Music Director: the late Madan Mohan; Lyricists: Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Naqsh Lyallpuri, Rajinder Krishnan, Prem Dhawan, Indeevar; Singers: Mohammad Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar, Talat Mahmood, Asha Bhosle, Kishore Kumar, Balbir and Brij Bhushan Rating: *** 1/2 A rare treasure, a glimpse into the unseen, an unexplored world of legendary composer Madan [...]

Michael Jackson The Musician, Not Celebrity
Every media outlet in the world is already covering the news of Michael Jackson’s surprising death today from cardiac arrest at age 50. So why write an obituary for Culture Catch? Jackson’s music was part of the soundtrack of my life, and I loved much of it. But whenever musicians reach the level of fame that he did, they are viewed more as celebrities than talents, and their celebrity is written about rather than their art. I don’t care about all the detritus of celebrity, I just want to rememb

‘Love Aaj Kal’ has peppy, soulful numbers (IANS Music Review)
By Ruchika Kher Album: “Love Aaj Kal”; Music Director: Pritam Chakraborty; Lyricist: Irshad Kamil; Singers: , Sunidhi Chauhan, KK, Neeraj Shridhar, Mohit Chauhan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; Rating: *** After the hit score of “Jab We Met”, director Imtiaz Ali has collaborated with Pritam yet again for the music of Saif Ali Khan’s production debut [...]

The Thriller’s Gone
The icons of my childhood are going fast, it seems. Ed McMahon on Tuesday. Farrah Fawcett this morning. And this evening, the King of Pop. I can’t say I was a die-hard Michael Jackson fan, but his music was the music of my youth, from the perfectly crafted pop confections of “ABC” and “I Want You Back” with the Jackson Five, to such towering works as 1982’s “Thriller” and ’87’s “Bad.” There was no disputing his enormous talent and riveting showmanship — music that proved to be terrific enough

A Tropical Night Without the Heat

MUSIC REVIEW Although the tropics are now in the summer solstice as of June 21, Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge was cool after a sunless day when our local marine layer stayed heavily over the entire San Gabriel Valley. Pasadena Symphony CEO, Paul Jan Zdunek called it our local “rainforest”, …

‘Love Aaj Kal’ has peppy, soulful numbers (IANS Music Review)
By Ruchika Kher Album: “Love Aaj Kal”; Music Director: Pritam Chakraborty; Lyricist: Irshad Kamil; Singers: , Sunidhi Chauhan, KK, Neeraj Shridhar, Mohit Chauhan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; Rating: *** After the hit score of “Jab We Met”, director Imtiaz Ali has collaborated with Pritam yet again for the music of Saif Ali Khan’s production debut [...]

History of Beyonces Career
by Amy Nutt Beyonce Giselle Knowles was born September 4th, 1981 in Houston, Texas to Matthew and Tina Knowles as the first born of two girls. Before she reached the age of seven she was singing and showing signs of great talent. When she was seven, she was already attending dance school and was a soloist in the church choir. By the time she reached her teen years, any spare time she could find was spent with her childhood pals, LaTayia Roberson, Kelly Rowland and LeToya Luckett, performing

The Thriller’s Gone

The icons of my childhood are going fast, it seems. Ed McMahon on Tuesday. Farrah Fawcett this morning. And this evening, the King of Pop. I can’t say I was a die-hard Michael Jackson fan, but his music was the music of my youth, from the perfectly crafted pop confections of “ABC” and “I Want You Back” with the Jackson Five, to such towering works as 1982’s “Thriller” and ’87’s “Bad.” There was no disputing his enormous talent and riveting showmanship — music that proved to be terrific enough

‘Love Aaj Kal’ has peppy, soulful numbers (IANS Music Review)
By Ruchika Kher Album: “Love Aaj Kal”; Music Director: Pritam Chakraborty; Lyricist: Irshad Kamil; Singers: , Sunidhi Chauhan, KK, Neeraj Shridhar, Mohit Chauhan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; Rating: *** After the hit score of “Jab We Met”, director Imtiaz Ali has collaborated with Pritam yet again for the music of Saif Ali Khan’s production debut [...]

Michael Jackson The Musician, Not Celebrity

Every media outlet in the world is already covering the news of Michael Jackson’s surprising death today from cardiac arrest at age 50. So why write an obituary for Culture Catch? Jackson’s music was part of the soundtrack of my life, and I loved much of it. But whenever musicians reach the level of fame that he did, they are viewed more as celebrities than talents, and their celebrity is written about rather than their art. I don’t care about all the detritus of celebrity, I just want to rememb

Rumors Heard in MySpace, Vol. II, Episode 6
Hey friends, I hope y’all have recovered from our last journey across space and time. This month, we’ll take it a little bit easier. One reason for that is we can’t go working you guys too hard . . . you may never sign up for another trip like that. Another reason is that I’m headed out on a full on Ripple trip that’s going to cut into this month’s Rumors Report. No fear, friends . . . this abbreviated episode still has some great nuggets of information for you and will inevitably have you circl

The New York Experience
It was like a normal day for an I.T. guy chaos, pressure and unhappy ever demanding Management, friend of mine whom I had mentioned about New York, although he is not a film freak (as he addresses me) like me but he has developed a good taste of movie, what will happen when you make [...] Related posts: New York by Kabir Khan trailer New York : Music Review Museum For Cinema in New York

ANNIVERSARIES: First Session for the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out on June 25, 1959
Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out (Columbia) Pianist/composer Dave Brubeck had already been on the cover of Time magazine when Time Out was recorded in 1959 (at Columbia’s 30th Street studios on June 25, July 1, and August 18), so he was hardly playing to an audience of hardcore jazz aficionados. But when the track “Take Five” became a hit single in 1961, it peaked at No. 25 and stayed in the Top 40 for seven weeks. As well as propelling the LP all the way to #2 on the pop charts, this sen

“All that a music review does now is reinforce the opinion that somebody already has.”
“All that a music review does now is reinforce the opinion that somebody already has.” – Christopher Weingarten, talking about the death of music criticism . I’m beginning to wonder if this is starting to be true of movie reviews as well. One of the downsides of being able to aggregate dozens of reviews is that you can always find a review that backs up your opinion . (Well, maybe not always .) In this polyphony of experts, is it any surprise that people don’t give any weight to rev

HUCK#015 – The Soundtrack

Listen to the music that helped shape our latest issue . A month or so ago, we received some amazing shots of dogs leaping in the air from photographer Josh Cole dubbed Pitbull Ballet . So what better song to kick off the playlist than Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker ? As we have an exclusive interview with Yeah Yeah Yeahs , we’ve included the excellent Soft Shock from their new album It’s Blitz . Mass Appeal by Gang Starr was the inspiration for the Mathieu Crépel interview a

‘Love Aaj Kal’ has peppy, soulful numbers (IANS Music Review)
By Ruchika Kher Album: “Love Aaj Kal”; Music Director: Pritam Chakraborty; Lyricist: Irshad Kamil; Singers: , Sunidhi Chauhan, KK, Neeraj Shridhar, Mohit Chauhan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan; Rating: *** After the hit score of “Jab We Met”, director Imtiaz Ali has collaborated with Pritam yet again for the music of Saif Ali Khan’s production debut [...]

Music Review: Leah Renee, “Sampler” EP
This sampler of her in-progress debut album is an encouraging preview of things to come as Leahsoulfully nails each song, varying register and volume with enough aplomb to carry the tunes with little manipulation.

A Tropical Night Without the Heat
MUSIC REVIEW Although the tropics are now in the summer solstice as of June 21, Descanso Gardens in La Cañada Flintridge was cool after a sunless day when our local marine layer stayed heavily over the entire San Gabriel Valley. Pasadena Symphony CEO, Paul Jan Zdunek called it our local “rainforest”, …

ANNIVERSARIES: First Session for the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s Time Out on June 25, 1959
Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time Out (Columbia) Pianist/composer Dave Brubeck had already been on the cover of Time magazine when Time Out was recorded in 1959 (at Columbia’s 30th Street studios on June 25, July 1, and August 18), so he was hardly playing to an audience of hardcore jazz aficionados. But when the track “Take Five” became a hit single in 1961, it peaked at No. 25 and stayed in the Top 40 for seven weeks. As well as propelling the LP all the way to #2 on the pop charts, this sen

New Music Review!
The Dream – Hit It On The Road : In the midst of putting together top notch tracks for just about every other artist set to release an album this year, The Dream also has plans on re-releasing his Love VS Money album. This man is everywhere, but as long as he keeps putting out hits like this I can’t complain. This sex-driven song is quite the club banger! Check out the promo video for Love VS Money: The Hangover which features the song. (…) Continue Reading ? .

Music Review: Jenny Lewis at the Granada
Read the DFW.com review here . Read the DC9 at Night review here . The Granada was packed Tuesday night as indie idol Jenny Lewis prepared to take the stage. As sweaty fans poured into the theater and blocked the aisles and stairways, it became clear that in the event of any sort of natural disaster I would most definitely be dead. But for Jenny Lewis, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. View from the balcony I arrived an hour before she began her set, and the b

tFS Music Review: Sleep – Christopher
Sleep of Oldominion is, by reputation, a quiet, unassuming, family man by day and a hellacious lyric carpet-bomber by night. After releasing the critically acclaimed Riot by Candlelight in 2002, Sleep showcased his versatility in his eclectic autobiographical 2005 album, Christopher . In Christopher , Sleep dials up the RPMs right out of the gate with some intense micro-machines-man-like verse loosing. What follows is a full-spectrum of sound ranging from traditional “Chicarone” s

« Previous Page — Next Page »