Menu
Idea

music

365
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 61–90 of 365 results. Go to first page
Collage of a shirtless performer and a cutaway image of an egg.

My Generation

Anthem for a forgotten cohort.
by Justin E. H. Smith via Harper’s on June 9, 2023
Cover of sheet music for “Euphonic Sounds: A Syncopated Novelty” by Scott Joplin (1909).

Scott Joplin

The ragtime composer's life, career, and resurrection.
by Alan Jacobs via Comment on April 24, 2023
A techno DJ.

The Battle Over Techno’s Origins

A museum dedicated to techno music has opened in Frankfurt, Germany, and many genre pioneers feel that Black and queer artists in Detroit have been overlooked.
by T. M. Brown via The New Yorker on April 14, 2023
A man pressing a button on an early IBM computer.

How an IBM Computer Learned to Sing

The IBM 7094 anticipated the future of music—and also sounded like the Auto-Tuned pop stars of today.
by Ted Gioia via The Honest Broker on March 26, 2023
15 women involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott; Rosa Parks's mugshot is the center.

The Women Behind the Montgomery Bus Boycott

We've heard about Rosa Parks and her crucial role, but Parks was just one of many women involved.
by Karen Grigsby Bates via NPR on March 22, 2023
The original members of the hip-hop group De La Soul.

Hip-Hop at Fifty: An Elegy

A generation is still dying younger than it should—this time, of “natural causes.”
by Jelani Cobb via The New Yorker on March 16, 2023
original

The Life of Song

What the surprising career of Bob McGrath teaches us about popular music.
by Kathryn Ostrofsky on December 14, 2022
1901 photograph of Frederick T. Cummins and three Native American men at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The men’s names, as given by the inscription, are: White Hawk, Left Hand Bear, and Chief Black Heart

Playing Indian: Cummins’ Indian Congress at Coney Island

The Coney Island “Congress,” supposedly captured here in audio, was a conglomeration of counterfeits.
by Kevin Dann via The Public Domain Review on November 2, 2022
Pubs and Bars having colorful lights and decorations in the French Quarter

Sex, Race, and Gender in Bounce Music Culture

Bounce is defined by its “up-tempo, call-and-response, heavy base, ass-shaking music” and by its transgressively liberatory power.
by Hettie Williams via Black Perspectives on October 25, 2022
Two DJs, DJ Aladdin on the left.

Scratch Cyborgs: The Hip-Hop DJ as Technology

Hip-hop DJ culture provides a rich site for exploring how culture and industry can converge and collaborate, as well as how they need each other to move forward.
by André Sirois via The MIT Press Reader on September 22, 2022
Bad Bunny performs for the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.

Bad Bunny and the Political History of Reggaeton

The genre is the product of migration, rebirth, and the struggle to be heard.
by Catherine Osborn via Foreign Policy on September 2, 2022
Front cover of Kevin Mattson's book, "We're Not Here to Entertain: Punk Rock, Ronald Reagan, and THE REAL CULTURE WAR of 1980s America."

Mapping Punk Rock in the Early 1980s

The nationwide spread of a counterculture.
by Glenn Dowdle via Northwestern University Knight Lab on August 15, 2022
In 1972, Ray Womack, wearing an “Explo 72" shirt, begins a 900-mile run to Dallas, for an evangelical rally.
partner

An Evangelical Youth Event Could Offer Clues About the Movement’s Future

TOGETHER ’22 aims to mimic EXPLO ’72 — which provided hints about the rising conservative evangelical tide.
by Benjamin J. Young via Made By History on June 24, 2022
“America” carrying the nation’s flag, circa 1860. Lithograph by Currier and Ives.

Our Flag Was Still There

In his comprehensive study of the national anthem, a historian and musicologist examines our complicated relationship to a famously challenging song.
by Peter Sagal via New York Times on June 14, 2022
A 1912 painting by Edward Percy Moran shows Francis Scott Key pointing to the American flag at Fort McHenry in Baltimore.

The National Anthem Was a 19th-Century Meme

Like many patriotic songs of its time, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was created by fitting a popular tune with topical new lyrics.
by Mark Clague via The Wall Street Journal on June 11, 2022
Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on June 8, 2022
Crowd at Kentucky Derby

The Complicated Story Behind The Kentucky Derby’s Opening Song

Emily Bingham’s new book explores the roots of the Kentucky Derby’s anthem. It may not be pretty, but it’s important to know.
by Rebecca Gayle Howell via Washington Post on May 3, 2022
Women deejays at Shyvers Multiphone studio in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

The First Music Streaming Service

In the 1930s, a Seattle entrepreneur created a successful analog streaming platform—and ran it out of a drugstore.
by Ted Gioia via The Honest Broker on April 4, 2022
Emilio Delgado in 2021.

Emilio Delgado, ‘Luis’ for 44 Years on ‘Sesame Street,’ Dies at 81

On "Sesame Street," Delgado was able to build a character who challenged stereotypes. Luis was a business owner, a neighbor, and later a husband and father.
by Kathryn Ostrofsky via Current (public media) on March 14, 2022
US patent drawing of elevator bell signal.

Elevator Sounds

What are elevator passengers listening to?
by Alexandra Hui via Perspectives on History on March 3, 2022
Dancers performing the Cakewalk.

Reconsidering Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer'

The king of ragtime published his hit tune 120 years ago. Pianist Lara Downes believes the piece helped shape the future of American music.
by Lara Downes via NPR on February 7, 2022
The Fisk University Jubilee Singers on tour at the court of Queen Victoria in 1873, painted by Edmund Havel.

‘Dvorák’s Prophecy’ Review: America’s Silent Tradition

The Czech composer came to New York with the conviction that African-American melodies would be the ‘seedbed’ for their nation’s 20th-century music.
by John Check via The Wall Street Journal on January 28, 2022
Test launch of an ICBM, reminiscent of a star with a long tail in the night sky.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” Was Actually About the Cuban Missile Crisis

The holiday favorite is an allegorical prayer for peace.
by Reba A. Wissner via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on December 22, 2021
The Crystals, a Black girl-group, performing at a high school prom.

The Kansas City School That Became a Stop for R. & B. Performers

In the nineteen-sixties, artists such as Bo Diddley and the Ike & Tina Turner Revue played the prom at Pembroke-Country Day.
by David Dale Owen via The New Yorker on December 4, 2021
Portrait photo of Geronimo in European style clothing, holding a bow and arrow, 1904.

Ambushing Geronimo

An introduction to salvage anthropology.
by Samuel J. Redman via Lapham’s Quarterly on October 27, 2021
John Coltrane performing

‘It Didn’t Adhere to Any of the Rules’: The Fascinating History of Free Jazz

In the documentary "Fire Music," the hostile reaction that met the unusual genre soon turns into deep appreciation and a lasting influence.
by Jim Farber via The Guardian on September 7, 2021

In the Dead Archives

The comment section of a Grateful Dead concert archive offers a sometimes-dark glimpse into a dedicated fan community.
by Max Abelson via n+1 on August 20, 2021
John Cage on the quiz show "Lascia o Raddoppia?"

Freedom for Sale

In the 1950s and 1960s, a new generation of American artists began to think of advertising and commercial imagery as the new avant-garde.
by Fintan O’Toole via New York Review of Books on July 1, 2021
U.S. infantry in World War I

Songs of the Bad War

Some of the earliest and most powerful anti-war songs of the Sixties era don’t mention Vietnam, but rather World War I.
by Michael Brendan Dougherty via National Review on June 11, 2021
Roger Payne and Scott McVay's aural spectrograph rendering the whale sequences

Minor Listening, Major Influence: Revisiting Songs of the Humpback

Recorded accidentally by the Navy during the Cold War, "Songs of the Humpback Whale" became a hit album that changed perceptions about the natural world.
by Alaina Claire Feldman via E-Flux on May 1, 2021
View More
30 of
365

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History