Lori Majewski is a U.S.-based entertainment writer. She is the author (with Jonathan Bernstein) of Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs that Defined the 1980s [1] . Since 2016 she has been an on-air personality at the SiriusXM music talk radio channel Volume. [2]
Majewski grew up in Weehawken, New Jersey [3] and attended Weehawken High School, which in the 2010s inducted her into its Academic Hall of Fame. [4] She attended college at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus between 1989 and 1993, and wrote for The Fordham Observer . [5] She currently resides in Weehawken and Olive, New York. [6]
Majewski has been a fan of the new wave group Duran Duran since hearing them in the early 1980s. She credits the band for her career in writing, claiming, "in the mid-'80s I decided I wanted to become a journalist so I could meet them." [7] In 1990, after the official Duran Duran fan club folded, Majewski created the quarterly fanzine Too Much Information: The Definitive Duranzine, which she published through 1995. [8]
From 1991 to 1994 Majewski interned at Spin magazine. Her first paid job as a magazine staff writer came at YM , a publication targeted at teen girls. [9] In 1998, Majewski was a co-founder of Teen People , the print offshoot of the Time Inc. magazine People . After leaving the periodical in 2001 to become executive editor of US Weekly , she returned to Teen People in 2005 to serve as managing editor. [10] Teen People ceased publication in September 2006. [11] Majewski then served as executive editor at Entertainment Weekly through 2008. [12]
In 2014, Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein wrote Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs that Defined the 1980s, with a foreword by Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran and an afterword by Moby. The book collects new interviews with the recording artists of 35 famous new wave songs, focusing on the stories behind the song's origins and the aftermath of the songs' popularity. Majewski and Bernstein hatched the idea for Mad World while writing for Spin during the 1990s heyday of grunge, where they discovered their mutual love for new wave music. [13]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop-oriented styles from the late 1970s through the 1980s. It is considered a lighter and more melodic "broadening of punk culture". It was originally used as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock, including punk itself. Later, critical consensus favored "new wave" as an umbrella term involving many popular music styles of the era, including power pop, synth-pop, alternative dance, and specific forms of punk that were less abrasive. It may also be viewed as a more accessible counterpart of post-punk.
Simon John Charles Le Bon is an English singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors, including the award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.
WHTZ is a commercial top 40 station licensed to Newark, New Jersey and broadcasting to the New York metropolitan area. Owned by iHeartMedia, WHTZ is the flagship station for Elvis Duran and the Morning Show. The WHTZ studios are located at 32 Avenue of the Americas in the Tribeca neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, while the station's transmitter is located at the Empire State Building.
"Mad World" is a 1982 song by British band Tears for Fears. Written by Roland Orzabal and sung by bassist Curt Smith, it was the band's third single release and first chart hit, reaching number three on the UK Singles Chart in November 1982. Both "Mad World" and its B-side, "Ideas as Opiates", appeared on the band's debut LP The Hurting (1983). This single was also the band's first international success, reaching the Top 40 in several countries in 1982–83.
"Whip It" is a song by American new wave band Devo from their third studio album Freedom of Choice (1980). It is a new wave and synth-pop song that features a synthesizer, electric guitar, bass guitar, and drums in its instrumentation. The apparently nonsensical lyrics have a common theme revolving around the ability to deal with one's problems by "whipping it". Co-written by bassist Gerald Casale and lead vocalist Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo recorded "Whip It" with producer Robert Margouleff at the Record Plant in Los Angeles.
Dennis Publishing Ltd. was a British publisher. It was founded in 1973 by Felix Dennis. Its first publication was a kung-fu magazine. Most of its titles now belong to Future plc.
"The Safety Dance" is a song by Canadian new wave/synth-pop band Men Without Hats, released in Canada in 1982 as the second single from Rhythm of Youth. The song was written by lead singer Ivan Doroschuk after he had been ejected from a club for pogo dancing.
BPM is a current-based electronic dance music channel offered by Sirius XM Radio, operating on XM channel 51, Sirius channel 51 and Dish Network channel 6051. DirecTV carried this channel on channel 859 until February 9, 2010. BPM can be heard on channel 51 for both services and Dish Network 6051 BPM features Geronimo, the Program Director, on weekdays 7-10am, Rida Naser on weekdays 10am-2pm, Ben Harvey on weekdays 2-6pm, Danny Valentino on Saturdays 10am-3pm and Sundays 12-5pm, Mallory Lynne on Saturdays 3-6pm and Sundays 5-9pm and Liquid Todd on weeknights 6-11pm.
Judith Regan is an American editor, producer, book publisher, and television and radio talk show host. She is the head of Regan Arts.
"In Between Days" is a song by the English rock band The Cure, released on 19 July 1985 as the first single from the band's sixth album The Head on the Door.
"I Melt with You" is a song by the British new wave band Modern English. The song, produced by Hugh Jones, was the second single from their 1982 album After the Snow. It became the band's most successful single, largely in the United States, where it was featured in the film Valley Girl and on MTV. It reached number seven on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart in 1983 and a re-release reached number 76 on its Hot 100 chart in 1990.
Chris Paul Carter is an American disc jockey and music/film producer based in Los Angeles.
16 was a fan magazine published in New York City.
Robert James Sheffield is an American music journalist and author.
Theme Time Radio Hour (TTRH) was a weekly one-hour satellite radio show hosted by Bob Dylan that originally aired from May 2006 to April 2009. Each episode had a freeform mix of music, centered on a theme rather than genre. Much of the material for the show was culled from producer Eddie Gorodetsky's music collection.
The Observer is the student newspaper of the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University.
Alan Light is an American journalist who has been a rock critic for Rolling Stone and the editor-in-chief for Vibe,Spin, and Tracks.
Jessica Ettinger is an American broadcast journalist and non-practicing lawyer.
Lyndsey Parker is an American entertainment journalist and author. The managing editor of Yahoo! Music, she focuses on music and pop culture. She is the author of Reality Rocks, a column that covers television shows such as The Voice and American Idol and the co-host of the vlog, The Day After.
Pillow Lips is an album by the English band Modern English, released in 1990. It contains a rerecorded version of "I Melt with You", which charted.